The Position:
The head of the External Relations Unit is based in the Humanitarian Response Division (HRD) in Geneva. Under the overall guidance and supervision of the Director for HRD, the incumbent assumes leadership of the External Relations Unit and support the HRD Director by serving as the focal point at global level for donor relations on humanitarian activities of UNFPA for the overall coordination of the mobilization of resources and grant management, including oversight of the emergency funds managed by the HRD, including Emergency Funds/ Humanitarian Trust Fund (HTF).
The position reports directly to the Director.
How you can make a difference:
UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA’s strategic plan (2022-2025), reaffirms the relevance of the current strategic direction of UNFPA and focuses on three transformative results: to end preventable maternal deaths; end unmet need for family planning; and end gender-based violence and harmful practices. These results capture our strategic commitments on accelerating progress towards realizing the ICPD and SDGs in the Decade of Action leading up to 2030. Our strategic plan calls upon UN Member States, organizations and individuals to “build forward better”, while addressing the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on women’s and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, recover lost gains and realize our goals.
In a world where fundamental human rights are at risk, we need principled and ethical staff, who embody these international norms and standards, and who will defend them courageously and with full conviction.
UNFPA is seeking candidates that transform, inspire and deliver high impact and sustained results; we need staff who are transparent, exceptional in how they manage the resources entrusted to them and who commit to deliver excellence in programme results.
Job Purpose:
The Humanitarian Response Division (HRD) leads the development and implementation of the UNFPA policy and strategy on emergency preparedness, humanitarian response and early recovery, and ensures that the programming, monitoring and reporting processes are consistent with the policy. HRD is responsible for UNFPA follow-up to the institutional commitments made at the World Humanitarian Summit, including the Grand Bargain Commitments and the New Way of working. HRD achieves this objective by placing sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls, into the humanitarian, peace, and development nexus, including emergency preparedness, crisis response and recovery agendas and strategy of UNFPA and its partners working in humanitarian, transition and development frameworks, with focus on building resilience of national institutions and communities.
HRD advocates among humanitarian agencies to include sexual and reproductive health and rights needs, gender-based violence prevention and response needs, and humanitarian concerns of population into the overall humanitarian preparedness and response frameworks. HRD facilitates the development of UNFPA capacities to prepare and respond to the emergencies and to ensure the fund is well equipped to deal with the context of fragility, disaster risk reduction and preparedness.
The Head, External Relations Unit is responsible for strengthening effective reporting and communication on UNFPA’s humanitarian results to donors and ensures harmonized and coherent approach to reporting HRD results. She/he will ensure best practice and lessons learned on UNFPA’s humanitarian operations are captured – establishing UNFPA as a thought leader in emergency context. She/he manages and supervises work of the Monitoring and Reporting, Knowledge Management and Humanitarian Financing Teams.
The incumbent will work in close collaboration of UNFPA Resource Mobilization Branch (RMB) in NY. S/he will help to mobilize donor resources and keep donor representatives well informed on both progress and challenges faced by UNFPA. The incumbent will have a direct reporting line to the HRD Director and a dotted reporting line to the Chief of the RMB.
Qualifications and Experience:
Education:
Advanced university degree in one or more of the following disciplines: Public Health, Medicine, Sociology, Demography, Gender, International Relations, International Development, Economics, Public Administration, Management, or another related field.
Knowledge and Experience:
- 10 years of increasingly responsible professional experience in coordinating, developing, and implementing humanitarian and emergency interventions, ideally representation at high-level humanitarian forums, including field experience.
- Proven experience in mobilizing, managing, and reporting on large humanitarian grants
- Knowledge of humanitarian donor funding and humanitarian financing
- Proven experience in humanitarian knowledge management
- Experience with UN and NGO inter-agency humanitarian coordination and funding mechanisms.
- Strong analytical, coordination and organizational skills.
- Proven ability to lead and manage teams to achieve demonstrable results.
- Excellent presentation, verbal and written communication skills
- Technical knowledge of gender-based violence and SRHR in humanitarian/emergency situations an asset
Languages:
Fluency in English is required. Working knowledge of other official UN languages an asset.
We are no longer accepting applications for this position.
