Background

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (the CEDAW Committee), is an independent expert body established in 1982 to monitor progress towards gender equality in States that are party to the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). A country becomes a State party by ratifying or acceding to the Convention and thereby accepts legal obligations to eliminate discrimination against women. The Convention obliges States Parties to submit to the United Nations Secretary-General a report on the legislative, judicial, administrative or other measures that they have adopted to implement the Convention within a year after its entry into force and then at least every four years thereafter or whenever the Committee so requests. These reports, which may indicate factors and difficulties in implementation, are forwarded to the Committee for consideration.

The Committee has adopted guidelines to help States Parties prepare these reports. A critical consideration of the reporting content is the incorporation of the Convention into national Constitutions, domestic laws and judicial decision making so as to be directly applicable in courts and tribunals. Information is also to be provided regarding the judicial, administrative and other competent authorities that have jurisdiction over the implementation of the Convention.

Constitutional, legal reforms and access to justice are cross-cutting to all the priority areas of UN Women’s Strategic Plan (2014-2017) as well as the 12 Critical Areas of Concern of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The Committee’s recommendations to States Parties over the years offer useful entry points and opportunities for appreciating priorities and specific areas of support to governments, including in the CEDAW reporting process and subsequent activities that relate to implementation. 

 UN Women supports legal reforms and access to justice interventions in its programme countries. In 2013, it launched a constitutional data base which brings together all gender equality-related provisions of 195 national constitutions across five regions of the world. The database highlights that while progress is being made in ensuring that the requirements of CEDAW are reflected in national constitutions, challenges and gaps remain. As such UN Women continues to respond to on-going constitutional reforms taking place across the world by working with the UN system, governments and civil society to ensure that provisions which hinder gender equality are repealed and proposals for gender responsive provisions are promoted.

At country level, UN Women plays an important role in supporting both the State Party and Civil Society reporting processes to the CEDAW Committee. These reports play an important role in the shaping of the Committee’s concluding observations and recommendations to States Parties and furthermore influence UN Women’s programming and interventions. Within the context of its constitutional and access to justice area of work, UN Women is seeking to create an organic data base of recommendations issued by the Committee in specific relation to constitutional, legislative reforms (limited to recommended reforms in violence against women, marriage and property rights) and women’s access to justice to each of its programme countries. To be updated regularly, the data base will be used as a tool to assist UN Women Country Offices monitor progress of implementation of these recommendations and thereby provide a basis for advocacy and technical support to governments and Civil Society Organizations as needed.

Duties and Responsibilities

 The database will be developed through a desk review and documentation of recommendations issued by the Committee on constitutional, legislative reforms (as identified) and women’s access to justice. The consultant will undertake this exercise by developing country fact sheets and other analytical communicative material by country and region using information contained in all recommendations issued by the Committee to date.

Time frame and deliverables 

The assignment will be undertaken from August 15 – September 15 2014 (one month). The consultant will submit the following deliverables by periods shown below:

• Country fact sheets for each UN Women Programme Country containing all recommendations issued to date: August 22nd 2014;
• Consolidated qualitative and quantitative database on the concluding observations and recommendations by country and region: September 9^th 2014;
• A brief narrative report, detailing trends and patterns of the types of concluding observations and recommendations issued by the Committee, including similarities and differences by countries and regions and implications for UN Women’s programming: September 15^th 2014.

Competencies

• Demonstrating consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

• Demonstrating an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff;
• Demonstrating an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.

• Professionalism - sound knowledge of global gender equality issues, including gender equality in access to justice and constitutional reform; feminist legal theory and gender mainstreaming in research and advocacy.
• Experience in inter-agency or inter organization collaboration an advantage.

• Excellent communications skills; strong interpersonal skills 
• Ability to prepare succinct, evidence-based analytical reports.

•  Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to establish and maintain effective partnerships and working relations, both within the UN system and externally;
• Ability to work in a multicultural and multi-ethnic environment with respect for diversity.

Ethics and Values 

• Demonstrating / Safeguarding Ethics and Integrity.

 Organizational Awareness 

•  Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment
•  Self-management and Emotional intelligence: 
• Creating synergies through self-control.

 Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning

• Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of others.

• Substantive knowledge of and experience in legal research, legal and reference databases, knowledge of gender equality in access to justice and constitutional reform and human rights frameworks including CEDAW.
• Knowledge of gender equality jurisprudence and ability to identify cases of global relevance and strategic use.
  

Required Skills and Experience

• Minimum of Master's degree or equivalent in Law, Gender Studies, International Relations or Humanitarian, Development studies or other related disciplines
• Legal background an asset

• A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in programme work and policy research at a national or international level;
• Experience in international law, legal practice or legal research;
• Proven expertise on gender equality and legal and constitutional reform;
• Experience with UN work highly desirable.

• Fluency in English is required;
• Proficiency in another UN working language will be an asset.