Background

UN Women, 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 centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on 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.

Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system 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. Through a set of tested approaches, UN Women proposes to build synergies over the humanitarian-development continuum by strengthening women’s agency, leadership, and participation to rebuild the lives of women and girls in crisis and conflict, and disaster contexts. This will contribute to Goal 4 of UN Women’s Strategic Plan: peace and security, humanitarian action and disaster risk reduction are shaped by women leadership and participation.

The peace and security and humanitarian context in Mozambique is becoming increasingly complex and protracted, with significant long-term impacts. War, violent conflict, terrorism and violent extremism have differential and devastating consequences for women and girls. Intersectional vulnerabilities can further determine how people are affected, among others, women with disabilities, women head of households, adolescent girls, and older women. Pre-existing gender-based discrimination and inequalities exacerbate the impact of the crisis on women and girls and reduce their likelihood to receiving the humanitarian services they need to survive and recover. Gender inequality tends to worsen in the insecure and violent contexts. In the face of this, women have the capacity and are leading movements for peace and to rebuild communities. In fact, there is strong evidence suggesting that women’s participation in peace processes contributes to longer, more resilient peace after conflict. Yet, despite this, women remain largely invisible to, and excluded from, peace processes and negotiations.

UN Women Country Office in Mozambique, in partnership with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Action (MGCAS) and with support from the kingdom of Norway is embarking in its second phase of the implementation of the NAP1325 with the aim to ensure that women and girls contribute to and thave greater influence in building sustainable peace and resilience, and to benefit equally from the prevention of conflicts and disasters in Mozambique. The project’s main outcome is to  ensure that more commitments on women, peace and security are implemented by the Government of Mozambique and  the UN System, and more gender equality advocates influence peace and security processes, contribute to crisis response, and create resilience. The project intends to fostering meaningful participation of women in leadership, political, peace and security processes, crisis response and resilience.

More especially the project seeks to: (1) Empower women and gender equality advocates to have greater influence in decision-making in political, peace and security processes, contribute to crisis response, and create resilience; (2) Build the capacity of the Government of Mozambique to implement Women, Peace and Security (WPS) commitments and ensure monitoring and accountability frameworks are in place at national, regional and provincial levels; (3) Foster greater coordination of the implementation of WPS commitments; and (4) Facilitate the access to sustainable livelihoods and socioeconomic opportunities to women affected by conflict.

In this regards, UN Women is looking for an International Consultant Expert in Gender and Peace Building to support  UN Women Mozambique Country office the implementation of the Project “Promoting the participation and leadership of women in peace, security and recovery processes in Mozambique in the conflict affected areas in Cabo Delgado (Pemba, Chiure, Ancuabe and Montepuez), Nampula (Meconta), Manica (Barué) e Sofala (Nhamatanda, Chibabava and Cheringoma) provinces and respectives 9 districts, focusing particularly on the following Outputs: 1.1. Safe, meaningful, and inclusive participation and leadership of women in decision-making in political, in peace and security processes, crisis response and resilience, are promoted and supported and O 1.2. Women are enabled to contribute to and benefit from conflict and crisis prevention and response, peace building and recovery.

Duties and Responsibilities

Duties and Responsibilities

Under direct supervision of the UN Women Country Representative and in close in collaboration with the Programme Specialist  and the Programme Officer in Mozambique, the incumbent will work on the following areas:

1. Technical leadership, Planning and Implementation

• Conduct a civic education campaign to increase awareness of the vital role of women’s participation in building and sustaining socio and cultural positive norms and values for social cohesion and peacebuilding and support social norms transformation initiatives at the community level (including engagement with youth, men, people of influence and power, and religious leaders),

• Conduct participatory and gender-responsive analyses and document emerging good practices of women´s participation in political, peace processes and crisis responses.
• Conduct capacity development of women and women’s organizations to participate in and lead political, peace and security and crisis response and resilience actions (including with a focus on DDR and violent extremism),
• Provide technical support to and invest in core programming (through grants) of grassroots, youth and women-led and gender equality organizations that is focused on promoting and enhancing participation and leadership of women in political, peace and security, crisis response and resilience actions;
• Conduct early warning and conflict prevention trainings for women in communities susceptible to violent extremism;Conduct training for women´s organizations on the provision of support services (GBV, mental and psycho-social services, etc) to survivors of conflict and violent extremism as well as ex-combatants and their families;
•  Support the building of a women´s coalition/network for peacebuilding as well as for gender-responsive DDR in Mozambique.
• Identify and provide support to peace champions to participate in peacebuilding discussion and processes, conflict prevention, mediation, resoulution and response, including in DDR,

• Provide technical assistance to grassroots, youth and women-led and gender equality organizations  initiatives that is focused on promoting and enhancing participation and leadership of women in political, peace and security, crisis response and resilience.
• Provide support to initiatives by youth and women-led and gender equality organizations on the provision of support essential services to survivors of conflict-related violence, especially focusing on essential services to women affected by violent extremism as well as ex-combatants and their families.

2.   Political Dialogue and Strategic Partnership

• Assist the CO to meet key stakeholders engaged in WPS, especially Government Institutions at central and decentralized levels, Development Partners and Women’s Networks  to expand outreach.  

3.    Reporting

• Produce high quality and timely reports  and within agreed reporting schedules as required;
• In coordination with relevant team members based in Maputo, Sofala and Cabo Delgado, ensure the preparation of a timely programme delivery in compliance with internal requirements and any relevant external donor requirements.

Deliverables (A clear and unambiguous definition of the final product)

1. Present a detailed roadmap, workplan for the entire consultancy
2. Produce and submit an evidence-based monthly report,

* Payable in lump sum shall be authorized upon certification of satisfactory services and deliverables satisfactory performance at each month. Travel Expenses: UN Women shall pay an air ticket and the daily subsistence allowance in accordance with UN rates.

Competencies

Corporate Competences and Values

• Demonstrate integrity, values and ethics in accordance with UN Women norms
• Promote the vision, mission and strategic objectives of UN Women
• Show respect regardless the race/colour, sex, religion, nationality and age as well as be sensible to cultural adaptation capacity
• Consultant are expected to have personal and professional integrity and abided by the UN Code

Core Competences:

- Awareness and Sensitivity to Gender Issues

- Accountability

- Creative Problem Solving

- Effective Communication

- Inclusive Collaboration

- Leading by Example

- Team Building

 Functional Competences

• Knowledge of UNSCR 1325 and its supporting resolutions, its aims, implications and vision
• Knowledge of legislation, programme and public policies on gender, women, peace and security, and women’s rights in general in Mozambique
• Demonstrated experience in gender, peace and security awareness
• Desmontrated experience in Women and Youth engagement and leadership in peacebuilding,
• Strong networking skills and organizational capacity with women’s organizations, especially from the grassroots level.
• Demonstrated experience in implementing capacity building programme on women, peace and security
• Excellent writing skills,

• Leadership and skills to work with autonomy and initiative
• Strong communications, advocacy and skills
• Excellent knowledge of gender equality and women's empowerment
• Strong knowledge of UN system,

Managing knowledge and learning

• Promote knowledge sharing and a learning culture;
• Team working; and
• Strong communication skills, oral and written in English and undertstand Portuguese.

Ethical Code of Conduct

• Independence: Consultant shall ensure that independence of judgment is maintained, and that evaluation findings and recommendations are independently presented.
• Cultural Sensitivity/Valuing diversity: Demonstrating an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organisation and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrating an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.
• Impartiality: Consultant shall operate in an impartial and unbiased manner and give a balanced presentation of strengths and weaknesses of the policy, program, project or organisational unit being evaluated.
• Conflict of Interest: Consultant are required to disclose in writing any past experience, which may give rise to a potential conflict of interest, and to deal honestly in resolving any conflict of interest which may arise.

• Honesty and Integrity: Consultant shall show honesty and integrity in their own behaviour, negotiating honestly the evaluation costs, tasks, limitations, scope of results likely to be obtained, while accurately presenting their procedures, data and findings and highlighting any limitations or uncertainties of interpretation within the evaluation.
• Competence: Consultant shall accurately represent their level of skills and knowledge and work only within the limits of their professional training and abilities in evaluation, declining assignments for which they do not have the skills and experience to complete successfully.
• Accountability: Consultant are accountable for the completion of the agreed evaluation deliverables within the 40-day timeframe and budget agreed, while operating in a cost-effective manner.
• Obligations to Participants: Consultant shall respect and protect the rights and welfare of human subjects and communities, in accordance with the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights conventions. Consultant shall respect differences in culture, local customs, religious beliefs and practices, personal interaction, gender roles, disability, age and ethnicity, while using evaluation instruments appropriate to the cultural setting. Consultant shall ensure prospective participants are treated as autonomous agents, free to choose whether to participate in the evaluation, while ensuring that the relatively powerless are represented.
• Confidentiality: Consultant shall respect people’s right to provide information in confidence and make participants aware of the scope and limits of confidentiality, while ensuring that sensitive information cannot be traced to its source.

• Avoidance of Harm: Consultant shall act to minimise risks and harms to, and burdens on, those participating in the evaluation, without compromising the integrity of the evaluation findings.
• Accuracy, Completeness and Reliability: Consultant have an obligation to ensure that evaluation reports and presentations are accurate, complete and reliable. Consultant shall explicitly justify judgments, findings and conclusions and show their underlying rationale, so that stakeholders are in a position to assess them.
• Transparency: Consultant shall clearly communicate to stakeholders the purpose of the evaluation, the criteria applied and the intended use of findings. Consultant shall ensure that stakeholders have a say in shaping the evaluation and shall ensure that all documentation is readily available to and understood by stakeholders.
• Omissions and wrongdoing: Where consultant find evidence of wrong-doing or unethical conduct, they are obliged to report it to the proper oversight authority.
• The evaluator will have the final judgment on the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the evaluation report, and the evaluator must be protected from pressures to change information in the report. If the evaluator identifies issues of wrongdoing, fraud or other unethical conduct, UN Women procedures must be followed, and confidentiality be maintained. The UN Women Legal Framework for Addressing Non-Compliance with UN Standards of Conduct defines misconduct and the mechanisms within UN Women for reporting and investigating it.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in field of international relations, political science or other social sciences field relevant to requirements of the TORs or A minimum of 7 years of experience in humanitarian and recovery programming preferably in the area of women, peace and security,  gender equality, including in disaster/conflict and post-disaster/conflict settings;

Experience:

• Strong background and experience in gender and WPS programming, with a focus on promoting women's participation and leadership in peacebuilding processes.
• Strong technical skills in project management, results-based management, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Significant experience in designing and implementing gender-responsive and conflict-sensitive interventions.
• strong advocacy and communication skills to effectively engage with partners, stakeholders, and beneficiaries at all levels.
• Proven experience in providing training and capacity building women as agents and women’s organizations, particularly in promoting women's engagement and participation in peacebuilding.
• strong teamwork and collaborative skills,
• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages, experience in handling of web-based management systems; 

Required Languages:

• Fluency in written and spoken English. Knowledg of Portuguese is an asset.

UN Women is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are also encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated in the strictest confidence.