Programme Assistant

Location: Islamabad
Company Name: United Nations Pakistan

BACKGROUND

United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) strives to promote gender equality and women’s human rights, strengthen implementation of gender sensitive policy and legislation, and eliminate all forms of violence against women as well as to protect women’s human rights. Attention is given to issues of excluded groups and their capacity to lobby so that these become part of mainstream decision making and planning. It provides technical advisory and services on women’s economic empowerment, ending violence against women and girls, women’s leadership and participation, including in disaster risk reduction and management and gender integration in planning and budgeting. UN Women works towards ensuring an effective UN response by strengthening the effectiveness, coordination, and quality of outputs on gender equality amongst the various stakeholders.

UN Women launched its programme in Pakistan in 2007 following a request by the Government and the UN and is now strategically positioned in this regard at both the national and provincial level, post devolution. In moving towards realization of gender equality and women’s empowerment, UN Women provides support to innovative initiatives that promote women’s human rights, with a special focus on their economic security, governance/political participation, freedom from violence, as well as preparedness and responding to humanitarian crises.

UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide. It supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality, and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes and services needed to ensure that the standards are effectively implemented and truly benefit women and girls worldwide. It works globally to make the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals a reality for women and girls and stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life, focusing on four strategic priorities:

• Women lead, participate in and benefit equally from governance systems
• Women have income security, decent work and economic autonomy
• All women and girls live a life free from all forms of violence
• Women and girls contribute to and have greater influence in building sustainable peace and resilience, and benefit equally from the prevention of natural disasters and conflicts and humanitarian action

UN Women also coordinates and promotes the UN system’s work in advancing gender equality, and in all deliberations and agreements linked to the 2030 Agenda. The entity works to position gender equality as fundamental to the Sustainable Development Goals, and a more inclusive world.

UN Women Pakistan is looking for a Programme Assistant (UNV) to support the Ending Violence Against Women (EVAW), Governance and Human Rights Unit in planning, organization and reporting of events; documentation; collaborating with UN Women Units and Sub Offices on logistical and administrative matters; and communicating with Government partners and implementing partners on collaborative activities. The Program Assistant will provide support in research and data collection/ information gathering, documentation and reporting, and logistical support, which will cut across all programme interventions of the Unit.

The Programme Assistant will be responsible for providing the following support to the EVAW Unit:

• Provide logistical support to different ongoing activities, including but not limited to collecting, processing and filing the required documentation for events/ meetings/ missions/ travel of staff and participants/ procurement processes/ HR processes, and other logistical/ administrative work in line with UN Women policies and procedures;
• Liaise with Operations Team internally, as well as external vendors/ service providers as needed to ensure that procurement processes are completed smoothly and efficiently;
• Coordinate with UN Women Provincial Offices for smooth communications in order to expedite requests made by the Country Office;
• Support event planning, organization and reporting;
• Assist in processing travel requests and related logistics;
• Contribute to preparing project documents such as terms of reference, calls for proposals, meeting notes, internal/ external reports, briefings, presentations, and other documents as required;
• Assist in the designing and printing of publications/ documents;
• Document lessons learnt and research best practices from comparative initiatives to incorporate learnings into the ongoing work and suggest ways to improve the logistic/ administrative processes of the EVAW Unit based on this review;
• Maintain an up-to-date database of relevant stakeholders including government departments, CSOs, donors and UN agencies working on VAW, Governance and Human Rights and keep informed of their work;
• Perform any other duties assigned by the supervisor.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS, QUALIFICATION, EXPERIENCE & FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES

Education:

• Bachelor’s Degree in any of the following disciplines: Social Sciences, Public Policy, Public Administration, Development Studies, Gender Studies or related fields.

Experience and Core Skills:

• At least 2 years’ experience in Programme Coordination, Programme Management, Research/ Documentation/ Information Management. Preference will be given to those who have worked on EVAW, human rights or governance.
• Proven excellence in event organization and logistic support.
• Good understanding of gender and development issues in Pakistan especially with regards to access to justice, violence against women, and human rights.
• Proficiency in the use of software used for preparing reports and supporting materials including Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint and Excel) is required; proficiency in use of other softwares/ databases will be an asset.
• Good research and analytic capacity and ability to synthesize relevant findings.
• Demonstrated creativity in the presentation of information through use of graphic, pictorial or other appropriate communication means.
  

Functional Competencies:

• Demonstrates commitment to UN Women’s mission, vision and values.
• Ability to organize and prioritize work and function as part of a team.
• Excellent inter-personal skills, relationship building, and team work.
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude.
• Shares knowledge and experience actively and takes feedback positively for improving performance.
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.
• Proficiency in written and spken English and Urdu.