UN WOMEN Jobs - 49221- National Consultant on Gender Units Support

National Consultant on Gender Units Support

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Occupied Palestinian territory (Jerusalem and Ramallah, with travel to other locations in the West Bank), PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

10-Sep-14 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

2 month (22 estimated working days)

Languages Required :

Arabic English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

2 month (22 estimated working days)

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

UN Women (UNW), grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, 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 action and peace and security. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, the 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 will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women plays an innovative and catalytic role in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) since its inception in 1997. UN Women oPt focuses its activities on one overarching goal, namely to support the implementation at the national level of existing international commitments to advance gender equality in line with the national priorities. In support of this goal and thoroughly taking into consideration the specificities of the oPt context, UN Women concentrates its efforts and interventions toward the realisation of following strategic goals: Engendering governance, peace and security; Supporting women's economic security and rights; and Promoting women’s rights and protection against violence.

UN Women works very closely with the Palestinian Ministry of Women's Affairs (MoWA) as the principal national women machinery and with other key national partners for coordinating gender policy development and for monitoring and reporting. In that regard, UN Women (As UNIFEM) has been supporting MoWA since its establishment in 2004 to fulfil its mandate in providing support to other government institutions for gender mainstreaming, including capacity building of and technical assistance for the promotion of gender mainstreaming at the national level. UN Women plays an active role with all its partners, including donors, to ensure that Gender Equality is mainstreamed in strategies, programmes and action plans and with Local Aid Coordination Secretariat members to strengthen capacity and accountability of donors and stakeholders in aid coordination mechanisms to achieve mutual commitments towards gender equality in stable and fragile countries.

In response to calls from gender equality advocates for increased accountability for implementation of gender equality commitments in economic policies and financing decisions related to aid and domestic resources, UN Women is implementing the programme Increasing Accountability in Financing for Gender Equality (2012-2015) funded by the EC.

The programme aims at increasing the volume and effective use of aid and domestic resources to implement national commitments to gender equality and women's empowerment. The programme is implemented in 15 countries funded by the European Commission (EC) and in close coordination with the International Training Centre/International Labour Organization (ITC/ILO) building on the results of collaboration in the area of gender responsive budgeting and aid effectiveness carried out over the past years.

The programme in the occupied Palestinian territory is twofold:

(1) to achieve Gender Responsive Planning, Programming and Budgeting within the PA in such a way that Palestinian women and men benefit more equally from national public policies, and related aid and domestic resources; and
(2) to enhance effectiveness of aid resources in relation to the advancement of national GE/WE priorities through building capacity for mainstreaming gender equality within aid coordination management and structures, and stepping up accountability for implementation of funding modalities used by donors.

The Programme focuses on: donor performance with regard to gender equality and women’s empowerment content, including donor allocations and expenditures; development and implementation of a set of indicators to measure progress of the 5 principles of the Paris Declaration as a means to promote gender equality within the PA and donor key stakeholders in aid coordination, as well as with Local Aid Coordination Structure (LACS) staff; engagement in the national Public Finance Management system with regard to its responsiveness to gender equality; building capacities and resources of key institutions within the PA and CSO, as well as gender advocates and donors in gender responsive planning, budgeting and aid effectiveness; and, mainstreaming gender equality and women´s rights in aid coordination structure with regard to gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The specific programme objectives are:

To strengthen national action plans for gender equality so that they have defined targets, financing and implementation arrangements line with national planning and budgeting processes;
To strengthen capacity and accountability of national governments to implement gender equality commitments and address women’s priorities in national planning, budgeting systems and programming;
To strengthen capacity and accountability of donors and stakeholders in aid coordination mechanisms to achieve commitments towards gender equality in stable and fragile countries.

Globally, the programme works in support of the effective engagement of feminist economists and gender equality advocates’ in contributing to stronger policy coherence on gender equality in economic and development policy for a and facilitate learning and south-south exchange

Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua, oPt, Senegal, Ukraine, Cameroon, Tanzania, Nepal, Peru, Bolivia and Rwanda.

Objective of this Assignment:

The main objective of this assignment is to provide Technical Assistance to MoWA and to the different Gender Units (GUs) in line ministries to better assist MoWA to act upon in its role in fostering the work of the different GUs in line ministries and to provide support to GUs focal points in line ministries to enable them to assignment play role and fulfilling their mandate based on the related PA Cabinet Resolution’s that constitute the grounds for the establishment of these units in the different line ministries with a mandate to promote the GE/WE issues in the planning and budgeting processes and to identify the gender gaps in the different sectors and suggest remedies to address these gap

The Consultant is required to provide the technical assistance in close coordination with the programme manager to the above mentioned parties.

Scope and Duration:

The Scope of this assignment includes, but not limited to;

Review the current literatures regarding the status of the GUs in line ministries to better understand the statuesque of these units;
Assist in developing the framework including the agenda of an anticipated 2-day retreat for the GUs;
Facilitate the GUs’ Retreat;
Prepare the report on the retreat (in English);
Develop needs assessment for the GUs;
Based on the outcomes of the retreat, develop a Corporate Strategy Plan for the GUs;
Final report on the whole assignment upon completion (in English) including a Power Point Presentation summarising the assignment.

The duration of this assignment is 2 months and in accordance to the UN Women recruitment applicable procedures, with an estimated number of 22 working days

Duties and Responsibilities

According to the strategy document developed for the formulation and organization of work for the Gender Units in line ministries, "provided by the Ministry of Women's Affairs and approved by the Council of Ministers in 2009”, the vision and rationale for the establishment of GUs has been developed as; "The Ministry of Women's Affairs aspires, through the establishment of the GUs, to reach a fair and equitable developmental policies at the government level and in all sectors taking into account the gender needs and issues in order to improve the situation of Palestinian women at the national level.

After nearly ten years on the first Cabinet decision and nearly six years on the amended resolution for the establishment of gender units, the situation of these units is still below the level in terms of ability of these units to practice their roles effectively, and to effectively participate in decision making processes in their respective miniseries.

Under the overall supervision of UN Women’s Special Representative, and the direct supervision of the “Financing for Gender Equality” Programme Manager, the Technical Consultant will be responsible for providing:

Detailed work plan and methodology through consultation with the GUs and MoWA, including laying out specific activities to be carried out;
Commitment of flexibility regarding the working days distribution and methodology as required by the assignment manager within the whole contract period;
Satisfactory and good quality deliverables through maintaining thorough consultations with the main stakeholders.

Deliverables:

Detailed AP on the assignment including a proposed agenda for the retreat;
Facilitation of the GUs’ retreat and drafting a report upon completion of the retreat (report in English);
Needs assessment report for GUs for future work plan based on recommendations and outcomes stemmed from the retreat.
Corporate Strategy Plan with action plan for the GUs;
Final report including key achievements, recommendations, and final annexes (In English) including a Power Point Presentation summarising the assignment.

Results:

Relationship amongst the GUs themselves and with MoWA is strengthened;
The GUs’ reality is clarified and remedies to activate their roles are recommended;
The GUs’ Corporate Strategy with an action plan are developed and endorsed;
Capacities of the GUs to safeguard GE/WE in their respective sectors are strengthened;
Ability of the GUs to participate in the planning and budgeting teams in their line ministries is strengthened

Competencies

Core Values / Guiding Principles:
Integrity:

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

Cultural Sensitivity/Valuing diversity:

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.

Core Competencies:

Results oriented:

Plans and produces quality results to meet established goals, generates innovative, practical solutions to challenging situations.

Ethics and Values:

Demonstrating / Safeguarding Ethics and Integrity.

Organizational Awareness:

Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Developing and Empowering People / Coaching and Mentoring:

Initiative-taking; coaching and mentoring ability.

Working in Teams:

Acting as a team player and facilitating team work.

Communicating Information and Ideas:

Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively.

Self-management and Emotional intelligence:

Creating synergies through self-control.

Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements:

Managing conflict.

Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning:

Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of other.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Preferably a Master degree in Gender Studies, Development Studies, Sociology, Economics & Management.

Experience:

At least 8 years of relevant experience in providing technical assistance and capacity development to public institutions;
At least 6 years as a proven experience on gender equality and women’s empowerment issues;
Specific expertise on conducting need assessment and on strategy development.

Language:

Fluent spoken and written English (Arabic must be the mother tongue);
Language of the deliverables is Arabic except if stated otherwise for specific deliverables.