UN Women: Regional Coordination Specialist, Bangkok, Thailand, P4, Fixed-Term Appointment

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 seeks to advance women’s rights, gender equality, and the empowerment of all women and girls. As the lead UN entity on gender equality and secretariat of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, we shift laws, institutions, social behaviours, and services to close the gender gap and build an equal world for all women and girls. We make strides forward for women and girls in four areas: leadership, economic empowerment, freedom from violence, women peace and security and humanitarian action. 
Support for gender mainstreaming within the UN System through its coordination mandate remains integral to the work of UN Women as mandated in its founding resolution (GA 64/289, para.58). UN Women’s global Strategic Plan 2026-2029 commits to ensuring that the Entity’s coordination mandate is central in all impact and outcome areas of UN Women, with an emphasis on the country and regional level. Through the UN General Assembly Resolutions 75/233 on the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR) and 72/279 on UN repositioning, the United Nations Development System (UNDS) is presented with a mandate to respond to the ambition of the 2030 Agenda. The QCPR places strong emphasis on the fundamental importance of promoting gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls, noting the multiplier effect for achieving sustained and inclusive economic growth, poverty eradication and sustainable development. It calls upon all entities of the UNDS to continue to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality by enhancing and accelerating gender mainstreaming through the full implementation of the UNCT performance indicators for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) and calls on UN entities to draw on gender expertise, including in UN Women, to assist with gender mainstreaming in the preparation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks. Under these requirements, the UN system-wide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan (GEAP) launched in 2024 by the UN  Secretary General sets a framework for significantly advancing the UN System’s investment and prioritization of GEWE, and calls on UN Women to support the system in this regard. The UN “System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity” includes recommended actions to reach gender parity at all levels across the UN System by 2028. UN Women is committed to support the UN entities to reach gender parity, based on its mandate to lead, promote and coordinate efforts to advance the full realization of women’s rights and opportunities. 

In line with UN Women’s triple mandate, ROAP collaborates and supports UN Country Teams across 24 countries and UN Women Country/Multi-Country Offices and presences located in 16 of these countries, in the following areas: Women’s leadership; Women’s Economic Empowerment, Ending Violence Against Women; Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian response, with climate and statistics as cross cutting areas of support. Additionally, ROAP promotes and facilitates effective UN joint action at the regional and country levels to advance GEWE at the normative and programmatic levels, including through coordinated approaches towards normative/standard-setting processes as mandated to the UN,  capacity building support and increased access to information and data on existing disparities and their drivers, and approaches to addressing the same.

Under the guidance and direct supervision of the Regional Director, with matrix reporting to the Director, UN Women’s UN Coordination Division, the ROAP Regional Coordination Specialist is responsible for:  supporting ROAP, UN Women country presences, and UNCTs in operationalizing enhanced commitments to GEWE; implementing activities to enhance UN system wide coherence on gender equality and the empowerment of women;  supporting the UN Asia-Pacific Regional Collaborative Platform and UN Women’s co-leadership of the Issue-Based Coalition (IBC) on Promoting Human Rights, GEWE and Disability Inclusion, including supporting enhanced financing of joint initiatives; supporting UN Women and UN System engagement on normative processes, and in partnership with ESCAP, coordinating regional engagement on the UN CSW and Beijing Platform for Action. The work of the Regional Coordination Specialist is guided by UN Women’s global Strategic Plan, international normative standards and frameworks on GEWE, the UN Secretary General’s GEAP and under this the system-wide accountability fra