UN Women Regional Programme Specialist,Africa, IPSA 10, Home based

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.

Established by UN General Assembly Resolution 50/166 in 1996, the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls (UN Trust Fund) is the first and remains the only global UN funding mechanism dedicated exclusively to providing direct grants to civil society organizations working to prevent and end all forms of violence against women and girls (EVAW/G). Since 2010, UN Women has administered the UN Trust Fund on behalf of the UN system, providing a strong institutional foundation and field support through a global infrastructure of country and regional offices.

With nearly three decades of experience, the UN Trust Fund is a key global mechanism for funding initiatives that aim to eliminate violence against women and girls. Under its Strategic Plan 2026–2030, the UN Trust Fund advances survivor-centered, feminist and demand-driven grant-making, prioritizing organizations working with women and girls who face intersecting forms of discrimination, including women and girls with disabilities, Indigenous women, rural women and those affected by crisis and conflict. To date, the UN Trust Fund has supported 725 initiatives across 140 countries and territories, contributing to sustainable, locally led efforts to end violence against women and girls. 

Under the guidance and direct supervision of the UN Trust Fund Global Grants Manager, the EVAW Regional Programme Specialist manages a portfolio of grants across Africa and contributes to the implementation of the UN Trust Fund’s global grant-making, accompaniment, monitoring, capacity development, learning and partnership functions. The Programme Specialist provides strategic and technical support to grantee partners throughout the grant lifecycle, ensuring high-quality feminist-informed EVAW/G programming, effective risk management, institutional strengthening, and compliance with UN Women and UN Trust Fund requirements and also provides portfolio analysis and recommendations to inform decision-making by UNTF senior management, based on portfolio performance, risks, and emerging trends.

The Regional EVAW/G Programme Specialist works closely with UN Women Regional and Country Offices, civil society organizations, women’s rights organizations, feminist movements, UN entities, and other strategic stakeholders to strengthen portfolio coherence, generate practice-based knowledge, and ensure that lessons and evidence from grantee partners contribute to broader UN Women and UN system learning, advocacy, and programming on EVAW/G.

III. Scope of Work

1. Lead Technical Accompaniment, Capacity Strengthening and Quality Assurance for EVAW/G Grant Programmes

• Provide tailored technical accompaniment and advisory support to grantee partners on the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of EVAW/G programmes, ensuring interventions are survivor-centered, gender-transformative, and grounded in international norms and evidence-driven practice.
• Identify programme design, implementation and institutional capacity gaps across the grant cycle and provide tailored technical guidance to strengthen programme management, organizational resilience, coordination mechanisms and institutional responses to violence against women and girls. 
• Strengthen grantee institutional capacity and organizational resilience by supporting improvements in programme management, monitoring and reporting, financial management, governance, procurement, safeguarding, partnership management, operational compliance and long-term sustainability. 
• Promote feminist learning, partner-centred accompaniment and adaptive management, including the identification of operational risks, resilience challenges and tailored support needs, while supporting and monitoring grantee compliance with UN Trust Fund requirements, including safeguarding, PSEA, anti-fraud and accountability standards. 

• Develop and disseminate technical guidance, tools, templates, learning resources and practice-based knowledge products to support high-quality grant implementation, institutional strengthening and the application of international norms and standards related to ending violence against women and girls.

   

2. Manage and Monitor Regional Grants Portfolios

• Manage a portfolio of grants across the full grant lifecycle, coordinating all programmatic and operational processes related to grant implementation, including