Knowledge Management and Research Specialist – UN Women

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.

Knowledge Management has been identified as one of the functions of a regional centre. Under this function the regional Centre plays the role of coordinating the development and implementation of a knowledge management strategy in the East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) region. The Knowledge Management and Research Specialist leads and guides the Knowledge Management, research, and gender analysis in wide range of areas related to gender equality and empowerment of women in the Office.

Under the supervision of the Deputy Regional Director, the Knowledge Management and Research Specialist based at the Regional Office in Nairobi, will develop and support implementation of lead the knowledge management in the regional Office. S/he works in close collaboration with programme teams in the Office, COs/MCOs, HQs units, and other partners including UN Agencies, Government officials and civil society to successfully deliver services.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of Key Functions:

• Knowledge management;
• Research and gender analysis in wide range of areas related to gender equality and empowerment of women;
• Data analysis, including review and improvement of gender statistics;
• Practice co-ordination and advocacy.

Knowledge management

• Defines and implements a knowledge management approach  for the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office  aimed at enhancing knowledge sharing and delivering of planned results;
• Ensures editorial management and content scheduling of all online/web spaces (internet, intranet, extranet, etc) for the ESARO Region;
• Promotes knowledge sharing within ESARO, including cross-country and cross thematic knowledge sharing through networks and communities of practice;
• Provides guidance to the ESARO Region on how to integrate knowledge management in country level work;
• Keeps up to date on latest developments in  all relevant thematic areas and takes advantage of all mechanisms for contextualizing and sharing that knowledge;
• Promote and communicates on new corporate knowledge sharing mechanisms;
• Proactively engages with UN Women clients and partners in developing innovative knowledge-based services and builds capacity of clients to interact with new knowledge-sharing systems and lead knowledge exchanges;
• Innovates and engages on new technology (multi-media) opportunities to receive, capture and share knowledge;
• Initiates and manages internal messaging and public advocacy on knowledge sharing developments and achievements, including by ensuring that content on websites and other communication material is creative and current;
• Addresses impediments to sharing information and the flow of knowledge, facilitate demand and supply of knowledge;
• Develop online tools, surveys and other pilot projects, including those oriented toward collaboration and learning;
• Provides strategic input into development of corporate policies on knowledge building, sharing and networking, in collaboration with the Knowledge Management Team in headquarters;
• Provides advice, technical assistance and backstopping for the improvement of knowledge management across  the ESARO Region, other agencies and with external partners;
• Provides knowledge management training to ESARO staff members;
• Coordinates the knowledge management aspects of the ESARO knowledge products and services and oversees cross- thematic knowledge activities.

Research and gender analysis in wide range of areas related to gender equality and empowerment of women

• Conduct research on the priority areas for gender equality and empowerment of women in the region;
• Identify factors that have a positive or negative impact on women’s rights and women’s empowerment in the region and that lead to transformations in gender relations;
• Review contemporary literature on feminist inputs into goal- and target-setting, including academia, women’s organizations and reports/documentation from UN system and special procedures of the Human Rights Council as needed;
• Maintain a ‘watching brief’ of the current debates gender equality and empowerment of women including monitoring consultation processes, the work of High level panels and Working Groups such as the intergovernmental working group and others that will be formed over time;
• Conduct analysis on ways to mainstream gender perspectives in a wide range of areas of development (covering economic, social and environmental aspects);
• Provide substantive support for UN Women’s preparation and positioning for major interagency and intergovernmental reviews including the 2014 Commission of the Status of Women meetings;
• Prepare the report(s) on gender equality and empowerment of women as needed;
• Coordinate research activities of UN Women to ensure quality assurance and link research product to evidence based advocacy of UN Women and resource mobilization.

Data analysis, including review and improvement of gender statistics

• Conduct research on existing qualitative and quantitative gender indicators;
• Develop a set of gender indicators including justification and feasibility;
• Develop proposals for production of crucial baselines to secure the viability of proposed key indicators;
• Conduct background research and analysis, including using statistical modeling and other quantitative techniques;
• Ensure that research and data relevant to the report is compiled, including on the substantive theme and the statistical annexes (including technical notes, statistical references, and definitions and so on);
• Make sure that options for presenting more in-depth technical data for specialist audiences, which may include web-based formats, are scoped;
• Contribute to drafting of a variety of texts, including case studies;
• Identify potential authors of background papers and other research materials for the analytical parts; assist in commissioning and coordinating their work where requested and comment on their draft papers;
• Participate in proof-reading, data-checking and providing comments on draft chapters and sections of the report as required, including, if possible, proof-reading of translated text in languages other than English;
• Collaborate with communications to document research results, facilitate multi-stake holder dialogue on research results and ensure policy recommendations emerging from the dialogues taking forth.

Practice co-ordination and advocacy

• Build relations with external professionals and institutions, including donors, UN system agencies and civil society organizations, in the substantive areas of UNWOMEN work and in support of knowledge sharing and networking;
• Expands knowledge base by joining other global or regional networks and researching information from other COPs.
• Sharing relevant developments, innovations, best practices, lessons learned and content developed with the community when relevant;
• Builds awareness through research and outreach on practice areas of work;
• Flags opportunities for funding and thematic knowledge development;
• Supports the ESARO region in communications and advocacy efforts.

Location: Nairobi, KENYA

Application deadline: 6 March 2015

Read more and apply here.