UN Women: Cash and Voucher Specialist, Home-Based, National Consultant, Retainer – 2 Positions (Afghan Nationals Only)
Job Description 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.
Afghanistan is one of the world’s most complex emergencies, and the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Afghan people are grappling with the impact of chronic, poverty, climate change, economic decline, and natural disasters. Afghan women and girls face unique and amplified vulnerabilities particularly the series of restrictions and bans that restrict their access to education, health, workplaces and public spaces.
In this context, it remains urgent that Afghan women and girls are provided targeted support and that they can continue to shape the development of their country, and that their gains are protected. UN Women remains fully committed to supporting Afghan women and girls and to putting them at the center of the global response to the poly-crises crisis in Afghanistan.
UN Women has been in Afghanistan for two decades. UN Women’s programming approach is informed by analysis of the political, economic and humanitarian situation, risks to and capacities of partner organizations, and needs of Afghan women and girls. UN Women Afghanistan currently has five key programme priorities: (1) Integrated Programming and Localization, (2) Women’s movement building through core grant making; 3) Policy and Research; 4) Economic Resilience and Private Sector and 5) Coordination, Access and Humanitarian Response.
UN Women Afghanistan operates through its main office in Kabul and five sub-offices located in the provinces of Balkh, Bamyan, Herat, Kandahar and Nangarhar.
In Afghanistan, community preference clearly favours flexible assistance modalities. According to community feedback, 28 per cent of respondents preferred a combination of cash and in-kind assistance, and 27 per cent preferred cash alone, reflecting the strong demand for assistance that allows households to prioritize food, rent, healthcare, transport, and debt repayment. In a context of severe restrictions on women, cash assistance also offers a degree of privacy, discretion and flexibility that is often lost in in-kind assistance.
UN Women in Afghanistan is seeking up to 2 national consultants on retainer to provide needs based technical and operational support to the agency’s Cash and Voucher assistance (CVA) to ensure it is of high quality, technically sound, and responsive to the needs of women and their families. The consultant will play an important role in transferring capacity and experience to strengthen UN Women’s internal institutional capacity in Afghanistan.
The consultant will be reporting to the Access, Coordination and Emergency Response Specialist, and work in close coordination with UN Women’s country office in Kabul and its five regional sub-offices. The Specialist will be expected to travel to Afghanistan as needed, and work directly with personnel across the agency and with its partners. In the event of a major humanitarian emergency, the Specialist may be expected to work outside the normal role profile and be able to vary working hours accordingly.
Description Of Responsibilities/ Scope Of Work Deliverables The selected consultant may be requested to undertake the following responsibilities;
- Lead, oversee, and/or support the formulation, implementation, and quality assurance of UN Women’s CVA in Afghanistan, ensuring alignment with gender-responsive standards.
- Provide technical assistance and capacity strengthening to personnel and partners on CVA, including designing and delivering trainings.
- Lead, oversee, and/or support the design and/or management of information systems for beneficiary registration, deduplication, verification, etc. ensuring robust data management and protection, and adherence to UN Women’s data management policy and procedures.
- Support the Programme Manager to review existing procedures (SOPs) and guidance notes on CVA, and their roll out.
- Actively engage with the Inter-Agency Cash Working Group (CWG) and relevant clusters to ensure UN Women’s gender-focused priorities are integrated into humanitarian response.
- Develop and implement comprehensive monitoring frameworks and conduct regular field-level verification missions to ensure the accountability and safety of cash distributions.
