Regional Policy Advisor at UN Women

Background
The Open society Foundations (OSF) is supporting UN women's flagship programme on "Women's Access to Land and Productive Resources for Climate- Resilient Agriculture" and is seeking a qualified Regional Policy Advisor to lead the initiative m East and South Africa, based in the UN Women Regional Office in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Regional Policy Advisor will support programme development and knowledge management across the country programmes.
The Regional Policy Advisor will report to the UN Women Regional Director for East and Southern Africa.

Duties and Responsibilities

• The position involves high-level advocacy and partnership building, as well as policy and technical support and advisory functions.
• He/she will lead m developing strategies and methodologies towards programme outcomes; identify opportunities for engagement with partners and for resource mobilization; keep abreast of policy research and development practice in gender and climate-resilient agriculture, ensure knowledge, learning and innovation in programmatic areas, including through documentation and contributing to a community of practice on gender and climate resilient agriculture, handle communications within the region and with the counterpart Regional Policy Advisory in the UN Women Regional Office in Nairobi and UN Women headquarter, and represent the programme externally.

Primary responsibilities will include the following:

• Take the lead in the development of the flagship programme in the region by engaging with national, regional partners, governments, and other stakeholders as appropriate;
• Lead the formulation of the national project documents in the three pilot counties and other countries that join the initiative, including situation analyses/baseline assessments, strategy and partnerships,results and resources frameworks, implementation and management arrangement, and budgets;
• Provide technical and policy assistance to the national project teams as needed;
• Support mobilization of resources for the programmes m the three pilot countries;
• Build partnership, including through advocacy, in support of the flagship programmes theory of change;
• Identify and respond to capacity development needs, in conjunction with national programmes;
• Identify,develop, and manage relationships with advisors, technical assistance providers and consultants to support national and regional programme implementation;
• Work with regional development banks and other stakeholders to promote gender responsive financing instruments;
• Identify opportunities to promote mtra-regional trade between women farmer cooperative and producer organizations and private and public enterprises;
• Support national monitoring and evaluation, including quality assurance;
• Keep up-to-date with research, policy, and programmatic development on land, climate-resilient agriculture, financing, etc as related to gender equality and women's empowerment; draft policy and programming notes that inform the wider team on important policy developments or advocacy opportunities and/or offer suggestions about strategic programme directions and approaches;
• Manage knowledge, by collecting and disseminating good practices and successful approaches at national, regional, and international levels in line with UN Women's policy and Communications Divisions, and empowerment.org.

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 promote ethics and integrity by creating organizational precedents.

Organizational Awareness:

• Build support for the organization and ensure political acumen.

Development and Innovation:

• Support staff competence development, and contribute to an environment of creativity and innovation.

Work in teams:

• Build and promote effective 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.

Communication and Information Sharing:

• Create and promote an environment for open and 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:

• Share knowledge across the organization and build a culture of knowledge sharing and learning.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making: 

• Ensure fair and transparent decision making processes and manage risk.

Functional Competencies:

• Ability to work efficiently under pressure, multitask and to work with minimal supervision;
• Strong sense of responsibility, confidentiality and accountability;
• Excellent organizational, analytical and problem-solving skills with attention to detail;
• Familiarity with the UN system;
• Appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff;
• Willingness to undertake extensive international travel.

Required Skills and Experience
Education:

• Advanced degree in a relevant discipline, for example, international development, gender or environmental studies; economic or agricultural economics, rural sociology, geography or anthropology or agronomy.

Experience:

• Minimum of 10 years of professional policy and programming experience;
• Experience working on climate resilience agriculture and knowledge of its relation to gender equality;
• Substantial experience in developing project documents including formulation of robust results/monitoring and evaluation framework;
• Experience in knowledge management.

Languages:

    Fluency in English is required;
    Fluency in another language desirable.

Note: The selected candidate will be based in the UN Women Regioanl Office. He/She will enter into contract with the Open Society Foundations, hosted by UN Women.