Background

UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, operational since January 1 2011, works towards accelerating the United Nations’ goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women. UN Women supports innovative and catalytic programmes, advocacy, and technical assistance related to women’s human rights in countries throughout the world as part of the overall UN development cooperation system.

The joint United Nations Programme on women’s social, economic and legal empowerment addresses specific hurdles faced by women in order to encourage women’s equal participation in society based on citizenship rights. With the aim of establishing effective strong coalitions, the project’s objective is to influence policy makers’ approach to women rights and gender equality; create a database on existing coalitions, networks and movements. The consultant is expected to conduct a mapping of existing NGOs and new emergent social movements, and to initiate a power mapping exercise to guide the formation of strategic alliances and coalitions in Egypt for women’s advancement and gender equality.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Conduct a national mapping study of NGOs and new emergent social movements and networks across Egyptian governorates addressing women rights and gender equality. The study is to include: their areas of work, analysis of their knowledge and capacity gaps on gender issues and on coalition building techniques, their advocacy and communications platforms, their links to the grassroots, their vision, their coordination mechanisms;
• Recommend capacity and training needs;
• Develop relevant research tools to address all the above items;
• Based on the needs assessment, design  a power mapping exercise to help coalitions identify the key players influencing policy or decision making, on the formation of strategic alliances, effective coalitions in Egypt pertaining to women empowerment on the political, legal and economic level as well as addressing gender-based violence, family planning and other relevant fields;
• Research and submit short term and long term recommendations on the existing challenges and opportunities to enhance effectiveness of existing coalitions and networks on women rights in Egypt.

The consultant will be responsible to deliver the following:

• research tools for  mapping study and power mapping analysis;
• A comprehensive national mapping exercise of existing and effective networks; coalitions and movements addressing women empowerment and gender equality in Egypt is developed for UN Women covering areas as indicated above;
• A power mapping analysis is designed to support the engagement with existing coalitions and serve advocacy with policy makers;
• A comprehensive document on recommendations, suggestions elaborating on challenges and opportunities on engagement with coalitions and social movements is designed and submitted as well as recommendations for capacity development trainings needed.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Advocates and promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Wome;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism.

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge and Expertise in Women’s Rights and Gender Equality

• Strong skills in drafting, writing, and editing;
• In-depth knowledge of women’s rights issues;
• Communicates sensitively and effectively across different constituencies.

• Demonstrates excellent judgment, particularly with regard to being able to prioritize according to importance and urgency;
• Highly organized, with particular ability in devising systems to ensure follow up;
• Enjoys multi-tasking and managing several projects at one time;
• Focuses on impact and result;
• Ability to work as a positive and valued member of task teams and demonstrates conflict resolution skills;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Builds strong relationships with clients and external actors;
• Responds positively to critical feedback and differing points of view;
• Displays High level of discretion .
  

Required Skills and Experience

•  A university degree in development, political sciences, gender studies, social studies, education or relevant fields.

• Fluency (written and verbal) in English and Arabic required.