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, programs 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.

 

Since 2018, UN Women ECO intensified its engagement in Gambella Region, focusing on gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE) interventions. Using its comparative advantage, UN Women ECO, through its Program on Women Empowerment for SRMNCAH rights and access (POWER), has worked to address the barriers preventing women, children, and adolescents from demanding and realizing their rights to sexual, reproductive, maternal, new-born, child, and adolescent health (SRMNCAH) services. Universal access to SRMNCAH services is central to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly 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.

 

According to the Ministry of Health, the Ethiopian Government has made remarkable achievements in reducing maternal and child mortality in the country since 2000. The Maternal Mortality Ratio has decreased from 676 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2011 (EDHS 2011) to 412/100,000 (EDHS 2016)1 indicating about 40%  reduction in five years; contraceptive  prevalence rate (CPR) among currently married women has shown fivefold increment, from only 8% in 2000 to 41.4% in 2019, according to the recent Mini EDHS results. Under five Mortality per 1000 live births has decreased from 123 in 2005 to 59 in 2019 (52% reduction); infant mortality from 77 to 47 (39% reduction) and neonatal mortality from 39 to 33 (15% reduction), referring to series of EDHS results.

The Ministry’s latest annual performance data on Sexual Reproductive Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (SRMNCAH) coverage also indicate that [in the year 2019/2020, i.e., EFY 2012], 69% of women accessed at least four rounds of antenatal care services; 63% of births were attended by skilled health personnel; 83% of women accessed early postnatal care; 84% of pregnant women were counseled for PMTCT and tested for HIV, and 91% enrolled for ART.

 

Regarding the legal and policy atmosphere, “MOH designed & implemented various policies, strategies, protocols & guidelines”2  to improve maternal & newborn health outcomes. There are several national policies and guidelines on SRMNCAH, including Health Transformation Plan (HTSPII), National RH strategy, National FP guideline, minimum sets of visits to antenatal care; the right of every woman to have access to skilled care during childbirth; postnatal care for mothers and newborns; management of low birthweight and preterm newborns; the requirements for maternal and neonatal deaths to be reviewed; etc

 

Coverage of reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health services (RMNCH) increased during HSTP- I. ANC1 coverage improved from 28% in 2005 to 74% in 2019 (EPHI and ICF, 2019). However, only 43% of pregnant women had four or more visits, and only 20% of women started ANC visit at the recommended time. Only 50% of women delivered in a health facility in 2019. Quality of care also remains a concern. Most young people in Ethiopia lack comprehensive knowledge on sexual and reproductive health (SRH), often engaging in risky behavior.National policies/guidelines which specifically addresses adolescent health issues include adolescent health program, including SRHR; standards for Health Promoting Schools; the standards for delivery of health services to adolescents.

However, the 2019 mini-EDHS results indicate that there is a long way to go to bring about the desired levels of changes, as maternal mortality ratio is standing at 401/100,000 livebirths (2017, WB, WHO); neonatal  mortality  rate  33/1000  livebirths;  infant  mortality  47/1000  and  under-five  mortality  rate 59/1000 livebirths.

UN Women has supported the documentation of the Gender Barrier Analysis of available legal and policy frameworks of SRMNCAH rights and service access in humanitarian setting, conducted action research on SRMNCAH program in humanitarian setting and Gender Barrier and risk analysis through POWER program implementing partner, IMC. Findings of all studies/assessments were validated by and disseminated to relevant  government  stakeholders  and  partner  organizations  for  future  programming  and  policy 

integration of the recommendations. Further to the assessment conducted several capacity building trainings and workshops were delivered for stakeholders mainly for MoH, MoWCY, MOF, Women parliamentarians, CSOs, RRS, and BoWCY, RHB at Gambella level.

To this end UN Women Ethiopia office is planning to hire a national consultant to document SRMNCAH gender responsive strategies at national and regional level and put recommendations based on the findings as per the below details.

2.   Objectives

The main objective of this consultancy is to document SRMNCAH gender responsive strategies and policies at national and regional level and identify recommendations and lessons learned from the findings of the assessment.

Duties and Responsibilities

The principal aim of the documentation is to assess how SRMNCAH related policy and strategies at National and subnational level are gender responsive and understand the extent of policies and strategies impacting women and girls in the humanitarian settings – from claiming their rights and accessing SRMNCAH services, in humanitarian setting, with a focus on Gambella region. Actionable recommendations will be proposed as per the findings.

  Duties and responsibilities

  • Develop/adapt assessment tool
  • Identify and adopt relevant assessment tools including desk review of different local and international assessment tools, in-depth consultation of stakeholders.
  • Validate the assessment tool through discussion with UNWOMEN staff
  • Identify different SRMNCAH strategies and policy documents at national and subnational level, conduct desk review.
  • Critically analyze and document gender responsive SRMNCAH strategies.
  • Prepare and submit full report of the analysis including recommendations and lessons learned

DELIVERABLES AND TIME FRAME

  • One finding report on SRMNCAH gender responsive health strategies and policy documents with possible recommendations on May 20, 2022.

Competencies

ompliance to the UN Core Values:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards
  • Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability
  • Treats all people fairly without favouritism
  • Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

•      Master’s degree or equivalent in social sciences, public health, gender/women's studies, international development, or a related field is required.

Experience

  • At least 5 years of progressively responsible work experience in consultancy on health and gender program areas.
  • Experience in developing policy and legislative advocacy documents and promotion of
  • Social Norms Change will be considered a plus.
  • Experience in programming related to SRMNCAH and ending violence against women and girls’ promotion of gender equality and women empowerment is required.
  • Experience in national and local levels policy and advocacy engagement is an asset
  • Experience of working in humanitarian situation is an add advantage

Language Requirements

•    Fluency in written and spoken English is essential

Application:

  • All applications must include (as an attachment) a 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 and candidates are required to include in the P-11 form links for their previously published reports and articles completed within the last two years. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided?on the basis of?qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need. 

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)