The Position:
The Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Sub-Sector Coordinator will be based in Cox’s Bazar. They report to the Head of Sub-Office in UNFPA Sub-office in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
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:
Since August 2017, targeted violence against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State, Myanmar has forced over 728,000 people to flee into Bangladesh. More than half these new arrivals are women and girls. Refugees, especially women and girls are being disproportionately affected by GBV including rape, conflict-related sexual violence, intimate partner violence, sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, child and forced marriages, sexual exploitation, survival sex, and forced engagement in the drug and sex trades. Before being forced to flee, communities living in Rakhine state had already been exposed for decades to numerous daily stressors, with repeated exposure to potentially traumatic events.
Within humanitarian settings, including in Bangladesh, women and girls are disproportionately affected. In emergency situations, when legal and social structures break down and social support and safety systems (such as extended family or community groups) fail, women and girls are at greater risk of GBV, gender-based discrimination, and harmful practices including forced or child marriage.
UNFPA is leading the GBV Sub-Sector coordination in Cox’s Bazar, which comprises more than 30 member organizations including UN, INGO, NGO and government agencies operating in the Rohingya refugee camps and the surrounding affected host community locations. The GBV Sub-Sector works alongside the Child Protection Sub-Sector (led by UNICEF) within the Protection Sector (led by UNHCR).
Under the overall supervision of the Head of Sub-Office in Cox’s Bazar, the GBV Sub-Cluster Coordinator will fill the technical GBViE demand of the GBV Sub-Cluster at Cox’s Bazar level. The Sub-Sector also works with other humanitarian sectors within the Inter-Sector Coordination Group (ISCG). The Sub-Sector coordinates the GBV prevention and response through strengthening community-based GBV programming. These include ensuring access to quality multi-sector GBV response services for survivors, building the capacity of GBV service providers and other stakeholders in order to deliver quality care in line with best practices and minimum standards for humanitarian settings, and enabling active participation of affected communities in GBV awareness-raising, response, prevention and risk mitigation.
Qualifications and Experience:
Education:
Advanced university degree with specialization in areas such as gender studies, humanitarian affairs, human rights, law, social work, public health, development studies, international relations, and/or other related social science disciplines.
Knowledge and Experience:
- 7 years of experience working on gender-based violence, of at least 3 years in a humanitarian context.
- Experience leading inter-agency coordination mechanisms with a wide range of stakeholders.
- Awareness and demonstrable knowledge of how GBV manifests in humanitarian settings and ability to describe context-specific prevention and response actions.
- Demonstrable knowledge of the international humanitarian architecture, including the Cluster System and HPC, and roles/responsibilities of key humanitarian actors.
- Ability to self-manage, emotional intelligence, empathy, team spirit, conflict management as well as negotiating skills.
Languages:
Fluency in English is required; knowledge of other official UN languages is preferable.
We are no longer accepting applications for this position.
