UN WOMEN Jobs - 75864- Gender Analysis of the Legal Framework (the Consti

Gender Analysis of the Legal Framework (the Constitution and Electoral Act 2010), with special refence to Women’s participation in politics

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Home based, NIGERIA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

27-Nov-2017

Application Deadline :

22-Nov-17 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

40 working days over a two months’ period (from date of signing contract)

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

Various dynamics are responsible for women’s political marginalization in Nigeria. This includes the non-coherent legal frameworks such as the constitution and the recent electoral Acts 2010. The Nigerian constitution (1999) provides the enabling environment for equality of men and women before the law, meaning that, every citizen is entitled to equality of rights, obligations and opportunities before the law. The constitution is supreme and any provision of the law that is inconsistent with the constitutional provisions shall be null and avoid to the extent of such inconsistency. The constitution also provides for ‘’Federal character’’ as a form of reservation or affirmative Action in that context. The principle of affirmative action is premised on a sincere recognition/acknowledgement of a desire to right the injustices, wrongs, denials or inequalities among peoples, in the systems, in the access or redistribution of resources in a given context for specific beneficiaries. The problem with the Federal Character provisions in the Constitution is that it has no gender perspectives and to that extent fails to address the historical disadvantage faced by the Nigerian women. The Nigerian Constitution though addresses the issue of national unity by seeking to give every Nigerian a sense of belonging, it does not address specifically the concerns of marginalized groups especially women.

The Electoral Act, 2010 was passed by the National Assembly on 29 July 2010 and signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan on 20 August 2010. The law provides the basic legal framework for regulating the conduct of Federal, State and Area Council elections in Nigeria. There are two amendments to the 2010 Electoral Act: The first amendment, the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2010, provides for adequate time for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to issue notices, receive nomination of candidates from political parties and ensure the proper conduct of political parties. The second amendment, Electoral (Amendment) Act (No.2), 2011, contains only one amendment aimed at abridging the time within which INEC shall stop the registration of voters before any general election under the Act from 60 days to 30 days. The Electoral Act has no gender perspectives whatsoever. Independent National Commission (INEC) has no legal mandates to provide necessary legal support to women in this context other than advocacy and lobbying of relevant actors particularly, the political parties.

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination stipulates (in Article 2.2) that affirmative action programs may be required of countries that have ratified the convention, in order to rectify systematic discrimination. It states, however, that such programs "shall in no case entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate rights for different racial groups after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved."

The United Nations Human/animals Rights Committee states, "the principle of diminish or eliminate conditions which cause or help to perpetuate discrimination prohibited by the Covenant. For example, in a State where the general conditions of a certain part of the population prevent or impair their enjoyment of human rights, the State should take specific action to correct those conditions. Such action may involve granting for a time to the part of the population concerned certain preferential treatment in specific matters as compared with the rest of the population. However, as long as such action is needed to correct discrimination, in fact, it is a case of legitimate differentiation under the Covenant.".

There are several ongoing reforms in governance process presently, including those that could herald opportunity for increased women’s participation and representation in elective positions. The 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act is currently under review by the National Assembly, national dialogues and discourse on ‘restructuring’ are currently on going across the country. These are all opportunities for far reaching reforms particularly in terms of redressing the unequal political system that has historically resulted in under representation of some groups particularly women and girls.

UN WOMEN in her continued effort to facilitate the establishment of democratic institutions and procedures of democracy and strengthening the democratic character of Nigerian political processes and outcomes through consolidating and advancing democratic governance and accountability, would engaged the services of a Gender/legal expert to conduct gender analysis of legal frameworks, particularly, the Nigeria Constitution and Electoral Act. The Analysis “gender analysis of Legal Framework’’ aimed to determine to what extent Nigeria legal instruments support and protect Nigerian women’s participation in political activities. Report of the analysis will form an advocacy tool for dialogues with relevant stakeholders and programming for increased participation of women in political activities in Nigeria.

Duties and Responsibilities

OBJECTIVES:

To do the inventory of key legislations and administrative texts guiding the electoral system in Nigeria,
To examine the gender discriminatory aspects of the electoral system legal frameworks, and how these have affect women as voters and candidates
To examine the level of integration of gender by INEC in implementing these provisions and make recommendations to improve gender integration in their mechanisms and systems.

MAIN ACTIVITIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The gender analysis of legal instruments will assess the overall provisions supporting women’s participation in electoral processes. It is expected that the analysis will assess the extent to which these legal frameworks have in anyway support or hindered women’s participation in political activities in Nigeria and make recommendations on how to reform provisions and enhance women’s representation in elective positions. The assignment will be conducted under the direct supervision of the UN Women Nigeria Country Office and key findings will be published and disseminated to key stakeholders for further programming.

Specifically, the Consultant will be responsible for the following tasks:

Task 1: Prepare Inception Report: Complete an inception report and submit to UN Women. An inception report with proposed methodology for the analysis (including timeframes), which should include the following components:

Desk review: The analysis should be informed by an initial desk review of (a) the general legal framework (Constitution, Electoral Act 2010) including INEC institutional mechanisms and how it is supporting women political empowerment
Proposed Structure for Analysis; which includes a summary on the proposed sections and sub-sections of report of analysis. The analysis should address issues surrounding all Legal Frameworks and Electoral Act 2010 as it relates to gender; women’s participation in politics before, during and after elections, and other issues as may be identified by the UN Women Country Office.
Qualitative interview protocol; (a) detailed list of proposed key stakeholders to be interviewed and for FGDs. Interviewees may include key members of legislature, executive and judiciary, male and female members of political parties, women candidates and aspirants, the Electoral Management Body (INEC and ISEC) UNDP, other development partners

Task 2: Conduct a gender analysis of the legal frameworks using agreed methodology

Task 3: In collaboration with UN Women country office, hold de-briefing sessions for stakeholders, sharing initial findings, gaps in legal instruments, specific challenges under the context hampering women from political participation, challenges met while conducting analysis, including lessons learnt, and with recommendations and responsibilities for key stakeholders particularly, the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary.

Task 4: Finalize and Support Dissemination of Findings

Prepare executive summary of the main findings for feedback, and present final draft report for clearance by UN Women.
Complete annexes, acronyms and classify all the resources used, including interviews.
UN Women will be responsible for production of report document
Contribute/facilitate dissemination of findings at a larger stakeholders meeting to be organized by UN Women

Methodology: It is expected that the gender analysis would adopt participatory methodology at every stage of the process involving all relevant stakeholders. This will also involve gap analysis, focus group discussions (where appropriate), dialogue, key informant interviews (KIIs) with selected Stakeholders, memoranda from relevant stakeholders (especially the Civil Society Organizations), Desk review of existing local, national and international legal instruments in relevant areas, including others deem fit by the consultant

EXPECTED OUTCOME:

It is expected that report of the analysis will form a tool for advocacy in pursuit of legal and policy reforms. It will provide a comprehensive analysis of the working in political environment and constraints faced by women politicians in Nigeria. It will recommend steps and measures that could provide enabling environment for women’s participation in political activities that would address gender imbalance and discriminations at all levels in Nigeria.

KEY DELIVERABLES:

Inception report, which includes proposed methodology for conducting analysis (5 days from commencement)
Submission of draft report to UN Women which includes summary and initial analysis of desk review, field works findings and recommendations and debriefings with key stakeholders and evaluation of challenges and lessons learned from the process (Task 2 and 3) 25 days from commencement
Submission of final report of analysis/findings, dissemination as in Task 4 above (40 days from commencement)

Competencies

Core Values and Guiding Principles

Demonstrates integrity by modeling UN Women values and ethical standards.
Demonstrates a commitment to UN Women’s mission and vision.
Able to work effectively within a team.
Displays cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability.
Able to multi-task and juggle competing demands.
Can assess and prioritize work needs quickly.
Able to relate to external partners, including other international organizations and agencies, NGOs, grassroots community groups, etc.

Functional Competencies

Sound expertise in gender equality and women’s empowerment, including women’s political participation
Communications or knowledge management experience an advantage.
Academic and practical research experience.
Fluent in Microsoft word, excel, e-mail, web-based applications and databases.
Demonstrated leadership and personal examples of promoting knowledge management and a professional learning environment.
Outstanding networking, team-building, organizational and communication skills.
Capacity to work with diverse partners including governments, donors and civil society.
Ability to work effectively and harmoniously with people from varied cultures and professional backgrounds.
Results based management skills.
Ability to produce well-written documents demonstrating excellent interpersonal communication skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent) in Gender Studies, Law, Political Science, Sociology, International Relations, Law-related fields and equivalent practical experiences.

Experience:

A minimum of 10 years (Master’s degree) relevant work experience in the field of legal profession, constitutional expert, gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Research experience, communications, advocacy experience are assets.
Substantive experience in women’s leadership and participation and/or violence against women.
Experience in working in a multicultural environment.
Sound knowledge of international standards on human rights, women’s rights and related instruments.
Experience with UN Intergovernmental processes including those related to women’s empowerment, gender mainstreaming and gender equality is an asset.
Experience working with multi-stakeholder organizations is essential: governments, CSOs, and the UN/ multilateral/bilateral institutions.

Language:

Fluency in oral and written English is required.

Working knowledge of English and other UN languages is an asset.

All online applications through a completed UN Women Personal History form (P11) which can be downloaded from

http://www.unwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/p 11form UNwomen.doc).

and forward to unwomen.ng@unwomen.org deadline 22 November 2017