Background

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, UN Women works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls, the empowerment of women, and the achievement of gender equality in development, humanitarian action, peace and security.

In line with its 2022-2025 Strategic Plan, UN Women promotes a partnership building approach in advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) to reach a higher impact. The organization acknowledges the private sector, the development finance institutions, and the high-impact financing sector as key partners in achieving the SDGs. While traditional ODA is receding, these new “nontraditional” partners play a growingly significant role in financing social and economic transformation, especially in Africa.

UN Women’s approach to the private sector envisions enabling and ensuring women’s equal access, participation, voice, agency and safety across all the private sector policies and practices, workplace, marketplace and community and builds its Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) model to promote higher responsibilities to protect and respect women’s rights, increasing financing, resources and long-term investment in GEWE. UN Women also develops and promotes relevant tools and strategies beyond traditional grant mechanisms – including gender responsive budgeting, national investment and financing frameworks with gender targets, gender financing assessments and innovative financing instruments – to further leverage resources for GEWE.

UN Women in West and Central Africa (WCA) operates its mandate in 24 countries, including in middle-income countries such as Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria, and other countries where UN Women is a non-resident agency, where the thriving economies, private and finance sectors offer significant opportunities to engage and promote partnerships. While businesses increasingly embrace the SDGs through community support, new financial models and corporate social responsibility initiatives, these sectors’ interest in GEWE remains however low. UN Women sees a unique window to influence these entities in bringing transformative change for women and girls through strategic collaborations, partnerships for innovation and program funding.

Duties and Responsibilities

UN Women WCA Regional Office (RO) recruits a consultant to deliver the following outputs:

Develop internal knowledge on private sector and high impact / innovative financing models for GEWE in WCA UN Women countries:

• Map relevant actors, networks and inspiring initiatives and replicable partnerships models with the private and finance sectors that are currently being piloted/ experimented by other development actors.
• Provide strategic analysis of this landscape, including the identification of opportunities (advocacy and financing for GEWE) for UN Women with these sectors: engagement opportunities, challenges and needed internal capacity strengthening to harness these opportunities.
• Ensure the dissemination of such knowledge among teams, including through knowledge products and training

Supporting the articulation of a meaningful engagement strategies for UN Women RO and country offices (COs) with these new markets towards the achievement of GEWE, including partnership, advocacy and financing for GEWE:

• Identifying partnership opportunities for UN Women with the relevant non-traditional stakeholders, to advocate for and finance GEWE in the middle-income countries of UN Women WCA region

• Support RO and COs in articulating private sector and high-impact financing engagement strategies and action plans, in line with UN Women’s strategic priorities and mandate.
• Support RO and COs in identifying and designing possible pilot innovative collaborations with the private sector and high-impact financing institutions, with a clear plan to ensure the pilots’ implementation, evaluation and capitalization and road map for a future scale-up.

Providing ongoing support to target countries in mainstreaming engagements with the private sector and high-impact financing institutions across different programmatic areas and in harnessing concrete partnerships opportunities to support GEWE financing.

• Provide technical support to COs to ensure the growth and continuous mobilization of a WEPS signatories’ community within the West and Central Africa targeted countries.
• Building on UN Women existing frameworks (including the WEPS and the work of UN Women’s Sustainable finance network), develop guidance and tools to support COs in outreach and engagement. This will be done in close coordination with in-country teams to ensure they respond to concrete programmatic needs and challenges observed in engaging private sector.
• Provide continuous technical assistance to country teams in the concrete engagement of different private sector actors, including with related networks specialized in Corporate Social Responsibility
• Provide support and advice in planning, implementation and reporting on such engagement.

Reporting line

The consultant will be reporting to UN Women West and Central Africa Regional Partnerships and Resource Mobilization Specialist, who will ensure the monitoring of the consultant’s progresses. Given the dynamic nature of the partnership opportunities under this donor segment, the consultant is expected to provide regular weekly reports.

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is a home-based consultancy.

As part of this assignment, at least 50% of time travelling outside of the duty station to UN Women West and Central Office countries of interest.

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

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment/application-process#_Values

Functional Competencies:

• Strong knowledge of SDGs, of gender equality and women’s empowerment issues.
• Advanced knowledge of Private Sector, High impact financing and Economic Contexts in West and Central Africa
• Advanced knowledge of ways of working of private sector and finance institutions
• Ability to read the economic and political context of a given country
• Knowledge of UN system an asset
• Substantive Networking capacities
• Ability to substantively engage and foster networks with new donor/ partner markets

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification:

• Advanced university degree in the social sciences (i.e. sociology, demography, psychology, political science and economics), public policy or international development. A specialization in gender is a strong asset.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying work experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• Five (5) years of progressively responsible relevant work experience/ demonstrated track record that combines intellectual, strategic and managerial leadership in private sector engagement, innovating financing, impact investing for development or humanitarian action.
• Experience in working with the private sector / innovative funding mechanisms in Africa is required
• Experience in the area of gender equality and women’s empowerment desired
• Experience in developing resource mobilization strategies, and in leading donor engagement is required;
• Experience in building and maintaining effective relationships with private sector and finance institutions required

Languages:

• Fluency in English and French is required.
• Knowledge of any other UN official is an asset

How to Apply

• Personal CV or P11 (P11 can be downloaded from: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-P11-Personal-History-Form.doc )
• A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page)
• Managers may ask (ad hoc) for any other materials relevant to pre-assessing the relevance of their experience, such as reports, presentations, publications, campaigns, or other materials.

Note

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Diversity and inclusion

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (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.