Community, Rights and Gender Senior Specialist (Retainer), Multiple positions

The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners' peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world.  Mandated as a central resource of the United Nations, UNOPS provides sustainable project management, procurement and infrastructure services to a wide range of governments, donors and United Nations organizations.  With over 8,000 personnel spread across 80 countries, UNOPS offers its partners the logistical, technical and management knowledge they need, where they need it.  By implementing around 1,000 projects for our partners at any given time, UNOPS makes significant contributions to results on the ground, often in the most challenging environments.

Based in Geneva, Switzerland, the Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECR) supports UNOPS offices in the region, providing management and financial/programmatic oversight of Global and Country specific Portfolios, Clusters and Operations Centers including hosting services, fund management, management advisory services, implementing projects, procuring goods and services and managing human resources.
ECR ensures that projects are executed to the highest standards, providing a shared knowledge base and ensuring that best practices and lessons learned are disseminated between business units and projects across the entire region

The RBM Partnership to End Malaria is a global health initiative created to implement coordinated action against malaria. It mobilizes for action and resources and forges consensus among partners. RBM Partnership works mainly through three Partner Committees which formalize, consolidate and amplify the Partnership priorities of advocacy, resource mobilization, and country and regional implementation support. Each Partner Committee is supported by a Partner Committee Manager employed by the RBM Management Team.   

The Country and Regional Support Partner Committee (CRSPC) provides a platform to engage the RBM Partnership community in coordinating implementation support to countries and regions as they execute their malaria control and elimination implementation programmes. The support is tailored to suit the requirements and existing capacity in each country and region. The consultant shall work for the CRSPC to provide implementation and technical support to national malaria control programmes.  

The Community, Rights and Gender (CRG) Senior Specialist shall work for the CRSPC to facilitate and support countries with issues related to human rights and gender related barriers. For malaria, human rights and gender related barriers predominantly, but not exclusively, focus on diverse cultural and socioeconomic barriers to all services and go beyond the dynamics specifically related to malaria. Developing a patient/population-centered approach for malaria services therefore needs to consider this broader context. 

The overall objective is to establish partnerships, strengthen capacities and catalyze evidence and action on barriers to equitable malaria services and underserved populations in eligible countries. The countries to be supported present highly complex technical, epidemiological, human rights and political contexts for implementation of malaria control and elimination.  These scenarios significantly enhance the complexity of malaria program implementation and require senior and experienced consultants, able to command the respect of senior government officials and partners. The implementation support from the Senior Specialist will address core barriers to equitable malaria services. 

The assignments will be related to the malaria programme and the interventions to remove human rights barriers and access to services in national responses to malaria.  The assignments could include (but are not limited to) the following:

Strategy, planning and implementation 

• Design the implementation of evidence-based and effective combinations of programs/interventions to reduce human rights-related barriers to accessing health services within the context malaria;

• Develop a strategy to build capacity of communities, community-based organisations, health systems and state implementers to effectively design, and implement programs to address human rights-related barriers; 

• Carry out a comprehensive review of country programme documentation (Strategic Plan; operational plan, work plans; gap analysis, etc.) using different tools including Malaria Matchbox

• Ensure integrating programs/interventions into existing prevention and treatment programs, and national responses to malaria, so as to support prevention and treatment efforts;

• Ensure that all programs/interventions are gender-responsive.

• Develop detailed strategies, as well as risk assessment and mitigation plans for the specific intervention or sub-intervention areas and support operational and financing plans.  

• Develop Civil society and community coordination and communication in malaria and community systems strengthening through the use of established tools and mechanisms.

• Review and validation of the comprehensive programmatic and/or financial gap analysis for malaria interventions in the context of malaria related human rights barriers to services and commodities.

• Lead high-level discussions with senior management, partner representatives and other key stakeholders to broker consensus on any of the above intervention areas.

• Undertake a technical review of chosen strategies and interventions to ensure that they are technically sound and in line with WHO normative guidance, feasible to implement and will achieve sufficient impact based on malaria epidemiology of the country / area.

Monitoring and evaluation

• Develop monitoring and evaluation tools to address human rights-related barriers with a clear set of indicators to measure the impact of the programs. 

• Develop country specific training, supervision, monitoring, evaluation and activity protocols for assessing key bottlenecks and questions, including timelines and indicators for finalization and monitoring of implementation. 

• Coordinate the analysis of underlying causes of implementation underperformance and identify strategies and interventions to address these bottlenecks. 

• Review existing support and conduct partnership mapping of current activities, resources and anticipated changes; 
  
  

a. Education 

• Advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent) preferably in public health, law, political science, international relations, gender studies, social sciences or human rights related field. A Bachelor’s degree may be considered with two additional years of experience.

b. Work Experience 

Essential:  

• At least 7 years of experience in the field of human rights, specifically in implementing and monitoring programs to reduce human rights and gender-related barriers or related fields. 

Desirable:   

• Documented experience working on health or health related barriers or experience working on malaria control programmes 

• Documented experience at national and international levels and working with multiple stakeholders.

c. Languages

• Fluency in oral and written English or French is required.

• Knowledge of other UN languages is desirable.  

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few Mandatory Courses (around 4 hours) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS.
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns.
Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 4,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.