Programme Analyst, Women’s Economic Empowerment

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.

Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) is one of UN Women’s four main impact areas, and it aims to advance the economic empowerment of women so that they have income security, decent work, and economic autonomy. Areas of policy focus include transforming the care economy; supporting macro-economic policies that advance gender equality; reskilling women to enter male dominated professions; and incentivizing equal pay in employment, entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, and private and public gender responsive procurement. 

Since the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in 2022, the needs of Ukraine’s women and girls have increased. As of October 2023, 56% of the 3.7 million estimated IDPs are women, who make up 93% of the 4.6 million people returning to Ukraine. Out of the 14.6 million people who will need humanitarian assistance in 2024, 56% are women and girls. Women earn 18,6% less than men for the work of equal value, while women’s labour force participation rate is 15.1% lower than men’s. Lack of employment is especially pronounced for 25-44-year-old women. Ukrainian women spend over 16 hours per week more than men on unpaid domestic work. More women than men depend on social assistance, especially those aged 60-80. At the same time, women in Ukraine are turning to entrepreneurship not just as a means of economic survival, but as a powerful tool to uplift their communities and support Ukraine’s defense and recovery efforts. It is estimated that in 2023 one out of every two new businesses created was started by a woman. There is a tremendous demand for the WEE support programming that UN Women piloted in 2023, which convinced the Country Office (CO) of the need to substantially scale up of WEE interventions in 2024 and beyond. 

UN Women has been supporting national partners to implement their commitments to gender equality and women’s empowerment since 2016, and this work included efforts to promote WEE-related policies and strategies, previously handled by the CO’s Governance Team. After the start of the large-scale invasion in 2022, UN Women added activities promoting women’s access to humanitarian assistance and to livelihoods to its previous work portfolio, managed by the CO’s Humanitarian Team. As Ukraine moves into early recovery, the Country Office (CO) is planning to further expand its efforts aimed at empowering women in the workplace, labour market, and marketplace, in partnership with the government, civil society organizations, and the private sector. To do this, the Ukraine CO is in the process of setting up a new Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) programme team. At the same time, the CO has developed a new Strategic Note, which is the CO’s new five-year plan for the period of 2025-29 and which is adding a new WEE Outcome and outputs to the CO’s results to be achieved. 

The expanded WEE work will build on UN Women’s partnerships with the private sector in Ukraine who have signed onto the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), currently managed by the CO’s Governance Team but transitioning to the new WEE team. The CO expects to provide assistance to women who are keen to start or scale up their own business, with a special focus on women IDPs and women veterans, and including by supporting their employment in jobs that have been traditionally held by men. UN Women will expand and deepen partnerships with women rights organizations, WEE focused CSOs, the public and private sector, on developing and implementing interventions with an emphasis on sustainable business creation, fair employment, income generation and social entrepreneurship - through grants, tools and targeted trainings, responding to locally identified women’s humanitarian and recovery needs. More generally the program will seek to address discriminatory gender norms and stereotypes, unequal pay for equal work, and the high burden of unpaid care work on women, which are all structural barriers that limit progress towards attaining gender equality and unlocking the full potential of both women and men. The expanded WEE work will further leverage the Ukraine CO’s efforts to advance gender equality rights as part of Ukraine’s European Union’s accession process, linking to the EU’s standards on decent employment, gender equal pay, gender-responsive procurement, and women’s leadership, as well as the EU’s Care Economy Strategy. 

Reporting to the P4 Programme Specialist/Head of the WEE Team or alternate Head, the Programme Analyst provides programme support to the effective management of UN Women programmes in the Ukraine CO by contributing to programme design, formulation, implementation and evaluation, primarily, but not exclusively, focusing on projects and initiatives related to women’s employment and women entrepreneurs. The Programme Analyst supports the delivery of UN Women programmes by analyzing results achieved during implementation and supporting appropriate application of systems and procedures. The Programme Analyst works in close collaboration with the programme and operations team, UN Women HQ staff, Government officials, multi- and bi-lateral donors, and civil society ensuring successful UN Women programme implementation under the WEE portfolio.     

Key Functions and Accountabilities

Contribute technically to the development of programme strategies in the area of Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE)

Provide technical support to the implementation and management of the WEE programme 

Provide technical assistance and capacity development support to WEE project/programme partners

Provide technical inputs to the monitoring and reporting of the WEE programme/project

Provide technical inputs to the management of people and finances of WEE programme

Contribute to building WEE partnerships and resource mobilization strategies

Provide technical inputs to inter-agency coordination on WEE to achieve coherence and alignment of UN Women programmes with other partners  in Ukraine 

Provide inputs to WEE advocacy, knowledge building and communication efforts

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organisation.

Supervisory/Managerial Responsibilities: 

N/A 

Competencies :

Core Values:

Core Competencies:

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

Functional Competencies:

Recruitment Qualifications

Education and certification:

Experience:

Language Requirements:

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:

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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.