I. Organizational Context  

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 Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) is a partnership between the United Nations and the civil society, which supports women led and women’s rights organizations working to build peace and provide humanitarian response throughout the world. Since the end of 2016, the WPHF has been supporting over 700 civil society organizations and is present in 32 countries with 24 allocations.   

UN Women hosts the Secretariat of the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund. The WPHF Secretariat provides support to the Funding Board, mobilizes resources from Governments, companies, foundations and individuals, designs funding windows and mechanisms, provides day to day support to Country Offices implementing WPHF programmes, ensures timely and quality monitoring and reporting. The Secretariat’s mandate is also to strengthen stakeholders’ knowledge of and engagement with women, peace and security issues through proper internal and external communications, advocacy and outreach. Finally, the Secretariat provides knowledge management services for the WPHF, and manages a Global learning Hub for WPHF partners and grantees.  

The Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund is a pooled financing mechanism that brings three unique benefits to enhance women’s engagement in peace, security and humanitarian action. The WPHF:     

• Breaks silos between humanitarian, peace, security and development finance by investing in enhancing women’s engagement, leadership and empowerment across all phases of the crisis, peace, security, and development contiguum.  

• Addresses structural funding gaps for women’s participation in key phases of the crisis, peace and security, and development contiguum by improving the timeliness, predictability and flexibility of international assistance.  

• Improves policy coherence and coordination by complementing existing financing instruments and promoting synergies across all actors: multi-lateral and bilateral entities, national governments’ women’s machineries; and local civil society organizations 

The WPHF is anchored in the shared theory of change articulated in Tracking Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).1 The overall goal is to contribute to peaceful and gender equal societies. Achievement of this goal will require that women are empowered to participate in, contribute to, and benefit from conflict prevention, crisis response, peacebuilding, and recovery. Results of the Fund are articulated around 6 outcome areas, of which one is focused on conflict prevention: 

Conflict prevention: Women’s meaningful participation in conflict prevention can only materialize if three conditions are in place. First, favorable attitudes of parties to the conflict and communities towards women’s participation in conflict prevention must be promoted. Second, local women’s organizations must have the capacity to identify and respond to threats by establishing networks, early-warning systems and mechanisms that offer opportunities for dialogue and peaceful engagement. Finally, women’s conflict prevention mechanisms must be connected to national and international reporting and response systems.  

The consultant, under the supervision of the WPHF Head of Secretariat, will draft a case study based on WPHF and its local women’s rights organizations partners’ experiences in conflict prevention. 

II. Description and purpose of the study and consultancy 

In a context of renewed crisis and emergencies, and complex nature of violent conflict, investing in conflict prevention requires a significant shift in the financing architecture: investment in conflict prevention must respond to the needs of local peace actors and support their proven role and impact in peacebuilding and sustaining peace. It must also recognize gender inequalities as a main factor driving conflict and fragility. Therefore the international community and donors must respond with a holistic approach that acknowledges the connections between gender equality and fragility and supports local women peacebuilders as key actors in conflict prevention.  

Women are the first responders to rising tensions, they understand the drivers of conflict, and advance solutions for (re)building and sustaining peace at the community level. As local actors, they are trusted and legitimate actors with established relationships within their communities and local and national stakeholders. While the importance of local peace actors is further recognised in the Secretary-General’s report on Our Common Agenda, with a call for a more inclusive multilateralism that includes a stronger voice for local civil society and grassroots movements at all levels of decision-making2,  and the UN General Assembly resolution on Financing for Peacebuilding (A/RES/76/305) recognises the gap in the meaningful inclusion of women in decision-making; words must be followed by actions, including funding for local women’s rights organizations.  

This presents an opportunity to shift the current funding infrastructure in a way that places diverse women peacebuilders at the center, including by supporting their meaningful participation in peacebuilding and sustaining peace from the design of funding mechanisms to the implementation of programming.  

In this context, the purpose of this case study is to document the role and impact of women, including local women’s rights organizations (WROs) in conflict prevention, as well as the tools and innovative approaches used in Burundi, Iraq, Palestine, Philippines and Uganda.  

The consultant will design and draft the study and present examples, best practices and recommendations to further invest in conflict prevention by recognizing, strengthening and financing local WROs, based on the experience of WPHF local partners and WPHF as a funding mechanism for WROs.  

The study will be a tool for the WPHF Secretariat, the WPHF Board, donors and the international community, to amplify the voices and work of WROs and women peacebuilders in conflict prevention and contribute to shifting the international funding architecture to raise more funding for local conflict prevention and advancing gender equality.  

Specifically, the consultant will conduct a desk review and set of short interviews based on selected WPHF’s partners work and results in Burundi, Iraq, Palestine, Philippines and Uganda, to highlight in particular:  

• The roles of women in conflict prevention, from individual to collective action (household, community and national level)  

• The holistic and innovative aspects of the approaches and tools used by women and local WROs for conflict prevention, such as early-warning systems and technology, including in (but not limited to) the contexts of violent extremism, climate change, displacement and gender inequalities.  

• The impact of local WROs work in conflict prevention, including tensions and conflict linked to climate change and violent extremism 

• How WPHF has been supporting and investing in conflict prevention, across the peace and security, human rights and humanitarian nexus 

The study will outline examples, challenges and best practices and recommendations for the international community to further invest in conflict prevention and local WROs.  

The WPHF Secretariat will provide all the documents related to the projects conducted in the five selected countries for the case study.  

III. Responsibilities    

The consultant will be responsible for reviewing and consolidating data and information from relevant existing literature on conflict prevention (for background), as well as from WPHF reports and documents and for conducting stakeholder interviews. Based on an analysis of these findings, the consultant will produce a critical instance case study3 of maximum 20 pages (excluding annexes).  

Key Deliverables  

The consultancy is to commence by 17 April 2023 and is expected to require up to 20 days of work over a period of 5 weeks. Key deliverables and tasks are:  

• Inception meeting with WPHF Secretariat (2 hours)  

• Desk review including (1) quick review of existing literature and best practices globally and (2) examination of WPHF reports and documents (4 days)  

• Short inception report outlining the planned timeline, methodology and case study design and outline, key review questions, and interview protocols, etc. (2 days)  

• Conduct remote/virtual interviews with stakeholders, including: WPHF Secretariat, UN Women Country Offices and selected WPHF WROs partners and systematize information (5 days)  

• Draft study and recommendations (5 days)  

• Finalization of study following feedback from WPHF Secretariat (2 days)  

• Two-page summary document of key findings and recommendations (1 day)  

• Presentation of the review findings (1 day)  

The final study should not exceed 20 pages and should include an executive summary, brief project background, short summary of the main findings and counterfindings, and a list of recommendations for WPHF and other identified stakeholders to further invest in WROs working on conflict prevention.   

A lump sum payment will be made upon submission of all deliverables and certification by the WPHF/UN Women focal point that the work has been completed to satisfaction. All raw data files, consent forms and relevant documentation must be returned to WPHF and UN Women before release of final payment.   

No physical travel is expected for this assignment, all interviews and meetings will be conducted online/remotely.  

IV. Competencies   

Core Values  

• Respect for diversity  

• Professionalism  

• Integrity  

Core Competencies  

• Accountability  

• Awareness and sensitivity regarding gender issues  

• Creative problem solving  

• Fulfills obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment   

• Treats all people fairly and without favouritism   

• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability   

• Effective communication  

• Inclusive collaboration  

• Stakeholder engagement  

• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities. 

 Technical Competencies  

• Strong partnership and coordination skills  

• Research  

• Monitoring, evaluation and learning processes  

• Results-based management  

• Formal written communications  

V. Required Skills, Knowledge and Experience  

Education  

• Master’s degree or equivalent in international development studies, social sciences, political sciences, public policy or other relevant fields is required.  

Knowledge and Experience  

• At least 7 years of demonstrable experience working on gender equality, peace and security.  

• Experience leading mixed methods evaluations or research on women’s rights, leadership, meaningful participation, and promoting women’s roles in peace and security.  

• Experience in working with different stakeholders, including CSOs, United Nations/international organizations, governments and/or Funds.  

• Knowledge and/or experience working on at least two different geographic regions related to work on conflict-affected and/or post-conflict contexts.  

• Strong understanding of conflict prevention is an asset.  

Language Requirements  

• Fluency in English and French is required.   

• Knowledge of Arabic is an asset.   

VI. Performance evaluation  

Contractor’s performance will be evaluated against such criteria as: timeliness, responsibility, initiative, communication, accuracy, and quality of the products delivered.  

Recommended Application 

The following documents should be submitted: 

1. Personal CV and P11 (All applications must provide the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment), indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references; 

1. Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment. 

IMPORTANT 

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. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document. 

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.