UN Women: Programme Specialist, Women’s Economic Empowerment, Bangkok, Thailand, P3, Fixed-Term Appointment

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.

One of the key areas of concern is the economic empowerment of women. It is expressed in targets and indicators of SDG 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls) and SDG 8 (Promote inclusive and sustainable development, decent work and employment for all). Progress toward it depends not only on the adoption of a set of public policies by governments, but also on the existence of an enabling environment and active engagement of the corporate sector. This is also relevant to the achievement of SDG 1 (Poverty Reduction), SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities) and SDG 17 (Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development).
Women’s economic empowerment in the Asia-Pacific comprises a diverse and complex portfolio, including different thematic focus areas from social protection and unpaid care to SME private sector development and very different country specific contexts from the Pacific (highly informal working with predominantly low-income women) to China (middle-income country with a strong and growing private sector and limited bilateral funding). WEE has become increasingly of relevance in the region, particularly in the wake of the pandemic and economic recovery of post-crisis countries. 

Responding to the diverse contexts, the UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific WEE has been developing an overall strategic WEE that is strongly linked to the UN Women global Economic Empowerment Strategy, focuses on the key strategic priorities aligned with the SN ROAP Women’s Economic Empowerment & Migration for 2023-2025 and reflecting UN Women’s Global Gender Equality Accelerators (GEAs), namely Women in the World of Work, Transforming Care and Climate Action:
(1)    Advancing Gender-Responsive Business Conduct and Creating More Decent Work Opportunities (WEPs)
(2)    Accelerating Gender-Responsive Entrepreneurship for (M)SMEs (i.e. Gender-Responsive Procurement & strengthening women’s entrepreneurship)  
(3)    Sustainable Finance 
(4)    Transforming Care Systems 
These thematic areas are not operating in isolation and are strongly inter-connected and under-pinned by cross-cutting principles, such as: sector-agnostic work (across the Green & Blue -, care, fintech and digital economy); embracing an intersectional and conscious social norms lens into programming, and nexus to thematic areas such as Climate Change among others.

In July 2024, UN Women in partnership with the Government of Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is launching the new initiative “UN Women Gender Action Lab (GAL): Innovation and Impact for Gender Equality in Asia-Pacific, powered by the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs).”

The Gender Action Lab builds on UN Women’s success generating commitment to and implementation of the  Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a set of 7 principles that provide companies a roadmap to become more gender-responsive throughout their value chain. The WEPs were launched in 2010 by UN Women and the UN Global Compact and is the only framework that encompasses gender equality at all organizational levels, beginning with leadership and providing guidance for the workplace, marketplace and community, underpinned by a strong emphasis on accountability and transparent reporting of progress.

Based on the very strong foundation built through previous programmes, the UN Women’s Asia-Pacific Gender Action Lab (GAL) aims to further advance private sector and government action to accelerate gender-responsive business policies and practices in Asia-Pacific by strengthening, in particular,  implementation efforts to contribute to closing the Private Sector  and Government ‘Action Gap’ across the Asia and the Pacific, with a specific regional focus on ASEAN and especially in four priority countries, namely Indonesia, Philippines, and Malaysia and Cambodia. GAL will aim to incorporate an inclusive and creative problem-solving methodology to enable multi-stakeholder and innovative thinking around specific thematic areas to ideate and prototype new multi-stakeholder solutions. The programme will cover four countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Malaysia. It will also have a regional component under the responsibility of UN Women Region Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP). 

The key outcome is: More private sector companies in Asia - Pacific are implementing gender-responsive business practices and policies to enable more women to equitably lead and participate in the world of work.

The program will achieve this through 3 interrelated pillars:
1)    Awareness, Commitments, and Capacity built on the WEPs and engagement of key stakeholders for the thematic lab
2)    Multistakeholder thematic Gender Innovation labs: piloting concrete solutions with innovators and policymakers (thematic areas may include employer-supported care, disability inclusion, transparency & reporting)
3)    Document Best Practices, generating and disseminating recommendations for action, and recognizing businesses through the Asia-Pacific WEPs Awards and WEPs Forum

Reporting to the Regional Programme Manager and Technical Advisor - Women’s Economic Empowerment in Asia and Pacific (P4), the Programme Specialist exercises overall responsibility for planning, implementing, and managing UN Women interventions under their portfolio.  The Programme Specialist 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 portfolio. In particular, the Programme Specialist will also be responsible for Programme Management of the Gender Action Lab.

Key Functions and Accountabilities:

• Integrity;
• Professionalism;
• Respect for Diversity.

• 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: 

•    Strong programme formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation skills
•    Strong knowledge of Results-Based Management
•    Ability to synthesize program performance data and produce analytical reports to inform management and strategic decision-making
•    Strong knowledge of Women’s Economic Empowerment
•    Proven expertise and experience building capacity and developing tailored strategies to support private sector implementation of the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) for a range of business size and sector and in diverse operating contexts similar to those in the Asia-Pacific
•    Proven experience engaging partners and mobilizing resources for WEE programming
•    Strong analytical skills
•    Ability to identify and analyze trends, opportunities and threats to fundraising and develop strategies

Recruitment Qualifications:

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.

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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.