Background
In 2004, the country’s first Gender Equality Legislation (GEL) was adopted, after years of lobbying efforts by gender equality activists in civil society and government, as well as through the technical support provided by UNDP (Law No. 9198 dated 1.07.2004 “On Gender Equality in Society”, amended in 2006). Since its adoption, the GEL has undergone a number of amendments, reducing its scope and impact.
Upon a request by the Albanian Government, UNDP and OSCE jointly supported the drafting of a new Gender Equality Law that would address concerns raised by both the public structures and civil society in the country. The revised draft contained many measures which gender equality activists have been advocating for over the past decade, such as special measures to promote and protect women’s participation in the work force, in public administration, in decision-making and in politics. The draft GEL also contained proposed measures which would ensure that the GoA has institutions and processes in place to promote and protect gender equality which align with international norms and standards (CEDAW and Beijing Platform for Action, as well as EU standards).
In July 2008, after extensive work and internal debate by local, international and government stakeholders, the draft Gender Equality Law, “Gender Equality in Society”, was approved by the Parliament. However, the law underwent considerable changes during the Parliamentary review. Of particular focus in the Parliamentary debates was the article (originally Article 20) on special measures to ensure gender equality in positions of decision-making (both elected and appointed positions, at both the local and national levels). While the special measures remain, the stipulations on how the special measures were to be applied were removed. Without these stipulations, the special measures specified in the GEL are without teeth and do not meet international or national standards. Thus, in the plenary debate in Parliament, the legislators and Prime Minister agreed that the application of the special measures in elections should be stipulated within the Electoral Code.
After intensive discussions and strong lobby from UNIFEM and other stakeholders in the country, the New Electoral Code introduced for the first time the gender equality quota and it was adopted in December 2008. However, despite the 30% quota for women’s political participation at both the national and local levels was introduced in the Electoral Code, the actual representation still remains weak. This is explained by the flaws of quota implementation as stipulated in the Code. With the national and local elections happening since 2008, the actual representation of women is only 16% of the Members of Parliament, 12.4% of municipal and communal members of councils and 7 out of 384 heads of local government units. This does not give women a strong voice and does not ensure that their interests and needs are properly addressed. A revisiting and strengthening of the existing gender quota system may help in ensuring that women’s voices are heard and their access to decision making positions enhanced.
Within the time frame of the 2013 national elections, the Electoral Code is now undergoing reform, based on the OSCE/ODHIR recommendations with specific focus on the electoral system and elections administration. To this end, an Ad Hoc Special Committee on Electoral Reform (AHC) has been established in the Parliament to carry out the revision of the Code.
With these developments in mind and using the momentum and within the framework of Programme of Cooperation 2012 – 2016, UN Women will work with AHC, political parties, MPs and gender equality advocates to ensure a stronger quota implementation of the Electoral Code and gender mainstreaming in the Electoral Code to improve women's representation both at national and local levels. To this end, UN Women is contracting an International Senior Consultant with expertise on Electoral Systems and Gender to prepare recommendations and advocate with the AHC and Political Parties on how and why the special measures should be reflected in the Electoral Code to ensure women’s involvement in elections – as candidates, voters and as members of the Central Election Committee (CEC). Further the International Expert will review the concrete recommendations already being prepared by the civil society and use them as a reference in the work with the AHC and MPs and finally prepare an article or media briefs on the above work.
Duties and Responsibilities
- Conduct a desk-top review of the existing Electoral Code and Constitution of Albania as well as actual recommendations from the civil society with a view to determining how the Code should be further modified to be in compliance with all articles of the GEL and identify articles that need to be strengthen to ensure women participation in elections as candidates, commissioner and voters;
- Based on the desk top review, provide an analysis on how the Albanian electoral system and electoral administration affect the political participation and equal rights of women. This includes analysis of: (i) the type of election system and issues such as voter registration, candidate registration, and the voting process (ii) the functioning of the election administration, considering the extent to which election commissions at various levels include women in their membership and leadership (iii) the standard aspects of election systems – such as thresholds, district magnitude, or types of candidate lists and what kind of an impact they might have on women’s electoral prospects;
- As part of the analysis of the electoral process, the consultant should assess whether these and other aspects of the election system have worked to the advantage of women candidates or have created barriers for them;
- Based on concrete international experience and best cases provide recommendations on best measures to adopt and support women's participation in elections as candidates, commissioners and voters that can be implemented in Albania;
- Prepare concrete legal recommendations for revisions to the existing Electoral Code to ensure strengthening of quota provision, implementation and monitoring from a gender perspective. The recommendations should provide language and measures to be incorporated into the Electoral Code which ensure the effective application of special measures (30%); how to ensure that bodies administering and monitoring the elections increase women representation; promote women as voters and how to tackle family voting;
- Meet with different stakeholders from civil society, women’s advocates, national legal experts, and in close collaboration with OSCE – ODHIR experts and based on their recommendations, support UN Women in discussions and advocacy with political parties, MPs and providing expertise to the AHC as required by UN Women to ensure the implementation of the above;
- Prepare article/s or media briefs for the media on main results of the consultancy and public information on the why and the how women must be represented and participate in decision making and the importance of quota.
Deliverables:
- Work plan based on the Terms of Reference;
- Final report including the analysis on the Albanian Electoral System and recommendations for the measurements to ensure gender mainstreaming in the Electoral Code for stronger women participation as well as stronger quota implementation;
- Briefings of the discussions with the experts;
- Article based on the report and expert discussions which can be shared with the media;
- Specific inputs to the UN Women on women participation in elections under formulation.
Competencies
- The candidate must have excellent experience and knowledge of issues related to Gender and Elections;
- The candidate must have excellent writing and presentation skills, and have experience of developing policy documents for advocacy with government officials and international institutions;
- The candidate must be highly motivated with ability to work independently with minimum supervision, and to work under pressure and complete tasks by the deadline dates;
- Excellent knowledge of English;
- Experience of having worked in Albania will be an asset.
Required Skills and Experience
Academic Qualifications:
- The candidate must hold at minimum a Master's degree in social, law, political science or a similar field.
Experience:
- The candidate must have over 10 years of experience in the field of elections and gender.
Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:
- Filled P11 form (the form can be downloaded from: http://www.unifem.sk/uploads/doc/P11.doc)
- Kindly provide a short letter of interest including a price quotation indicating the lump sum (in USD) requested for the work envisaged in the description above;
- Personal CV including past experience in similar projects
Lump sum contract:
The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including travel, per diems, and number of anticipated working days).
Travel:
All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel.In general, UN Women should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.
Evaluation:
Candidates will be evaluated using cumulative analysis method. Contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:
a) responsive/compliant/acceptable, and
b) Having received the highest score out of below defined technical and financial criteria.
Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the Technical Evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.
| Criteria | Total points | Max. Points |
| Technical Evaluation (70%) | 70 | |
| Relevant Education | | 5 |
| Proven strong knowledge on Election Systems | | 30 |
| Proven working knowledge on Gender | | 20 |
| Proven experience in developing policy documents for advocacy with government officials and/or other decision making bodies | | 15 |
| Financial Evaluation (30%) | 30 | |
| TOTAL | 100 | |
The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal. All other price proposals receive points in inverse proportion. A suggested formula is as follows:
p = 30 (μ/z)
Where:
p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated
μ = price of the lowest priced proposal
z = price of the proposal being evaluate