Background

The ‘Enhancing Access to Justice through Institutional Reform Project builds on the achievements of the Strengthening the Rule of Law and Human Rights protection system in Nepal Programme and continues to focus on the reform of the legal aid system, supporting national efforts of reform and coordination in the justice sector, implementation of constitutional provisions on fundamental rights through legislative reform, implementation of the newly adopted criminal and civil code, and in particular on enhancing the access to justice at the local level.

To enable women and vulnerable groups to access justice, the Project will support the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs to lead reforms in the legal aid system in Nepal towards the implementation of the Integrated Legal Aid System which aims to coordinate and regulate accessible socio-legal aid service provision throughout Nepal. By further enabling women and vulnerable groups to enjoy their right to legal aid services, the Project will empower them to exercise their rights to poverty-reducing services such as inheritance, pensions, education allowances, health and legal services, thereby addressing systemic inequality/discriminations which is one of the barriers towards their overall well-being.

The Project will work to strengthen Judicial Committees established as an effective mechanism of justice delivery at the community level, with the aim to promote the access to justice of women, poor and vulnerable and to facilitate easier access to justice and approach to legal remedies for vulnerable people.

The Project will continue to be engaged in the reform of the criminal and civil justice system by providing necessary support for the execution of the Costed Action Plan for the implementation of the newly adopted codes. Developing guidelines on implementation of codes and providing specialized trainings to judges, prosecutors, police officers, lawyers and other justice sector officials will be a focus of the Project.

The project will focus its activities for enhancing access to justice for poor, vulnerable and socially excluded people though legal awareness and capacity enhancement.  This position is very crucial to monitor, document and demonstrate the result on GESI perspective.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of the National Project Manager and in close coordination with the Project Implementation Unit,  the Gender and Social Inclusion Officer will:

• Identify critical project areas for gender and social inclusion based interventions;
• Contribute in planning, monitoring and reporting of the project and integrate GESI in all the process;
• Explore the baseline data on the gender dynamics and the status of women and poor/marginalized communities in the context of the project and relating to access to justice, which will constitute the project’s base for a monitoring and evaluation plan for gender and social integration;
• Identify a list of key gender/social inclusion-related indicators to be included in the project M&E plan, which include sex/caste/ethnicity/income status, disaggregated data wherever possible;
• Assess and recommend to the project the activities that can be incorporated into planning and implementation to ensure improvement of conditions of women and poor/marginalized communities’  in general and more specifically as it relates to access to justice;
• Support implementation of the strategy for mainstreaming gender and social inclusion and a human rights approach in programme activities and develop action-plan for implementing the strategy;
• Provide necessary orientation and advise to all the implementing partners and agencies on  gender and social inclusion issues and policies;
• Contribute to produce resource materials addressing the issues of gender and social inclusion;
• Facilitate policy dialogue on gender and social inclusion, sexual and gender based violence, gender sensitive transitional justice with government and other relevant stakeholders;
• Ensure gender-sensitive provisions for Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV) survivors to enhance access to legal assistance;
• Provide technical assistance to each project to ensure that gender and social inclusion is influencing their planning and activities and budgets;
• Engage with the partners in reviewing and providing necessary inputs on drafting necessary regulations;
• Review necessary procedures, policies related to the Judicial Committee from GESI perspective;
• Build capacity of CSOs and government partners to plan and implement project activities on gender and social inclusion;
• Conduct desk review of  existing  policy documents and legal frameworks (legislations) to identify areas for improvement on gender and social inclusion issues in collaboration with Government counterparts;
• Collaborate with Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist to make sure that the impact measurements focus on women and other vulnerable groups;
• Assist implementing partners to develop gender sensitive and gender responsive monitoring mechanism;
• Maintain awareness of and relationships  with civil society organizations and  development partners also working in areas of social inclusion and women rights;
• Document lessons learned and best practices and communicate with UNDP headquarters (both national and international) to contribute to global knowledge on gender and social inclusion in relation to rule of law and access to justice programme;
• Implement project activities as directed by NPM;
• Perform other works necessary for the successful implementation of Project activities.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Serves and promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Good inter-personal skills;
• Clear and upfront communication skills;
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
• Collaborates effectively in a team environment;
• Organized and good with following-up on pending issues; meets deadlines;
• Promote learning and knowledge management/sharing;
• Focuses on delivering results by taking calculated-risks and problem solving approach;
• Fair and transparent decision making; regularly shares information with team members.

Functional Competencies:

• Promotes sharing of knowledge and experience, and actively works towards continued learning and development on personal level as well as for supervisees;
• Good practical knowledge of inter-disciplinary development issues;
• Ability to go beyond established procedures and models, propose new approaches which expand the range of projects;
• Demonstrates strong numerical and analytical skills;
• Has experience working with Monitoring and Evaluation tools;
• Experience in developing business plans for financial institutions including energy enterprises
• Experience in coordination, technical assistance and advisory support top government and private institutions;
• Experienced in delivering training and other needed capacity/ institutional building support to a wide range of stakeholders including financial institutions;
• Demonstrates excellent organizational and administrative skills;
• Identifies and communicates relevant information for a variety of audiences for advocating UNDP’s mandate;
• Analyzes and selects materials for strengthening strategic alliances with partners and stakeholders;
• Understands and applies fundamental concepts and principles of a professional discipline or technical specialty relating to the position;
• Possesses basic knowledge of organizational policies and procedures relating to the position and applies them consistently in work tasks;
• Demonstrates good knowledge of information technology and applies it in work assignments;
• Effectively networks with partners seizing opportunities to build strategic alliances relevant to UNDP’s mandate and strategic agenda;
• Assesses project performance to identify success factors and incorporates best practices into project work;
• Monitors specific stages of projects/programme implementation;
• Researches linkages across programme activities to identify critical points of integration;
• Oversees and documents the process of strategy formulation for programmes at Project level.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:  

• Completion of  Masters' degree in Gender Studies, Sociology, Human Rights, Law or relevant fields;
• Additional training and certification in Gender and Social Inclusion would be an advantage.

 Experience:

• At least five years of progressive relevant experience of mainstreaming gender and social inclusion into policies along with handling programme implementation independently;
• Proven experience in developing strategies for gender and social inclusion mainstreaming in programme design and implementation;
• Familiarity with the justice sector actors and issues of access to justice from gender and social inclusion perspective;
• Strong management skills including ability to provide strategic guidance, technical oversight; mentor staff; develop work plans and manage budgets and project expenditure;
• Demonstrated ability in monitoring and evaluation and reporting experience.

Computer skill:

• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel etc);
• Knowledge of handling web based management systems.

Language:

•  Fluency in oral and written English and Nepali is essential.