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.

UN Women is the UN’s leading entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, it was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide. UN Women is uniquely positioned to work on women’s leadership and political participation. The promotion of women’s political empowerment and leadership is widely regarded as a strength for UN Women. Since its inception, through technical support and expertise, the entity has promoted inclusive political processes and institutions in over 100 countries, directly contributing to electoral and legal reforms, and institutional processes to advance women’s political participation and representation, and strong and established partnerships with national, regional and international organizations that can be leveraged to achieve greater results through synergies and cooperation.

In Ukraine, UN Women is committed to delivering results across strategic priorities, exercising its triple mandate encompassing normative support, UN system coordination, and operational activities to mobilize urgent and sustained action to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. UN Women has long been actively supporting local priority areas in Ukraine from increased political participation to gender mainstreaming in public policy, and economic development.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine which started in February 2022 and expanded upon the war begun in 2014, has exacerbated a wide variety of existing inequities, which women and girls experience in Ukraine. The war’s disproportionate impact on women and girls’ access to human rights, livelihoods, and services, limits their ability to meaningfully participate in decision making. While women’s leadership and decision-making has increased at household and partially at the community levels, this has not been reflected in formal political and decision-making processes. Only 21% of seats in parliament^[1] are currently held by women, while 4 of 22 cabinet ministers are women. As a result of the 2020 local elections women won 28% of the seats in the regional councils, 34% in the local councils, 33% in the city councils, and 41% in the village councils^[2]. No woman was elected as mayor of a major city^[3]. At the same time, today an estimated 10,000 women^[4]serve on the frontline and 67,000 women serve in the Armed Forces; 19,000 of them as employees and 48,000 as servicewomen^[5]. Women volunteers at the local level, who are often deeply engaged in humanitarian relief for their communities, have been recognized as holding high levels of public trust^[6].

The Government of Ukraine has continued to prioritize gender equality and women’s empowerment as part of its EU accession requirements, as well as its international commitments. The first-ever comprehensive State Strategy on Equal Rights and Opportunities of Women and Men by 2030, and its operational action plan, were adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers in August 2022. The Strategy envisions “the balanced representation of women and men in decision making in executive authorities, local self-government bodies, companies and organizations, including through the implementation of positive actions (gender quotas, coaching and mentoring programmes)”, “consultations with citizens’ associations that represent different groups of women and men”, as well as “regular sensitization and training activities on methods and forms of participation in policy making, implementation and evaluation at the national, regional and local levels for different groups of women” .

As part of its new Strategy for 2025-2029 in Ukraine, UN Women plans to support gender responsive governance and women’s leadership to meaningfully engage in decision-making and participation in political life. In July 2024, UN Women Ukraine hosted an expert mission to conduct a comprehensive mapping exercise of stakeholders in government and non-governmental organizations, and among international development partners, who support women’s participation in political life. To expand this initiative, UN Women Ukraine is organizing a training for trainers (TOT) program on political leadership and candidate training during 25-29 November 2024 in Kyiv or in Kyiv region, Ukraine. The TOT agenda will closely follow a comprehensive training curriculum developed by UN Women to support broader programs on women’s political empowerment and leadership, specifically by helping expand the pool of qualified women willing to run a campaign, win and serve in elective office.

Around 30 trainers on gender equality, elections and women’s political participation will be selected through a competitive process to learn UN Women’s curriculum, deliver some of its components and receive a certificate upon completion. In this context, UN Women will contract two (2) International Consultants to facilitate and act as lead trainers at the TOT. Working under the overall guidance of the UN Women Representative in Ukraine and the Regional Policy Specialist on Political Participation and Governance, and under direct supervision of the Program Specialist, the Consultants will learn UN Women’s curriculum, work with the training team to adapt its methodology for a TOT agenda, help prepare the necessary content, facilitate the TOT and help build capacity of trainers to deliver the UN Women’s curriculum.

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:

• Sound expertise in gender equality and women’s empowerment, including on women’s political participation.
• Advanced expertise in training curriculum design and development.
• Training facilitation experience in different countries.
• Broad knowledge of training techniques and tools.
• Good communication skills.
• Fluent in MS Word, MS Excel, email, web-based applications and databases.
• Demonstrated leadership and personal examples of promoting knowledge management and a professional learning environment.
• Outstanding networking, team building, organizational and communication skills.
• Capacity to work with diverse partners, including governments, donors and civil society.
• Ability to work effectively and harmoniously with people from varied cultures and professional backgrounds.
• Ability to produce well-written documents demonstrating excellent interpersonal and communication skills.

Required Qualifications

Education:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in Gender Studies, Education-related fields, Political Science, Sociology, International Relations or a related field is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

•  A minimum of 7 years of relevant work experience in the field of gender equality and women’s empowerment, as well as in training facilitation and curriculum design/development.
• A minimum of 7 years of experience and substantive knowledge in women’s political participation, elections and campaign planning, local government, and women’s leadership generally.
• Experience in training, working and communicating in a multicultural environment and in different electoral systems, with at least 2 similar training programs conducted.
• Demonstrated capacity to draft and produce well-written, clear training manuals and training materials for effective understanding, adaptation and delivery, with at least 2 similar trainings supported.
• Experience with UN organizations and programmes or intergovernmental processes, including those related to women’s empowerment, gender mainstreaming and gender equality is an asset.
• Experience working with multi-stakeholder organizations is essential: governments, CSOs, and the UN/multilateral/bilateral institutions.

Languages:

• Fluency in English is required.
• Knowledge of Ukrainian 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.)