Background:
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.
The UN Women Programme Support Management Unit (PSMU) provides corporate advisory services and direct support for project and programme lifecycle development and implementation across the organization. As part of the Strategic Planning, Results and Effectiveness Division (SPRED), PSMU guides Headquarter (HQ) Regional Offices (ROs) and Country Offices (COs) in following best practice to ensure that all projects and programmes maintain a level of standardization, planning, share knowledge, and work collectively towards UN Women’s strategic goals. PSMU offers HQ, ROs and COs a range of services, trainings and toolkits that increase their implementation capacity to deliver programmes on time, on scope and on budget. It also supports the implementation of global projects managed by HQs.
In this context, UN Women has been developing the Performance and Results Integrated System (PRISM) to unify project planning, monitoring, reporting, and project management functions in line with Planning Monitoring and Reporting Policy and underlying project lifecycle procedures, offering an integrated platform that enhances accuracy, efficiency, transparency, and accountability in managing results and resources. This platform, together with the corporate Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, Quantum, will serve the end-to-end management of the programme and project lifecycle.
Under the overall supervision of the Chief of PSMU, and direct supervision of the Head of the Programme Management Office (PMO), the PRISM and Quantum PPM Team Consultant will be part of the Business Process Owner team responsible for supporting the development, User Acceptance Testing, training, and launch of Project Lifecycle management in PRISM, through capacity building, knowledge management transfer, and technical support in the implementation and rollout of the project modules in PRISM.
Description of Responsibilities /Scope of Work
1. Functional Requirements and Business Analysis
- Collaborate with team members to define, prepare, and document the business case and specifications for the PRISM project lifecycle, ensuring alignment with Planning, Monitoring and Reporting Policy and related project life-cycle procedures.
- Work with internal stakeholders to validate requirements and secure approvals.
- Coordinate data integrity efforts, including data clean-up and migration analysis, to support successful migration.
- Partner with technical experts to ensure smooth integration of PRISM project modules with UN Women’s ERP system (Quantum).
- Engage with the Information Systems and Telecommunications Section to interpret requirements accurately and incorporate them into system design.
- Provide clarifications and refinements in collaboration with the development team during module creation.
2. User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and quality assurance compliance
- Contribute to the development of test scripts, acceptance criteria, and scenarios.
- Coordinate UAT exercises with regional and country office focal points, ensuring quality assurance reviewers are engaged.
- Facilitate UAT sessions as part of the team, troubleshoot issues collectively, and track defect resolution.
- Validate fixes and enhancements, providing recommendations and readiness assessments.
- Ensure all deliverables meet organizational standards through collaborative quality checks.
3. Training and Capacity Building
- Contribute to the preparation and implementation of a structured roll-out plan for the project modules.
- Co-develop guidance notes, FAQs, and user guides for new functionalities in PRISM integrated with Quantum.
- Deliver hands-on training and virtual workshops in partnership with other trainers.
- Provide on-demand technical and functional support during initial operational phases, working closely with the technical team.
- Collaborate on troubleshooting system issues and documenting recurring challenges for long-term solutions.
- Maintain a shared repository of project materials for institutional memory.
- Contribute to bi-weekly status updates and progress reports prepared by the team for the Chief of PSMU.
4. Facilitate and contribute to knowledge management post-launch
- Work with the team during the stabilization period to address outstanding issues and enhancements.
- Collect user feedback and propose improvements for future versions.
- Share lessons learned and best practices with colleagues to strengthen project management automation in PRISM.
- Provide technical inputs to knowledge networks and relevant communities of practices.
5. PRISM system/solution leadership and coordination (overall)
- Act as PRISM “solution/ERP lead” and system owner for the Programme and Project Management (PPM) stream—covering configuration, data structures, integrations, and helpdesk support—in close partnership with the Programme Management Consultant (business/process lead).
- Manage the PRISM Programme and Project Management helpdesk, including triaging tickets, resolving issues, and escalating to the ERP support team or business owners as required.
- Lead the design and delivery of system-focused training (navigation, transactions, error resolution, use of standard reports and dashboards) for end users on PRISM Programme and Project Management, in coordination with the Programme Management Consultant for the business and policy content.
- Coordinate and execute testing (including user acceptance testing) for new PRISM Programme and Project Management functionalities and releases, in collaboration with business users identified by PSMU.
6. Collaboration with Programme Management Consultant on PRISM (Programme and Project Management Stream)
- Coordinate closely with the Programme Management Consultant (business process lead) who serves as an overall coordinator for relevant PRISM workstreams.
Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel
This is a home-based consultancy. As part of this assignment, there may be in-person training to be considered.
Competencies :
Core Values:
- Integrity;
- Professionalism;
- Respect for Diversity.
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 Values and Competencies Framework:
Functional Competencies:
- Strong organizational skills and communication skills both written and verbal
- Strong knowledge of Results Based Management
- Ability to develop sound tools for the effective management of the programmes, and project management lifecycle
- In-depth understanding and knowledge of guidelines and project management tools that can be utilized regularly in work assignments
- Ability to design, implement and monitor projects
- Strong project formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation skills
- Ability to develop detailed operational plans, budgets, and deliver on them
- Ability to synthesize program performance data and produce analytical reports to inform management and strategic decision-making
- Strong analytical skills
- Ability to lead formulation of strategies and their implementation
Required Qualifications
Education and Certification:
- Master's degree (or equivalent) in Business Administration, Social Sciences, International Relations, Political/Development Studies, or other relevant disciplines.
- A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
- PRINCE2® Practitioner and/or Project Management Professional (PMP®) and Managing Successful Programmes (MSP®) Practitioner certification is an asset.
Experience:
- A minimum of 7 years of progressively responsible experience in project and programme development, strategic planning, coordination support or change management is required.
- International development experience preferably focused on or strongly involved in programme and project management and gender equality at national, regional and/or international levels.
- Technical experience in all aspects of project management including planning, financial management, budget management, risk management, communications and stakeholder engagement.
- Experience in data migration and application integration tools is highly desirable.
- Experience in the implementation of ERP solutions based.
- Prior experience in the UN System is an asset.
Languages:
- Fluency in English is required.
- Knowledge of French or Spanish or any other UN official is an asset.
Statements :
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.)
Note: Applicants must ensure that all sections of the application form, including the sections on education and employment history, are completed. If all sections are not completed the application may be disqualified from the recruitment and selection process.
- Coordinate closely with the Programme Management Consultant (business process lead) who serves as an overall coordinator for relevant PRISM workstreams.