State Project Manager at International UN Volunteer
- Last Date :: 28 June 2013 -

UNV VOLUNTEER DESCRIPTION OF ASSIGNMENT

Preamble: The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme is the UN organization that promotes volunteerism to support peace and development worldwide. Volunteerism can transform the pace and nature of development and it benefits both society at large and the individual volunteer. UNV contributes to peace and development by advocating for volunteerism globally, encouraging partners to integrate volunteerism into development programming, and mobilizing volunteers. In most cultures volunteerism is deeply embedded in long-established, ancient traditions of sharing and support within the communities. In this context, UNV volunteers take part in various forms of volunteerism and play a role in development and peace together with co-workers, host agencies and local communities. In all assignments, UNV volunteers promote volunteerism through their action and conduct. Engaging in volunteer activity can effectively and positively enrich their understanding of local and social realities, as well as create a bridge between themselves and the people in their host community. This will make the time they spend as UNV volunteers even more rewarding and productive.

1. UNV Assignment Title: State Project Manager (3 positions)
2. Type of Assignment: International UN Volunteer
3. Project Title: SWAAYAM: Scaling Up of IKEA Foundation Supported Women’s Empowerment Project in Jaunpur, Mirzapur, Sant Ravidas Nagar and Sonbhadra districts of Uttar Pradesh and Replication of the Integrated Women’s Empowerment Model in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan
4. Duration: 12 Months
5. Location, Country: Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Nagpur, Maharashtra, India
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
6. Expected Starting Date: As soon as possible

7. Brief Project Description:
UNDP in India is implementing a women’s empowerment programme across four states: Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. The programme applies an integrated approach to women’s empowerment combining social, economic, political, legal and environmental dimensions. The objective of the programme is to increase capacities of women for secure and enhanced income and greater participation, voice and decision making in local development.

From Uttar Pradesh, where the programme has worked with 50,000 women from poor and marginalised groups, it is now being scaled up to reach the additional 1.2 million women across four districts (Jaunpur, Mirzapur, Sant Ravidas Nagar and Sonbhadra) by 2016. In Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, the programme will be replicated to reach 1 million poor and marginalised women across the districts of Banaskantha, Patan, Durgapur, Udaipur, Jalna, Wardha and Yavatmal by 2017.

The programme known as SWAAYAM (empowered women) involves mobilising women at the grassroots level who are organised into self-help groups and larger collectives. Women are provided with legal awareness training and information about their rights and entitlements. The economic empowerment strategy involves training in skills, financial literacy and entrepreneurship with linkages established to value chain and market instruments. The women are also supported to participate in institutions of local self-governance and to raise women’s issues and priorities. Women’s leadership is nurtured so that they can play a more active role in domestic and public spheres.

The programme is implemented through local NGOs, service providers and technical experts. Linkages with governments at the national, state and district levels are used to ensure integration of the women’s empowerment model in government’s policies and strategies and to establish linkages to government’s schemes and programmes. The programme is funded by the IKEA Foundation and is the largest UNDP partnership with a private foundation.

This post is a United Nations Volunteers assignment and is based on the values of free will, commitment, engagement and solidarity, which are the foundations of volunteerism. Volunteering brings benefit to the individual volunteer as well as the society at large. It makes important contributions, economically, as well as socially. It contributes to creating social cohesion and capital, through helping to build trust and reciprocity among citizens.

8. Host Agency/Host Institute: UNDP
9. Organizational Context:
The United Nations Volunteers is the UN organization that supports sustainable human development globally through the promotion of volunteerism and mobilization of volunteers. It serves the causes of peace and development through enhancing opportunities for participation by all peoples. It is universal, inclusive and embraces volunteer actions in all its diversity. Volunteerism is diverse and is embedded in all cultures and traditions. In this context, as a United Nations Volunteer you are encouraged and expected to relate to local volunteerism and to be identified with the concept. You are expected to regard your national colleagues as peers and together uphold trust as volunteers among yourselves and within the communities and the organization you are assigned to.

UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. On the ground in 177 countries and territories, we offer global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations. As the UN's global development network, UNDP is at the forefront of today's development dialogue in championing the poor and disadvantaged. Our focus is on providing developing countries with knowledge-based consulting services and building national, regional and global coalitions for change. With a strong history of inclusion and consensus-building, UNDP has earned the trust and partnership of leaders across the developing world.

10. Type of Assignment Place: Assignment with family
11. Description of tasks:
Under the direct supervision of the SWAAYAM Programme Coordinator, the State Project Manager (IUNV) will carry out the following responsibilities and tasks.

Project Management:
o The State Project Manager will be responsible for effective implementation of the approved project workplan in the given state and as per the agreed strategies and performance indicators within the overall budget.
o Manage the project team at the state level and ensure that project staff have in place and deliver on the clear work plans in line with the approved project document/annual work plan.
o Draft and submit to the Programme Coordinator the annual and quarterly work plans and the requisite substantive and financial progress reports.
o Prepare and track communications, monitoring plans, and any other submissions as required, using standard reporting format provided by the Country Office.
o Maintain the management information systems and dashboards with accurate field-level information on the status of project deliverables and physical and financial progress trackers.
o Manage the Results Based Management Information Systems to ensure credible reporting of results with clear evidence, means of verification, quality and cost effectiveness.
o Ensure meaningful and tangible integration among the key components of the project (social, economic, political, legal, and environmental) towards an integrated nature of results.
o Measure the results of scaling up and sustainability patterns of change resulting from project interventions.
o Support development of communications products such as case studies, photo features, films, fact sheets, etc. in line with the project communications strategy and UNDP guidelines.
o Support the Programme Coordinator in the project review processes such as steering committees, annual review meetings, donor meetings, etc. including preparation of the required briefing notes, documents and reports.
o Support the Programme Coordinator in identifying training needs for the project team in the given state and learning opportunities for the project beneficiaries and field partners.
o Any other tasks as required by the Programme Coordinator.
Project Coordination and Partnership Management:
o Promote and sustain close coordination, share information with and seek guidance from the Programme Coordinator on implementation strategies, deliverables, and timelines.
o Liaise and promote collaboration with the local government departments and non-government partners at the level of District Committees and State Advisory Groups. Keep the local government appraised of and consulted on key project developments.
o Identify opportunities for convergence with government’s programmes and schemes.
o Identify and broker market linkages for the value chains supported under the project.
o Roll out and sustain the partnership development forum with partners, technical resource agencies, financial institutions, private sector and training institutions to develop synergies and leverage project successes and learning for sustainability.
o Develop and maintain effective coordination mechanisms between women’s groups, field implementing agencies and other stakeholders for implementation and knowledge sharing.
o Update on an annual basis the situation analysis for the given state with reliable data and evidence.

Oversight and compliance:
o Ensure compliance with the UNDP rules and regulations, policies and procedures, and guidelines for project management.
o Provide oversight (off-site and on-site) of project activities implemented at the state and district levels by project staff and third parties, identify and address issues and bottlenecks to ensure delivery of the agreed outputs within the parameters identified by UNDP.
o Maintain fully project records and inventory in the given state as per the systems and processes defined by the Country Office.
o Maintain the updated issue, risk and quality logs as per the UNDP POPP.
o Prepare and submit Project Quarterly Progress Report and Annual Progress Report for the given state as per timelines established by the Country Office.
o Immediately escalate issues and risks, off track activities, deviations from agreed strategies and deliverables to the Programme Coordinator in the Country Office.
o Undertake any other task required for smooth field implementation of the project plan or any other work assigned by UNDP.

12. Results/Expected Output:
o Management of the state component of the project to deliver on the approved workplan results within the approved budget.
o Effective management of the project team.
o Effective coordination of project activities with the CO and local level coordination.
o A final statement of achievements towards volunteerism for development during the assignment, such as reporting on the number of volunteers mobilized, activities participated in and capacities developed.

13. Qualifications/Requirements:
o Academic background: Advanced degree preferably in management, public/business administration, social sciences, economics, and/or another relevant field.
o Work experience: at least 10 years in development related field preferably in developing countries and in management capacity. Preference would be given to those who have managed complex field-based projects or operations that are focused on assisting poor communities especially women.
o UNDP or UN experience and knowledge of the rules, policies and procedures.
o Experience of managing multidisciplinary and multicultural teams.
o Language skills: fluency in English. Working knowledge of languages spoken in the project area could be an asset (Guajarati, Hindi and Marathi)
o Other skills: knowledge of standard management tools, project management, results based management, monitoring and evaluation, and team management.
o Other competencies: Excellent people skills, service orientation and proven communication skills.

14. Living Conditions:

Ahmedabad
The city is the administrative headquarter of Ahmedabad district and is the judicial capital of Gujarat as the Gujarat High Court is located here. The city has large populations of Hindus, Muslims and Jains, and these cultures are preeminent in the city, with their religious festivals and cuisine dominating the city's culture. It is located on the banks of the Sabarmati River, in north-central Gujarat.

The Sabarmati frequently dries up in the summer, leaving only a small stream of water, and the city is located in a sandy and dry area. Ahmedabad has a hot semi-arid climate, with marginally less rain than required for a tropical savanna climate. There are three main seasons: summer, monsoon and winter. Aside from the monsoon season, the climate is extremely dry. The weather is hot through the months of March to June; the average summer maximum is 41 °C (106 °F), and the average minimum is 27 °C (81 °F). From November to February, the average maximum temperature is 30 °C (86 °F), the average minimum is 15 °C (59 °F), and the climate is extremely dry.

Varanasi
Varanasi is a city on the banks of the Ganges in Uttar Pradesh, 320 kilometers (200 mi) southeast of the state capital, Lucknow. It is holiest of the seven sacred cities (Sapta Puri) in Hinduism and Jainism. Hindus believe that death at Varanasi brings salvation. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and the oldest in India.

Varanasi is located in the middle Ganges valley of North India, in the Eastern part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, along the left crescent-shaped bank of the Ganges. Varanasi experiences a humid subtropical climate with large variations between summer and winter temperatures. Summers are long, from early April to October, with intervening monsoon seasons and are also extremely hot, even by South Asian standards. The temperature ranges between 22 and 46 °C in the summers. Winters in Varanasi see very large diurnal variations, with warm days and downright cold nights.

Nagpur
Nagpur is the winter capital of the state of Maharashtra. It is a fast-growing metropolis and the third largest city in Maharashtra after Mumbai and Pune and third most industrialized city after Mumbai and Pune.

As it is located at centre of Indian peninsula far from the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, Nagpur has a tropical wet and dry climate with dry conditions prevailing for most of the year. It receives an annual rainfall of 1,205 mm (47.44 in) from monsoon rains during June to September. The highest recorded daily rainfall was 304 mm on 14 July 1994. Summers are extremely hot lasting from March to June, with maximum temperatures occurring in May.

15. Conditions of Service

A 12 months (renewable) contract; monthly volunteer living allowance (VLA) intended to cover housing, basic needs and utilities, equivalent to US$ 1,796 (single rate), US$ 2,046 (rate with one dependent) or US$ 2,246 (rate with two or more dependents); settling-in-grant (if applicable); life, health, and permanent disability insurance; return airfares (if applicable); resettlement allowance for months of satisfactory service.

16. Application

If you have not yet registered in the UNV database, please apply by registering your profile at http://one.unv.org

Important: Please select the following code from the drop down menu on the first page of the registration form: “13IND_STATE”. If you are registered in the UNV database, please update your profile at: http://MyProfile.unv.org, click on the ‘Special Recruitment’ option on the left menu, then click on the ‘Edit’ button and select the advertisement code “13IND_STATE”. Application deadline is 28 June 2013. The United Nations Volunteers Programme is committed to ensuring gender equity among UN Volunteers and welcomes applications from women