Director of the Secretariat

Launched in September 2010, the purpose of the SUN Movement is to catalyse collective action and create an enabling environment to end malnutrition in all its forms. With 60 SUN Countries and the Indian States of Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh at the helm, the SUN Movement represents an unprecedented country-led effort to bring together stakeholders – from governments, national and global civil society organisations, businesses, the UN system, researchers and scientists across different sectors- and provide them with a collaborative space to convene, mobilise, share, learn, advocate, align and coordinate actions and approaches to improve nutrition.

SUN countries, supported by all stakeholders in the Movement, are committed to creating an enabling environment for scaling up nutrition by strengthening four strategic processes as set out in the SUN Movement Strategy and Roadmap 2016-2020: Expanding and sustaining an enabling political environment; prioritising effective actions that contribute to good nutrition, implementing actions aligned with national common results frameworks and effectively using, and significantly increasing, financial resources for nutrition.  The SUN Movement Coordinator, UN Assistant Secretary General, oversees the day-to-day implementation of the Strategy and Roadmap, leads the SUN Movement Secretariat and represents the SUN Movement globally.  

UNOPS is the legal and administrative host of the SUN Movement Secretariat. SUN Movement Secretariat has developed as a small coordinating mechanism. It has no operational role, but seeks to link together countries and networks in the SUN Movement to ensure that support, requested in countries to intensify actions and achieve nutrition objectives, is received in a coordinated and coherent way.  It also ensures that the Movement’s progress is tracked efficiently and communicated clearly. The Secretariat is headed by the Director of the Secretariat who is responsible for ensuring that the Secretariat catalyses, facilitates and supports effective action across the overall SUN Movement. 

As part of the hosting, UNOPS Geneva Office is a fund manager the SUN Movement Pool Fund.

Reporting to the SUN Movement Coordinator (ASG level), the Director of the Secretariat will be responsible for ensuring that the Secretariat catalyses, facilitates and supports effective action across the overall SUN Movement, and the work that will be done under the mandate of the SUN Movement Coordinator. The Director of the Secretariat will be primarily responsible for providing strategic advice, planning, resource use, day-to-day management of staff, reporting on the use of funds, performance management and evaluation of progress against goals.

This includes the following key functions:

1.     Providing senior-level strategic and tactical advice for empowering leadership by the SUN Movement Coordinator and continued enhancement of the vision and strategies pursued by the SUN Movement Secretariat;

• Participating in the development of the SUN Movement Secretariat’s objectives and priorities and providing overall strategic planning towards their achievement.

2.     Ensuring effective functioning of the SUN Movement Coordinator:

• Developing annual work-plans of the SUN Movement Coordinator and the Secretariat;
• Ensuring high standards and relevance of all outputs and communications that emanate from the SUN Movement Coordinator and the Secretariat.

3.     Managing and coordinating strategically the operations of the SUN Movement Secretariat  to ensure collective effectiveness:

• Strategic planning of activities in support of the SUN Movement Coordinator’s priorities; development and regular update of team work-plans;
• Management and supervision of the different teams within the Secretariat to ensure timely and quality outputs;
• Overseeing the organization of high-level events and meetings.

4.     Ensuring optimized planning, utilization and reporting of financial and human resources:

• Optimized budget management balancing programming, expenditures and fund raising and ensuring that resources are properly utilized;
• Human resources management: performance evaluation of staff of the SUN Movement Secretariat, planning and management of recruitments;
• Coordinating the production of activity and financial reports ensuring transparency of resource utilization and quality reporting to donors.

5.     Ensuring strategic engagement with national governments and other stakeholders:

• Maintaining relations with contributors to the SUN Movement Secretariat;
• Representing the SUN Movement Secretariat (when requested by the SUN Movement Coordinator) in public events, taskforces, working groups, intergovernmental and interagency discussions, interactions with stakeholders outside the UN system, and any other relevant situation.

• 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.
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• 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.

APPLICATIONS SHOULD INCLUDE A COVER LETTER.

UNOPS supports the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to serve people in need by expanding the ability of the United Nations, governments and other partners to manage projects, infrastructure and procurement in a sustainable and efficient manner.

Working in some of the world’s most challenging environments, our vision is to advance sustainable implementation practices, always satisfying or surpassing our partners’ expectations.

With over 7,000 personnel spread across 80 countries, UNOPS offers its partners the logistical, technical and management knowledge they need, wherever they need it.

A flexible structure and global reach means that we can quickly respond to our partners' needs, while offering the benefits of economies of scale. 

Based in Geneva, the Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECR) supports UNOPS offices throughout the region through: management, financial and programmatic oversight of global and country-specific portfolios, clusters and operations centres, including hosting services; fund and management advisory services; project implementation; 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.

ECR operates global portfolios from offices in Geneva, Brussels and New York, and country-specific programmes from its operations and project centres located in Eastern Europe and Central Asian countries.