Job Opportunities at United Nations Development Programme

Background

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN WOMEN) is the UN organization dedicated to gender equality and was established to coordinate and accelerate the attainment of the rights of women globally. UN Women stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life and supports the formulation and implementation of policies, global standards, and norms at both regional and national levels that seek to enhance gender equality and inclusive governance.

The Constitution of Kenya has clearly articulated Kenya’s constitutional commitments to gender equality and the empowerment of women. Achieving gender parity in all spheres of life and the actualization of gender-responsive laws, policies and planning is expected to empower women on their economic, social and political rights and make progress towards achieving gender equality. The progressive rights-based Kenya Constitution 2010 provides the legal framework for the Government to fulfill basic rights, and for marginalized and vulnerable groups, especially women and children, to claim their rights. UN Women seeks to increase accountability for national and devolved planning with a goal to ensure that national and devolved planning fully reflects accountability for gender equality commitments and priorities.

Violence against women and girls is one of the key persistent gender inequality in Kenya. Violence against women and girls (VAWG) exists in many different forms and persists as a pervasive violation of human rights and a major impediment to achieving gender equality or any development goals in Kenya. There is a lack of reliable, comparative and properly disaggregated statistical data on the prevalence of VAWG. Harmful attitudes, social norms, and practices continue to encourage VAWG, impunity, victim-blaming, and stigmatization of survivors. In response to this, UN Women is implementing a fully-fledged programme on EVAW, grounded in the Joint Programme (JP) on the prevention and response to GBV, the Ending Violence against Women and Girls (EVAWG) impact area and is premised on two UNWOMEN flagship programmes being (i) Prevention and Access to Essential Services to End Violence against Women and Girls and (ii) the safe cities and safe public spaces FPIs.

The EVAWG work by UN Women seeks to enhance the prevention and response of VAWG. This includes access to justice for survivors, coordination of implementation and monitoring of policies and programs at a national and devolved level and strengthening referral mechanisms among service providers and duty bearers including both state and non-state actors. Lessons from the evaluation of the previous UN Women Kenya Strategic Note (SN) and internal annual reviews have shown that laws and policies supported and adopted provide a comprehensive framework for addressing VAWG, but they need to be complemented by adequately funded implementation strategies to show results. UN Women aims to support the strengthening of Kenya’s legislative and policy environment so that it is in line with international and regional standards on EVAWG. Further, the voice of survivors and their families in this discourse is critical and thus we work to strengthen the voice and capacity of rights holders, including women’s organizations and survivors’ networks to hold governments accountable, advocate for effective implementation and building the capacity of institutions (police, justice, health and education sectors), through codes of conduct, reporting mechanisms, and awareness-raising programmes, to prevent and respond to VAWG.

The EVAWG Unit in UN Women Kenya Country Office is seeking for a consultant to support the Unit with the implementation of its activities. The consultant will work on supporting the implementation of EVAWG Unit in its’ 2020 annual work plan with a strong focus on women access to justice. Under the direct supervision of the Program Analyst EVAWG and the leadership of the Deputy Country Director, the consultant will ensure high-quality and timely implementation of the EVAWG Annual Work Plan 2020, which includes supporting effective management; monitoring and reporting of the program activities; as well as liaising with relevant stakeholders and partners.

Duties And Responsibilities

Policy review, design and develop programme strategies in the area of Ending Violence Against Women and Girls

• Provide technical inputs to the design and formulation of programme/ project proposals and initiatives, especially on women access to justice
• Draft inputs to country strategy documents, briefs, policy dialogue and other documents related to Ending Violence Against Women and Girls
• Contribute to review of bills, laws and policies on EWAG to ensure conformity with global norms and standards

Manage the implementation and management of the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls programme

• Coordinate and ensure high-quality implementation of the UN Women EVAWG Annual Workplan 2020, including women access to justice activities by providing technical support and overseeing implementing Partners annual work plan implementation.
• Manage the technical implementation of the programme and ensure synergies with other teams;
• Manage the submission of implementing partner financial and narrative reports;
• Support in organizing Project Steering Committee, project review and/or evaluation meetings, as needed.

Support to manage technical assistance and capacity development to project/programme partners

• Support in managing the implementation of technical advice and guidance. Develop and implement technical tools, and initiatives
• Build and manage relationships with national partners to support implementation and expansion of the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls programme; respond to any potential problems;
• Identify capacity building needs of partners and lead the coordination of technical assistance, mentoring, training and capacity development initiatives to partners.

Manage the monitoring and reporting of the programme/ project

• Manage the monitoring of programme/ project implementation and finances using results-based management tools;
• Conduct field missions and review reports on monitoring missions;
• Contribute to quarterly reports and donor reports, focusing on results, output and outcomes;
• Contribute to office donor and UN Women reports.

Build partnerships and support in developing resource mobilization strategies

• Support to develop and implement partnerships and resource mobilization strategies;
• Support to finalize relevant documentation on donors and potential opportunities for resource mobilization;
• Analyze and research information on donors, prepare substantive briefs on possible areas of cooperation, identification of opportunities for cost-sharing.

Contribute to inter-agency coordination on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls to achieve coherence and alignment of UN Women programmes with other partners in Kenya

• Provide technical support to the Programme Team Leader on inter-agency coordination related activities by attending meetings, events, and participating in groups and committees as needed;
• Coordinate with other UN agencies, government departments, donors and NGOs to ensure the projects’ capacity development programme is harmonized and aligned with other in-country efforts.

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The Plan of Action to Integrate Volunteering

In 2015 the UN General Assembly endorsed a Plan of Action to Integrate Volunteering into the 2030 Agenda, most recently re-confirmed under General Assembly Resolution 73/140 in December 2018. Under this process, UN Member States, Private Sector, Civil Society, Academia and Stakeholders are working together to collate and share knowledge on volunteering for the SDGs. A Global Technical Meeting (GTM2020) will be held in July 2020 at the High-level Political Forum on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in New York, to present regional and country experiences on partnerships with volunteers under the 2030 Agenda. UNV hosts the Secretariat of the Plan of Action to integrate volunteering into 2030 agenda and beyond (Plan of Action), co-leading the initiative with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

The Plan of Action seeks to develop strategies, tools, generate data and evidence with the objective to advance the proposition that when deliberately planned and applied, volunteering can become a powerful means for implementing development plans, including the 2030 Agenda.

‘Next generation’ volunteering support

The world is facing complex global peace, development and humanitarian challenges that require solutions driven by national ownership and leadership. In the context of the 2030 Agenda and the universality and inter-relatedness of the SDGs, a government has to ensure a whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach to tackling global challenges, inclusive of those who volunteer and support volunteering.

Volunteering itself is changing and evolving all the time. The changing nature of work and technology are in many parts of the world playing a crucial role in shaping the world we live in and may free up more time for individuals to volunteer in new forms. While informal and community volunteering continues to prevail, online volunteering is crowdsourcing new skills and micro-volunteering is promoting new forms of engagement. Meanwhile, volunteering in increasingly challenging environments raises concerns about the effective management, safety, security and well-being of volunteers.

To date, an enabling environment for volunteering has focused on a number of key pillars. Firstly, laws and policies setting out the scope for volunteer work. Secondly, governments, civil society organizations and corporates have worked to directly create (formal) volunteering opportunities through schemes and programmes, including online platforms. Thirdly, actors have worked to develop support for volunteering within societies through demonstrating impact, influencing attitudes and raising awareness.

In this context, workstream 3 of the Plan of Action on the next generation volunteering support will provide Member States and other volunteering stakeholders with enabling environment blueprints which can be contextualized to their environment. The next generation volunteering support blueprints will be developed by IFRC, UNV through selected UNDP Accelerator and Innovation labs and IAVE. The blueprints will be designed and developed through innovation, future and foresight processes.

Duties And Responsibilities

The Consultant will report to the Plan of Action Coordinator at UNV with day-to-day discussions on the scope and content with IFRC, Geneva and work in close conjunction with the task team for workstream 3 including IAVE, European Volunteer Centre (CEV) and Volunteer Groups Alliance (VGA) of the Plan of Action. The consultant will be responsible to produce a future-thinking and context-based blueprint on humanitarian volunteering that could be used to create an enabling environment for the 21st century. The consultant will help guide the coordination of the work on the design and production of 3 other blueprints (on climate change, future of work and inequality by UNDP Innovation lab and IAVE) and lead the design of and conduct a session “into the future” during the global technical meeting on volunteering (GTM) in July 2020, under IFRC’s guidance

Description Of Deliverables And Due Dates

No

Description

Estimated Working Days

Due date

% of deliverables

1

Develop and present an inception report with the methodology for the overall delivery of workstream 3 blueprints for Next Generation volunteering support and suggested ways to present the materials for review.

2 working days

15 March 2020

10%

2

Design a think piece on participatory futures process to produce narrative on how volunteering is changing across the humanitarian and development sectors, and what is driving the change. This will include the identification, research and analysis of drivers of change, systemic factors, future snapshots and identifying strategic opportunities for change.

10 working days

25 March, 2020

30%

3

Submit final think piece on futures process based on feedback from Plan of Action partners for Next Generation volunteering support (IAVE, IFRC, CEV, VGA and UNV).

3 working days

9 April 2020

4

Using the above narrative, guide the work of the other blueprints ensuring a coherent approach across workstream 3 and the blueprints developed by UNV and IAVE.

5 working days

30 May 2020

40%

5

Develop and submit a ‘blueprint on humanitarian context’ with recommendations for implementation at the global, country and organizational levels

10 working days

28 April 2020

6

Prepare and deliver a virtual workshop to discuss and agree, and ensure overall coherence of all the draft blueprints above to Plan of Action Partners for Next Generation volunteering support (IAVE, IFRC, CEV, VGA and UNV).

2 working days

7 May 2020

7

Submit final package of blueprints after incorporating feedback from Plan of Action partners above

10 working days

25 May 2020

9

Lead the design of and conduct a session “into the future” during the GTM2020

2 working days

15 July

20%

Total

44 working days

100%

Competencies

Competencies

Corporate Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards, and those of the partner organizations,
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP/UNV, and partner organizations,
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability,
  
  Functional Competencies:
• Strong research, conceptualization, analysis and writing skills in relation to volunteering and civic engagement;
• Strong understanding and practical application of futures and strategic foresight methodology processes;
• Ability to work independently but remain focused on the assignment and timeline management;
• Willingness to develop/adapt processes and procedures to meet UNDP standards;
• Experience in development of strategies and manuals;
  
  Management and Leadership:
• Focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback,
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude,
• Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills.
   

Required Skills And Experience

Education: Master’s degree in social sciences, development studies, international development, or related field.

Experience

• At least 10 years’ experience working on volunteering in the humanitarian or development sector is required
• At least 3 years’ experience in designing innovation and futures methodologies across global humanitarian or development organizations
• Proven expertise in undertaking policy/strategic foresight across diverse geographies, contexts with proven strategic outcomes for transformational change
• Demonstrates practical knowledge of inter-disciplinary humanitarian and development trends

Language requirement: Excellent oral and written communication skills in English, knowledge of other UN languages is an advantage.