National Gender Specialist

Details

Mission and objectives

The UNICEF Regional Office for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) through effective support to country offices and strategic engagement with partners, contributes to winning support for the cause of children from decision makers and the wider public particularly on priority issues and accelerators. This includes providing technical assistance, capacity-building, and coordination on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. UNICEF works in 190 countries and territories to protect the rights of every child. UNICEF has spent 70 years working to improve the lives of children and their families. Defending children's rights throughout their lives requires a global presence, aiming to produce results and understand their effects. UNICEF believes all children have a right to survive, thrive and fulfill their potential – to the benefit of a better world.

Context

The UNICEF MENA region has identified five key accelerators representing the region’s strategic contribution to the Decade of Action towards the SDGs by 2030, in line with the CRC and CEDAW. The accelerators comprise: 1. Primary Health Care; 2. Improving adolescent girls’ and boys’ skills, learning and employability right from early childhood; 3. Addressing violence against children, especially in homes, schools and institutions; 4. Scaling up UNICEF’s specific programmatic response to the climate crisis with a focus on water scarcity; and 5. Expanding social protection national systems to reduce multi-dimensional poverty and vulnerabilities. Gender cuts across all these accelerators, and gender-responsive and gender-transformative programming is integrated into UNICEF country office programming. As a learning organization, the MENA regional office seeks to strengthen knowledge creation and management to capture lessons learned and gender results across the region. MENARO is deploying National UN Volunteer as a National Gender Specialist to provide technical assistance to support the implementation of Regional MENA Accelerators and UNICEF’s new Gender Policy and Action Plan, including but not limited to gender equality research for transformative results, programming and policy guidance, gender equality and women and girl’s empowerment. National UN Specialist Volunteers in Jordan are entitled to: - Monthly Volunteer Living Allowance (VLA) at the amount of JOD 1,068.5; - Annual and learning leaves; - Free life and medical insurance; and - Free access to different learning platforms. For more information on UN Volunteer benefits, entitlements and support, please visit: https://www.unv.org/volunteer-your-country-conditions-service

Task description

1. Gender analysis and literature/ evidence review • Perform analysis of quantitative data and qualitative information from various sources, including but not limited CO reports and regional surveys, studies to summarize learning and gender results; • Perform financial analysis and budget analysis to capture gender expenditures across accelerators, sectors and the GAP priority areas; • Employ a systematic review of literature and evidence to identify critical barriers that adolescent girls experience in UNICEF’s programming areas; proven/ effective interventions to address the barriers; find examples of effective implementation of cross-sectoral initiatives. 2. Strategic advice including policy advisory and advocacy briefs/ strategy/communications • Support linkages and complementarity with partners, networks and coalitions including UN sister agencies, and the larger frameworks within which the UN operates, and coordinate mechanisms for advocacy and action at all levels; • Support in developing and implementing a communication strategy in MENARO and with country offices in the region around issues, including breaking gender stereotypes through sports, promoting girls’ leadership in climate change; • Assist in progress on the implementation of Gender Policy and Action Plan and ensure that the objectives, strategies and plans are in line with the changing realities of the global movement on gender equality. 3. Knowledge Management and Strategic Communication • Support the development and maintenance of an online knowledge-sharing platform (internal and external), in coordination with UNICEF MENA’s Gender and ICT teams, using SharePoint; • Compile a regular newsletter for the regional gender team with relevant resources, tools and guidance, to promote the regional and global gender programme priorities. 4. Technical capacity building/ training and support • Support gender capacity development efforts in a variety of models, methods and materials delivered in multiple formats and languages across regions and country contexts; • Collaborate with the Gender Section in Headquarters and regional as well as country offices to enhance gender capacity for high quality gender programming, research, advocacy and communications, through coordination of training of sectoral gender specialists and focal points, etc.; •, Engage with UN agencies and partners to enhance gender results at all levels and keep updated on the global gender strategies, initiatives and events on the dissemination of gender-related tools and guidance.