Background

The challenge of encouraging local development in the least developed countries (LDCs) and its attendant demands for infrastructure and services, confronts every local government (LG). A major challenge is overcoming the endemic weakness of LG so that it effectively provides targeted infrastructure and services to its community. The added dimension and that which is central to this programme, is to move beyond provision of infrastructure and services, to addressing issues of equitable development, which can be delivered, economically and used efficiently and effectively by both men and women. In this regard, local planning and budgeting processes and tools should be responsive to women needs and interest at all stages. It is believed that decentralized planning and budgeting is the best way to ensure correct responses to local development needs, especially when related to MDGs. The challenge is to build capacity at the local government level to allow local actors to be able to ensure the delivery of infrastructure and services that address the needs of both men and women for whom they are designed.

Somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world, and is ranked last in terms of household deprivations in education, health and living standards. The percentage of population in Somalia under the age of 18 is estimated at 55% and the proportion of households headed by women at 40%. Yet, contrary to the situation in many developing countries where local development largely depends on the fiscal transfer from the central government, development in Somalia has been locally driven since the collapse of the central government some twenty years ago. The current efforts in the country are focusing on state and national building with the establishment of system linking local development to central institutions and systems. Therefore, the project will examine not only the internal planning, budgeting, implementation and review processes of LG but also, the process and criteria for transforming the local dynamics into sustainable systems. This downstream to upstream process should be gender responsive.

The challenges faced by local governments are many. The service delivery mandates of Local Governments (LGs) are either un-funded or severely under-funded in most districts. The delivery of health, education, water and sanitation are either de facto provided by local communities or the private sector, or delivered by donors and NGOs. This clearly undermines the legitimacy of the LG system as the core institution for mediating and prioritizing between competing interest and needs in delivering public goods. While both Puntland and Somaliland have seen a steady increase in own revenues over the past few years, the overall fiscal resource envelope is still vastly inadequate and covers mostly salaries and operational costs, with virtually none left for investment. Furthermore, the series of fiduciary risk assessments for Somalia in 2012 indicates that PFM systems at national and sub-national levels are archaic and have very limited rules for transparency. The national and sub-national budgets are not credible and are not based on any internationally recognised PFM standards. Annual budget allocations at both national and sub-national levels are largely ad hoc and the current annual budget process does not even provide the budget ceilings or budget call circulars to all the budget agents.

In terms of gender, there are critical challenges at different levels. Somali women are systematically discriminated against and subordinated. They face limited inclusion in decision making structures and leadership roles, limited access to reproductive health, higher rates of stigmatization from HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, denial of due process rights, abuse of women's rights in divorce cases, denial of custody of children and denial of women's rights of property ownership and inheritance under customary law. At the political level, the clan-based system of governance presents a significant barrier to women’s effective political participation at the local level. Women make up less than a quarter of all employees in local governments and are heavily underrepresented at the senior level. The multiple roles women play and the heavy workload on women at the household and community level as care-givers limit their participation in civic and developmental activities. At the same time, discriminatory practices emanating from socially ascribed roles to women as well as traditional practices contribute to their marginalization. Low educational levels are yet another factor preventing women’s effective participation: Only a quarter of women (24%) in Somalia aged 15-24 are literate and only 5% of Somali girls are enrolled in secondary schools. Inadequate awareness of and protection of women’s rights and inadequate capacity to undertake gender mainstreaming remain constraining factors in effective local development planning and budget performance. And although proven tools for ensuring adequate budget performance exist, the skills that go with their effective application are not consistently available at the local level.

In addressing those issues, UNCDF and UNW have a long experience in gender mainstreaming in local development (GELD) in many countries. This process has produced tools, strategies and also key results in many countries.

UNCDF has a solid record of achievement in local development with a strong performance-based technical justification. This is demonstrated through two main areas of work, i.e., the local development fund (LDF) and the focus on application of performance budgeting which aims at establishing a normative framework for measuring performance of local governments. UN Women has supported gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) since 2000 at both national and local levels in more than twenty countries around the world. A major feature of this experience has been the application of GRB through the analytical framework of performance budgeting. UN Women’s approach has focused on institutional capacity building, applying ‘gender’ to decentralization systems and supporting women’s participation and ensuring accountability to women’s rights at the local level.

A programme document will be developed to lay a framework for a joint UN programme to support gender equitable local development within the spirit of the UN reforms and in support of national development policies for the achievement of the MDGs. The collaboration between UNCDF and UN Women will bring together their complimentary areas of expertise to achieve gender equitable local development. The programme will seek to build capacity of local government to mainstream gender perspectives in planning and budgeting processes and facilitate participation of women and community organizations in those processes. By providing support to local governments to plan, budget and implement programmes to better respond to women’s priorities, the programme will seek to advance gender equality and women’s rights in the devolved tiers of government.

This joint programme will provide an opportunity to build on the experiences of UNCDF and UN Women and apply them in Somalia through gender responsive local development models. These incorporate policy analysis and practical support, to be tested within the over-arching principle of equitable development. These interventions will be informed by local (national) practice and will inform regional and international perspectives. The national practice will also build on existing (separately funded) decentralization and local development projects implemented by participating UN agencies.

The programme will have three main components as follows:

• Planning and budgeting: local government planning and budgeting intentions apply the ‘gender-lens’ and include sex disaggregated targets and benchmarks and measures that support women’s empowerment.
• Equitable performance: systematic monitoring of budget performance dissecting the realities of local government expenditure and its impact on gender equity – this includes the realities of expenditure outcomes on the empowerment of, or the impediment to, the empowerment of women.
• Knowledge generation and policy engagement with emphasis on advocacy, information sharing and leveraging change.

The overarching strategies will employ participatory bottom-up methodologies that mobilize and engage citizens with their local authorities, technical assistance and capital grants to targeted local authorities to ensure that local plans, budgets and expenditures promote and achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment through engendered local development funds (LDFs).

UN Women and UNCDF are looking for a team of consultants to develop a project document for the Gender Equitable Local Development programme for Somalia. Under the guidance and supervision of the task force team (UNCDF/UNW), the team of consultants will conduct a desk review on existing literature on GELD programmes implemented in various countries and draw on lessons learnt; consultant with different stakeholders and develop a project document. 

Duties and Responsibilities

The assignment aims at formulating a project document on implementation of GELD programme in Somalia. The assignment will include the following activities and respective actions achieved by remote modalities as well as in country mission.

• Development of an inception report, which includes scope, methodology, work plan/timeline, and draft outline for desk reviews and programme guidance.
• Desk review on GELD programme in Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Tanzania
• Consultation meetings with all UN agencies involved to identify their priorities for the joint programme and local authorities in Somalia.
• Meetings with relevant development partners to map major existing and upcoming initiatives to ensure gender responsiveness of local budgets
• Presentation of mission findings and proposed key elements of the joint programme accordingly; including Results Framework and management arrangements.
• Develop a project document for the GELD joint programme that includes the following sections:

• Context and situation analysis (based on consultation meetings and desk review)
• Objectives, Implementation Strategy (including subsequent, but self contained implementation phases), Results and Resources Framework: including programme outputs, activities, actions and resources needed
• Coordination mechanisms and Management arrangements

• Organize a workshop with different stakeholders to share the revised GELD approach to Somalia, present the           project document for validation and official launch of the programme
  

The consultant will work under the overall supervision of the joint task force UNCDF/UNW.

A work plan for the consultancy – including timeline and methodology – will be developed and agreed to no later than two days before the start of the assignment.

Evaluation of the SSA contract will be made against the benchmarks and deliverables set for the assignment of the consultants at the end of the contract duration.

• A 3-4 page broad outline of potential focus areas and potential partners (2 working days into the assignment).
• List of GELD initiatives currently supported by the UN agencies, focus, duration and budget (No later than 3 working days into the assignment).
• Draft project document, (No later than 10 working days into the assignment).
• Final project document: with comments from UN Women and UNCDF (incorporated 5 days after the in country mission).

Review/approval time:

The performance of the contractor will be reviewed on completion of the assignment prior to authorization of payments.

Competencies

• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism

• Excellent quantitative and analytical skills;
• Excellent Microsoft Excel knowledge;
• Excellent critical reasoning and problem solving skills.

• Development and Operational Effectiveness;
• Ability to lead implementation of new systems (business side), and affect staff behavioral/ attitudinal change;
• Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills;
• Builds strong relationships with clients and external actors;
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure;
• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree in Gender, Development, Economics or other related fields.

• A minimum of 10 years working experience on gender related issues with focus on gender-responsive planning, budgeting and development is essential.
• 5 years of professional experience in programme and project management, experience in UN programme and project management is an asset.
• 5 years of experience in programme and project formulation experience in UN programme formulation, particularly joint programming, and in the Middle East, is an asset.
• Full computer literacy.

Language Requirements:

• Strong written and spoken English.

Other Information:

Terms of Service:

This is a non-staff contract under the Individual Contractor (IC) modality of hiring of the UNDP. Individuals engaged under an IC serve in their individual capacity and not as representative of a government institutions, corporate body or other authority external to UNDP. The incumbent shall not be considered as staff of UNDP, the UN common system or the government and are therefore not entitled to any diplomatic privileges or any other special status or conditions.