Programme Associate, WEE Financial Inclusion (Open for Egyptian Nationals and Residents Only) Full Time

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. Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates the United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts and builds effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women Egypt Strategic Plan (2023-2027) focuses on promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in line with the 2014 Egyptian Constitution and relevant international norms and standards. Egypt’s 2023-2027 UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) considers that women’s empowerment as a key SDGs accelerator for Egypt. The National Strategy for the Empowerment of Egyptian Women 2030 focuses on four pillars: (a) women’s leadership and political participation; (b) women’s economic empowerment; (c) women’s social empowerment; and (d) protection of women. ‘Changing prevailing cultural norms’ and ‘legislative change’ are included as cross-cutting enablers.

Financial inclusion has been identified as a valuable tool in fostering women’s economic empowerment, increasing their capacity to face risk and unexpected expenses, and participate in the sustainable economic growth. Financial inclusion relates to people (especially low income), households’ and MSMEs’ access to a full range of useful and affordable quality financial products and services that meet their needs – such as accounts, savings, payments and transfers, credit, and insurance and others – in a responsible and sustainable manner, within a legal and regulatory environment conducive to their development, by a range of formal service providers.

Financial inclusion is specifically important for women and girls in the sense that it can increase their empowerment and improve gender equality in a number of ways. Firstly, by having access to resources and tools, women’s bargaining power within households will increase and in turn upsurge their influence and ability of decision making. Secondly, financial inclusion can support women sustain their own income, control assets outside the household and have a contribution to productive activities. Thirdly, financial inclusion can reduce women’s vulnerability and dependency on male family members by having access to financial opportunities to smooth consumption or meet unexpected expenses. Furthermore, women who are financially excluded lack access to basic financial services, which in turn has an impact on their access to household expenditures (for food, health, education, etc.) and expenditures for business.

The current environment in Egypt holds huge potential for women’s financial inclusion. Egypt’s National Strategy for the Empowerment of Egyptian Women 2030 and its accompanying pillar on Women’s Economic Empowerment list women’s access to economic resources through increased access to financial services as an important objective. The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) co-hosted the 9th Global Policy Forum of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), held in September 2017. In his opening speech President H.E. Abdel Fattah El Sisi emphasized the high-level political commitment for financial inclusion in the country, especially for women. Financial inclusion has moved to the top of the development policy agenda and gained a great deal of traction. In September 2017, the Central Bank of Egypt and the National Council for Women signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together to foster women’s financial inclusion in Egypt, with SGs expansion as one of the key objectives of the MOU. These developments pave the way for programs to create financial inclusion of all in Egypt, especially the rural women.

According to the Global Findex Database 2021, Egypt has made important progress in advancing financial inclusion, which is reflected in an increase in bank account ownership by 18 per cent by the end of 2021, from 10 per cent to 27 per cent. Furthermore, the CBE has led several initiatives that have contributed to significant progress in women’s financial inclusion, with women’s transaction account ownership doubling over the past five years – surging from 24.3 per cent to 50.2 per cent as of December 2021 – reflecting an average growth rate of 171 per cent. With all this progress, still, women make up roughly half of the unbanked population as they are often excluded from formal banking services because they lack official forms of identification, do not own a mobile phone or other form of technology, and have lower financial capability. Moreover, 70 per cent of account-owners have not used payment cards nor a mobile phone or the Internet to make a digital payment.

Women who are financially excluded lack access to basic financial services, which in turn has an impact on their access to household expenditures (for food, health, education, etc.) and expenditures for business. Many therefore, depend on informal sources of finance, generally at unfairly high interest rates. It is in this context that financial inclusion initiatives aimed at women and managed by women assume greater importance.

To support the effective implementation of the Women’s Financial and Economic Inclusion in Rural Egypt Programme, UN Women Egypt Country Office launched and is currently implementing a financial inclusion programme, supported by funds from the EU and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This programme will be recruiting a National Programme Associate.

Reporting to the National Programme Analyst – Women’s Financial Inclusion and under the overall supervision of the Deputy Country Representative, the Programme Associate works with and provides support to members of the programme team in the development and implementation of effective programmes consistent with UN Women rules and regulations. The Programme Associate contributes to financial management, and programme implementation including providing necessary operational, administrative, and programmatic support. The Programme Associate works in close collaboration with the operations, programme and projects’ staff as required for resolving complex Programme- related issues and exchange of information.

Duties and Responsibilities

Provide advanced administrative and logistical support to the formulation and management of programmes.

• Provide advanced administrative support and inputs in the preparation of Programme work plans, budgets, and proposals on Programme implementation arrangements;
• Provide technical guidance on Programme delivery and reporting of Programme supported activities and finances;
• Coordinate the collection of information for the audit of programmes/ projects and support implementation of audit recommendations;
• Review Programme data from programmes/ projects for website;
• Identify sources, and gather and compile data and information for documents, guidelines, speeches, reports, and position papers.

Provide advanced administrative support to the financial management of the Programme Unit.

• Create projects in Quantum, prepare budget revisions, revise project awards and status; and determine unutilized funds and the operational and financial close of a project;
• Monitor budget preparation and the finances of programmes/projects; prepare periodic reports; finalize FACE forms;
• Review financial reports; prepare non-PO vouchers for development projects;
• Maintain internal expenditures control system; post transactions in Quantum;
• Create requisitions in Quantum for development projects; register good receipts in Quantum;
• Prepare and follow up of cost-recovery bills in Quantum.

Provide advanced administrative support to the Programme Unit.

• Oversee all logistical, administrative and financial arrangements for organization for meetings, workshops, events, and missions;
• Oversee travel arrangements for the Programme Team, including travel requisitions and claims;
• Prepare public information materials and briefing packets;
• Prepare and assemble briefing materials and prepare power-point and other presentations; contribute inputs to the materials;
• Provide guidance to Programme Assistants.

Provide monitoring and coordination support through the following field support.

• Follow up with local partners on implementing activities, including the monitoring of work plans and activities;
• Closely work with the Programme teams to facilitate the preparations and implementation of field activities, events, assessments;
• Liaise with the field officers to ensure timely progress of field activities;
• Support the production of any material needed for information purposes, such as reports, articles for the web, brochures, films, etc.;
• Follow up on operations in the field, day to day management and delivery of the activities and facilitation of knowledge sharing;
• Provide timely data collection for reporting purpose.

Facilitation of knowledge building and knowledge sharing.

• Support synthesis of lessons learned, and best practices related to Programme management and finance.

Competencies

Key Performance Indicators

• Timely and accurate support to events, workshops, and missions;
• Full compliance of administrative activities with UN Women rules, regulations, policies and procedures;
• Timely recording of overall Programme unit finances;
• Timely and accurate tracking of data for Programme management and donor purposes;
• Quality maintenance of internal systems;
• Quality background and presentation materials.

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity;
• Integrity;
• Professionalism.

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies:

Functional Competencies:

• Strong knowledge of Programme management;
• Ability to create, edit, synthesize and present information in clear and presentable formats;
• Ability to administer and execute administrative processes and transactions;
• Ability to provide input to business process re-engineering, elaboration and implementation of new data management systems;
• Ability to manage data, documents, correspondence and reports information and workflow;
• Excellent financial and budgeting skills;
• Excellent IT skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification

• Bachelor’s degree in social sciences; Political Science, Economics, Business or Public Administration, Development Studies or other relevant degrees is required.

Experience

• At least 7 years of progressively responsible experience in administration or Programme management/support, required;
• Experience in working with multiple office software packages, required;
• Experience in Quantum is an asset;
• Experience in supporting a team, is an asset.

Language Requirements

• Fluency (written & spoken) in English and Arabic is required;
• Knowledge of the other UN official working language is an asset.

Application: Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification. 

Interested Individual Candidate must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• ((ESSENTIAL)) Completed and Signed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from  make sure that you provide a valid email address for future communications, and
• A cover letter with a brief presentation explaining your suitability for the vacancy;

The above-mentioned documents MUST BE merged in a standalone file including all them, since the online application submission does only permit to uploading one file per application.

You can merge your documents by using Online resources. 

Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification. Make sure that you provide a valid email address for future communications.

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)

Tagged as: Egypt, UNDP