Background

UN Women, 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.

The Regional office for UN WOMEN Arab States (ROAS) is based in Cairo, Egypt and works on the following areas

  • Leadership and Political Participation;
  • Economic Empowerment;
  • Ending Violence Against Women;
  • Governance and National Planning;
  • Peace and Security

The regional office for the Arab States of UN WOMEN in Cairo, Egypt is establishing itself as a lead on gender equality, knowledge generation and gathering. In this light, UN WOMEN is creating a database of country profiles.

The Center of Arab Women for Training and Research/CAWTAR with support of AGFUND are in the process of developing legal profiles for 12 countries in the Arab region from a gender and human rights perspective.

These profiles will help first in identifying gaps and second selecting priorities of interventions through evidence based policy dialogue for reforms and advocacy for change to preserve human rights of women and ensure their access to justice as an integral part of building Democracy and Development processes.

The good practices and lessons learnt across the region will be also assessed particularly those related to legal reforms in public sphere (Constitution, electoral laws, quotas, etc) and private sphere (family code) as regard to their impact on increasing women empowerment as rights holders.

The to-be produced evidences on impact of discrimination on human rights, on democracy and on development will influence positively the policy dialogue at national and regional levels, strength the voice of gender and human rights advocates, and provide a platform for change trough policy making and reforms.

The exercise consisted in conducting desk review and analysis of 20 national legislation systems and assessing their consistency with State parties commitments as regard to international conventions related to the analyzed topics.

Each legal country profile focused on the following themes:
  • Civic and political rights;
  • Right to Nationality;
  • Education & training;
  • Family rights and/or rights within the family;
  • Health & Reproductive health and rights;
  • Gender based violence/Violence Against women;
  • Labor rights;
  • Social legislation and policies;
  • Access to justice.

The main approach consisted in recognizing areas of equality and pockets of discriminations ensuring the accurate quotation of related chapters, paragraphs, articles, alineas of concerned laws, decrees to avoid any kind of interpretation. The second level of assessment & analysis targeted the positions of the countries and fulfillment of their engagements as regard to international conventions for each topic.

The12 legal country profiles were for the following countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. UN WOMEN is seeking to complement this work by adding an additional eight profiles, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Mauritania, Oman, Qatar, Sudan and Syria. In addition, UN WOMEN is seeking to validate all 20 profiles in a workshop and finally publish the profiles in leaflet form.

The project will seek to engage in advocacy efforts in relation to mainstream forums on women’s political participation. By supporting advocacy efforts by gender advocates from civil society (women’s rights organizations and networks, and gender experts), from government (NWMs and women parliamentarians), the programme seeks to influence the policy making process.  This advocacy will be based on credible evidence developed and/or made accessible by the programme.

For each country a leaflet will be developed to serve as evidence based tool for advocacy and policy dialogue Development of 4-pages brochure/leaflet for the 20 countries. The leaflet will not consist only on a summary of 4 pages but will clearly:

Providing a friendly-accessible gender and legal thesaurus (national and international) with focus on women human rights to support capacity building, advocacy for change and policy dialogue for reforms.

Specific objectives:
  • Draft and finalize the 8 remaining country profiles;
  • Validate the 20 country profiles developed by the team of experts;
  • Finalize the content of the leaflets to be ready for publishing.
Expected Outcomes of the consultancy:

Short term
  • 20 legal country profiles validate;
  • 20 leaflets to be published;
  • Evidences built for advocacy and policy dialogue in 20 countries;
  • A set of common regional legal priorities identified. 
Long-term
  • Legal knowledge and material available to reinforce technical capacity and raise awareness of targeted right holders and duty bearers;
  • A legal knowledge e-system (websites including specialized, e-data base and e-mapping) created with establishment of reform/amendment watchers to ensure systematic updating of laws and related mechanisms. 
Deliverables:

Complete the review and analysis of national legislations to establish 8 additional country profiles covering: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Mauritania, Oman, Qatar, Sudan, and Syria To be completed by December 31, 2013.

Organize and implement a validation and writing workshop

  • Review and validate the content of 20 legal country profiles covering the following countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, United Arab Emirate, Yemen.
  • Discuss gaps and priorities to be advocated for by country for legal reform To be completed by December 31, 2013.

20 Legal country profiles and 20 leaflets for evidence based advocacy and policy dialogue To be completed by January 31, 2013.

Competencies

Core Values and 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:
  • Ethics and Values: Demonstrating / Safeguarding Ethics and Integrity;
  • Organizational Awareness: Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment;
  • Developing and Empowering People / Coaching and Mentoring : Self-development, initiative-taking;
  • Ability to lead a team of experts/researchers
  • Communicating Information and Ideas: Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively;
  • Self-management and Emotional intelligence: Creating synergies through self-control;
Functional Competencies:
  • Creates, edits and presents information in clear and presentable formats, using appropriate IT functionality;
  • Proven coordination skills;
  • Excellent writing, analytical, research and communication skills
  • In depth knowledge of legislation and gender issues in the region including in relation with international norms and standards;
  • Demonstrated ability to work in an independent manner; ability to organize work efficiently and deal with multiple tasks;
  • Familiar with the gender profiles developed by CAWTAR;
  • Proven ability to lead a team of experts
Thoroughly and methodically collects, verified and records data, demonstrating attention to detail and identifying and correcting errors on own initiative; maintains databases.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:
  • Advanced degree in gender/women´s studies, relevant social sciences, political science/ international affairs, law, human rights or a related field.
Experience:
  • Minimum 10 years’ experience in the area of social sciences, women´s rights work at a national and regional level and coordination experience
  • Demonstrated ability to lead a team of researchers.
Language Requirements:
  • Fluency in Arabic, French and English .
Evaluation criteria:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

Cumulative analysis:

When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

  • Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
  • Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.
Technical Criteria weight; 70%.
Financial Criteria weight; 30%.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Criteria Weight Technical: 70%
  • Criteria:   At least ten years of relevant experience in women rights and legislation (Weight: 30%. Maximum obtainable Points: 30);
  • Criteria: Knowledge of gender issues and women rights in the Arab states (Weight: 30%. Maximum obtainable Points: 30);
  • Criteria: Relevant education in social science, including gender, law, political science etc. (Weight 5%; maximum obtainable points 5);
  • Criteria: Excellent written and spoken Arabic, French and English (Weight 5%; maximum obtainable points 5).
Financial: Lowest financial proposal: 30%.

Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combines score (financial and technical). The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:

(Lowest Bid Offered*)/(Bid of the Consultant) x 30
*"Lowest Bid Offered" refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 49 points in technical evaluation.

Applications:

Documents to be included when submitting the proposal:

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

Proposal:
To be included as part of the proposal:

  • A cover letter with a brief presentation of your consultancy explaining your suitability for the work;
  • A brief methodology on how you will approach and conduct the work (limit to under 1500 words).
  • Personal CV.
Financial proposal:
  • Proposed daily fee.