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 UN Women Training Centre (TC) in Santo Domingo is envisioned to become the UN leading centre of excellence in training for gender equality. The TC offers training for gender equality and women’s empowerment to UN Women staff, UN agencies, as well as to government, civil society and partners. The gender capacity-development programmes range from basic and introductory levels to specialized and advanced levels, aimed at diverse audiences with different backgrounds. In terms of capacity-development strategies and techniques, the TC makes maximum use of on-line training techniques, paying special attention to e-learning courses and an active learning approach.

The Training Centre also promotes articulation and knowledge exchange among gender training specialists and other relevant groups and the development of tools and materials in the area of training for gender equality. It also supports the documentation of existing good practices and innovative processes, as well as discussion and analysis of training methodologies and approaches aiming to contribute to ongoing capacity development as a concrete means for achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment.

One of the outcomes of the survey carried out by the TC in 2012 is that a course on CEDAW (i.e., how to review legislation from a CEDAW perspective) was identified as priority number 1 for UNCT/UN System by UN Women programme staff.  Additionally, the need for specific training on “how to deliver support from UN country offices during the CEDAW reporting cycle” has been repeatedly requested to the UN Women Human Rights Unit over the past few years.

These identified needs, correspond to the orientations given by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the strengthening of the human rights bodies in its report presented by the Secretary-General in the Sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly in 2012.  In this report, the High Commissioner mentions as one of its proposals: “Establishing a structured and sustained approach to capacity building for States parties for their reporting duties” (p11).

More specifically, the High Commissioner highlights in sections: 4.2.7 “Further institutionalization of engagement with other United Nations partners” and 4.5.3 “Capacity-building activities relating to reporting” of its report, the need to strengthen States parties’ capacities and to create better collaboration between the Office of the High Commissioner and United Nations agencies.

In this regard, considering that the UN System requires both generic and specific practical programmatic information and guidance in order to provide support through the full cycle of CEDAW reporting process, the UN Women Training Centre will develop a course whose added value will lie in the fact that it will respond to concrete staff needs and will be based on lessons learned and good practices in all regions.

Duties and Responsibilities

The purpose of this consultancy is to coordinate the development of an on-line self-paced course on CEDAW for UN programme staff, using the Training Centre participatory methodology and quality assurance road map. 

The course must respond to the concrete needs of UN Staff, mostly at the national level, and be linked to the latest UN policies related to CEDAW and gender mainstreaming. The participation and endorsement of key actors and experts must be ensured throughout the entire development process (concept note, content draft, peer reviews, pilot testing) to guarantee successful dissemination, implementation and impact of the course in UN System.

Thus, the objectives and contents of the course should be discussed and defined with key partners. This course should be sensitive to the variety of contexts, cultures, etc. existing worldwide. Therefore, it needs to include globally relevant examples, cases, and good practices as well as tips on how to adapt them to specific realities.
 
Under the supervision of the Training Associate, the consultant will be responsible for the development of the following outputs: 
Guidance note:

• Desk review and mapping of courses, tools and relevant documents related to CEDAW;
• Analyze the desk review and mapping and write a guidance note on identified needs and recommendations for the development of the course.

Course outline:

• Identify and establish a group of experts and key actors relevant to CEDAW, willing to participate as peer reviewers during the development of the course;
• Based on the guidance note, coordinate a virtual dialogue with the group on the Training Centre’s CoP platform;
• The objective of this dialogue is to have inputs and consensus regarding the course contents;
• Final report on the dialogue;
• Develop a draft outline (Objectives, added value of the course, audience, characteristics, contents, format, implementation, etc.) to be validated by the group.

Proposal for course development:

• Write a call for proposals for the development of the course, based on the outline validated by the peer reviewers; The proposal will contain content development in addition to editing and packaging;
• Support the selection process of the proposal.

Final version of the course contents:

• Follow-up with the consultant/company selected to develop the course;
• Coordinate a virtual peer review with the group on the first draft of the final version content;
• Coordinate a peer review with the group on the final version content.

Course ready for dissemination:

• Provide final contents to consultant/company;
• Prepare and facilitate a session on CEDAW in the Gender Academy of ICT-ILO;
• Follow-up and validate prototype with consultant/company;
• Coordinate the final reading by the group of experts;
• Coordinate course pilot testing.

Competencies

Core values and Guiding Principles:

Integrity:

• Demonstrate the values of United Nations and UN Women, act without consideration of personal gain, resist undue political pressure in decision-making, no abuse of power or authority, stand by decisions in the organization’s interest, and take action in cases of unprofessional or unethical behavior.

Professionalism:

• Show pride in work and achievements, demonstrate professional competence and mastery of subject matter, conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments and achieving results, motivated by professional rather than personal concerns, show persistence when faced with challenges, and remain calm in stressful situations.

Respect for Diversity:

• Work effectively with people from all backgrounds, treat all people with dignity and respect, treat men and women equally, show respect for and understand diverse opinions by examining own biases and behaviors to avoid stereotypical responses, and do not discriminate against any individual or group.

Core Competencies

Ethics and Values:

• Promoting Ethics and Integrity / Creating Organizational Precedents.

Organizational Awareness:

• Building support and political acumen.

Developing and Empowering People / Coaching and Mentoring:

• Building staff competence, creating an environment of creativity and innovation.

Working in Teams:

• Building and promoting effective teams.

Communicating Information and Ideas:

• Creating and promoting enabling environment for open communication.

Self-management and Emotional intelligence:

• Creating an emotionally intelligent organization.

Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements:

• Leveraging conflict in the interests of the organization & setting standards.

Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning:

• Sharing knowledge across the organization and building a culture of knowledge sharing and learning.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making:

• Fair and transparent decision-making; calculated risk-taking.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master degree, preferably in Social Sciences, Development Economics, Public Policy, Development Studies, or similar areas.

Work Experience:

• Minimum of 10 years of relevant experience in the field of human rights, women rights and CEDAW;
• Minimum of 10 years of relevant experience in UN; 
• Work experience in knowledge management and capacity development projects;
• Work experience in coordinating participatory processes;
• Strong interpersonal skills;
• Experience working with civil society, and other development and cooperation organizations at the national level;
• Proven skills in desktop computer software such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and Power Point.

Languages:

• Excellent command of written and spoken English. Knowledge of French and/or Spanish is an asset.

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment . Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.