UN Coordination and Normative Consultant

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, 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.

Under its Strategic Note 2026-2030, the Uganda Country Office advances gender equality and women's empowerment through three interconnected outcomes: (i) Reducing gender-discriminatory norms, values and structural barriers; (ii) Advancing transformative governance, equitable access to justice, human rights, sustainable peace and development; and (iii) Promoting gender-responsive decent employment, resilient livelihoods and increased household incomes. The Strategic Note is underpinned by cross-cutting priorities on gender data and statistics, UN system coordination, normative engagement, strategic partnerships, and gender-responsive climate action.

Placing women's rights at the centre of all its efforts, and in line with ongoing UN Development System Reform, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts in Uganda to ensure that commitments on gender equality and the empowerment of women translate into action. It provides strategic leadership and technical support to advance gender mainstreaming, strengthen accountability for results, and support Uganda's national development priorities through effective partnerships with Government, the United Nations system, development partners, civil society, women's rights organizations, and other stakeholders.

UN Women adopted its Coordination Strategy to strengthen implementation of its UN system coordination mandate and to enhance accountability for gender equality and the empowerment of women (GEWE) across the United Nations system. This comes at a time of renewed emphasis on UN system coherence, accountability, and collective action to accelerate implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The overall objective of UN System Coordination is to support UN Women's mandate to lead, coordinate, and promote accountability for gender equality and the empowerment of women across the United Nations system, while advancing the system-wide implementation of gender mainstreaming commitments.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) serves as the overarching framework for collective UN support to Uganda's national development priorities. Within this framework, UN Women co-chairs the Human Rights, Gender and Leave No One Behind Group (HRG-LNOB) and serves as Secretariat to the Gender Development Partners Group (GDPG), playing a central role in coordinating policy dialogue, advocacy, accountability, and collective action on gender equality and women's empowerment.

As the UN entity mandated to lead, coordinate and promote accountability for gender equality and the empowerment of women across the UN system, UN Women supports the implementation of global, regional and national normative commitments, including the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and other human rights frameworks. The increasing emphasis on coordination, accountability, gender mainstreaming, and implementation of normative commitments requires dedicated technical capacity to support policy engagement, knowledge management, partnership building, resource mobilization, and multi-stakeholder coordination.

To strengthen UN Women's coordination and normative functions in Uganda, the Country Office seeks to engage a Coordination and Normative Support Consultant to provide technical assistance, strategic advisory support, and coordination expertise in advancing gender equality and women's empowerment across the United Nations system and broader development landscape. The Consultant will support UN Women’s engagement in normative and intergovernmental processes, strengthen partnerships and accountability mechanisms, contribute to knowledge generation and capacity development efforts, and support coordination among UN entities, Government, development partners, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders.

Reporting to the Country Representative, and working in close collaboration with the Deputy Representative, the Coordination and Normative Consultant will provide strategic and technical leadership in advancing UN Women’s coordination and normative mandates.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

The consultant will be responsible for the following key responsibilities:

Provide technical and strategic support to advance UN Women’s gender coordination and normative mandate:

• Provide technical expertise to support the implementation of UN Women’s gender coordination, normative, and UN Area Coordination (UNAC) priorities and initiatives;
• Develop strategic briefs, concept notes, talking points, position papers, and other technical products to support coordination, normative engagement, and key institutional priorities;
• Identify and advance strategic interventions on gender coordination and normative priorities in collaboration with the UNCT Gender Advisor, Human Rights and Gender Advisory Group (HRGAG), and other stakeholders;
• Provide substantive technical inputs, quality assurance, and strategic advice on coordination and normative processes, including identifying emerging issues, risks, and opportunities for engagement;
• Review and contribute to the development of programme strategies, workplans, policy documents, and related outputs to ensure alignment with UN Women's coordination and normative mandates.

Lead and Coordinate GEWE normative commitments and accountability processes:

• Lead and coordinate Uganda CO engagement in intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder processes, including CEDAW, Beijing+30, Universal Periodic Review (UPR), Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), Agenda 2030/SDGs, and other relevant global, regional, and national normative platforms;
• Provide advisory and technical support to Uganda CO units and UN Area Coordination locations and partners on Human Rights treaty body mechanisms, special procedures and other accountability frameworks to strengthen stakeholder engagements/ GEWE initiatives;
• Coordinate and provide substantive inputs to UN Country Team (UNCT) reports, reporting processes, normative assessments and joint accountability mechanisms and identifying opportunities for collective action and policy influence at both national and UNAC levels;
• Lead capacity strengthening initiatives for Government institutions, Implementing Partners, civil society organizations, UNCT and UNAC stakeholders to enhance gender integration and implementation of gender-responsive commitments/action points;
• Facilitate inclusive engagement of women's rights organizations and diverse civil society actors in normative, accountability, and policy processes to strengthen stakeholder ownership and influence;
• Develop and manage strategic partnerships with government, civil society, regional bodies, and development partners to promote the localization and implementation of international GEWE norms, standards, and recommendations;
• Contribute to resource mobilization, partnership development, and strategic representation efforts in support of the Uganda CO normative and coordination agenda.

Inter-Agency and Development Partner Coordination:

• Coordinate the rollout, implementation, and follow-up of the UNCT-SWAP Gender Equality Scorecard and related accountability processes;
• Provide strategic and technical support to Uganda CO management, the UNCT, HRGAG, and UN Area Coordination (UNAC) platforms on inter-agency coordination and GEWE mainstreaming initiatives;
• Contribute substantive gender analysis and technical inputs to CCA, UNSDCF, National Development Plan (NDP), Strategic Note (SN) and other strategic planning and review processes;
• Manage the secretariat of the Gender Development Partners Group (GDPG) and facilitate strategic dialogue, coordination, advocacy, and partnership engagement among UN entities, government, development partners, and other stakeholders;
• Coordinate the identification and analysis of GEWE-related normative priorities emerging from human rights mechanisms, treaty bodies, and review processes to inform policy dialogue and programmatic action;
• Prepare and contribute to analytical reports, briefs, and knowledge products on UN Women's inter-agency coordination results, lessons learned, and good practices.

Manage knowledge-building efforts:

• Lead the identification, documentation, synthesis, and dissemination of promising practices, lessons learned, and knowledge generated through Uganda CO's inter-agency coordination and normative work;
• Develop analytical briefs, position papers, and partnership intelligence products to support strategic engagement and normative advocacy efforts;
• Facilitate the development and dissemination of analytical knowledge products on progress, challenges, and emerging trends related to GEWE normative commitments, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders;
• Provide technical quality assurance and substantive review of knowledge products, publications, and research outputs to ensure alignment with UN Women standards and strategic priorities;
• Lead and provide technical support to implementation of the gender responsive budgeting component of the Gender for Development of Uganda(G4DU) programme.

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is an office-based, full-time consultancy, based in Kampala, Uganda.

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:

• Strong analytical, written and oral communication skills, including good presentation skills;
• Familiarity of the Sustainable Development Goals; Familiarity with UN system and UN Women coordination and normative mandates;
• Ability to work within a team;
• Excellent analytical skills with strong drive for results and capacity to work independently;
• Strong planning and organizing skills;
• Ability to take decisions and manage political/cultural sensitivities;
• Strong knowledge and understanding of gender equality issues in peace and security and humanitarian action;
• Familiarity with results-based management and rights-based programming.

Required Qualifications:

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in International Relations, Gender Studies, Human Rights, Social Sciences 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;
• A project/programme management certification (such as PMP®, PRINCE2®, or MSP®) would be an added advantage.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible experience at the national and/or international level in gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE), gender coordination, normative and policy engagement;
• Strong technical experience in advancing gender equality and women's empowerment, human rights, and/or normative frameworks, including capacity development and policy advisory support;
• Proven experience in facilitating multi-stakeholder coordination and building strategic partnerships with government institutions, civil society organizations, development partners, donors, academia, and UN entities;
• Prior experience within the United Nations system, including support to UN inter-agency coordination mechanisms, is highly desirable;
• Experience working in East and Southern Africa and/or in fragile, conflict-affected, or humanitarian settings is an asset.

Languages:

• Fluency in English is required;
• Knowledge of another official UN language is desirable (French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish).

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.)

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.