UN WOMEN Jobs - 49982- National Consultant for the Development of Gender

National Consultant for the Development of Gender Mainstreaming Institutionalization Strategy

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Occupied Palestinian Territory (West Bank), PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

11-Oct-14 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

2 months (40 estimated working days)

Languages Required :

Arabic English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

2 months (40 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.

Objective of this Assignment

The main objective of this assignment is to provide Technical Assistance to MoWA in the development of National Gender Mainstreaming Institutionalization Strategy that can be applied at the national level and can represent the roadmap for the Gender Mainstreaming in national policies, guidelines, sectoral strategies, plans, programmes and various interventions across the different sectors, and to develop an action plan stemming from the developed strategy.

The Consultant is required to provide the technical assistance in close coordination with MoWA and the programme manager and any other relevant parties in line ministries to ensure that the strategy responds to needs of Gender Mainstreaming at the national level.

Scope and Duration

Gender mainstreaming is the public policy concept of assessing the different implications for women and men of any planned policy action, including legislation and programmes, in all areas and levels. Mainstreaming essentially offers a pluralistic approach that values the diversity among both women and men.

The concept of gender mainstreaming was first proposed at the 1985 Third World Conference on Women in Nairobi, Kenya. The idea has been developed in the United Nations development community and formally featured in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, and was cited in the document that resulted from the conference, the Beijing Platform for Action. Particularly, the Platform for Action stated:

In addressing the inequality between men and women in the sharing of power and decision-making at all levels, Governments and other actors should promote an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective in all policies and programmes so that before decisions are taken, an analysis is made of the effects on women and men, respectively.

The current assignment aims at developing a national gender mainstreaming strategy with an action plan that can draw the roadmap for the gender mainstreaming national efforts across the different sectors in an attempt to assist MoWA in the implementation of the Cross Sectoral National Gender Strategy and provide a feasible gender mainstreaming strategy that serves as a national reference documents to sustain national efforts on gender mainstreaming.

The duration of this assignment is 2 months and in accordance to the UN Women recruitment applicable procedures, with an estimated number of 40 working days.

Duties and Responsibilities

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:

Develop detailed work plan for carrying out the assignment, including specific activities to be carried out;
Provide technical support to MoWA in the development of National Gender Mainstreaming Institutionalization Strategy;
Meet individually and collectively with gender focal points at MoWa and other line ministries;
Work on printing and designing the strategy and deliver the strategy printed in Arabic and English;
Present power point presentation summarising the assignment;
Delivery of a high quality final report upon completion of this assignment.

Deliverables/results:

Develop the strategy and the action plan in both Arabic and English languages;
Design and printing the Strategy (100 copies both languages) and its action plan (100 copies both languages);
Final report on the whole assignment upon completion (in English) including a Power Point Presentation summarising the assignment stages.

Results:

The Gender Mainstreaming Strategy and its action plan are developed and endorsed by MoWA and the UN Women;
The national efforts on gender mainstreaming are supported;
MoWA’s role in gender mainstreaming across sectors is enhanced.

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 5 years of relevant experience in developing national strategies and sectoral strategy plans;
At least 4 years as a proven experience on gender equality and women’s empowerment issues;
Specific expertise on conducting need assessment and on strategy development including facilitations of discussions.

Language:

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