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UN Women-Gender Advisor-P4-Aden, Yemen (with possible in-mission travel)
Aden, YemenPosition Title: Gender Advisor
Receiving Agency: UN Women
P Level: P4
Location: Aden, Yemen (with potential field travel)
Duration: 5 months
Language: English fluency required. Arabic fluency desired.
R&R: 4 week cycle
Current context in country
The humanitarian crisis in Yemen continues to deepen, with millions facing urgent life-saving needs. The protracted conflict has had a devastating impact on civilians, raising grave concerns about their safety and well-being with over half of the country's population require humanitarian assistance and protection services.
Yemen currently hosts around 4.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), further exacerbating the humanitarian challenges.
UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.
Since 2014, UN Women in Yemen has been providing support to women displaced by the conflict, while advocating for greater women's engagement in the ongoing political process within WPS efforts. To this end, UN Women utilizes a multi-sectoral approach that contributes to achieving the following results as part of all stakeholder's collective response to Yemen crisis:
• Enhancing access to life saving support to women and youth through protection and economic empowerment.
• Strengthening the humanitarian - development - peace nexus efforts in Yemen.
• Supporting women and youth advocates participate and lead in multi-track peacebuilding processes and governance structures.
Existing programme strategies and mechanism
UN Women has also been working in close collaboration with the Resident Coordinator and the broader UN system to provide coordination, normative and programme support that strengthens gender equality and women's empowerment efforts. UN Women has been implementing a variety of projects related to supporting women's rights actors working for peace and strategically, it has outlined three priority areas:
• Women, Peace, and Security (WPS): Increase women's leadership and inclusion in peace process as well as enhance gender in peacebuilding in support of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325).
• Gender mainstreaming in humanitarian response: Provide capacity building support to leaders, networks, civil society, and UN agencies on gender mainstreaming in humanitarian programming.
• Humanitarian action: Address the needs of vulnerable women and girls to ensure those affected by the crisis can participate in, are empowered by and benefit from response and recovery efforts.
• UN Women's humanitarian response in Yemen has been contributing to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in Yemen; in specific: -
• Enhanced Humanitarian Leadership: Through the humanitarian efforts that is focused on mainstreaming gender in Yemen humanitarian responses to support a principled UN leadership and building on the ongoing/past inter-agency coordination and collaboration across the humanitarian ecosystem in the country and the regional fora,
• Robust Localization: By a platform co-led with OCHA called the Gender Network aiming at supporting local actors and prioritizing women-led organizations through funding and capacity-building, networking, and promoting Yemeni women's leadership in HDPN processes,
• Strengthened Resilience & healthy well-being: Through addressing protection needs, preventions and response to gender-based violence survivors (or at risk), providing access to comprehensive multi-sector services, and access to economic empowerment & livelihoods opportunities.
Current internal staffing capacity
UN Women Yemen CO has long-standing programmatic and operational presence in Sana’a and Aden in addition to a co-location with the Office of the Special Envoy in Amman, Jordan; the team are led by the country representative (P5), senior thematic leads for HA & WPS, and supported by a (P3) operations manager, and a (P3) programme management specialist in the three locations to provide adequate assistance, guidance and operational support for the staff members.
The expert will be based in Aden hub that serves as the main operational office while the other two sub-offices in Sana’a and Amman will provide additional support to the ongoing programmes, currently the country representative and the operations manager are based in Aden while other technical leads travel to Yemen on missions.
Reason for request and exit strategy
The request is grounded on the growing Yemen crisis needs and justified by the protracted humanitarian situation in the country that affects its communities and mostly the vulnerable groups including women & girls. Resource mobilization to fully fund the position, as well as others within the programme department is ongoing with a soft commitment indicated by a donor. The position will contribute to the CO efforts to mainstream gender across the UN collective response utilizing the humanitarian frameworks such HRP, HNO and other developmental tool including UNSCDF in Yemen in close coordination with the RCO.
Objectives of deployment and expected output
Under the overall supervision of the UN Women YCO Representative and direct oversight of the humanitarian coordinator / GiHA, the gender advisor will be tasked with delivering high-level expertise to enhance gender integration across all programmes, policies, and partnerships. The Gender Advisor will assist the UN Women YCO in advancing the gender equality agenda at both national and regional levels by offering strategic advice, policy direction, and technical support. This role ensures that gender perspectives are effectively incorporated into the broader humanitarian response, as well as other inter-agency processes, and partnerships.
Furthermore, the gender advisor will provide capacity-building support to the Yemen Office (CO), RCO, UN agencies, humanitarian clusters lead to establish and strengthen partnerships with coordination forums and relevant stakeholders and develop knowledge products as needed to promote gender mainstreaming in all aspects of Yemen operations.
Main duties and responsibilities
Strategic Advice and Policy Development
• Work closely with the UN Women, Resident Coordinator's Office (RCO) and the UN agencies to contribute to the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF), with a particular emphasis on gender equality.
• Provide strategic advice to the UN Women Representative on gender equality and women's empowerment issues, including emerging trends, risks, and opportunities.
• Collaborate with the local authorities and the HCT to formulate localization strategies that integrates HDP approaches and meaningfully engage with the affected communities.
• Lead the efforts to finalize the Gender Equality strategy to guide the humanitarian country team (HCT) operations.
• Collaborate with the HCT to mainstream gender equality throughout its strategic decision-making processes, ensuring that gender considerations are fully integrated into the implementation of the endorsed HCT plans and strategy.
Programmes Support and Technical Guidance
• Provide tailored support to the humanitarian assistance planning exercises and ongoing operations along different stages response including thematic / multi-sector joint assessments, HRP & HNO formulation in close coordination with OCHA, RCO and other relevant stakeholders.
• Support UN Women teams in integrating gender perspectives into their programmes planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Provide technical guidance to government counterparts, civil society organizations, and other partners on gender mainstreaming and capacity development.
• Provide support for the gender assessment(s) data collection and analysis to inform strategic decisions by adopting and finalizing the integrated GEPiE road map and its action plans.
• Ensure that all programmes and interventions are aligned with international and national gender equality commitments.
Coordination and Partnership Building
• Working with the HCT, coordination forums i.e. ICCG and the local authorities on transformative approaches that are inclusive, transparent, and human rights centered to all of the affected populations in the different locations in Yemen.
• Support UN Women to organize and facilitate inter-agency coordination on gender equality and support the integration of gender perspectives in the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) and other inter-agency processes.
• Strengthen inter-agencies’ efforts to prioritize gender equality in their crisis response plans aligning it with HDP priorities.
• Build and maintain strategic partnerships with local authorities, civil society, donors, and other stakeholders to promote gender equality and women's rights.
Knowledge Management and Capacity Building
• Strengthen the capacity of the HCT/ICCG and clusters/sectors as well as the gender focal points to design, implement and monitor gender equality-centered programmes in consultation with affected populations and most vulnerable groups.
• Formulate and lead the agency’ efforts to conduct gender assessments exercise(s) and provide high-quality policy briefs and reports to inform programmes’ development and policy advocacy.
• Lead knowledge-sharing initiatives on gender mainstreaming, best practices, and lessons learned across UN Women and partner organizations.
• Design and deliver capacity-building programmes on gender equality for UN Women staff, UN agencies, and other stakeholders with a focus on local actors.
• Contribute to generating knowledge, evidenced based and analytical products about women and girls ‘situation in Yemen identify gaps and priorities for context-relevant actions.
• Organize, facilitate, and conduct tailored focus groups as agreed with UN Women in the selected areas and with all relevant stakeholders.
Reporting and supervision
The Gender Advisor will initially receive strategic guidance from the Yemen CO management to support a swift transition into the set responsibilities. A deliverables-based workplan, shaped by an initial assessment of existing gender assessment (gaps, barriers, enablers, capacities and strengthen entries) will be developed by the gender advisor, with clear results and performance indicators. Performance will be evaluated towards the end of the assignment (if not extended), with additional feedback provided on regular basis, based on the gender advisor's ability to work independently. The Gender Advisor will also take part in regular UN Women CO Team meetings and retreats to ensure that the agreed workplan aligns with the office's overarching goals and priorities.
Key Performance Indicators
• Timely and quality technical advice and support
• Leadership in area of expertise in the region
• Quality reports and other strategic documents drafted and submitted in a timely manner.
• Strong relationships with various partners and stakeholders
• UN Women is well represented in important meetings on topics related to expertise.
• Contributions to resource mobilization
• Timely and quality knowledge products
Competencies
Core Values:
• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism
Core Competencies:
• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example
Functional Competencies
• Strong knowledge and experience related to current policies and practices in the fields of gender analysis, women empowerment, gender equality, protection, and humanitarian action.
• Strong knowledge of humanitarian assistance & emergency response cycle including its design, development, implementation, and reporting.
• Strong knowledge of the region; preferably in the Yemen context.
• Excellent research, analytical and writing skills.
• Ability to think and work logically and work precisely with attention to detail.
• Initiative, sound judgment and demonstrated ability to work harmoniously with staff members of different national and cultural backgrounds.
• Ability to work independently and meet tight deadlines in a high-pressure environment.
Qualifications
Education:
• Master’s degree or equivalent in gender, international relations, international development, or other social science fields is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree
• A project/programme management certification would be an added advantage
Experience:
• Minimum of 7 years of progressively responsible working experience on issues of emergency coordination, women empowerment and protection, gender, institutional development, human development, related programmes.
• Technical experience in conducting assessments and data collection in humanitarian settings.
• Experience in policy analysis and strategic planning.
• Experience in providing high-quality reports, including comments and revisions according to the specified deadlines.
• Experience working with, and building partnerships with governments, donors and CSOs internationally and in the field.
• Experience working with the UN is an asset.
• Experience working in the MENA region is an asset
• Computer skills, statistics, internet communication and command of MS Office
Language Requirements:
• Fluency in English is required. Arabic is desired.
CANADEM and its partners have a no-tolerance policy for inaction to prevent, respond to and follow up on alleged cases of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Harassment (SEAH). For this reason, we adhere to all policies, procedures and training of the United Nations on The Prevention of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Harassment (PSEAH). CANADEM mandates all deployees successfully complete the PSEA online course. This e-learning course is composed of a set of lessons designed to raise awareness about SEAH, become familiar with a range of measures to combat SEAH, understand the impact on victims and the consequences for UN Personnel who commit Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Harassment.
Receiving Agency: UN Women
P Level: P4
Location: Aden, Yemen (with potential field travel)
Duration: 5 months
Language: English fluency required. Arabic fluency desired.
R&R: 4 week cycle
Current context in country
The humanitarian crisis in Yemen continues to deepen, with millions facing urgent life-saving needs. The protracted conflict has had a devastating impact on civilians, raising grave concerns about their safety and well-being with over half of the country's population require humanitarian assistance and protection services.
Yemen currently hosts around 4.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), further exacerbating the humanitarian challenges.
UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.
Since 2014, UN Women in Yemen has been providing support to women displaced by the conflict, while advocating for greater women's engagement in the ongoing political process within WPS efforts. To this end, UN Women utilizes a multi-sectoral approach that contributes to achieving the following results as part of all stakeholder's collective response to Yemen crisis:
• Enhancing access to life saving support to women and youth through protection and economic empowerment.
• Strengthening the humanitarian - development - peace nexus efforts in Yemen.
• Supporting women and youth advocates participate and lead in multi-track peacebuilding processes and governance structures.
Existing programme strategies and mechanism
UN Women has also been working in close collaboration with the Resident Coordinator and the broader UN system to provide coordination, normative and programme support that strengthens gender equality and women's empowerment efforts. UN Women has been implementing a variety of projects related to supporting women's rights actors working for peace and strategically, it has outlined three priority areas:
• Women, Peace, and Security (WPS): Increase women's leadership and inclusion in peace process as well as enhance gender in peacebuilding in support of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325).
• Gender mainstreaming in humanitarian response: Provide capacity building support to leaders, networks, civil society, and UN agencies on gender mainstreaming in humanitarian programming.
• Humanitarian action: Address the needs of vulnerable women and girls to ensure those affected by the crisis can participate in, are empowered by and benefit from response and recovery efforts.
• UN Women's humanitarian response in Yemen has been contributing to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in Yemen; in specific: -
• Enhanced Humanitarian Leadership: Through the humanitarian efforts that is focused on mainstreaming gender in Yemen humanitarian responses to support a principled UN leadership and building on the ongoing/past inter-agency coordination and collaboration across the humanitarian ecosystem in the country and the regional fora,
• Robust Localization: By a platform co-led with OCHA called the Gender Network aiming at supporting local actors and prioritizing women-led organizations through funding and capacity-building, networking, and promoting Yemeni women's leadership in HDPN processes,
• Strengthened Resilience & healthy well-being: Through addressing protection needs, preventions and response to gender-based violence survivors (or at risk), providing access to comprehensive multi-sector services, and access to economic empowerment & livelihoods opportunities.
Current internal staffing capacity
UN Women Yemen CO has long-standing programmatic and operational presence in Sana’a and Aden in addition to a co-location with the Office of the Special Envoy in Amman, Jordan; the team are led by the country representative (P5), senior thematic leads for HA & WPS, and supported by a (P3) operations manager, and a (P3) programme management specialist in the three locations to provide adequate assistance, guidance and operational support for the staff members.
The expert will be based in Aden hub that serves as the main operational office while the other two sub-offices in Sana’a and Amman will provide additional support to the ongoing programmes, currently the country representative and the operations manager are based in Aden while other technical leads travel to Yemen on missions.
Reason for request and exit strategy
The request is grounded on the growing Yemen crisis needs and justified by the protracted humanitarian situation in the country that affects its communities and mostly the vulnerable groups including women & girls. Resource mobilization to fully fund the position, as well as others within the programme department is ongoing with a soft commitment indicated by a donor. The position will contribute to the CO efforts to mainstream gender across the UN collective response utilizing the humanitarian frameworks such HRP, HNO and other developmental tool including UNSCDF in Yemen in close coordination with the RCO.
Objectives of deployment and expected output
Under the overall supervision of the UN Women YCO Representative and direct oversight of the humanitarian coordinator / GiHA, the gender advisor will be tasked with delivering high-level expertise to enhance gender integration across all programmes, policies, and partnerships. The Gender Advisor will assist the UN Women YCO in advancing the gender equality agenda at both national and regional levels by offering strategic advice, policy direction, and technical support. This role ensures that gender perspectives are effectively incorporated into the broader humanitarian response, as well as other inter-agency processes, and partnerships.
Furthermore, the gender advisor will provide capacity-building support to the Yemen Office (CO), RCO, UN agencies, humanitarian clusters lead to establish and strengthen partnerships with coordination forums and relevant stakeholders and develop knowledge products as needed to promote gender mainstreaming in all aspects of Yemen operations.
Main duties and responsibilities
Strategic Advice and Policy Development
• Work closely with the UN Women, Resident Coordinator's Office (RCO) and the UN agencies to contribute to the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF), with a particular emphasis on gender equality.
• Provide strategic advice to the UN Women Representative on gender equality and women's empowerment issues, including emerging trends, risks, and opportunities.
• Collaborate with the local authorities and the HCT to formulate localization strategies that integrates HDP approaches and meaningfully engage with the affected communities.
• Lead the efforts to finalize the Gender Equality strategy to guide the humanitarian country team (HCT) operations.
• Collaborate with the HCT to mainstream gender equality throughout its strategic decision-making processes, ensuring that gender considerations are fully integrated into the implementation of the endorsed HCT plans and strategy.
Programmes Support and Technical Guidance
• Provide tailored support to the humanitarian assistance planning exercises and ongoing operations along different stages response including thematic / multi-sector joint assessments, HRP & HNO formulation in close coordination with OCHA, RCO and other relevant stakeholders.
• Support UN Women teams in integrating gender perspectives into their programmes planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Provide technical guidance to government counterparts, civil society organizations, and other partners on gender mainstreaming and capacity development.
• Provide support for the gender assessment(s) data collection and analysis to inform strategic decisions by adopting and finalizing the integrated GEPiE road map and its action plans.
• Ensure that all programmes and interventions are aligned with international and national gender equality commitments.
Coordination and Partnership Building
• Working with the HCT, coordination forums i.e. ICCG and the local authorities on transformative approaches that are inclusive, transparent, and human rights centered to all of the affected populations in the different locations in Yemen.
• Support UN Women to organize and facilitate inter-agency coordination on gender equality and support the integration of gender perspectives in the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) and other inter-agency processes.
• Strengthen inter-agencies’ efforts to prioritize gender equality in their crisis response plans aligning it with HDP priorities.
• Build and maintain strategic partnerships with local authorities, civil society, donors, and other stakeholders to promote gender equality and women's rights.
Knowledge Management and Capacity Building
• Strengthen the capacity of the HCT/ICCG and clusters/sectors as well as the gender focal points to design, implement and monitor gender equality-centered programmes in consultation with affected populations and most vulnerable groups.
• Formulate and lead the agency’ efforts to conduct gender assessments exercise(s) and provide high-quality policy briefs and reports to inform programmes’ development and policy advocacy.
• Lead knowledge-sharing initiatives on gender mainstreaming, best practices, and lessons learned across UN Women and partner organizations.
• Design and deliver capacity-building programmes on gender equality for UN Women staff, UN agencies, and other stakeholders with a focus on local actors.
• Contribute to generating knowledge, evidenced based and analytical products about women and girls ‘situation in Yemen identify gaps and priorities for context-relevant actions.
• Organize, facilitate, and conduct tailored focus groups as agreed with UN Women in the selected areas and with all relevant stakeholders.
Reporting and supervision
The Gender Advisor will initially receive strategic guidance from the Yemen CO management to support a swift transition into the set responsibilities. A deliverables-based workplan, shaped by an initial assessment of existing gender assessment (gaps, barriers, enablers, capacities and strengthen entries) will be developed by the gender advisor, with clear results and performance indicators. Performance will be evaluated towards the end of the assignment (if not extended), with additional feedback provided on regular basis, based on the gender advisor's ability to work independently. The Gender Advisor will also take part in regular UN Women CO Team meetings and retreats to ensure that the agreed workplan aligns with the office's overarching goals and priorities.
Key Performance Indicators
• Timely and quality technical advice and support
• Leadership in area of expertise in the region
• Quality reports and other strategic documents drafted and submitted in a timely manner.
• Strong relationships with various partners and stakeholders
• UN Women is well represented in important meetings on topics related to expertise.
• Contributions to resource mobilization
• Timely and quality knowledge products
Competencies
Core Values:
• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism
Core Competencies:
• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example
Functional Competencies
• Strong knowledge and experience related to current policies and practices in the fields of gender analysis, women empowerment, gender equality, protection, and humanitarian action.
• Strong knowledge of humanitarian assistance & emergency response cycle including its design, development, implementation, and reporting.
• Strong knowledge of the region; preferably in the Yemen context.
• Excellent research, analytical and writing skills.
• Ability to think and work logically and work precisely with attention to detail.
• Initiative, sound judgment and demonstrated ability to work harmoniously with staff members of different national and cultural backgrounds.
• Ability to work independently and meet tight deadlines in a high-pressure environment.
Qualifications
Education:
• Master’s degree or equivalent in gender, international relations, international development, or other social science fields is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree
• A project/programme management certification would be an added advantage
Experience:
• Minimum of 7 years of progressively responsible working experience on issues of emergency coordination, women empowerment and protection, gender, institutional development, human development, related programmes.
• Technical experience in conducting assessments and data collection in humanitarian settings.
• Experience in policy analysis and strategic planning.
• Experience in providing high-quality reports, including comments and revisions according to the specified deadlines.
• Experience working with, and building partnerships with governments, donors and CSOs internationally and in the field.
• Experience working with the UN is an asset.
• Experience working in the MENA region is an asset
• Computer skills, statistics, internet communication and command of MS Office
Language Requirements:
• Fluency in English is required. Arabic is desired.
[1] https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/yemen/yemen-humanitarian-response-plan-hrp-2024-january-2024-enar
[2] https://www.unicef.org/emergencies/yemen-crisis
CANADEM and its partners have a no-tolerance policy for inaction to prevent, respond to and follow up on alleged cases of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Harassment (SEAH). For this reason, we adhere to all policies, procedures and training of the United Nations on The Prevention of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Harassment (PSEAH). CANADEM mandates all deployees successfully complete the PSEA online course. This e-learning course is composed of a set of lessons designed to raise awareness about SEAH, become familiar with a range of measures to combat SEAH, understand the impact on victims and the consequences for UN Personnel who commit Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Harassment.