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UN WOMEN: PROGRAMME SPECIALIST ON SAFE CITIES

The 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. Placing women's rights at the centre of all its efforts, the 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.
Across the world, in both developing and developed countries, women and girls experience various forms of violence and abuse in public spaces, including sexual harassment, assault and rape, in their neighborhoods, public transportation, on their way to school, university and work, among other settings in which they carry out their daily chores and routines. This limits the rights and freedoms of women to enjoy their neighborhoods and cities, to mobility, work, recreation, collective organization, political life and the exercise of their rights as citizens. Whereas gender-based violence in the private domain is now recognized as a human rights violation, violence against women in public spaces remains a neglected issue in policies, laws and programmes.

Rooted in UN Women’s mandate and spearhead role within the UN System on gender equality, women’s empowerment and ending violence against women, and in line with its Strategic Plan 2011-2017, UN Women is implementing a Global Programme on Safe Cities Free of Violence against Women and Girls, over the next 5 years. The programme builds on the experiences to date of leading women’s and international organizations and local-level initiatives across various parts of the world; and is inspired by an ongoing UN Women’s Regional Programme on Safe Cities in Latin America.

The Global Programme aims to produce a global model, tested and proven through a comparative impact evaluation in the cities of Kigali, Quito, Delhi, Port Moresby and Cairo, which can be widely disseminated to policy-makers, mayor’s offices, donors, and civil society for adaptation and upscaling.

UN Women is seeking a Programme Specialist on Safe Cities to support this innovative and ambitious multi-year initiative. The Programme Specialist on Safe Cities will provide overall management support, quality assurance and technical assistance to the Global Safe Cities Programme; and directly support and monitor the implementation of the cross-regional components of the programme involving various city project sites and external partner institutions, especially the components related to global-level technical advice, impact evaluation, knowledge-management, Donor relations, and results-based reporting. The Programme Specialist on Safe Cities, under the supervision of the Global Safe Cities Programme Manager, and in consultation with the Ending Violence against Women Director, will take responsibility for fulfilling these tasks in close collaboration with the UN Women’s Sub-regional offices, the Ending Violence against Women Section and the Evaluation Unit; and in consultation with Geographic Sections, other thematic advisors and relevant cross-regional programme managers.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision and guidance of the Safe Cities Global Programme Manager, the Programme Specialist will be responsible for the following main tasks envisioned:

Technical Advisory Services

  • Coordinate design, implementation and evaluation of the Global Safe Cities projects at the selected cities of intervention effectively to ensure that progress is made in achieving their goals and objectives in line with Global Safe Cities Programme Document, the Global Programme Impact Evaluation Strategy, and UN Women values and mission.
  • Facilitate quality assurance of programme services and products.
  • Prepare reports and written contributions for various internal and external audiences, including to support annual reports of the organization, and fundraising documents, other;
  • Carry out research on specific topics, as needed in support of Safe Cities Global Programme tasks and activities, including for speeches, presentations and other tasks;
  • Undertake technical assistance missions to the city project sites;
  • Recruit, monitor and assess implementation and quality of the technical assistance services retained to accompany the programme;
  • Identify cross-regional needs and oversee the development of quality capacity development supports, including by providing ongoing substantive guidance and technical inputs, to ensure the quality of global products and tools commissioned under the Programme, with emphasis on ensuring evidence-based approaches (e.g. training curriculum and materials, training workshops, global guidance tools and knowledge-sharing products and publications, communications strategy, and outreach materials developed, etc);
  • Similarly, at individual city project levels, review and provide feedback to UN Women offices on related strategies and documents, workplans, case studies and other knowledge products and publications, as requested and needed;
  • Support high-quality, results-oriented reporting on the global programme, for internal and external audiences (e.g. UN, donors), including providing guidance to UN Women Sub-regional Offices and partners in the submission of timely, quality reports and contributions;
  • Ensure effective information flow and communication with and between UN Women Sub-Regional officers, global partners, consultants, and UN Women geographic and thematic sections on progress in implementation of city projects and cross-regional programme activities;
  • Provide substantive guidance to the organization of the Annual Safe Cities Stakeholders meeting and other events as required related to monitoring, advocacy, knowledge sharing, or other programme priorities;
  • Coach and supervise staff and consultants for this programme, as requested by the Programme Manager;
  • Provide inputs to the development and monitoring of Global Programme budgets and delivery (core and non-core).;
  • Provide technical inputs to the coordination of other UN Women safe cities programmes (eg. UNICEF/UN Women/UN Habitat joint initiative, Regional LAC Programme, GICP, etc), as requested by the Programme Manager.

Evaluation and Learning

  • Facilitate coordination among Impact Evaluation Senior Consultants, the Safe City Global Programme Partner Institution, the International Evaluation Advisory Group, UN Women offices, and the UN Women Evaluation Unit on Impact Evaluation of the programme;
  • Work with Senior Impact Evaluation Consultant, UN Women offices, local impact evaluation experts in each project site, and the UN Women’s Evaluation Unit to ensure timely delivery of baseline, monitoring and evaluation plans;
  • Oversee UN Women’s global knowledge management site on Safe Cities in collaboration with KM Specialist EVAW section, experts and partners; and provide substantive guidance and technical input to the creation of other web based platforms for exchange among safe city partners at (global and local levels) (eg. on-line learning platforms such as communities of practice, and access to on-line courses);
  • Identify, facilitate and monitor as needed, learning opportunities across programme partners, especially by the city project implementers, including targeted South-South and North-South exchanges;
  • Capture learning and evaluation findings through ongoing global scanning, including findings from the roll out of the city projects, and facilitate their integration as relevant for the Global Programme;
  • Ensure wide strategic distribution of the programme’s findings and knowledge-related publications, inclusive of select case studies, good practices and lessons learned in different mediums.

Communications, Outreach and Advocacy

  • Support the Programme’s advocacy plans and outreach, including by participating in relevant international conferences and events, providing briefings to a variety of audiences and to new potential partners for the programme and advocates on the issue;
  • Support the development of Communications materials for a wide audience of stakeholders (Donors, local governments, practitioners, etc);
  • Provide substantive guidance and contribute to the development and implementation of annual communications and advocacy plans, and identify and seize strategic advocacy opportunities on an ongoing basis.

Impact of results

The Programme Specialist on Safe Cities impacts on the success of efforts to develop and implement the Safe Cities Global programme of work.

Competencies

Core Values and Guiding Principles
  • Integrity: Demonstrates consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct;
  • Cultural Sensitivity/Valuing diversity: Demonstrates an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrates an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies

  • Ethics and Values: Demonstrating / Safeguarding Ethics and Integrity;
  • Organizational Awareness: Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment;
  • Developing and Empowering People / Coaching and Mentoring: Self-development, initiative taking;
  • Working in Teams: Acting as a team player and facilitating team work;
  • Communicating Information and Ideas : Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively;
  • Self-management and Emotional intelligence: Creating synergies through self-control;
  • Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements;
  • Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning: Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of others.

Functional Competencies

Knowledge Management and Learning

  • In-depth knowledge of gender inclusive Safe Cities approaches, including community based crime and violence prevention, gender-based violence and/or and women’s safety issues, In-depth knowledge of the issues of women’s rights and gender equality;
  • Knowledge and experience with programming, monitoring and evaluation;
  • In depth knowledge on international safe cities networks and strategic venues for advocacy and knowledge exchange;
  • Promotes knowledge management and a learning environment in the office and among global partners through pro-active creation of learning opportunities;
  • Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills;
  • In depth experience in working with and production of different knowledge products on safe cities (comparative thematic reports, practice compendia, newsletters, etc.);
  • Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside of UN Women;
  • Excellent writing and editorial skills in English.


Development and Operational Effectiveness

  • Ability to substantively contribute to strategic planning, change processes, results-based management and reporting;
  • Ability to substantively contribute to formulation, management, coordination of technical assistance requests, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programme;
  • Ability to deal with multiple constituencies and represent UN Women to different audiences, including a variety of stakeholders at local, national and international levels;
  • Ability to effectively represent UN WOMEN in external fora, including policy-making and United Nations inter-agency initiatives.

Management and Leadership

  • Strong management experience in a global multicultural setting respecting gender equality and an ability to contribute to team work;
  • Builds strong relationships with partners, focuses on impact and results and responds positively to feedback;
  • Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills;
  • Proven networking, team-building, organizational and communication skills;
  • Builds staff competence, creates and fosters an environment of creativity and innovation

Required Skills and Experience

Education

  • Masters degree (or equivalent) in social sciences, human rights, gender/women’s studies, sociology, criminology, international development or a related field.

Experience

  • 7 years of relevant experience, preferably in the international field of crime prevention/safe cities, gender based violence, prevention in urban environment;
  • Experience in the United Nations, a governmental, other multilateral, academic or civil society organization will be an asset.

Language Requirements

  • Fluency in English. Working knowledge of any other UN official language is desirable.
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.
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