Background

UN 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. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments in 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.

 In this context, UN Women Jordan and Syria CO is working on the Women’s Political Participation and Leadership component under the Spring Forward: Women Economic and Political Empowerment EU-funded Project to provide required capacity building, knowledge and skills to the female elected members in local councils; as part of the election post technical support.

This project provided a pre-election technical support to the women as voters and candidates in the electoral processes.  This support resulted in an increase about 35.8 instead of 25% as quota in the number of women elected at local municipal councils.

Within this project scope of work and to ensure its planned post-election support is in place to sustain more active and effective female members, UN Women is planning to contract a specialist(s) to provide required technical backstopping. And as per the recommendations of the first steering committee of the Spring Forward project Country Advisory Board (CAB), and more specifically for the political participation component; the CAB reviewed the scope of work of the 2014 Work plan by requesting to promote female participation at senior level in the trade unions, professional and business support organizations. The CAB also indicated that the funds available under the political participation component should be used to create technical facility machinery which could support the legislative work of the female MPS and local female counselors.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objectives of the Assignment

 UN Women in coordination and partnering with the Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) is planning to enhance the recently elected female members of the local municipal councils knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA) pertaining to the technical and legislative levels, including: the  formulation of legislations proposals, applicable means to monitor the municipal councils and mainstreaming gender in the local/national plans and budgets. .

Accordingly, this consultancy assignment /service aims at providing technical backstopping to the elected female members at the local municipals councils level to advance gender equality and women's rights at the local levels and enhance their performance levels.

Scope of the Work and Deliverables

 Under overall guidance of the UN Women Jordan Country Representative and JNCW  and in close partnership with the Local Municipal Councils, the consultant will perform the following tasks:
 
Task 1: Provide technical advice and capacity development to newly elected Local Municipal female members to enhance their KSA in the following:
  • Enhance females' active participation in the Local Municipal sessions/debates to promote gender equality and women's rights issues across the different thematic areas of concerns;
  • Strengthen female members' capacity to engender local plans and budgets in light with gender equality commitments endorsed by the Jordanian government in the different conventions, covenants and treaties; 
  • Enhance female members' networking abilities with regional and global networks of Local Municipal Councils to foster south-south learning;
To be able to achieve this, the consultant will have to carry out the following tasks:
  • Carry out capacity building needs assessment for local municipal members to identify the KSA gaps affecting their performance and ability to advocate for gender equality and women's rights;
  • Develop an inventory of the needed capacity building programmes/training to fill in Local Municipal Councils female members' KSA depicted gaps, specifically pertaining to local development, GEWE, engendering budgets and plans;
  • Establish a gender-sensitive and user-friendly monitoring and tracking template to be utilized by members of the Local Municipal Councils to follow up on the implementation of the municipality plans and budgets.
Task 2: Enhance female members' access and ability to assume leadership positions in the decision making of the Local Municipal Councils:  
  • Carry out needs assessment on the internal functioning of the Local Municipal Councils to identify recommendations for future development; i.e. creating a catalyst  environment for women's active participation as female members in the councils;
  • Propose applicable measures to bring visible female members' voices at the different meetings of the Local Municipal Councils;
  • Recommend applicable means and measures to boost female members' active engagement within their constituencies to retain and expand their grass-roots base;
  • Suggest relevant processes and channels to gather information on key issues affecting gender equality and women's rights at the grassroots levels to be voiced out at the Local Municipal Councils.

Task 3: Administration, monitoring and evaluation of the assignment:

  • Develop an action plan detailing tasks against time-frame;
  • Develop bi-weekly progress reports;
  • Develop final report outlining proceedings, findings, outcomes and recommendations;
  •  Develop a PowerPoint presentation outlining main findings and recommendation to be presented by the consultant to the different partners/stakeholders.

The duration of the assignment will be 3 three months, and the duty station will be Amman/Jordan at JNCW offices.

The consultant will be remunerated according to the following:

  • 25% of the consultancy rate will be paid upon introducing proposed action plan and timeframe;
  • 25% of the consultancy rate will be paid upon carrying out the training workshops;
  • 50% of the consultancy rate will be paid upon providing all deliverables after completion of his/her assignment.

 Application Procedures:

 Interested applicants for this position must submit the following or the application will not be considered:
  • UN Women Personal History Form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment;
  • Proposed consultancy rate;
  • Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment.

 The selected applicant will be requested to provide a Statement of Good Health from a recognized physician prior to commencement to work.

Competencies

  • Computer literacy is essential;
  • The consultant must have very strong oral and written communication skills including active listening and non verbal communication;
  • The position requires strong teamwork, negotiation and interpersonal skills;
  • The ability to facilitate meetings and serve as an effective liaison with a wide array of individuals is essential;
  • This work requires great flexibility, an ability to react to a changing environment and ability to work under pressure;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
  • Highest standards of integrity, discretion and loyalty.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Possession of a master degree in political sciences or a related field.

Experience:

  • At least five years professional experience in the area of politics and decision-making, gender equality and women’s rights;
  • Experience in advocacy and strengthening capacities of Local Municipal Councils or other high-level government officials;
  • Experience with undertaking needs assessment and facilitation of trainings, workshops consultations, including with high-level officials;
  • Familiarity with gender equality and women’s rights issues in Jordan;

Language:

  • Excellent knowledge of Arabic and English oral/written is required.