Gender Officer

Job Title: Gender Officer

Organization: UNICEF

Job no: 564662
Contract type: Temporary Appointment
Duty Station: Kathmandu
Level: NO-1
Location: Nepal
Categories: Gender Development

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, Hope

UNICEF adopted its new Gender Action Plan 2022-2025 (GAP), which is an ambitious effort at catalyzing field-level programming and results that advance gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in key areas of UNICEF's work. The UNICEF Gender Action Plan 2022-2025 prioritizes a gender-equitable approach to promoting gender equality. Developed in tandem with UNICEF’s new Gender Policy and Gender Action Plan (GAP), The UNICEF Strategic Plan for 2022-25 emphasizes structural and norms change to transform the underlying drivers of gender inequality and reflects an intersectional approach to the compounding social exclusion and marginalization related to factors like poverty, racism, disability, and migration. With this new, transformative approach, UNICEF is strengthening the mainstreaming of gender equality throughout our programming and systems while increasing investment in the use of digital technologies as one pathways for achieving gender equality.

South Asia is the fastest-growing region in the world in terms of early adoption and innovation of digital culture and digital economy. Despite this growth, the gap between women's and girls’ access and use of digital platforms as compared with their male counterparts has widened from 36% in 2020 to 41% in 2022.

More than 200 million women in South Asia do not have access to mobile phones or the Internet; this means a future with fewer employment opportunities, a higher likelihood of being unemployed, and additional barriers to workforce participation. There are many obstacles preventing women and girls from sharing the benefits of digital innovation. These include barriers to connectivity (access to the internet and affordability of digital tools and technologies), lack of digital literacy and skills, ingrained gender norms, and internet safety concerns that limit girls’ access to digital platforms and know-how.

UNICEF’s South Asia Regional Office (ROSA) has prioritized addressing the gender digital divide as a key accelerator for the region. In its Digital Equity paper for South Asia, intentional investment in digital solutions for marginalized girls and the use of digital technologies as programming tools for girls have been identified as key to addressing the gender digital divide. 

How can you make a difference?

The Gender Officer will support the knowledge management, promote cross-learning, identify opportunities, develop Programme tools, and ensure quality oversight for Programme implementation around digital innovations for girls and STEM initiatives.

Reporting to the Regional Gender Advisor and working closely with the ICT4D and adolescent skills and Employability Sections, the Officer will be responsible for the following:

Implementation of gender digital divide activities

• Support country offices to identify and assess new initiatives or phases of ongoing initiatives, with immediate potential to improve UNICEF programming on innovations and adolescent girls.
• Manage CSO partnership (an oversight on the implementation of the partnership agreement, spot checks, and reporting).
• Support country offices in development of concept notes and resource mobilization products on bridging the gender digital divide.
• Documentation of good practices, including Human interesting stories (HIS) on girls and digital girls in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM),
• Showcasing gender and innovation interventions around adolescent girls’ community of practice in the region and Global platforms, including visibility of the initiatives in collaboration with the Communication Team.
• Built a network with regional and grassroots organizations to scale up girls in STEM.

Support Green Skills for Girls Programming

• Collaborate with the adolescent skills and Employability section in ROSA and external partners to provide operational and technical support to the green skills programming for girls in South Asia.
• Collaborate with other UNICEF regions to organize green skills boot camps for adolescent girls.
• Documentation of good practices on Green Skills for girls.

Annual planning, reporting, and capacity building

• Support the organization, administration, and implementation of capacity-building initiatives to enhance the competencies of gender focal points in gender monitoring and evaluations, especially on Gender marker (GEM) coding during planning and reporting processes.
• Conduct Gender focal points Orientation on CO-specific annual planning processes and mandatory CSIs
• Support with the development and production of the regional gender annual report

Events and Knowledge Management

• Support ROSA to organize all gender-related event regional consultations for the region
• Support the gender team in developing gender-related advocacy briefs in consultation with the communication team

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• A university degree in one of the following fields is required: gender studies, international development, development studies, international relations, or another relevant technical field.
• A minimum of one year of professional experience in one or more of the following areas is required: gender, social development program planning, communication for development, public advocacy, or another related area.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, or Spanish) is an asset.
• Relevant experience in a UN system agency or organization is considered an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (1)
• Works Collaboratively with others (1)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (1)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (1)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (1)
• Drive to achieve impactful results (1)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (1)

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.
We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.
UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. 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.

Remarks:

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Advertised: 03 Aug 2023 Nepal Standard Time
Deadline: 13 Aug 2023 Nepal Standard Time

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