Fresh Recruitment at UN Women for Country Representative

UN Women – In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. In doing so, UN Member
States took an historic step in accelerating the Organization’s goals on 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, which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

UN Women is recruiting to fill the position below:


Job Title: UN Women: Country Representative

Location: Abuja, Nigeria
Post Level: P-5
Type of Contract: FTA International
Duration of Initial Contract: 1 year

Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works 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.

Under the general direction and guidance of the Regional Director, West and Central Africa, the UN Women Representative is responsible for leading and managing the Nigeria Country Office and for translating the UN Women’s Strategic Plan (SP) in line with regional and national priorities, into development initiatives and results by developing, implementing and managing programs and projects for the Nigeria Country Office and developing effective partnerships with Government counterparts, UN system agencies and organizations, civil society organizations, and with bilateral and non-traditional donors in order to promote inter-agency partnerships, support for UN reform, and mobilization of visibility and resources to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment.

In addition, the UN Women Representative will act as UN Women’s liaison to the Economic Community of West African States in Abuja. Under the overall guidance of the Regional Director and UN Women headquarters she/he, will enhance cooperation between the institutions, and influence policies at regional level. UN Women’s strategic partnership with ECOWAS will bring UN Women’s value added technical expertise, advocacy and capacity building from a gender and women’s human rights perspective.

Duties and Responsibilities
Provide strategic country programme planning and development: 

• Identify development planning and programme needs, opportunities and approaches to strengthen UN Women country presence and relevance;
• Lead the design, planning, formulation, preparation and development ofthe Country Strategic Note;
• Manage and ensure the quality of results-based and rights-based programming through the formulation of programme goals and objectives, the development of strategies and implementation of frameworks in line with corporate guidelines and consistent with corporate policies and strategies;
• Monitor the use of results-based management approach to programme planning and design.
• Participate in the region’s UN Women programme strategy and provide advice to the Executive Director, Regional Director and Senior Management on the strategy, direction and planning of programmes and projects;

Lead the management of the Nigeria country office: 

• Lead the office in the delivery of operational goals;
• Lead the preparation, submission of the Annual Workplan and budget and oversee the implementation, including providing direction, guidance and technical support;
• Manage the country office collaboration with audit review and timely response to audit reports;
• Supervise the development and implementation on Country Office communication plans, based on UN Women’s communication strategy;
• Manage the performance of staff under his/her supervision; provide managerial direction, guidance and leadership to staff and provide performance feedback and coaching to staff under supervision;
• Maintain and update country office security strategy, plan, and measures to ensure full compliance with UN security policies, procedures and requirements.
• Oversee and approve programme work plans and monitor the overall progress and compliance of the Nigeria CO;
• Approve the optimum and appropriate allocation and use of resources;
• Lead and manage the preparation of UN Women mandated country reports;

Participate in UN system coordination: 

• Serve as member ofthe UN Country Team and support UNCT programming and advocacy to ensure gender equality and women’s empowerment issues are fully integrated into UN programming processes, including the Comprehensive Country Assessment (CCA) and UNDAF;
• Partner with RC and UN system partners to strengthen UN system interagency coherence, collaboration, cooperation resource mobilization, advocacy, common services, and operations;
• Actively seek out participation of UN Women in UN system thematic and other working groups to establish effective networks and keep abreast of ongoing debates and thinking on development;
• Facilitate joint programming and promote UN competencies to advance gender equality and women’s human rights.
• Provide leadership and guidance to the UNCT in supporting enhanced response to national partners in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment and UN reform;
• Support the coordination and promotion of accountability with the UN Resident Coordinator System to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment and UN reform;
• Advise the UNCT on the implementation of key policy commitments to gender and women’s rights;

Serve as the Liaison to the ECOWAS: 

• Under the overall guidance of the Regional Director and UN Women Headquarters, strategically position UN Women within the relevant organs of ECOWAS to achieve its strategic goals;
• Promote better knowledge of ECOWAS’ mandate and activities among UN Women’s Country Offices and foster increased sharing of information, and experience between UN Women and ECOWAS in areas of mutual interest, in consultation with the Regional Director;
• Promote continuous exchange of information, between ECOWAS and UN Women’s Country Offices as well as other Units in Headquarters.
• Serve as the focal point and the manager for all matters relating to cooperation between UN Women and ECOWAS;
• Manage the development of and/or enhancement of appropriate partnership programmes and areas of collaboration between UN Women and ECOWAS in close collaboration with Regional Director and UN Women Headquarters;

Represent UN Women and lead advocacy strategies: 

• Meet with high level and senior government officials as well as multi-lateral, bi-lateral agencies and NGOs;
• Participate in regional, country and other critical meetings and events to evaluate the impact and efficacy of UN Women policies and programmes and provide input in strategic discussions;
• Lead and support advocacy for gender equality and women’s empowerment to ensure that UN support towards realization of the national plans and priorities are done in a gender responsive manner, and within agreed international frameworks that promote and protect gender equality.

Create strategic partnerships and lead resource mobilization strategies: 

• Lead the conceptualization, design and implementation of country resource mobilization strategies;
• Review donor reports for quality assurance and compliance;
• Establish accountability framework to ensure that donors are duly informed on a timely basis;
• Negotiate and/or approve cost-sharing agreements with donors.
• Establish and maintain relations with government, partners, stakeholders and donors to achieve active collaboration, cooperation and alliances on programme development and implementation and resource mobilization;
• Maximize partnership opportunities to mobilize resources;

Knowledge management, innovation and capacity building: 

• Promote critical thinking and innovative approaches and good practices in Nigeria Country office programming and operations to maximize efficiency and achieve concrete and sustainable results;
• Approve the implementation of innovation and best practices in the Nigeria CO to ensure optimum efficiency and efficacy in programming and operations;
• Promote learning and development by providing opportunities for training and capacity guiding to enhance the competencies/productivity of staff members;
• Lead the production of knowledge products.

Key Performance Indicators:
The successful performance of the UN Women Representative of the key functions directly result in effective and strategic development, implementation and management of high quality country programs and projects and achievement of quality results which in turn directly impact on the credibility and image of UN Women as an effective and efficient partner and as the leading knowledge-based technical and advocacy organization for gender equality and the empowerment of women.

• Timely and quality implementation of the Country Strategic Note and AWP;
• Timely submission of UN Women Country Reports and responses to audits;
• Timely development and implementation of country resource mobilization strategy;
• Timely and quality donor reporting;
• Office produces quality knowledge products.
• Performance of staff.
• Security Plans are in place and up to date;
• UN Women is seen as a reliable and trustworthy partner, providing substantial inputs to progress UN women’s mandate;

Competencies
Core Values:

Integrity: 

• Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

Professionalism: 

• Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

Respect for Diversity: 

• Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies

Ethics and Values: 

• Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.

Organizational Awareness: 

• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Development and Innovation: 

• Take charge of self-development and take initiative.

Work in teams: 

• Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

Communicating and Information Sharing: 

• Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication.

Self-management and Emotional Intelligence: 

• Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others.

Conflict Management: 

• Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing: 

• Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making: 

• Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making.

Functional Competencies: 

• Ability to manage and empower people to work effectively together in reaching results;
• Outstanding leadership skills;
• Ability to establish and maintain broad strategic networks and partnerships with UN agencies and other international partners to promote partnership and build alliances to advance organizational interests and competencies;
• Ability to go beyond established procedures and practices, introduce new approaches and strategic innovations;
• Strong knowledge of women’s empowerment and gender equality in the country;
• Strong knowledge of UN system;
• Outstanding resource mobilization skills.
• Substantive knowledge of programme management and results-based management;
• Outstanding negotiation, advocacy and interpersonal skills;
• Expertise in writing coherent and convincing documents;
• Outstanding communications and public speaking skills;
• Excellent planning, goal-setting and prioritization skills;

Required Skills and Experience
Education: 

• Master’s degree or equivalent in Development related disciplines, Economics or Public Policy or other Social Science fields.

Experience: 

• A minimum of 10 years of extensive development experience that combines strategic and managerial leadership in aid development cooperation, some of which in gender and women’s issues programming, at the international level, preferably in developing countries within the UN system, Agencies, Funds or Programs or UN Mission;
• Field based experience working with multi-cultural teams;
• Experience in leading a team.

Languages: 

• Written and oral proficiency in English is required;
• Working knowledge of another UN official language will be an asset.

How to Apply


Click here to apply

Note: UN Women will only be able to respond to those applications in which there is further interest.

Deadline  24th June, 2016.

The candidates who have previously applied to this position need not reapply.