Background

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the charter of the United Nations, UN Women 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 actions and peace and security. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) will lead and coordinate United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of national priorities and efforts, building effective partnership with government, civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women Nepal’s framework of support for the period 2014-17 aims to advance women’s rights, provide space for women’s meaningful participation and to demonstrate tangible differences in their lives, requires strengthening women’s voice, agency and leadership across sectors. The proposed programme builds on lessons learnt from past programming and adopts a holistic and integrated approach across UN Women’s five thematic priorities. It is guided by Nepal’s stated priorities (including those from the Approach Paper to the forthcoming Three-Year Plan) and its commitments to relevant normative frameworks, the country’s UNDAF 2013-2017, the CEDAW Concluding Observations (2011) and UN Women’s corporate Strategic Plan 2014-2017. The programme promotes national ownership, capacity development and institutionalization, inclusiveness, coordination and partnerships, and knowledge generation and management, and seeks to prioritize engagement with and support to key duty bearers who are responsible for advancing women’s human rights, and with rights holders so they can exercise voice and agency. UN Women will leverage its newly-established (2013) sub-national presence to ensure programming remains relevant to local level realities.

The Rule of Law and Human Rights (ROLHR) Programme:

The "Rule of Law and Human Rights Programme”, a joint initiative of UNDP and UN Women, aims to consolidate sustainable peace by creating conditions for systemic changes in the justice sector by supporting sector-wide strategic planning and coordination; developing a ‘single door’ policy and implementation mechanisms for free legal aid system; enhancing mechanisms of accountability through support to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and transitional justice processes. The programme has been targeting to three primary areas- first, support rule of law institutions to be more responsive to demands for justice service delivery; improving supply aspects of justice sector. Second, augment the demand for justice service delivery by developing the capacity of vulnerable groups to access rule of law institutions and assert and enjoy their human rights and entitlements. Third, support the criminal justice system to ensure increased accountability for justice service delivery. The ROLHR programme has covered 5 districts from mid and far west Nepal along with national level activities in Kathmandu.

Given this context, it is crucial to provide technical support to the responsible national level government bodies (Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, Ministry of Law, Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction, Justice, Constitution Assembly and Parliamentary Affairs, Office of Prime minister and Council of Ministers, Supreme Court etc.) that are the key stakeholders for legal reform. The programme supports to establish accountability for victims of conflict-related human rights violations including sexual and gender based violence, and review the existing justice sector mechanisms which help to ensure such violations do not occur again. It will provide platform for the voices of conflict victims, sensitize the general public and pressurize political parties and government line agencies to focus on women’s leadership and participation at all levels. The interventions are targeting to strengthen service delivery by the justice sector to address society’s needs and build confidence in institution. The support for conflict affected people and dialogues among local stakeholders on conflict prevention are other major initiatives of the progremme. For this, the programme has envisioned to develop partnership with the government institution (National Judicial Academy), CSOs and academic institution.

Objectives of the Assignment:

Under the overall guidance of the UN Women Deputy Representative and direct supervision of the Head, Governance and National Planning Unit and in close collaboration with UNDP’s Chief technical advisor for the ROLHR programme, the international consultant will support the implementation of the Rule of Law and Human Rights joint programme in Nepal. The objectives of the assignment are to:

  • Provide technical advisory services on rule of law, access to justice, human rights and building effective coordination with judicial agencies, civil society and other concerned stakeholders on relevant gender sensitive transitional justice initiatives in Nepal.
  • Strengthen the capacity of “Rule of Law and Human Rights” programme staff on human rights based programming, with a particular focus on access to justice, transitional justice as part of the overall a rule of law umbrella.

Duties and Responsibilities

Key Functions and Responsibilities:

  • Provide technical support for the development and implementation of UN Women’s strategy to promote women’s access to justice and enhance the protection and promotion of the rights of women, in particular, disadvantaged and marginalized women. This would include implementation of applicable international standards, development and implementation of national strategic planning processes, review and development of relevant legislation, strengthening the capacity of justice institutions on gender-sensitive justice delivery and supporting the development of effective linkages with the judiciary and other relevant stakeholders.
  • Provide technical assistance to the relevant national counterpart and support to develop specialized training programmes for justice actors.
  • Provide technical support to relevant national partners to develop a national strategy  to ensure a gender-responsive transitional justice process.
  • Provide technical support to UN Women to identify challenges, opportunities and strategies to engage in transitional justice process and victims support initiatives.
  • Support UN Women to develop partnership with senior national government officials (for example- Ministry of Justice, other relevant ministries, Supreme Court, Universities, Law Schools), development partners and civil society representatives for the promotion of women’s access to justice
  • Strengthen the capacity of UN staff on women’s human rights and gender justice principles and programming.
  • Perform any other tasks as requested by the senior management.
Key Deliverables:
  • Concept note , training agenda and a delivery of a specialized training for justice actors on women’s human rights and gender justice.
  • Briefing paper on challenges, opportunities and strategies to engage in transitional justice processes.
  • Draft strategy for gender responsive transitional justice.
  • Training package on women’s human rights and gender justice principles and programming for the capacity enhancement of UN staff.
  • Guidance note on victims support initiatives for effective service delivery to conflict affected people.
  • Concept note to promote women’s access to justice.
  • Technical support provided to key partners for the effective implementation of interventions.

Monitoring and Reporting:

The consultant will be responsible to update and share the monthly progress reports with the supervisor. The consultant will have monthly review meetings with the supervisor via skype and in person during the consultant’s travel to Nepal as a part of this this assignment.

Travel:

The consultant will have to travel to Nepal at least two times during the contract period.  

Schedule and Mode of Payment:

The payment schedule for the consultant will be as follows:

  • Upon signing of the contract and submission of detailed work plan to UN Women- 20% of total contract amount.
  • Upon submission of satisfactory draft of all the deliverables – 40% of the total contract amount
  • Upon completion and approval of all deliverables by UN Women – 40% of the total contract.
The payment will be made to the Consultant’s bank account as indicated in the vendor form.

Competencies

Core Values/Guiding Principles:

Integrity:
  • Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.
Professionalism:
  • Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity:

  • Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff.
  • Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.
Core Competencies:

Ethics and Values:

  • Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.

Organizational Awareness:

  • Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Development and Innovation:

  • Take charge of self-development and take initiative.

Work in teams:

  • Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi-ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

Communicating and Information Sharing:

  • Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication.

Self-management and Emotional Intelligence:

  • Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others.

Conflict Management:

  • Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing:

  • Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making:

  • Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making.
Functional Competencies:
  • Good knowledge of rule of law, human rights, transitional justice and other gender related issues including protection and security.
  • Ability to undertake policy research and prepare quantitative/qualitative studies.
  • Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities.
  • Establishes, builds and sustains effective relationships with clients, demonstrating understanding of client’s perspective.
  • Ability to draft policy papers, briefings, concept notes etc.
  • Proven ability to liaise with a myriad of stakeholders and partners, including UN agencies, government, civil society, international organizations and grassroots organizations .

Required Skills and Experience

Education:
  • Master's degree in Law

Experience:

  • Minimum of ten years of progressively responsible experience as a practicing lawyer, academic, prosecutor, judge, legal consultant or international legal assistance advisor is required. This must include at least one year providing technical assistance for the development/reform of legal and judicial institutions in a transitional, developmental or post-conflict setting;
  • In-depth understanding of legal and judicial system issues, and knowledge of relevant international human rights standards; capacity to adopt a strategic approach to the development of a justice system; commitment to implement the goal of gender equality by ensuring the equal participation and full involvement of women and men in all areas of work;
  • Expertise in gender equality and human rights compliance, access to justice, law reform, violence against women, research, design and delivery of documentation and capacity building programmes;
  • Experience of programme policy guidance, coordination and partnership development;
  • Design and delivery of preventive processes consistent with gender equality and international norms.
  • Proficient in synthesizing gender equality and diversity benchmarks for diverse organizations and individuals including judges, public and professional workplaces, government departments, development sector;
  • Good knowledge of human rights-based approach to programming and result-based management.

Language:

  • Fluency in written and spoken English.

Application:

Interested consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

  • Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work;
  • Provide a brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work;
  • Financial proposal indicating a total lump sum for the delivery of outputs as per above description. The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (consultancy fee per number of anticipated working days, travel and any other possible costs);
  • Completed UN Women Personal History (P11) form that can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment/;
  • Interested applicants should apply for the vacancy, using the “Personal History Form - P 11” which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomensouthasia.org/about-us/careers-2/.
Important note: 

 Please note applications to this vacancy should be sent to jobs.np@unwomen.org  or

By mail:

  • UN Women Nepal Office, 201/42 Thapathali, Kathmandu, Nepal.