Historique

Despite many positive achievements in developing a stronger justice system, post-conflict Sierra Leone continues to be characterized by a weak formal justice system and a strong reliance by many Sierra Leoneans on traditional justice mechanisms. In addition, the lack of infrastructure and the difficulty in both access and awareness further hampers the administration of justice by the formal system.

UNDP, through its Access to Justice Project, has adopted a two pronged approach in seeking to promote access to justice in Sierra Leone. On the one side UNDP is seeking to develop the capacity of state institutions such as the Police, Prosecutors and the Judiciary to provide quality services to Sierra Leoneans and on the other side UNDP supports civil society to improve their capacity to provide services to victims of SGBV, to enhance paralegal assistance at local court level, to increase public legal awareness and promote increased demand from the public for a functioning justice system. Creating stronger linkages between state and civil society is a key part of this approach. Recognizing that the continued widespread violation of human rights especially the violation of women’s rights through SGBV and lack of gender equality with regard to women’s rights to property and land are fundamental human rights issues in Sierra Leone, UNDP has placed the prevention of SGBV and the promotion of women’s property rights as priorities of the project.

After the civil conflict was declared over in 2002, there has been a proliferation of civil society organizations in Sierra Leone and they all claim to play the role of eliciting accountability from the State. These CSOs profess to work to promote their goals by complementing the government’s efforts in attaining much required sustainable development. However, because of insufficient resources and lack of capacity, most CSOs are compelled to adopt measures of embarking on any piece of project that can generate some funding for their organizations. Furthermore, their financial management of resources often does not respect principles of accountability and transparency because of insufficient staffing and lack of internal financial and control policies and procedures to regulate the use of funds. In addition, reporting on projects has proved to be a challenge.    

In working with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), a general consensus has emerged that they play a central role and make significant contributions towards the realization of human rights, especially the rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups such as women and children and eliciting accountability in their engagement with government and state institutions.

While attempting to play the role of eliciting accountability and supporting the work of government, the 11 year protracted civil conflict in Sierra Leone has resulted in the destruction of institutions of governance and structures within the civil society sector. While the conflict contributed immensely in the erosion of the capacity of governance institutions, it also affected the fragile existing structures within the civil society.

Thus, working with civil society in Sierra Leone has proved to be a challenge in various ways since then. Firstly, leadership and in-fighting within Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) is a serious issue affecting their delivery. Secondly, most CSOs and NGOs are urban based lacking constant touch with the realities of communities with the correlation of inadequate or insufficient implementation of projects that are community oriented. Thirdly, ethnicity, religious affiliations gender insensitivity and lack of transparent internal management further impair their judgment. More importantly, the lack of adequate resources and a good understanding of the very conceptual framework required for credible and responsible advocacy, and how to professionalize their work and the needed management capacity to run their respective organizations have been a serious obstacle. 

As Sierra Leone moves steadily from recovery towards peace consolidation and strives for long term development, working with CSOs remains central as far as strengthening people’s access to justice is concerned. To achieve this, building capacity and ensuring a coordinated approach to programming in the CSO sector is paramount to improving on delivery and eliciting accountability and transparency from government processes. It thus becomes key to ensure that the capacity of CSOs is enhanced to improve on their processes and to ensure the implementation of projects community driven is adequately coordinated.

Since 2009, the UNDP Improving Access to Justice Project has been supporting a range of CSOs initiatives at community levels across the country. The support provided by UNDP to CSOs then was essentially geared towards implementation of projects in remote and under-serviced areas. While some capacity building initiatives were provided to CSOs from 2009-2011, these initiatives rather periodic did not take into account systematic building of their management and financial structures to enable them internally run their organizations and compete for limited resources. As a result, most CSOs and NGOs in Sierra Leone are faced with the challenges of mobilizing resources for their work with the consequent limited financial capacity to manage limited available resources. Inasmuch as CSOs and NGOs should be supported to implement and elicit accountability from state institutions, their capacity should be correlatively strengthened to ensure their management of donor funds is credible and they are answerable to their own members. UNDP's support to CSOs is seeking to ensure in-depth capacity strengthening for improved delivery as well as transparent management and reporting on initiatives. That is why the UNDP Improving Access to Justice Project is seeking the services of a CSOs Monitoring and Coordination Consultant with significant experience working on human rights and rule of law with civil society organizations and requisite knowledge in gender and women's rights.   

Devoirs et responsabilités

Under the overall supervision of the Improving Access to Justice Project Manager, the CSOs Monitoring and Coordination Consultant will:

• Strengthen capacity of UNDP-CSO Grantees to provide services to victims of SGBV;
• Build the capacity of grassroots CSOs and CBOs to raise awareness on SGBV and sexual exploitation in learning institutions;
• Enhance the capacity of civil society organizations operating in remote areas to provide paralegal assistance to vulnerable litigants at local court and other formal justice institutions;
• Strengthen the ability of CSOs to increase public legal awareness and promote increased demand from the public for a functioning justice system;
• Undertake quarterly monitoring of the implementation of grants to IPs in Project locations;
• Monitor CSOs engaged in the monitoring of justice institutions and follow up on the administration of court user perception survey questionnaires; 
• Organize reviews of implementation of SGBV Grants and Court Monitoring Grants to CSOs;
• Coordinate all activities related to the engagement of CSOs by the Improving Access to Justice Project as requested. 

• Capacity of UNDP-CSO Grantees strengthened to provide services to victims of SGBV at community levels;
• Capacity of grassroots community based organizations built to raise awareness on SGBV and sexual exploitation in learning institutions;
• Capacity of civil society organizations operating in remote areas enhanced to provide paralegal assistance to vulnerable litigants at local court and other formal justice institutions;
•   Ability of CSOs strengthened to increase public legal awareness and promote increased demand from the public for a functioning justice system;
•   Quarterly monitoring of the implementation of grants to IPs undertaken in Project locations; 
• CSOs engaged in the monitoring of justice institutions monitored with follow up on the administration of court user perception survey questionnaires;
• Review sessions on the implementation of SGBV Grants and Court Monitoring Grants to CSOs organized and a report produced;
• All activities related to the engagement of CSOs by the Improving Access to Justice Project coordinated.  

Compétences

• Professionalism and Integrity;
• Promotes knowledge sharing and learning;
• Knowledge of statistics and data base application;
• Display cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Build strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
• Demonstrate good oral and written skills;
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills with ability to work in a multi-cultural team environment;
• Demonstrate openness to change and ability to manage complexities;
• Ability to work with national counterparts in building individual and institutional capacity.

Qualifications et expériences requises

•  Master’s Degree or equivalent in law/Human Rights or Political Science, plus a minimum of 3 years’ experience in relevant area;
•  Or a Degree in a relevant area of expertise with a minimum of 5 years’ experience. 

• Must have a minimum of 3 years’ experience working with human rights and rule of law institutions (such as judiciary, police, prosecutors, prisons, etc);
• Must possess a minimum of 3 years’ experience working with civil society organizations and grassroots community organizations;
•  Must possess a significant experience in building the capacity of CSOs, NGOs and CBOs with the ability to handle confidential and sensitive information.
• Must have requisite knowledge in the Sierra Leone legal system and dynamics in the civil society sector within the country;
• Being a Legal Practitioner and having prior working experience in Sierra Leone would be an asset;
• Must possess Monitoring and Evaluation experience and familiar with data collection, analysis and reporting;
• Excellent command of MS Office Applications (including Word, Excel and PowerPoint).

Language requirement:      

• Excellent command of written and spoken English (including analytical and writing skills).

Reporting Arrangements:

Duration of the consultancy:

Payment Modalities:

• Payment to the consultant will be made on monthly basis upon satisfactory completion of the deliverables.

Evaluation of Criteria and Weighting:

The consultant will be evaluated against a combination of technical and financial criteria. Maximum score is 100% out of a total score for technical criteria equals 70% and 30% for financial criteria. The technical evaluation will take into account the following as per the weightings provided:

• Background and minimum educational qualification as defined in the TOR (10%);
• Practical experience in the areas of monitoring  CSOs, etc (30%);
• Methodology of approach to the task (50 %);
• English language fluency (10).

Application Procedure:

The application should contain the following:

• Brief proposal addressing the requirement (Methodology);
• Financial Proposal;
• Filled P11 form (Application Form P11 - UNDP).