Gender & Prog Support Officer

At the global level, the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment is essential to UNDP’s development approach. Gender equality and women’s empowerment are seen as goals in their own right and are also central to the achievement of UNDPs development mandate. UNDP is guided in its work by its Gender Equality Strategy 2018-2021 which details how UNDP works towards gender equality in each of the goals and key results.

The UNDP Gender Equality Seal (the Seal) is a corporate quality assurance initiative developed by the UNDP Bureau of Programme and Policy Support (BPPS), in collaboration with UNDP country offices and led by the Gender Team of BPPS. The Seal assesses and acknowledges good performance in delivering transformational development results for gender equality and at the same time provides a holistic framework for integrating all domains of work in order to support organizational change and sustainable development results. Performance is measured according to a set of minimum acceptable quality standards based on international and corporate mandates in the following areas: Management for Gender Equality, Gender Equality Capacities, Enabling Environment, Knowledge Management and Communication, Programmes and Projects, Partnership, and Impact/Results. The Seal has three levels of certification (bronze, silver and gold) and applicants are certified according to their gender equality accomplishments. The Seal is envisaged as a learning platform that helps country offices/units to establish a baseline, fine-tune strategies, identify and address gaps and challenges, document innovation and showcase the results and impacts of interventions for gender equality. 

At the regional level, the UNDP Regional Bureau for Asia Pacific (RBAP) has committed to increase the number of certified offices by 2022 by providing tailored support to 16 RBAP country offices prioritizing 5 dimensions: i) Leadership and support to senior management for gender equality; ii) Financing for Gender Equality, including gender budgeting in the country office and accurate application of the gender marker; iii) In-house gender capacities: strengthening subject specific/thematic gender capacities, and gender mainstreaming for programme managers and programme staff; iv) Strengthening programming for gender equality through gender portfolio reviews; and v) Inclusive workplace environment for gender equality. The Gender Seal RBAP support will focus on knowledge sharing and support between country offices to learn and apply good practices and promote cross learning and create a platform for further expansion of the Gender Equality Seal across all RBAP country offices.

At the country level, the UNDP Viet Nam Country Office (CO) applied for and was granted the Gender Equality Seal Certification in 2016. The CO has developed a comprehensive Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Strategy 2017-2021 and Action Plan that is well aligned with the corporate Gender Equality Strategy. The Strategy has the following annexes:

• Suggested learning plan for all programme and some operations staff
• Gender Focal Team’s Terms of Reference
• List of UNDP policies that support a gender responsive work environment
• Guidelines for gender sensitive language
• Gender marker identification
• Project gender action plan template
• Gender analysis guidelines
• UNDP checklist for gender mainstreaming in projects
• UNDP checklist for gender mainstreaming in work planning
• UNDP Viet Nam policy on gender-responsive evaluation

The CO established a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Task Team, consisting of representatives from programme (all units and senior management), operations, M&E and communications, and chaired by the Deputy Resident Representative. The GESI Task Team has a Terms of Reference, which sets out the functions of the team, meeting frequency, monitoring of the annual action plan and documentation of roles in performance management.

Under the guidance and direct supervision of the Deputy Resident Representative, the Gender and Programme Support Officer will work in close collaboration with programme/project teams, M&E Team, Communication and Advocacy Team, Programme and Operations teams, programme staff in other UN Agencies, and UNDP Regional and HQ staff to advance gender equality and social inclusion goals, specifically:

1. Provides overall advice and support to Senior Management, programmes and projects, focusing on achievement of the following results:

• Compilation, analysis and interpretation of gender issues and statistical data.
• Provision of analysis and substantive inputs to Country Programme Documents and other strategic documents (particularly the CO’s Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Strategy).
• Review of current programmes and projects and provision of recommendations on amendments/adjustments for better gender mainstreaming and reporting, in line with national policies and priorities.
• Advice on application of UNDP gender corporate tools and corporate reporting, including the gender marker.
• Support to and development of the gender-related portfolio, both focused on integration of gender in existing programmes/projects as well as creating gender-focused programmes and joint-programmes with other UN agencies.
• Contribution to sub-regional, regional and inter-agency initiatives related to gender and social inclusion issues.
• Representation of UNDP in different working groups and interagency working groups on gender and social inclusion.

2 Participates in effective management of the gender programme and gender specific portfolio, focusing on quality control during the full cycle of country programme/projects:

• Monitors the implementation of the CO’s Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Strategy.
• Advises CO’s programme colleagues on strengtheinging gender mainstreaming and gender content/outcomes (formulation of clear and measurable goals and expected outcomes related to gender equality and social inclusion, focusing on impacts rather than completion of activities, etc.) through the project/programme cycle, including project proposal development, project appraisal (LPAC), project implementation and monitoring, quality assurance, reporting and evaluation.
• Provides guidance on improvements to the organizational culture of UNDP in Viet Nam to ensure gender equality and social inclusion as integral part of day-to-day office functions as well as integration of gender and socia inclusion issues into all programmatic content.
• Works closely with the Governance and Participation Team (GPT) to help design initiatives/projects on women’s empowerment and gender equality.
• Dialogues and experience sharing between colleagues across all programme units on gender equality and social inclusion are set up and facilitated.
• Gender M&E: i) formulation of clear and measurable goals and expected outcomes related to gender equality and social inclusion, focusing on impacts rather than completion of activities; ii) gender equality and social inclusion are included in programme and project monitoring and evaluation.

3 Provides support in creation of partnerships

• Strengthens partnerships with key national stakeholders, including national statistical institutions, UN agencies, women’s organizations and other civil society organizations, academia, research institutions and other data collecting organizations.
• Coordinates with other UN agencies, government departments, donors and NGOs to ensure capacity development initiatives are harmonized and aligned with other in-country efforts.
• Provides inputs to resource mobilization strategies; analyse and maintain information and databases.
• Creates a database of national pool of gender experts/social inclusion experts with appropriate subject specializations, language skills and field experience.
• Liaises with regional gender focal points for advisory services and sharing of information/best practices.

4 Provides substantive inputs to advocacy, knowledge building and communication efforts

• Develops background documents, briefs and presentations related to gender and social inclusion issues.
• Supports UNDP’s representation in meetings and policy dialogues on issues related to gender, social inclusion and SDG localization efforts as required. Identifies sources of information related to policy-driven issues.
• Identifies best practices, lessons learned and areas of emphasis to guide project improvements and future strategic interventions.
• Acts as the Secretariat of the GESI Task Team and the CO’s Gender focal point for related initiatives, including the Gender Seal certification process and implementation.
• Contributes to knowledge networks and communities of practice.
• Organizes training and induction for programme/operations/project staff/new staff on gender and social inclusion issues.

5 Provides programme support functions as requested by the Deputy Resident Representative

Core competencies

Innovation (Ability to make new and useful ideas work): Level 3 (adapts deliverables to meet client needs).

Leadership (Ability to persuade others to follow): Level 3 (proactively seeks and recognizes contributions of others).

People Management (Ability to improve performance and satisfaction): Level 3 (appropriately involves team in different stages of work and decision-making).

Communication (Ability to listen, adapt, persuade and transform): Level 3 (expresses information and views with adaptive reasoning and appreciation for complexity and variation).

Delivery (Ability to get things done while exercising good judgement): Level 3 (takes responsibility for addressing critical situations and delivering core value)

Technical/Functional competencies:

Collaboration and Partnership: Ability to develop, maintain, and strengthen partnerships with others inside (Programmes/projects) or outside the organization who can provide information, assistance, and support. Sets overall direction for the formation and management of strategic relationships contributing to the overall positioning of UNDP.

Gender and Institutional Development: Knowledge of systems for gender mainstreaming and capacity development and interagency collaboration and ability to apply to strategic and/or practical situations.

Gender Issues & Analysis: Knowledge of gender issues and the ability to apply to strategic and/or practical situations, including analysis of projects from a gender perspective.

Gender Corporate Reporting: Knowledge of corporate reporting, including skills to manage ROAR reporting and extractions, gender marker development and other related tools.

Advocacy and Activations: Ability to design and implement strategic short/long term campaigns and carry out customized activations to highlight UNDP's position and support issue-based advocacy.

Relationship Management: Ability to engage and foster strategic partnerships with other parties, Inter-Agency coordination and forge productive working relationships.

• Bachelor's degree in social policy, public policy, politics, economics, development studies, gender studies, business administration, public administration or a related area (master’s degree is preferable)
• 5 years’ experience in working on gender equality and women’s empowerment in a development context.
• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages and advanced knowledge of spreadsheet and database packages.
• Excellent command of written and spoken English

Important applicant information

All posts in the SC categories are subject to local recruitment.

Applicant information about UNDP rosters

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