Background

UN Women is a United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide. UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes, and services needed to implement these standards. It stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life, focusing on five priority areas: increasing women’s leadership and participation; ending violence against women; engaging women in all aspects of peace and security processes; enhancing women’s economic empowerment; and making gender equality central to national development planning and budgeting. UN Women also coordinates and promotes the UN system’s work in advancing gender equality.

 

Universal access to Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal, Child and Adolescent Health (SRMNCAH) services is central to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Particularly important for SDG 3, to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, and SDG 5, to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. In the past two decades, Ethiopia has seen improvement on indicators related to SRMNCAH, including an increase in the median age at first marriage among women ages 25-49; decline in the proportion of women who married before15 and 18 years of age; and a decrease in the adolescent fertility rate. Ethiopia has also made significant achievements in reducing maternal and child mortality. In addition, there have been increases in the proportion of women ages 15-49 who used contraceptives (any method) and who used modern methods of contraceptives. However, these progresses have been coupled with a decrease in the proportion of women who make their own informed decisions regarding sexual relations, contraceptive use, and reproductive health care

Although the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) is a signatory to most international legal frameworks related to  Gender  Equality  and  Women Empowerment  (GEWE),  and  has  made  some  progress  in areas  of SRMNCAH, there are still challenges and gaps in the implementation of these international agreements 

and commitments. Across Ethiopia, women are negatively impacted by cultural, institutional, legal and economic issues that directly contribute to their low access to SRH services, which is a basic human right. The lack of access to SRH services has negative consequences for women and girls, including increased risks of early, child and forced marriage; polygamy; pressure on women to have multiple children; lack of awareness of the role of women in deciding the number of children they will give birth to; and challenges in accessing inheritance rights. These are also common problems faced by refugees living in refugee camps and host communities in Ethiopia, even more common in Gambella Region.

Since 2018, UN Women Ethiopia intensified its engagement in Gambella Region, focusing on GEWE interventions. Under its strategic Note (2017-2021), UN Women has been implementing a Programme on Women’s Empowerment in Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, New-born, Child, and Adolescent Health (SRMNCAH) Rights (POWER) in humanitarian settings with the support of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA).

The programme seeks to achieve the following outcomes:

  • Established rights-based national and local SRMNCAH frameworks
  • Improved promotion of equal gender norms, attitudes, and practices on women’s rights to
  • SRMNCAH
  • Empowered women and girls to exercise their SRMNCAH rights and seek services.

The programme mainly focuses on addressing barriers preventing women, children, and adolescents from demanding and realizing their rights to SRMNCAH services through building capacity of women’s groups, increase awareness of community leaders and community health workers by employing community level literacy campaigns on SRMNCAH rights as enshrined in the laws and policies. While implementation is ongoing, conducting an operational action research through engaging the Programme target groups is critical to better understand if the strategies employed are useful to address the existing social norms.

Action research is a simple, yet powerful framework where under each stage, participants observe, reflect, and then take some sort of action. The action research in this case can help the programme staff use the research findings to inform best practices and how the intervention is going. Conducting an action research under the POWER programme will improve the evidence on how best to overcome barriers to demanding and accessing SRMNCAH services by women and adolescents, and how to scale up service access for underserved populations.

Duties and Responsibilities

The main expected activities to be undertaken by the national consultant include:

  • Develop inception report and data collection tools and submit to UN Women
  • Present the report at the inception meeting and incorporate feedback
  • Submit draft of the action research findings with full content mainly including findings, proposing good practices and recommendations
  • Incorporate inputs and submit the revised report to UN Women
  • Present the revised report in the validation workshop
  • Integrate inputs and submit final report of the action research to UN Women in both hard and soft copies.

Competencies

The consultant must have the following competencies:

Core values

  •  Respect for Diversity
  •  Integrity
  • Professionalism

Core competencies

  •  Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
  • Accountability
  • Creative Problem Solving
  •  Effective Communication
  • Inclusive Collaboration
  • Stakeholder Engagement
  • Leading by Example

Functional Competencies:

  • Strong knowledge of gender equality and women’s rights issues
  • Excellent level of conceptual and analytical capacity
  • Ability to work in a team
  • Ability to write in a clear and concise manner and to communicate effectively
  • Demonstrates use of initiative and ability to make appropriate linkages in work requirements
  • Openness to change and ability to receive/integrate feedback
  • Meets deadlines for delivery of products or services
  • Able to work virtually, using communication technologies
  • Strong interpersonal skills

Required Skills and Experience

The action research will be conducted by a qualified national consultant. The consultant is expected to work in collaboration with the implementing partner, International Medical Corps at Gambella level. The consultant will be responsible for the selection and training of data collectors for the field work.

Education

  • The national consultant must have Master’s degree in Social Sciences, Gender/Women’s Studies, Public Health, Law, Human Rights, Political Science and related fields

Experience

  • The consultant must have a minimum of eight years of relevant experience in research, analysis and data collection and particularly on issues of women’s empowerment and gender equality, SRMNCAH, human rights and/or sexual and gender-based violence
  • Substantive knowledge and understanding of gender and development, SRMNCAH and human rights issues of the country
  • A proven track record in designing and conducting research that use participatory methods
  • Experience  in  conducting  quantitative  and  qualitative  data  analysis  and  synthesizing information into concise, analytical written documents
  • Ability to carry out gender focused action research and analysis that are able to contribute to the   formulation  of  policies,  procedures  and  guidelines  on  gender  equality  and  the empowerment of women
  • Ability to conceptualize and analyses problems and to identify key issues and underlying action-oriented recommendation
  • Ability   to   establish   and   maintain   productive   relationships   with   partners   and   other stakeholder’s and responds positively to critical feedback and differing points of view
  • Strong background in participatory approaches and facilitation
  •  Excellent reporting writing and presentation skills
  • Willingness and ability to travel to the different targeted refugee camps and host communities in Gambella region.

 Language and other skills:

  • Excellent knowledge of written and oral communication in Amharic and English, and the understanding of local languages will be a benefit including the ability to set out a coherent argument in presentations and group interactions
  • Data  collectors’  knowledge  of  the  context  of  the  Gambella  region  and  South  Sudanese communities is an advantage
  • Data collectors must have excellent knowledge of written and oral communication skills in the local languages of the region
  • Capacity  to  communicate  fluently  with  different  stakeholders  (civil  society,  government authorities, local communities, project staff)
  • Computer skills: full command of Microsoft applications (word, excel, PowerPoint) and dataencoding software.
  • Please note that applications without a completed and signed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.
  • UNWomen Personal History form (P-11) can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment.

UNWOMEN 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.