Gender Officer

As ISIL is repelled and pushed out of Iraq, its legacy is shedding new light on the many grievances that have pulled Iraqis into cycles of conflicts—but also generated fresh tensions. Currently there are more than 3 million internally displaced Iraqis, many of whom are women and girl children. Their immediate needs remain the responsibility of the Iraq Government supported by International humanitarian agencies. Yet, the best guarantee of non-recurrence of violence remains the speedy return home of most IDPs.

A complex set of issues is impeding returns. Chief amongst these is a lack of civic-led reconciliation processes at community level. When questioned, displaced individuals routinely indicate that tribal or sectarian tensions, fear of retaliation, lack of adequate approaches to deal with those families accused of supporting ISIL, lack of proper documentation and inadequate restitution of victims are major factors in deterring them to return home.

With the goal of helping to address these challenges, the UNDP Support for Integrated Reconciliation Project in Iraq (SIRI) is supporting its Iraqi counterparts to promote civic-led, gender-sensitive reconciliation in communities, districts and governorate levels. To achieve these goals UNDP Iraq will pursue three inter-related goals:

1. Public Awareness of Reconciliation and Transitional Justice;
2. A Network of Community, Regional and National Reconciliation Platforms;
3. Citizens’ archiving initiatives relating to memory in conflict.

At the same time, in this agenda as in all its work, the UNDP recognizes the importance of enhanced women leadership and participation during peace and reconciliation process, the empowerment of women at all levels of society, and redressing of violations of human rights during war as they impact most directly on women, including sexual violence, abduction, slavery, displacement, psycho-social trauma, injury and death. UNDP is also fully committed to gender equality within its offices, within its programmes and facilitates the same approach for its partners and stakeholders.

The UNDP Iraq office is creating a Gender Officer position within its Reconciliation programming to lead gender mainstreaming across all lines of effort in the project as well as to initiate new gender-related activities.

The Gender Officer will work closely with the Chief Technical Advisor as well as the Team Leader ICR who will guide the work, provide feedback and supervision.  

• Provide technical support to the project team
• Monitoring and reporting on gender issues
• Networking and coordination
• Knowledge management and knowledge sharing

• Provide advice and support to the Team Leader ICR in the Implementation of the key gender components across the Reconciliation and Governance intervention.
• Provide advice and support to the technical staff working within the respective field offices.
• Analyze and ensure the interventions are sensitive to issues of inclusion of displaced population groups.
• Support in updating and sharing with staff recent developments and knowledge tools in the areas of interventions.

• Monitor and report on the project related gender issues in the region.
• Prepare reports on the Reconciliation and Governance area.
• Provide information to be updated in Atlas for the Reconciliation and Governance project.

• Liaise with key national and internationals stakeholders, key domestic political and civic actors, civil society organizations, international NGOs, UN partners and donors in the region to facilitate and enhance contribution towards the implementation of the gender equality agenda.
• Attend conferences and seminars as directed by the supervisors in the region.
• Represent UNDP in the regional Sexual Gender Based Violence working group.

• Provide brief updates on the development of gender related issues in the region.
• Provide assistance in data collection, compiling lessons learned, establishing indicators to support knowledge sharing.
• Assist in the development of concept notes, project documents and policy frameworks and research area and gender issues for best practices as directed by supervisor.
• Participate in gender related community of practice in the region.
• Support in writing stories related to programme and project developments as they relate to gender equality issues.
• Perform other work related outputs as requested by the supervisor and the Gender Specialist.

• Ethics and Values; 
• Organizational Awareness;  
• Working well with Teams;  
• Communicating Information and Ideas;  
• Self-management and Emotional Intelligence;  
• Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements;  
• Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning. 

• Recognizes and responds appropriately to the ideas, interests, and concerns of others; 
• Builds trust and engenders morale by displaying open, transparent, and credible behavior; 
• Respect individual/cultural differences; utilizes diversity to foster teamwork; 
• Ensures others’ understanding of, involvement in, and adaptation to a change process.

• Initiates and sustains relationships with key constituents (internal /external /bilateral/ public/ private/ Government); 
• Communicates sensitively and effectively across different constituencies. 

• Proactive, problem-solving and result-oriented attitude; 
• Plans and produces quality results to meet established goals; 
• Generates innovative, practical solutions to challenging situations. 

• Formulates written information clearly and persuasively 
• Shares information openly with co-workers and partners while using discretion to protect confidences.

• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to deal with project implementation; 
• Strong understanding of inclusion and mainstreaming issues and approaches;
• Sound and proven management skills and ability to work inclusively and collaboratively with Iraqi counterparts; 
• Practical knowledge and experience in operational and programme approaches; 
• Ability to build strong relationships with counterparts, focus on impact and result for the counterparts and respond positively to feedback; 
• Consistent approach to work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude; 
• Openness to change and ability to manage complexities; 
• Ability to lead and resolve conflict 
• Ability to mentor effectively
• Superior English writing skills including ability to perform consecutive and simultaneous translation. 
• Strong oral and written communication skills in Arabic, and knowledge of Kurdish is an additional asset.
• Ability to remain calm and in control while under pressure in an unsecure, hardship environment; 
• Ability to work on his/her own and take initiatives when and if needed.

Education and professional qualifications:

• Master’s degree in Social Sciences or related field or Bachelor’s degree in combination with 4 years of qualifying experience will be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience required

• Minimum of 2 years with Master’s degree and 4 years with Bachelor’s degree of relevant experience is required.
• Prior experience working in the field of gender related projects with additional understanding of a crisis/conflict prevention and recovery approach.
• Experience in working with high level counterparts and engaging with senior Government officials.
• Previous work experience with UNDP or other UN agencies is considered as advantage.
• Previous project management experience is an asset.
• Excellent reporting and writing skills.
• Fully proficient in software packages (MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint).

UN Experience 

• Previous work experience with UNDP or other UN agencies is considered as advantage.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English and Arabic is essential. Knowledge of Kurdish is an additional asset.