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.

UN Women adopts a comprehensive approach to end violence against women and girls (EVAWG) through (1) creating an enabling legal and policy environment, (2) generating evidence, data and knowledge; (3) strengthening survivor-centered responses and access to multi-sectoral, coordinated essential services; (4) preventing VAWG by addressing the causes and drivers of violence against women and girls; (5) partnering with and supporting women’s rights organizations and civil society groups to play a lead role in addressing VAWG.

In December 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted a comprehensive resolution calling for intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women (VAW) and requesting the Secretary-General to establish a coordinated database on the extent, nature and consequences of all forms of VAW, and on the impact and effectiveness of policies and programmes for eliminating such violence. The database was developed and launched in 2009 and was called the “UN Secretary-General’s database on violence against women”. In 2016, in accordance with the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN Women updated and redesigned the database and relaunched it as the “Global Database on Violence against Women”.  

UN Women serves as the secretariat for the database. It was designed to provide easy access to comprehensive and up-to-date information on measures undertaken by Governments to address all forms of VAW. The database generates country profiles that include prevalence data on different forms of VAW and harmful practices. This data is updated annually to include the most up to date figures. The database also serves as a repository for laws, policies and programmes to prevent and respond to VAW, informed by Member States reports to the United Nations and by questionnaires sent to Member States.  UN Women aims to improve and continue to share timely data and information on EVAW through this database to anyone interested in VAW, researchers, practitioners, implementing partners, journalists, and UN officers. 

The database was updated in 2022-2023. In 2023-2024, as part of a corporate communications optimization, the database has been re-designed, informed by a user-research to further enhance the user experience.  The newly designed database is planned to be launched in the second half of 2024.

In this context, UN Women seeks to hire an international consultant to lead a research project aimed at providing perspectives on national responses to prevent and respond to VAW, in order to assess efforts that were undertaken with the adoption of the 2030 Agenda and in particular to SDG 5 on gender equality and target 5.2 on the elimination of violence against women and girls. The research project will be conducted through the Global Database on Violence against Women, including in order to showcase potential uses of data and the impact of this tool. The consultant will be reporting to the Programme Specialist on Violence against Women Data and Research and s/he will be working closely with and supported by other colleagues in the EVAW Section.

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant will conduct an analysis informed by measures compiled in the Global Database, providing perspectives on national responses to prevent and respond to VAW and to clearly report findings for a non-specialist audience, including through data visualization. The research will include, at minimum, the following elements:

1. An assessment and analysis of EVAW measures adopted by Member States before and since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda and recommendations for the way forward;
2. An analysis of the global and/or regional trends of national responses to highlight national priorities and gaps in prevention and response of VAW;
3. Good practices and case studies, to encourage comprehensive and targeted prevention and response interventions to VAW.

Provided that the Global Database on Violence against Women categorizes the measures by type (e.g. legislation, budgets, prevention, responses, others), by form of violence, and by regions and countries, various fields of research can contribute to the analysis, including legal studies, public policies, international development, gender studies, public health, among others. Research approaches can be determined by applying and combining different variables, such as types of measures, forms of violence and geographies.  The consultant will be expected to identify and submit to UN Women research themes that can be informed by the measures compiled in the database. The research themes will be discussed with UN Women and jointly approved at the beginning of the assignment, and may include, as an example: 

• Comprehensiveness of State responses across types of measures and forms of violence 
• Trends in type of measures adopted over time
• Focus of policies (by sub-type) and/or prevention measures by form of violence 
• Trends in dedicated budgets, by geographies and GDP 
• Comparative analysis of legal responses across legal systems 
• Sustainability of adopted measures 
• Efforts to address the 2030 Agenda core principle of Leaving No One Behind 

Deliverables

Specific deliverables for this consultancy include:

• Identification of proposed research themes
• Production of one fully-fledged final research report, including data visualization
• Production of one research summary with key findings and recommendations (2-pager)
• Create one ‘Data Story’ (format example: The power of women's activism: protests against gender-based violence during COVID-19 | UN Women Data Hub) that highlights key findings and embeds visualization
• Create an 800-word article for web publishing 

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is a home-based consultancy with no official travel envisaged

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 

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies:  

https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment/application-process#_Values 

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES: 

• Possesses comprehensive knowledge and skills related to ending violence against women
• Strong research and data analysis skills
• Excellent writing and analytical skills
• Knowledge and understanding of UN system and familiarity with inter-governmental processes
• Aptitude in dealing with data with high accuracy

Flawless attention to detail and organizational skills

Required Skills and Experience