UN Women, National Project Coordinator, Affirmative Finance, Dakar, Senegal, N-PPSA 10, Dakar, Senegal

## UN Women, National Project Coordinator, Affirmative Finance, Dakar, Senegal, N-PPSA 10, Dakar, Senegal - Organization:UN Women - United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women - Office:UN Women Dakar, Senegal 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 is a core area of UN Women's work and a critical pathway for advancing inclusive, resilient, and sustainable economies. UN Women promotes gender-responsive economic policies, women's access to productive resources and assets, decent work, entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, and private sector engagement. In line with its strategic priorities, UN Women works with public institutions, financial institutions, development partners, the private sector, and women entrepreneurs' networks to address structural inequalities and to increase the quality and quantity of financing available for women's economic empowerment; In Senegal, women entrepreneurs and women-led enterprises remain constrained by persistent barriers that limit their ability to start, formalize, grow, and scale sustainable businesses. These include limited access to tailored financial products, credit and collateral requirements, insufficient business development services, restricted access to markets and value chains, gaps in sex-disaggregated data, unequal access to digital tools and productive resources, and social norms that continue to shape women's economic opportunities. These constraints are particularly significant for women-led micro, small and medium enterprises and for women operating in rural, informal, climate-vulnerable, and high-potential productive sectors. Against this background, the Women's Economic Empowerment through Affirmative Finance project is positioned as a strategic response to these structural challenges. The project will support the development of a more enabling financial ecosystem for women entrepreneurs by promoting gender-responsive and affirmative financing approaches, strengthening the capacity of institutions and financial actors, generating evidence to inform policy dialogue, and facilitating women entrepreneurs' access to finance, markets, knowledge, and strategic partnerships. It will also contribute to UN Women's broader programmatic efforts in Senegal to advance women's economic agency, inclusive growth, gender-responsive private sector engagement, and sustainable financing for gender equality Under the overall guidance of the Country Representative and the direct supervision of the Head of Women's Economic Empowerment/Feminist Economist, the National Project Coordinator, Affirmative Finance, is responsible for providing strategic, programmatic and technical leadership for the implementation, coordination, monitoring and positioning of the project in Senegal. The National Project Coordinator serves as the technical focal point on women's entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, and affirmative finance. The incumbent works closely with the Regional Feminist Economist, programme and operations teams in the Country Office, implementing partners, government institutions, financial institutions, donors, civil society organizations, private sector actors and feminist economists appointed in other UN Women country offices. The National Project Coordinator, Affirmative Finance, will provide strategic and programmatic leadership for the effective implementation, coordination and positioning of the Women's Economic Empowerment through Affirmative Finance project in Senegal. The incumbent will be accountable for the following key functions and accountabilities. Lead strategic programme implementation and ensure coherence of the Affirmative Finance project in Senegal - Provide strategic direction for the national component of the project, ensuring alignment with UN Women's Strategic Plan, the Senegal Country Office programme priorities, the approved project document, annual workplan, budget and corporate standards. - Translate the project's regional objectives into a coherent national implementation strategy that responds to the priorities of women entrepreneurs, women-led enterprises and national gender equality commitments. - Lead integrated annual and quarterly planning, budgeting and implementation processes, ensuring strategic prioritization, operational feasibility and timely delivery of results. - Anticipate implementation of risks and bottlenecks, propose strategic corrective actions, and ensure effective follow-up with the Country Office, Regional Office, and implementing partners. - Ensure that project implementation contributes to broader programmatic outcomes on women's economic empowerment, financial inclusion, gender-responsive financing and inclusive private sector engagement Guide coordination with national partners and other stakeholders - Provide high-level technical and programmatic advice to the Senegal Country Office, national institutions, financial institutions and partners on the integration of affirmative finance principles into policies, programmes, financial products and institutional practices. - Lead the design and positioning of gender-responsive and inclusive financing solutions tailored to women entrepreneurs and women-led small and medium enterprises. - Oversee strategic analyses of systemic barriers to finance, credit, collateral, markets and business development services, and translate evidence into actionable programmatic and policy recommendations. - Develop high-quality, evidence-based policy briefs, technical notes and analytical papers on gender-responsive and affirmative financing to inform policy dialogue, programme design, advocacy and stakeholder engagement. - Identify capacity development priorities and coordinate targeted technical assistance, training, mentoring and institutional strengthening initiatives for partners and women-led enterprises. Ensure results-based management, strategic monitoring and programme accountability - Establish and maintain a robust results-based management framework to monitor implementation progress, financial delivery, risks, results, lessons learned and contribution to transformative outcomes. - Prepare high-quality analytical progress reports, donor reports, briefing notes, financial updates, and corporate reporting inputs that demonstrate strategic results, learning, and accountability. - Lead monitoring missions and strategic reviews, document findings and ensure follow-up on recommendations to improve programme quality, efficiency and impact. - Provide programmatic guidance to implementing partners on indicators, reporting requirements, risk management, documentation of results and evidence generation. Strengthen strategic partnerships and coordination - Cultivate and sustain strategic partnerships with government institutions, financial institutions, private sector actors, women entrepreneurs' networks, civil society organizations, donors and UN partners to advance gender-responsive financing and project scale-up. - Coordinate technical consultations, steering committee sessions, partner reviews and policy dialogue spaces to strengthen coherence, ownership, decision-making and collective accountability. - Represent the project in relevant inter-agency, national and regional coordination mechanisms on women's economic empowerment, inclusive finance, and gender-responsive financing. - Identify opportunities for strategic partnerships, joint programming, resource mobilization, and policy influence to expand the reach and sustainability of project results. Advance strategic resource mobilization, donor engagement and portfolio positioning - Support the Country Office in positioni