MONITORING SPECIALIST: INCREASING ACCOUNTABILITY IN FINANCING FOR GENDER EQUALITY (FFGE) PROGRAMME

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, UN Women will work for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women's rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN women will lead and coordinate United Nations System efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. Governments all over the world have adopted a series of legal and policy frameworks needed to meet commitments towards gender equality and women's empowerment through the adoption of national action plans for gender equality or including gender related goals in their national development strategies, sectoral plans and legislation. Implementation of those commitments requires a concerted effort by national governments, donor agencies, and civil society and development agencies. Within this context, there is a concern that efforts to reform aid mechanisms, and build national capacity for development effectiveness are not ensuring adequate financing for gender equality. In response to calls from gender equality advocates for increased accountability for implementation of gender equality commitments in economic policies and financing decisions related to aid and domestic resources and building on the collaborative partnership on gender equality between the European Commission (EC), UN Women and ITC/ILO (2006-2010) and UN Women's work on GRB and aid effectiveness, UN Women will be implementing a new programme that aims at increasing the volume and effective use of aid and domestic resources to implement national commitments to gender equality and women's empowerment. The programme, named EU/UN Partnership on Gender Equality: Increasing Accountability in Financing for Gender Equality (FfGE), will expand the application of effective advocacy and practices for mainstreaming gender in public finance management systems, planning, budgeting and aid management instruments. It is also anticipated that the programme will support strengthened accountability mechanisms in both national and donor processes in fifteen countries. The Programme will have a total budget of $12.5 million mobilized from the EU, Spain, UN Women and other donors. The programme will be managed by a programme management unit (PMU) based within UN Women HQ. The PMU will consist of a Programme Manager, a Monitoring Specialist and a Finance/Operations Specialist. The Monitoring Specialist of programme on FfGE will work under the direct supervision of the Programme Manager. S/he will be in charge of: - Programme monitoring and reporting and documentation. - Developing guidance and systems for country level monitoring activities. - Ensuring that results and best practices are captured, documented and widely circulated within UN Women and outside. - Providing strategic and technical guidance and support to all the Sub-Regional and Country offices in the design of country plans and their implementation.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of key functions: Programme monitoring and donor reporting. Strategic and technical guidance and support to all the Sub-Regional and Country Offices in the design of country plans and their implementation. Reporting and documentation of good practices. 1. Programme monitoring: Develop and support the implementation of a monitoring system including developing guidelines, formats and tools; for monitoring plans, reporting templates, baselines, etc. Oversee preparation of annual monitoring plans at country and programme levels. Develop close working relationships with programme staff at country and regional levels and develop an incentive system for quality implementation of monitoring plans. Engage with the country offices of UN Women, geographic sections, relevant HQ staff and partners to monitor achievement of results. Undertake monitoring activities including mid-term reviews. Assist countries in designing and tracking of indicators to monitor changes in plans, budgets, capacities, institutional performance, and results including baselines studies and annual reports. Ensure alignment of programme indicators with corporate indicators. Undertake missions to assess good practices, lessons learned and share these across countries to facilitate South-South exchange. Conduct field visits to programme countries as necessary. 2. Programme support: Provide technical backstopping to country and sub regional offices on programme documents including country logframes, implementation plans and annual work plans to ensure quality assurance. Assist in the design of programme evaluations and ensure compliance of the programme evaluation with corporate evaluation strategy through support to external evaluations. 3. Reporting and Documentation: Ensure programme reports are produced on time with high quality. Review narrative reports and provide feedback with a focus on results analysis and support improvement to meet the donor reporting requirements. Contribute to UN Women's corporate reporting and tracking of ongoing programming. Supervise data management and analysis in the required software. In close consultation with the Programme Manager identify key areas for monitoring to track lessons, current trends and good practices from country programmes to inform ongoing programming (e.g. costing work in Bolivia, engaging with health sector SWAps, costing national action plans for advancement of women, etc.). Generate briefs and report on programme results. Support monitoring and documentation efforts of country and sub regional offices by developing tools such as templates, guidance notes.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies: Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN's values and ethical standards. Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women. Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability. Treats all people fairly without favoritism. Functional Competencies: Technical/Functional: Substantive knowledge and understanding of gender and development as well as more broadly, economic governance and financing for development, with an emphasis on the provision of coordinated support and management of strategic programmes to advance gender equality. Substantive knowledge and experience in management of rights based programmes. Ability to carry out research, to contribute to the formulation of policies, procedures and guidelines. Proven advocacy, analytical and writing skills. Knowledge Management and Learning: Possesses in-depth practical knowledge of women's economic security and rights. Promotes knowledge management in UN Women and a learning environment in the office through leadership and personal example. Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills. Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside of UN Women. Development and Operational Effectiveness: Ability to lead strategic planning, change processes, results-based management and reporting. Ability to lead formulation, oversight of implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development projects. Ability to deal with multiple constituencies and represent UN Women to major donors and different government agencies. Management and Leadership: Builds strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback. Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude. Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities. Ability to lead effectively, strong facilitation skills as well as conflict resolution skills. Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills. Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure. Proven networking, team-building, organizational and communication skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: Master's university degree (or equivalent) in Social Sciences, Economics, Political Science, Gender/Women's Studies. Experience: A minimum of 5 years of relevant experience in development work and particularly on issues of women's economic empowerment and gender equality, with a particular focus on programme management/coordination, monitoring and evaluation and programme development. A proven track record in managing and monitoring results-based and rights-based national, sub-regional and regional programming is required, including in-depth knowledge of results-based management approaches. Experience in gender equality and aid effectiveness and/or financing for gender equality also required. Language: Fluency in English is required. A working knowledge in Spanish and/or French is an asset. Note: In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment. All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

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UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.