UN Women: Communications Consultant, Bangkok, Thailand, Retainer International Consultant

Background/Context:

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 center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. UN Women is mandated to lead, coordinate, and promote accountability for the implementation of gender equality commitments across the UN System. 

Across Asia and the Pacific, UN Women promotes gender equality and women’s empowerment. UN Women implements programs (including normative and advocacy) in 41 Member States in the region, including Australia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Cook Islands, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kiribati, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nauru, Nepal, New Zealand, Niue, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Viet Nam, through direct implementation as well as implementing partners, which include government entities, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, UN agencies, and non-UN intergovernmental organizations. 

The economic empowerment of women (WEE) – to succeed and advance economically and to make and act on economic decisions – is a prerequisite for realizing gender equality and empowering women in all areas of life. It is also a cornerstone for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda. UN Women has recently launched its global Economic Empowerment Strategy  which is translated into the Regional Asia and the Pacific WEE Strategy focusing on the key strategic priorities, namely:

1. Advancing Gender-Responsive Business Conduct and Creating More Decent Work Opportunities (WEPs)
2. Accelerating Gender-Responsive Entrepreneurship for (M)SMEs (i.e. Gender-Responsive Procurement & strengthening women’s entrepreneurship)
3. Progressing Safe Migration to Decent Employment
4. Transforming Care Systems

Under these strategic priorities the ROAP WEE team is currently implementing a series of different projects: 

• WeRise Together,
•  UN Women Care and Climate Entrepreneurship Accelerator
• UN Women WEPs Asia-Pacific Gender Action Lab (GAL) – Innovation for Impact
•  #TransformCare Initiative and others.

These programmes are underpinned by a series of advocacy campaigns in the related areas, such as, but not limited to: 

• #BuyForEqual – aiming to prompt procurement professionals to evaluate and select suppliers who uphold gender equality principles, while urging consumers to patronize businesses supporting women's initiatives. The campaign seeks to achieve three main objectives: 
• Educate on the impact of gender-inclusive procurement practices. 
• Encourage procurement officers to consider gender equality in decision-making. 
• Motivate consumers to support businesses that champion gender equality
• #Transform Care a movement to catalyze actions to transform care systems to advance women’s economic empowerment. This is done in partnership with other actors, such as the Global Alliance for Care (GAC) – a global multi-stakeholder community that facilitates and fosters spaces for collective action, advocacy, communication, and learning about care, its recognition as a need, as work, and as a right

In addition, the implementation of the WEE Strategy produces a various thought leadership and knowledge products, organizes large scale events, such as for example the WEPs Forum, WEPs Awars, the yearly Asia Pacific Care Forum and many other events. 

The ROAP WEE Unit has been expanding rapidly over the last two years and with this communication needs evolved and require a more strategic and cohesive communications strategy connecting the different thematic areas with an implementation approach that ensures that all programmes are implemented in accordance to the donor requirements. At the same time, it will be important to ensure that the communications strategy across different channels creates measurable results to catalyze more actions and resources towards women’s economic empowerment.

Providing strategic leadership and oversights of the Women's Economic Empowerment (WEE) communications portfolio, this position will central point of contact for regional WEE communications, supported by two Junior Communications Consultants. In this position the consultant will collaborate closely with our Regional Offices (RO) and Headquarters (HQ) Communications teams, ensuring alignment with corporate guidelines while maintaining quality assurance across all communication outputs of the ROAP WEE Communications Team. This role is essential in enhancing our communication strategies and fostering impactful engagement both internally and externally. Especially, in Women’s Economic Empowerment we are working with a very diverse stakeholder audience including governments, CSOs, Women’s Rights organizations, and a large part of the work includes working with the private sector ranging from large multinational companies to SMEs. The team is especially interested in broadening its relationships with the private sector to strengthen the unit’s communication impact, especially to change perceptions, behaviors and social norms that impeding women to equally participate in the economy.  

We are seeking a highly experienced, very organized professional in strategic communications and advocacy with experience in the area of gender equality and women’s empowerment with the experience to build comprehensive communications strategies, with especially strong knowledge in digital and social media management. In addition, we are seeking a consultant that has managed teams, thrives in developing others and at the same time is a hands-on, practical and action oriented with the ability to develop, plan and implement strong and efficient communications plans.

The selected candidate will need to be able to work across the spectrum from strategic communications thinking to leading the direct design and implementation of campaigns.

The consultant will be reporting to the Regional Programme Manager, Women’s Economic Empowerment and Migration, and will be supported by Communications, Advocacy, and Partnerships Consultant, who will be the point of contact on the contract and payment issues.

Description of Responsibilities /Scope of Work

Under the supervision and guidance of the Regional Programme Manager, Women’s Economic Empowerment and Migration, the consultant will undertake the following tasks:

Strategic Leadership and Quality Assurance 

• Lead the design and guide the overall WEE Communications Strategy and an aligned annual communications work plan across the WEE portfolio, ensuring its alignment with the central ROAP Communications Strategy and global priorities.
• Lead, mentor, and build the capacity of the WEE communications team, establishing streamlined workflows, fostering professional development, and ensuring a cohesive, high-performing unit.
• Act as the strategic advisor to the WEE leadership team on all communication matters, including proactive positioning, risk management, and reputational issues.
• Provide quality assurance across all communication related products, strategies and assets 

Regional Coordination and Strategic Alignment

• Serve as the primary strategic focal point and liaison with the ROAP Communications unit and HQ, representing the WEE team in all high-level regional planning meetings to ensure strategic alignment and negotiating resources.
• Provide strategic guidance to Country Offices to ensure a consistent and cohesive WEE communication approach across the region, empowering them to deliver impactful, on-brand storytelling.
• Drive the conceptualization and strategic direction of quarterly regional campaigns, coordinating with Country Office leads to ensure maximum visibility and impact for WEE Unit programs especially through Digital and Social Media Strategy

Digital Transformation and Strategic Social Media

• Drive digital transformation for the WEE unit by designing and implementing an innovative social media and digital (including web strategy) strategy, integrating all different thematic areas, programmes with a focus on analytics, audience growth, and piloting emerging platforms.
• Lead the strategic transition and migration of the WEE web presence, acting as the primary focal point for the ROAP communications unit and HQ to ensure the development of a cohesive, digital ecosystem.
• Provide strategic direction for all WEE web platforms and social media channels, ensuring they serve the unit's strategic goals and are maintained to the highest standard of quality and innovation.

Gender Action Lab and Communications Partnerships

• Lead communication and partnership support for the Gender Action Lab (GAL) – Innovation for Impact, a strategic programme intended to grow into a long-term innovation platform for UN Women 
• Lead the identification, cultivation, and management of high-level strategic communications partnerships with media organizations, private sector partners (e.g., Unstereotype Alliance model), foundations, and specialized agencies to support programmatic and advocacy goals.
• Provide strategic communications leadership for key donor-funded projects, ensuring high-level partner engagement and fulfillment of all visibility requirements

Expected Deliverables 

Under the supervision of Regional Lead, Women’s Economic Empowerment and Migration at UN Women Regional Office for Asia and Pacific, the consultant will be provide Monthly Status report with packaged materials across the key four areas of work as per the followings. 

Strategic Leadership and Team Building 

The deliverables include but not limited to.

• Review existing communications projects/programmes
• Draft overall workplan across the four key areas
• Draft overarching communications framework for 2026
• Guide Comms team to finalize website content for WEE page and WEE brand guidelines
• Annex of the finalized overall WEE Communications Approach finalized living document of the WEE Units Communications Plan 2026 
• Draft Communications Indicators and targets aligned with donor requirements
• Ongoing coordination and monitoring of team delivery and strategic progress (all areas)

Digital Transformation and Strategic Social Media 

The deliverables include but not limited to.

• Draft Skeleton for Digital and Social Media Strategy
• Annex overall WEE Digital and Social Media Strategy with living social media calendar
• Finalized GAL Communications Strategy (digital/social media focus for Q2)
• Continuous implementation and monitoring of digital strategy and online presence

Regional Coordination and Strategic Alignment 

The deliverables include but not limited to.

• Review and prioritize needs across WEE communications projects and programmes
• Align WEE brand guidelines with corporate standards
• Ensure indicators and targets align with donor and corporate frameworks
• Updates reflecting regional coordination progress and alignment with regional/global priorities

Gender Action Lab (GAL) and Communications Partnerships 

The deliverables include but not limited to.

• Draft Communications Plan for GAL
• Finalized GAL Communications Strategy and draft content skeleton for Q2
• GAL communications and outreach strategy to expand the platform
• Progress and partnership engagement updates under GAL communications

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is a part-time office-based consultancy in Bangkok, Thailand. The time required for the consultancy is 12 days per month, from 1 December 2025 to 30 November 2026. The consultant may be required to travel to the Asia-Pacific region for the purpose of this assignment, where required by the Regional Lead, Women’s Economic Empowerment and Migration. Travel will be arranged by UN Women following UN Women’s Travel Policy.

Competencies :

Core Values:

• Integrity;
• Professionalism;
• Respect for Diversity.

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Values and Competencies Framework: 

Functional Competencies:

• Proven Experience in communications strategy development and implementation 
• Strong judgement in reputational risk and demonstrated experience in crisis communications. 
• Proven ability to shape, develop, implement and optimize social media moderation strategies for an international organization that can be customized for a wide range of channels. 
• Experience managing digital communication channels (especially social media channels) is essential 
• Understanding of current trends and best practices in digital communication, social media engagement and best in class digital and social media platforms in both developing and developed regions. 
• An organized and agile team player with high attention to detail and ability to prioritize tasks. 
• Ability to lead teams in a pragmatic and hands on manner 
• Comfortable working independently with flexible hours and managing one’s own time and responsibilities. 

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in digital communications, educational technology, journalism, public relations, or related fields.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree. 

Experience:

• Minimum of 5 (five) years professional experience in the field of strategic communications, advocacy and online communications, web publishing, electronic networks, or related fields 
• Knowledge and expertise in UN Women’s mandate areas a distinct advantage. 
• Working experience with the UN is an advantage.
• Experience working in a multicultural, web-based environment, and graphic design are advantages. 
• Experience in online applications development and management is advantage.

Languages and writing skills:

• Strong proficiency in English. Other UN languages are an asset.
• Excellent English language writing and editing skills
• Excellent communication and advocacy skills.

Statements :

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.

Diversity and inclusion:

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)

Note: Applicants must ensure that all sections of the application form, including the sections on education and employment history, are completed. If all sections are not completed the application may be disqualified from the recruitment and selection process.