Background

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, UN Women 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. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations System’s efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. UN Women 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’s Arab States section leads UN Women’s programmatic engagement in the Arab States region. UN Women has entered into a partnership with UNFPA Yemen to support women’s engagement in Yemen’s current transition. The partnership focuses on supporting women’s effective engagement in Yemen’s upcoming national dialogue and constitutional drafting process.

The consultant will: a) develop a training on gender and constitutions, including terminology, good practices from the region, and lobbying skills b) provide technical assistance to women´s groups and the civil society coalition on gender and constitution drafting, and c) work in close cooperation with UN partners on women’s engagement in Yemen’s transition. For the above tasks, the consultant will work in the context of UN Women/UNFPA partnership and especially closely with the Inter-Agency Theme Group on Gender chaired by UNFPA.

The consultant will report to the Deputy regional director of the Arab States. Day to day supervision of the consultant will be provided by UNFPA Representative/Deputy Representative.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Gender and Constitutions specialist will have the following responsibilities:

• Identify training needs and gaps in capacities to effectively lobby for a gender sensitive constitution;
• Prepare a training, to include gender sensitive language in constitutions (in Arabic) and lobbying skills for women´s groups and advocates and deliver the training;
• Develop an action plan/roadmap of women´s role in the constitution drafting process;
• Draft policy papers and handouts on constitution drafting processes;
• Annotated List of terminologies and constitution writing processes for distribution completed;
• Support women’s organizations in the development of position papers on key areas of the transition such as reform of representational and public administration institutions, public service access, security sector reform, constitutional reform, citizenship rights, transitional justice and economic security and rights;
• Facilitate regional cooperation on women’s participation in constitution drafting;
• Ongoing technical assistance, on a need basis.

UN Partnership in Support of Women in Transition:

• Collaboration between UNFPA Yemen, UNDP Yemen, and UN Women Regional Office (Cairo) to support the UNCT in Yemen to generate shared advocacy platforms and initiatives on women’s engagement in the transition;
• Generate awareness and provide technical assistance to members of the UNCT on enabling women’s effective engagement in the constitution making process;
• Support, as needed, to integrating gender equality perspectives into UN and national planning frameworks.

Specific Deliverables:

• Training on gender and constitutions developed and delivered;
• Policy papers on constitution drafting completed and distributed;
• Annotated list of the constitution drafting process and relevant terminologies completed;
• Monthly progress reports to be submitted to the Arab States regional office, monthly payments to be processed after the review and approval of the report from RO.

Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling UN/UN Women’s values and ethical standards.
• Demonstrates commitment to UN Women’s mission and vision.
  
• Displays cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability.
  
• Treats all people fairly and without favoritism
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills that would encourage and generate rich dialogues.
• Ensure fair and transparent decision making processes and manage risk.
• Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others.
  

• Demonstrated analytical and technical skills in managing development projects/programmes
• Good knowledge of Results Based Management principles and approach
• Proven ability in managing and empowering teams to work effectively together in reaching results
• Proven ability to advocate and provide policy advice.
• Ability to go beyond established procedures and practices, introduce new approaches and strategic innovations.
• Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively
  

Required Skills and Experience

• An advanced University degree (Masters level) in social sciences, political science, international affairs, international development studies, gender/women’s studies, human rights or a related technical field.
  

• At least seven years relevant experience in the field of gender equality;
• Knowledge of Yemen and country experience is an asset;
• Experience engaging in results oriented in-country capacity development. Experience supporting women’s organizations in conflict and post conflict situations is desirable;
• Experience working with the UN.

Language:

• Fluency in English required, Arabic desired.