UN WOMEN Jobs - 81157- Consultant - Rapporteur for Multi-Party Dialogues

Consultant - Rapporteur for Multi-Party Dialogues with Local Officials on Women’s Participation in Governance and Peace Building, Sri Lanka (Open to Sri Lankan Nationals)

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Home Based with Travel to 10 Districts in Sri Lanka, SRI LANKA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

01-Oct-2018

Application Deadline :

21-Sep-18 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

70 Working Days spread over 9 Months

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

70 Working Days spread over 9 Months

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

Following the aftermath of war in 2009, Sri Lanka has made several commitments to peacebuilding, reconciliation and good governance, and represents a historic opportunity to advance accountability and reconciliation as necessary steps towards long term and sustainable peace. In this regard, the Sri Lanka Peacebuilding Priority Plan (PPP) was developed, in collaboration with the UN, to serve as the framework for a coordinated Government, UN and development partners’ response to peacebuilding in Sri Lanka. The PPP places particular emphasis on integrating gender perspectives within its framework. As such, it aims to ensure that peacebuilding initiatives in Sri Lanka include leveraging women’s capacities and contributions, and developing strategies for inclusion which recognize their roles, and diverse experiences of conflict. Without women’s engagement at the stages of peace consolidation, the dangers of relapse are greatly heightened. Empirical evidence reveals a strong connection between the inclusion of women in peace processes and more durable and stable peace.

Despite this, the most challenging gap that remains, in terms of women’s political participation across the world, concerns the participation of women in peace processes and post-conflict political transitions. This is particularly relevant in the context of Sri Lanka, given that compared to other development indices, political participation of women has the widest gender gap.

In this context, funded by the United Nations Peace Building Fund, UN Women, in partnership with UNFPA and UNV, is implementing a programme initiative to strengthen the participation of women and youth in the peacebuilding processes in Sri Lanka. UN Women will focus on promoting women’s leadership and participation to strengthen their role in decision-making processes to develop a peacebuilding agenda that is broadly owned, open and transparent. At the same time the project will work with women leaders and political parties to support increased female political representation, with a focus on the implementation of the new quota in the upcoming local government elections. The project will target districts within the Northern, Eastern, Central, Southern and North-Western Provinces.

Within this project, UN Women is convening multi-party dialogues involving local officials aimed at promoting women’s participation in governance and peacebuilding and achieving local-level consensus on taking forward reconciliation efforts in 10 districts of Sri Lanka. The 10 locations are Ampara, Galle, Jaffna, Kandy, Kilinochchi, Kurunegala, Mannar, Matara, Nuwara Eliya, and Trincomalee. The multi-party dialogue would be a residential programme spanning three days in each location.

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant will work under the supervision of the Programme Analyst, UN Women Sri Lanka and the Consultant – Women’s Participation in Peacebuilding and Governance. The rapporteur will compile a report based on the proceedings of the multi-party dialogues, which would include a detailed note of the speeches, comments, suggestions made by the participants whilst paying special attention to the action points, outcomes and recommendations that derive through the proceedings. Upon the completion of the event, the rapporteur will produce a comprehensive report with key action points and recommendations with specific cases and approaches, as per the proceedings.

The roles and responsibilities of the consultant are as follows:

Document and take detailed notes on the key action points and recommendations of the sessions during the 10 dialogues.
Prepare a draft meeting report for each dialogue in collaboration with the Consultant – Women’s Participation in Peacebuilding and Governance and solicit comments from UN Women.
Finalise the 10 district-level reports for printing.
Prepare and finalise a consolidated overall report covering all 10 dialogues.

Deliverable :

Task : Attend and take detailed notes of the key action points, recommendations of good practices and commitments made at each of the 10 dialogues - Expected Deliverable : Proposed outline/draft of the report with Annexes and consolidated presentations, notes, key decisions and related documents made during each of the 10 dialogues - At each dialogue (schedule to be provided) Three days per dialogue – 30 days total.

Task: Prepare draft report for each of the 10 dialogues, in collaboration with the Consultant – Women’s Participation in Peacebuilding and Governance; and solicit comments from UN Women – Expected Deliverable : Draft reports submission to UN Women for comments - A week after each dialogue, Two days per report – 20 days in total.

Task : Revise each report and submit the final reports with incorporated comments from UN Women - Expected Deliverable : Revised reports based on comments from UN Women for final review and approval - A week following comments from UN Women - 1 day per report –10 days in total.

Task : Prepare and finalise a consolidated overall report covering all 10 dialogues - Draft report submitted to UN Women and Final report incorporating UN Women’s feedback - 7 days for preparation of draft overall report and 3 days for final overall report.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

Demonstrates commitment to UN Women’s mission, vision and values;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge Management and Learning:

Shares knowledge and experience;
Actively works towards continuing personal learning, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills.

Development and Operational Effectiveness:

Ability to perform a variety of specialized tasks related to design, planning and implementation of programme, managing data, reporting;
Ability to provide input to and use new IT based systems.

Leadership and Self-Management:

Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
Remains calm, in control even under pressure;
Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities;
Good understanding of gender and development in South Asia;
Demonstrable ability to work in a team;
Ability to work under pressure;
Good writing and communication skills;
Excellent computer literacy and skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Gender, Development Studies, International Relations, Public Administration, Law, Human Rights, Communications, Journalism or equivalent in relevant fields of Social Science.

Experience:

Minimum 2 years of demonstrable previous experience in being a rapporteur for similar events;
Familiarity with key issues relating to gender equality, women’s empowerment, governance and peacebuilding;
Demonstrated ability to prepare and draft reports and knowledge products.

Language:

Excellent oral and written English and Sinhala/Tamil communication skills.

Application:

Interested applicants should apply to this announcement through UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:

All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs
Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment, please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment;
Applications received after the close date will not be accepted;
Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Evaluation and Selection Criteria:

Criteria for shortlisting of CVs will be based on the following assessment:

Required degree and qualification (5 points);
Previous experience as a rapporteur for similar events (5 points);
Experience in/knowledge of gender equality and women’s empowerment, particularly promoting women’s participation in governance and decision making (5 points);
Excellent oral and written English and Sinhala/Tamil communication skills (5 points).

The evaluation process for selection of the candidate will be based on the following assessment:

Written Sample (50 points);
Interview (50 points).

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.