Junior Officer, Women’s Economic Empowerment

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.

Through the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP) in Bangkok and a number of country and multi-country offices as well as programme presences across the region, UN Women builds on a long history of support to governments, civil society and other actors to promote gender equality and empower all women and girls. We stand behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life, focusing on five priority areas: addressing gender perspectives in intergovernmental processes; women’s political participation and leadership; enhancing women’s economic empowerment; ending violence against women and girls; and promoting women’s participation in peace and security and humanitarian action.

This UNV assignment sits within UN Women ROAP WEE unit, while the UNV will be working with the WEE Technical Lead , the majority of work will be anchored specifically supporting the team’s ‘Women in the World of Work’ pillar and efforts to advance gender-responsive business conduct in the private sector through commitment to and implementation of the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs). This assignment will provide substantive support to the new “UN Women Gender Action Lab (GAL): Innovation and Impact for Gender Equality in Asia-Pacific, powered by the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs)” , including UN Women’s evolving work on sustainable finance and impact entrepreneurship.

About 96 per cent of all jobs in the Asia-Pacific are in the private sector. This represents a huge potential to implement transformative actions in the world of work and social responsibility in favour of women, benefiting the whole society. There is an increasing consciousness, interest and commitment of private and public sector companies on the value and benefits of gender equality and the economic empowerment of women and its role to achieve it.

Strong momentum and commitment for accelerated business action for gender equality has been clearly established across the region, networks of stakeholders are in place, and a suite of evidence, data, tools and assets have been created, including a series of government endorsed policy advocacy briefs which provide a strategic entry-point for deeper action at both levels -- with business and with governments and business regulators.

Despite this momentum, there is considerable evidence that while commitments towards gender equality in the private sector are increasing, implementation is lagging behind. The gaps in action by government and private sector remain persistent and call for a new approach to bridge this gap. This program proposes a more systemic and sustainable capacity building approach paired with practical approaches to enable accelerated implementation and a mechanism for policy makers to learn from these solutions and enable them to design practice-informed and feasible policies to accelerate gender-responsive business conduct.

Based on the very strong foundation built through previous programs, the UN Women’s Asia-Pacific Gender Action Lab (GAL) aims to further advance private sector and government action to accelerate gender-responsive business policies and practices in Asia-Pacific by strengthening, in particular, implementation efforts to contribute to closing the private and public sector ‘Action Gap’ across the Asia and the Pacific. Launched for an initial a period of four years (2024-2028) with a particular focus on Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and with activities for the broader ASEAN region, GAL is envisioned to grow into a long-term multi-stakeholder platform that spans the Asia-Pacific and encompasses a variety of innovative action modalities leveraging UN Women’s unique triple mandate (coordination, normative, operational).

Under the direct supervision of the Programme Specialist for Women’s Economic Empowerment, and Technical Guidance from the Regional Lead, WEE and Migration, the UN Volunteer will engage in foundational tasks to support the implementation and sustainability of the Gender Action Lab, as well as contribute to research, multi-stakeholder events, and other programming initiatives as part of the WEE unit’s wider Women in the World of Work (WWW) pillar to advance women’s full and equitable participation and leadership in the world of work. This includes beyond the GAL especially the work on sustainable financing and impact entrepreneurship, which is yet to be integrated into GAL. This work is led by the Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Finance consultant with whom the UNV will be also working very closely.

The UNV will undertake the following tasks under this assignment:

1. Provide technical support on GAL programme design, planning and implementation, such as drafting of TORs, briefing notes, concept notes, and talking points, and support to programme coordination between the regional and country levels.
2. Assist with coordinating, building capacity, and developing resources to support the Asia-Pacific WEPs Community of Practice, comprised of WEPs Focal Points from country offices across the region. This includes consolidating and finalizing WEPs outreach and onboarding materials, providing quality assurance for focal points in processing WEPs applications.
3. Support Resource Mobilization and Partnerships efforts to support expansion and sustainability of GAL, including conducting stakeholder mapping for potential new partnerships, contributing to the development of RM strategies, support with partnership building and relationship management, and assisting in outreach and coordination with key private sector stakeholders (including governments, business regulators, investors, corporates, and entrepreneurs). Work with the Regional WEE Lead on innovation projects, resource mobilization and forward looking strategies for the WEE Portfolio, including sustainable finance and others.
4. Provide research, writing and analysis for knowledge products, research reports, trends analysis and/or policy briefs related to the GAL and Women in the World of Work in the context of WEE in the region, with a particular focus on sustainable finance, private sector action for gender equality, and gender-responsive entrepreneurship.
5. Engage in developing innovative and strategic communication materials and campaign initiatives related to GAL and WWW, including creation of social media content, web stories and articles, PPTs, event collateral, and/or infographics that promote awareness of gender-responsive business conduct and WWW.
6. Assist with planning, organizing and managing events, workshops, advocacy initiatives and training sessions as part of GAL and the WWW pillar, especially the 2025 Asia-Pacific WEPs Forum and 2026 Asia-Pacific WEPs Awards.
7. Support Knowledge Management for the WEE unit, assisting with the creation and finalization of KM strategy in consultation with regional and country offices, and support for development and quality assurance of knowledge libraries for customized WEE AI tools as part of the unit’s AI Transformation.
8. Provide support to monitoring, evaluation and reporting, including collection and analysis of data, results monitoring, and contribute to drafting of programme reports, and supporting partner monitoring.