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.
UN Women has been working in Afghanistan since 2002 (as UNIFEM until 2010). Successive decades of conflict, annual cycles of natural disasters, the worst drought on record in 27 years, an ongoing pandemic, and deep-rooted poverty have left over half the population of Afghanistan in critical need of humanitarian assistance. The contest around gender norms thereby remains at the center of the political, peace and security landscape in Afghanistan, putting women and girls at the frontlines of this crisis. In this context, the UN Women Afghanistan Country Office is consolidating its programming under the humanitarian-peace-development nexus, anchored in the Country Office Strategic Note (2018-2022), and UN Women continues to deliver on its triple mandate across four thematic areas: 1) Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action; 2) Ending Violence Against Women; 3) Women Economic Empowerment; and 4) Women’s Leadership and Participation.
Since May 2021, UN Women Afghanistan thereby capitalizes on its five Sub-Offices located in the provinces Balkh, Bamyan, Herat, Kandahar and Nangarhar respectively. At present comprising of a Programme Coordinator, a Programme Associate and a Driver each, the five Sub-Offices are supporting UN Women programming and monitoring in their respective regions across the four thematic programming areas, and in alignment with the Humanitarian Response Plan (2022) for Afghanistan and the UN Transitional Engagement Framework (TEF). In addition to supporting programme implementation and monitoring, the Sub-Offices are fostering stakeholder engagement and partnership building at provincial level, including with Civil Society, UN and other humanitarian and development partner, and are providing support to the roll-out of gender analysis and key advocacy and communications activities to ensure their reach beyond Kabul. The selected Sub-Offices are strategically situated to enable co-location with other UN agencies and the deepening of operational and programmatic synergies.
Given the importance of sub-national level engagement in support of Afghan women and girls in the current crisis context, the UN Women Afghanistan Country Office is scaling up its field presence, and is recruiting a Head of Sub-Office for each of the five Sub-Offices in Balkh, Bamyan, Herat, Kandahar and Nangarhar.
Reporting to the UN Women Afghanistan Operations Manager and working closely with the programme, communications and management support units, the Head of Sub-Office represents UN Women Afghanistan at the sub-national level and is responsible for coordinating and leading UN Women stakeholder and partner engagement, and programming, monitoring and operations at the local level.
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