UN Women: Regional Programme Coordinator and Thailand Programme Manager, WE RISE Together (WRT), Bangkok, Thailand, N-PPSA10, National Partner Personnel Service Agreement

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.

Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) is central to UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and 2026-2029, aligning with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that focus on gender equality, decent work, poverty reduction, and inclusive growth. In the Asia-Pacific region, UN Women’s initiatives aim to advance gender-responsive business practices, transform the care economy, support women entrepreneurs, and promote gender-responsive markets for climate action. These efforts are integrated with broader work in sectors such as climate change, ending violence against women, and humanitarian action.

The UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific’s Women’s Economic Empowerment team is seeking to hire a Regional Programme Coordinator to lead the programme implementation of the WE RISE Together Programme and will provide strategic oversight for the Thailand Programme.

WE RISE Together Phase 2 (WRT 2.0) is funded and supported by the Australian Government through the Mekong–Australia Partnership (MAP) and implemented by UN Women to advance Gender-Responsive Procurement (GRP) in the Mekong Subregion across Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), Thailand, and Viet Nam. The project contributes to specific key envisioned outcomes in the MAP, namely Mekong Subregion partners increase leadership and economic opportunities for women and people with disabilities and other marginalized groups, and Mekong Subregion partners enable strengthened economic resilience and subregional integration. WRT as a programme is working the overarching results of: More women are empowered to equally access, participate, lead and benefit from expanded market opportunities in the Mekong Subregion and works across three outcome areas:

• Outcome 1: Increased awareness and commitment to Gender-Responsive Procurement (GRP), demonstrated through increased adoption of GRP practices by public and private institutions and strengthened gender-responsive data on procurement practices.
• Outcome 2: Strengthened national public policies and/or practices related to GRP and/or women-owned businesses (WOBs) / gender-responsive enterprises (GREs) promotion that are aligned with existing regional frameworks; and
• Outcome 3: Increased market connections and opportunities for WOBs and GREs.

WRT 2.0 has established a comprehensive Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) Strategy serving as both a normative and operational framework guiding the integration of GEDSI across the programme.

Reporting to the Regional Programme Manager and Technical Advisor - Regional Women’s Economic Empowerment in Asia (P4) with matrix reporting line to Thailand Programme Coordinator (NOC), the WRT Regional Programme Coordinator, WE RISE Together (WRT) is responsible for leading coordination among all Mekong Countries, Cambodia, Laos PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam WRT teams for effective programme implementation.

In addition, the WRT Regional Programme Coordinator will be managing strategic oversight towards the WRT program in Thailand and serving as a donor contact person, in close collaboration/consultation with the UN Women’s Thailand Programme Coordinator to ensure programme coherent. The consultant will work in close coordination with various partners and stakeholders, including the DFAT MAP Team in Bangkok, which will guide and provide input for the performance of the programme at regional and country level. The incumbent will also inform and update WEE unit and UN Women Thailand about programme implementation and opportunities to build synergies with other relevant initiatives implemented by UN Women and key relevant stakeholders at the country and regional level.

Scope of Work:

Support the Regional Team with the monitoring, tracking, coordination, and reporting of the WEE Programme portfolio, as follows:

1.Lead the regional coordination and the country-level (Thailand) implementation of the Mekong-Australia Partnership (MAP) project, “WE RISE Together”

Regional

• Lead regional programme coordination and management in close collaboration with the WEE Technical Lead;
• Manage WRT implementation based on the Results-based Management (RBM) principles and in accordance with the UN Women’s standard rules and regulations;
• Manage WRT Budgets to ensure planned spending and delivery;
• Ensure the translation of the UN Women’s and Mekong-Australia Partnership (MAP) project’s priorities into Country and regional interventions that resonate with country and regional level priority to promote women’s economic empowerment (WEE) in the context of Gender Responsive Procurement and market access;
• Connect the country level activities with regional level initiatives and cross-country learnings;

Thailand Specific

• Provide oversight for Thailand Programme management (including budget, results management) and provide strategic technical guidance to the Thailand CO on Public GRP and SME policies
• Analyse development context and identify key opportunities and partners to advance the project planning and implementation in