Background

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people often confront stigma, prejudice, discrimination and sometimes violence based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report in 2011 documenting widespread discrimination in employment, education, health and other areas around the world. 

In 2012, UNDP APRC, in partnership with USAID Regional Development Mission for Asia, explored key principles underlying both Agencies’ work in the region; particularly in relation to the knowledge gaps of vulnerable populations; and how the two regional offices related to clients in providing intellectual and thought leadership in the region.

As a result, ‘Being LGBT in Asia: A Participatory Review and Analysis of the Legal and Social Environment for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Civil Society’ is a joint initiative undertaken by UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Centre and USAID Regional Development Mission Asia together with grassroots LGBT organizations and community leaders to understand the challenges faced by LGBT people in Asia. Under the current initiative, key activities, including the planning of national level LGBT dialogues, developing national reports, the development of information and communication technologies (ICT) and creating multimedia products are currently underway.

‘Being LGBT in Asia’ will focus in-country activities on a list of priority countries, with additional jurisdictions included as necessary to complement the information and research gathered in the priority countries. The eight priority countries are: Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam.

The objectives of this regional initiative are as follows:

  • Build a knowledge baseline of the legal, social, political and institutional environments in which LGBT rights advocates and organizations operate at the country level while developing an understanding for the capacity of LGBT rights advocates to engage in policy dialogue and community mobilization.
  • Promote understanding of the human rights of LGBT human persons, the challenges they face in terms of stigma and discrimination and steps toward LGBT-inclusive development within USAID, UNDP and development partners through research, ICT and multimedia products that convey results of the review and analysis work.

One of the key outputs of this imitative is the conducting of National LGBT Community Dialogue in each priority country to provide a bottom-up opportunity for UNDP and USAID to better understand the legal, political and social environment in which LGBT people live, the organizations and institutions that LGBT people work with and the successes and challenges of advancing the rights of LGBT people.

The National Dialogues will examine political, legal and social barriers, as well as explore specific issues including education, health, employment, family affairs, the media, and community & politics. Particular attention will also be paid to vulnerable and less represented sub-populations, including lesbian women, transgender people, and LGBT people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Efforts will be made for National Dialogues to include participants from diverse geographic areas, including capital, other urban and non-urban areas. In holding the National Dialogues, efforts will be made to promote national ownership through partnerships with local LGBT organizations.

The Cambodia National LGBT Community Dialogue will be held on 20-21 January 2014.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work:

Below is the outline of activities to be undertaken by National Dialogue Facilitator:

  • Assist UNV LGBT Human Rights Officer with organization of the national dialogue with the logistic arrangement and others as requested
  • Follow up with participants to identify their traveling distance and their confirmations to the National Dialogue
  • Facilitate the two-day Cambodia National LGBT Community Dialogue, ensuring that it achieves its
    outputs.
  • Introduce speakers, provide ground rules, manage sessions, facilitate participant contributions and  ensure smooth running of the Cambodia National LGBT Community Dialogue according to the agenda
  • Contribute to the overall design of the workshop methodology and agenda.
  • Ensure that the dialogue is conducted in an interactive and participatory style
  • Facilitate participants’ sharing of experiences and identification of priorities
  • Produce a brief post-meeting synopsis of the process of the meeting

Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

The main key outputs of the assignment are to:

  • Ensure smooth facilitation of the Cambodia National LGBT Community Dialogue
  • Each session adequately prepared
  • Meeting successfully facilitated in line with the finalized agenda
  • Post-meeting synopsis produced

Institutional Arrangement:

To deliver the outputs of the assignment, Facilitator will work in close collaboration with the UNDP-APRC team headed by Edmund Settle, Policy Advisor, HIV, Governance and Human Rights, and Saurav Jung Thapa, Technical Officer – LGBT and Human Rights, who will provide technical direction. The Facilitator will also work closely with the Mana Kheang, Cambodia UNV LGBT Human Rights Officer with the preparation of the National Dialogue.

Duration of the Work:

The agreement will cover the period from 1 January 2014 and ending 22 January 2014 with occasional meetings before the day of the Cambodia National LGBT Community Dialogue.  The facilitator will work for 22 days, and will include 19 days of preparatory/planning work, 2 collective days of Facilitation, and 1 day of follow-up activities (preparation of the post-meeting report).

Duty Station:

Home based with requirement to attend the national community dialogue on 20-21 January 2014.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

  • Understanding of LGBT human rights issues
  • Cultural sensitivity and experience moderating meetings of culturally diverse and international groups.
  • Good skills in group facilitation and team building
  • Demonstrated experience in working in a cross-cultural environment
  • Excellent communication skills
  • Flexible nature and ability to adapt to changing directions/thinking that may occur during the dialogue
  • Excellent interpersonal skills.

Corporate Competencies:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
  • Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
  • Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
  • Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Bachelor degree, Master or equivalent in social sciences, law, human rights, development, international relations, gender studies, development, communications or related field.

Experience: 

  • At least 3 years experience working on LGBT related issues and have great knowledge of LGBT communities in Asia
  • Experiences facilitating events, workshops and meetings for United Nations and/or other international, regional or bilateral development organizations.
  • Experiences working with government, NGOs or intergovernmental agencies.

Language Requirement: 

  • Good command of English and Khmer

Important note:

Interested offeror is strongly advised to read the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, wich can be viewed at http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=13798 for more detail about term of references, instructions to offeror, and documents to be included when submitting offer.

Documents to be included when submitting the application:

Interested offeror/individual must submit the following documents/information:

Please be informed that we don’t accept application submitted via email.

Interested candidate is required to submit application via UNDP jobsite system, because the application screening and evaluation will be done through UNDP jobsite system. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your on-line applications submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an e-mail acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application, if necessary.

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email vannara.chea@undp.org and/or procurement.kh@undp.org. While the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 5 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. The UNDP's response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain update related to this Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice.