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; the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development; human rights; as well as humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women's rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women Country Office in the Republic of Cameroon in line with the priorities set in the UN Women Strategic Plan, the country Strategic Note (2022-2026) and the UN Partnership for Sustainable Development, is supporting the country to fulfil National and International commitments to gender equality and empowerment of women.

Over the past years, UN Women has provided extensive support to national and local stakeholders to strengthen democratic governance and advance women’s rights through initiatives aimed at mainstreaming gender in policy planning and budgeting. UN Women is extending technical support in coordination of gender in humanitarian action following its admission as full member of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) in November 2022.

Cameroon, once considered a land of peace, faces 3 humanitarian fronts in the East, Far North, North West and South West. These crisis lead to forced displacement, human rights violations, family separations, stigmatization, and exploitation of those displaced, and the disruption of social cohesion and support structures for vulnerable people. Furthermore, they negatively impact access to basic services, land and economic opportunities.

According to the need analysis for 2023 (HNO 2022), 4.7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Cameroon including 51% girls/ women, 52% children, 42% adults and 6% old people. Among them are 639K refugees. In addition, 1.4 million people are in need of education, 3.2 million in need of food security, 1.8 million in need of health, WASH and shelter /NFI, 604K in need of nutrition, 1.8 million people in need of protection including GBV.

The crisis has led to a deterioration of the physical and mental well-being, living standards, and coping mechanisms of the people living in Cameroon. As a result, the girls and women in situation of displacements and those of the host communities find themselves in situations of dependence concerning their food, their health, the education of their children, housing, access to hygiene facilities and sanitation, their means of subsistence and their protection against violence of all kinds.

In Cameroon, persistent gender inequalities and socio-cultural constraints, exacerbated by the humanitarian crises, limit women’s and youth’s access to basic social services and opportunities. These cultural norms, which generally give pride of place to the primacy of men over women, lead to differences in the impact of the crisis on women, girls, men and boys.

To meet these needs, the humanitarian community is deploying various coordinated interventions within the framework of clusters and sub-working groups. These interventions are related to Education, Food Security, Health, Nutrition, Protection (child protection, Gender-based violence, Housing, Land and Property), Shelter and Non-food items, Water, Sanitation & Hygiene.

In this concert, UN Women intervenes under the banner of its triple mandate of enabling gender equality and women’s empowerment through coordination of the UN system, normative and intergovernmental engagement and development-focused operational programming. The aim of UN Women’s engagement in humanitarian action is to ensure effectiveness in addressing gendered needs, working across the humanitarian–development–peace continuum, and embodying two approaches: i) supporting the mainstreaming of gender in the coordination, planning, prioritization and financing of humanitarian responses in the immediate aftermath of emergencies and humanitarian crises; and ii) contributing to long-term recovery and protecting the rights of women and girls in emergencies and protracted crises through the nexus approach.

By becoming a full member of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) in November 2022, UN Women has the responsibility to hold the humanitarian system accountable to its gender commitments. It requires UN Women to consistently ensure that Humanitarian Needs Overviews (HNO) and Humanitarian Response Plans (HRP) are guided by sound gender analysis, alongside sex and age disaggregated data (SADD).

It is for this reason that UN Women intends to recruit a consultant to conduct a rapid gender assessment in the crisis areas in the North West and South West regions.

Scope of work

The objective of this assessment is to highlight the impact of the crisis on the populations, in particular women, girls, men and boys, in the North-West and South-West regions and formulate recommendations to enable the humanitarian actors planning and implementing effective gender sensitive interventions.

The specific objectives of the rapid gender assessment in context of North-West and South-West Crisis Response are to:

• Assess power relationships between women, men, boys and girls and provide information on the roles and responsibilities as well as the different needs, capacities and coping strategies of women, girls, men and boys in the North-West and Southwest regions;
• Assess access to services and assistance (education, health, shelter, water, hygiene, and sanitation) by men, women, girls and boys;
• Assess protection and mobility (security, freedom of movement) of women, girls, men and boys affected by the crisis in the North-West and Sought-West regions;
• Identify priority needs;
• Develop a set of evidence informed recommendations to mainstream gender in current humanitarian and recovery efforts, in order to strengthen gender equality programming, measures and accountability among humanitarian actors. 

This assessment will examine the power relationships between women, men, boys and girls and provide information on the roles and responsibilities as well as the different needs, capacities and coping strategies of women, girls, men and boys in the North-West and Sought-West regions. It will enable to influence the way the response is formulated for the target.

The result of this analysis will enable to mainstreaming gender into humanitarian programming, particularly at this point of time where the Country Humanitarian Team is getting into the design of the Humanitarian Response Plan for 2023.

For achieving this goal, the international consultant will work, refer and coordinate with the Humanitarian programme team at UN Women Cameroon office. The international consultant will be responsible for informing regularly UN Women on the progress and for submitting the required deliverables.

Based on the above-described objectives of the assignment, under the supervision of the Humanitarian Programme Manager, the international consultant will undertake the following tasks and responsibilities: 

• Analyse data collected by the GIHA members in the North-West and South-West regions through the telephone-based survey on how the crisis is affecting women, men, girls and boys in the Nord-West and South-West regions;
• Desk Research on the crisis in the North West and South West regions and the impact on Gender Equality;
• Identify key data, conclusions and programming recommendations, which could address main challenges faced by women and men, girls and boys and the impact on their resilience. These recommendations should be formulated for different audiences including humanitarian organizations, Humanitarian Country Team and the donors;
• Prepare a Summary of the key findings and recommendations of the Report;
• Submit final report to UN Women for the assignment.

Key deliverables, activities and timeframe

The International consultant will be expected to complete the below tasks within the indicative timeframe:

2.Reporting

Under the overall supervision of the Humanitarian Programme Manager, the International consultant will develop and deliver the above listed deliverables in accordance with the indicative timeframe.

All deliverables of an acceptable standard and quality should be submitted to the UN Women and in languages as specified above.

Core Values/guiding principles:

• Integrity - Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.
• Professionalism - Demonstrate professional competence and Consultant knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.
• Respect for diversity - Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Additionally, the individual should have an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies:

•            Gender awareness and sensitivity

•            Accountability

•            Creative problem solving

•            Effective communication

•            Inclusive collaboration

•            Stakeholder engagement

•            Leading by example

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Shares knowledge and experience.
• Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside UN Women.
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills.
• Development and Operational Effectiveness.
• Demonstrates excellent written and oral communication skills. Communicates sensitively, effectively and creatively across different constituencies.
• Demonstrates very good understanding of and experience in communications and outreach/advocacy.
• Ability to perform a variety of standard specialized and non-specialized tasks and work processes that are fully documented, researched, recorded and reported.
• Ability to review a variety of data, identify and adjust discrepancies, identify and resolve operational problems.
• Uses Information Technology effectively as a tool and resource.

Leadership and Self-Management

•     Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback.
•     Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude.
•     Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure.
•     Proven networking skills and ability to generate interest in UN Women’s mandate.

    Identifies opportunities and builds strong partnerships with clients and partners

Academic Qualifications:

Master’s Degree in International Development, Public Administration, Social Sciences, Political Science or other relevant social science fields.

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of demonstrated professional experience in social, economic and/or development research.
• Demonstrated experience in gender equality issues and gender research, preferably with special focus on the country context.
• Experience in statistics, data collection and data processing.
• Experience in writing reports and contextualizing data in the field of gender equality.
• Experience in conducting Rapid Gender Assessments at the country or international level.

Language

Fluency in English and French is required.

Evaluation of applicants:

The contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• responsive/compliant/acceptable, and
• having received the highest score out of below defined technical criteria.

Evaluation criteria:

• Diplôma: 10 points
• General professional experience: 10 points
• Experience on realization of rapid gender assessments: 30 points (1 - 2 years = 05 points, 3 – 5 years = 10 points, 6 - 10 years = 20 points, + 10 years = 30 points)
• Technical offer = 20 points
• Experience of work with the United Nations agencies: 10 points

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents:

1. Expression of interest and confirmation of immediate availability, including methodology of intervention.
2. Writen sample of similar assessments
3. Completed UN Women Personal History (P11) form

Duration and remuneration:

The International consultant will be engaged for a total of 15 working days during the period of 25th September to 13th October 2023. Deliverables from the consultant will be reviewed and approved by UN Women before they are considered final. UN Women will process the payment of consultancy fees in 2 settlements, 30% after the reception of the desk review report and 70% upon satisfactory completion of all tasks in the assignment, submission and approval of the final report by UN Women.