Antecedentes

The UN Entity on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) was established by General Assembly Resolution 64/289, and became operational on 01 January 2011. Its vision is a world where women and men have equal opportunities and capacities, where women are empowered and where principles of gender equality are firmly embedded in all efforts to advance development, peace and security. The fundamental objective of UN Women is to enhance national capacity and ownership to enable national partners to formulate gender responsive laws and policies and to scale up successful strategies to deliver on national commitments to gender equality. The UN Women has developed its first global Strategic Plan (SP) that will be the anchor for UN Women support to programme countries. The SP focuses on five thematic priorities: (1) expanding women’s voices, leadership and participation; (2) ending violence against women; (3) strengthening the implementation of the women, peace and security agenda; (4) enhancing women’s economic empowerment; (5) making gender equality priorities central to national, local and sectoral planning and budgeting at all levels.

Likewise, UN Women in Sudan plans to develop a three years Country Programme Document/Strategic Note (2017-2019) which will serve to direct the support to the country. UN Women, has been supporting gender equality and women’s issues in Sudan since UNIFEM era from 2004 until the creation of UN Women in 2010. From 2004-2005, UNIFEM invested in a two year intense preparatory and consultative process for the Sudan, entailing strategic engagement with on-going macro initiatives at the national level as well as with women’s groups and networks. This approach enabled women in the Sudan to engage in the pre and post Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) initiatives. In view of the successful implementation of the preparatory phase, UNIFEM developed a Country Strategy for 2008-2011 to scale up the support in a more systematic manner to deal with gender and women issues during post conflict reconstruction in Sudan, focusing on enhancing awareness towards gender equality and human rights, promoting women’s empowerment, creating an enabling environment to address feminized poverty, violence and HIV/AIDS and supporting efforts to achieve democratic governance in conflict and post conflict Sudan as well as building the capacity of women, women’s organizations, CBO’s and government institutions so that they can effectively advocate for women’s rights.

The creation of UN Women in 2010 marked a new period of strengthened interventions and work on gender equality and women’s empowerment in Sudan. As the mandate of UN Women is broader than UNIFEM; UN Women mandate is to provide, through its normative support functions and operational activities, guidance and technical support to all Member States, across all levels of development and in all regions, at their request, on gender equality, the empowerment and rights of women and gender mainstreaming” and to conduct its work in ways that “lead to more effective coordination, coherence and gender mainstreaming across the United Nations system. Guided by global and regional inter-governmental agreements, such as CEDAW, the Beijing Platform for Action, Security Council resolutions 1325 and others, and the Millennium Development Goals.

Building on lessons learned from its work in Sudan during the preparatory phase programme that came to an end in 2008 whose goal was to achieve the implementation of commitments to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment in Sudan, and the country programme for Sudan for the period 2008-2011, and the 2012 AWP, UN Women programme sought to establish a solid institutional presence for UN Women in Sudan, improve and increase the participation of women in governance institutions and peace monitoring mechanisms, and increase the international visibility of Sudanese women’s rights issues especially in relation to the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement . Within this context, UN Women responded to a wide range of programme stakeholders that included all women nationwide (particularly vulnerable women), at all levels; the national machineries for the advancement of women/ gender mainstreaming mechanisms and other relevant state institutions and women’s organizations and gender equality advocates in civil society.

The Sudan Country Programme/Strategic Note, which was developed upon the creation of UN Women, applied to the country as a whole and also reflected specific regional needs as demanded by local circumstances. UN Women Country Programme in Sudan has focused on the 5 Impacts Areas that UN Women works on at the global level. Programme implementation was achieved through a tripartite and triangular partnership arrangement and engagement with free and open communication with the Sudanese governance and women’s institutions, the donors, the United Nations and women civil society organizations. Monitoring and evaluation was built into the programme components as the responsibility of the implementing agencies for each activity or group of activities but UN Women also was responsible for overall programme monitoring and reporting on achievements for each outcome.

With fully operational offices in Khartoum and Darfur, UN Women also established strategic partnerships by joining the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) and being designated the UN Team leader for gender mainstreaming. It also obtained official recognition by various national institutions such as the Directorate for Gender and Women Affairs in Khartoum, UN Women nurtured the women’s parliamentary forums/caucuses in Khartoum, and became the partner of choice for many women’s organizations and networks, representing a space for women within the United Nations system in Sudan for information, advocacy, leveraging opportunities, capacity building, technical assistance on women’s rights and gender and possible financing. UN Women was also recognized by various donors who have since reached out for mission facilitation, financing or partnership building (for example, Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Unitary Universalist Committee and various international NGOs). UN Women provided capacity-building to government, legislature and women’s organizations in engendering policies, budgetary allocations and competencies and skills to deliver on necessary actions for empowerment, rights and security. Key activities included: activities focusing on gender responsive budgeting; the strengthening of women parliamentarians’ skills for advocacy and legislative influence through the establishment of the Sudanese Women Parliamentary Caucus, trainings in gender responsive budgeting and exchange/learning visits with MPs of other countries in the region. 

The Country Programme Document/Strategic Note which has been implemented by UN Women for 2014-2016 aimed "to consolidate efforts that contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment in Sudan". Key strategies for the implementation of the country programme include capacity building, advocacy, gender mainstreaming, evidence, information and data collection and the use of media to highlight and inform the general population of Sudan. The SN outlines the overall strategy and plan of action for the UN Women Sudan Country Office (CO) for the years 2014-16 and includes a Development Results Framework (DRF) and an Organizational Effectiveness and Efficiency Framework (OEEF) with expected results and targets/ indicators/ baselines.  The SN 2014-2016 covers five impact areas, namely; 1) Women lead and participate in decision making at all levels; 2) Women, especially the poorest and most excluded, are economically empowered and benefit from development; 3) Women and girls live a life free from violence; 4) Peace and security and humanitarian action are shaped by women’s leadership and participation; and 5) Governance and national planning fully reflect accountability for gender equality commitments and priorities.

2017 AWP of UN Women Sudan focuses on concrete, impactful and scalable initiatives, prioritizing 2 UN Women Strategic Plan Impact areas, namely Impact area 2 (WEE) and 4 (WPS/Humanitarian Response), in response to the prevailing context and opportunities. “EVAW” and “Gender Mainstreaming, Planning and Budgeting” interventions will be mainstreamed under each of the above accordingly. Under the Organizational Efficiency and Effectiveness Framework (OEEF) the office will focus on coordinating GEWE work within the UN, with government, CSOs, Academia, Private sector, Donors and other stakeholders. The Country Programme also lays emphasis on strategic partnerships and resource mobilization to bridge the resource gap. UN Women mandate and functions allowed the CO for more influence at policy as well as at programming. It is therefore imperative that the Country Programme to be developed is clear in its strategy as well as in its programme focus.

UN Women Current Strategic Note ends by December 2016. Consequently, the CO has to develop a new Strategic Note which will have to be aligned with the UNDAF (2018 – 2021), the national frameworks on gender equality and women’s empowerment and the All Africa Strategy which currently under process by UN Women Regional Offices of Africa.

Based on the above, UN Women Country Office in Sudan is seeking to hire an International Consultant to undertake the development of the UN Women Sudan Country Programme/Strategic Note for the period (2017-2019) to guide UN Women assistance to Sudan on gender equality and women’s empowerment issues. The Strategic Note (2017 – 2019) will build on the successes and lessons of past support. UN Women Sudan intends to define its Strategic Note based on the following elements: (a) building on the lessons learnt from the previous programme that was implemented previously (b) informed by the findings and recommendations of the Evaluation of the Country Programme (2014 – 2016);  (c) the reforms (on policies and laws) being put in place by the Government of Sudan; (d) the planning scenarios and priorities of the UN in Sudan, as identified by the UNDAF (2018 – 2021), which will ensure that the issues of various geographical areas are addressed effectively; (e) the priority areas identified for the UN Women Global/Corporate Strategic Plan (2014 – 2017); (f) the priority areas identified during the SP consultations with partners in Sudan; (g) the priorities identified by UN Women in Africa as stated in the All Africa Strategy.

Specifically, the objectives of the planning will be to:

• Clearly define the role of the UN Women in UN System in Sudan;
• Extract and further develop the results for clarity and consistency with the UN Women Global Strategic Plan in a defined time frame within the organization’s capacity in the country for implementation;
• Develop and draft management results which must be met to achieve the programmatic/ development results;
• Develop a sense of ownership of the strategic notes and AWPs for 2012 and 2013 among the UN Women’s stakeholders from among the UN System, Government, the CSOs and donors;
• Establish effective use is made of the organization’s resources by focusing the resources on the key priorities in the SN for producing more efficiency and effectiveness by identifying programme risks and threat and providing mitigating actions;
• Provide a baseline from available resources from which progress can be measured, set indicators, annual targets, and establish a mechanism monitoring for informed change when needed;
• Bring together everyone’s best and most reasoned efforts that have value in building a consensus about where an organization is going.

Deberes y responsabilidades

Under the leadership and direct guidance of the Country Programme Director for UN Women Sudan, supported by the Programme Specialist, the international consultant will undertake the following tasks:

• Participate in an inception meeting with the Co Management Team (Country Representative and Programme Specialist) to agree on the methodology for the assignment; and agree on the deliverables of the assignment and the responsibilities and deliverables of each mission member in contribution to the outputs of the overall planning assignment;
• Review current national development strategy, programmes and policies and key documents for areas critical and relevant to women’s empowerment and gender equality in Sudan;
• Review various studies and assessment conducted by UN Women Country Programme as well as the UN Women Darfur sub- office, other relevant documents from the UN System, the current Sudan UN Women Strategic Note (2014 – 2016), progress reports, AWP 2017, mid-term review, etc., to identify lessons learnt and areas that are still relevant to Sudan;
• Consider the findings and recommendations of the Country Programme (2014-2016) evaluation;
• Conduct consultations with key partners in Government, strategic development partners, Civil Society Organizations, regional and sub-regional organizations, the private sector, donors and all other partners to establish their views on the priorities that UN Women should be addressing as well as identify potential partnerships for the implementation of the programme activities;
• Undertake one or two field visits for consultations with state institutions, women, CSOs as will be planned by the UN Women Sudan Office especially in areas where UN Women will likely make a difference. In view of the time constraint, the effort will be to bring the stakeholders together rather than to visit, which would have been ideal if there was time;
• Facilitate a consultation workshop with the government representatives from various states and the national government to be held in Khartoum;
• Facilitate a consultation workshop with the CSOs, CBOs, the private sector, donors and all other relevant stakeholders to be held in Khartoum;
• Develop and submit draft of the Strategic Note based on the above.

Facilitate validation workshops with stakeholders to validate the Strategic Note:

• With donor community to get their buy-in and potential support;
• With Government to own and endorse the programme;
• With CSOs, CBOs and women’s network to own and endorse the programme in order to ensure effective partnership;
• With the private sector to ensure ownership, partnership and support.
• Prepare final the final document of the Strategic Note (2017 – 2019) and submit to UN Women Sudan CR for clearance and final approval.

Reference documents:

• UN Women Sudan office will identify all the required reference documents for this task and make them available to the consultant.

Deliverables:

Country-level Strategic Note according to the specification below:

Part 1: Narrative Strategic Note (3-4 pages maximum):

Context and Situation Analysis: Summary and Outlook:

Briefly describing overall socio-economic context of UN Women’s work in the country and latest political trends. Summary of existing national gender equality priorities, opportunities and challenges, using most recent data, statistics and analysis: a) analysis from the national gender policies and strategies (e.g. National Women Empowerment Policy, National Action Plan UNSCR 1325, National Action Plan on Ending Violence against Women and Children, national plans on gender responsive budgeting and planning, micro finance policies, FGM, early marriage, micro finance policies in addition to the more recent set of laws or policies on gender equality; and  b) analysis contained in UN planning documents, including the UNDAF document and process.

On-going work and Lessons Learned:

Summary of the main components of UN Women’s current work in Sudan (including both UN coordination responsibilities and direct programme and technical support efforts), including where relevant, programmes supported by the UN Trust Fund to End VAW and other Global or Regional Funds). Highlight lessons learned and evaluation results, notably the CP evaluation of 2013 and 2016. In relation to UN coordination, provide an overview of the work of other UN agencies and international partners in the area of gender equality and women’s empowerment and key opportunities and gaps that could be addressed through strengthened coordination.

UN Women Programme 2017-2019:

Provides an overview of UN Women’s programmes in 2017-2019 within the context of overall UN Development Plan (UNDAF). It is expected to show how the programmes are aligned to UN Women Global (corporate) Strategic Plan (2014 – 2017) and All Africa Strategy (which is currently under process), highlight key areas in which UN Women will be leading/coordinating the UNCT to provide a coordinated response to key national priorities including possible thematic priorities across the UNDAF programme working groups. The section should highlight key results that will be achieved in UN Women’s programmatic, technical assistance and coordination initiatives to advance commitments in the UNDAF, or other UNCT priorities, as well as the Development Results Framework (DRF) and the coordination results in the Organizational Management Results Framework contained in UN Women’s Global SP 2014-2017.

Management and Operational Outlook 2017 – 2019:

Summary of the administrative and human resources requirements that are needed to implement the programme. Key changes or areas of strengthening related to staffing, decentralization, representation, information technology, infrastructure, etc. Any issues that exist with rent/premises and audit follow up should be included here, as well as staffing and training requirements aligned with the relevant parts of the Management Results Framework of the SP.

Monitoring, Reporting and Evaluation:

Briefly describe the monitoring and data collection arrangements that the office will put in place to enable it to strengthen its capacity in Results-Based Management (RBM) and reporting (aligning with Section 1 of the MRF). List, as well, both mandatory and voluntary evaluations that the office anticipates participating in during the upcoming year.

Key Partnership in 2017-2019:

Description of UN Women’s key partners that are crucial to implementation of the programme at country level and their role. These would include Government ministries, UN agencies, donors, the private sector and civil society. It is important to reflect UN partnerships, and those with Ministry of Social Affairs and other key government units, Parliamentarians, and women’s networks and organizations, including at grassroots level.

Potential Risks and Challenges:

Description of the risks or challenges that may interfere with fulfilment of commitments, including those that are external (e.g., security risks, political instability), as well as those that are internal. Identify mitigation strategies.

Key Targets:

Project core resources available for 2017, as well as non-core resources confirmed and committed in the UNDAF and resource mobilization targets for non-core, including possible donors. And projection of resources for (2018 – 2019) outlining their prospect of availability.

Support Required from UN Women HQ and Regional Offices:

(Geographic, Thematic and Sub-Regional offices, Inter-Governmental, Partnerships and Communications).

Part 2: Strategic Annual Work plan 2018:

• A brief report of the programme development process that includes the consultations held and outcome of the validation meetings/workshop.

Competencias

Core Values/Guiding Principles:

Integrity:

•  Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

Professionalism:

• Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity:

• Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff;
• Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies:

Ethics and Values:

• Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.

Organizational Awareness:

• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Development and Innovation:

• Take charge of self-development and take initiative.

Work in teams:

• Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

Communicating and Information Sharing:

• Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication.

Self-management and Emotional Intelligence:

• Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behaviour towards others.

Conflict Management:

• Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing:

•  Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making:

• Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making.

Functional Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity and fairness by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards, shows commitment to UN Women’s mission, vision, values and strategic goals of UN Women’s and displays cultural, gender, religion, race, and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Ability to establish and maintain strategic partnerships with government institutions, donors, civil society partners and other UN agencies. Has proven expertise in resource mobilization and strong negotiation skills;
• Excellent personal and professional communication and presentation skills abilities; Has the ability to establish priorities and to plan, coordinate and monitor the progress of the projects and activities within the area of responsibility and achieve planned results;
• Strong teamwork spirit and interpersonal skills demonstrated by the ability to gain the assistance and cooperation of others in a team endeavour; ability to build trust through operating with transparency and creating an open, positive and enabling environment; ability to work in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environment with sensitivity and respect for diversity;
• Sound judgment and decision-making skills, with the ability to make effective timely decisions;
• Results based programme development and management;
• Ability to work under minimal supervision and be proactive and initiative;
• Has the ability to establish priorities and to plan, coordinate and monitor the progress of the projects and activities within the area of responsibility and achieve planned results;
• Sound judgment and decision-making skills, with the ability to make effective timely decisions; Ability to lead effectively, mentoring as well as conflict resolution skills;
• Generate new ideas and approaches for communication and visibility of UN Women.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Education:

• At least Masters’ Degree in gender studies, development studies, social sciences, or a relevant field.

Experience:

• At least 10 years’ experience in research, programme development, monitoring and evaluation;
• Hands-on experience working on women’s issues at global, regional and national levels would be desirable; 
• Previous planning experience with UN Women or other UN agencies especially in programme development will be an added advantage;
• Knowledge of the context and social environment of Sudan is highly desirable.

Language Requirements:

• Excellent skills in written and spoken English;
• Working knowledge of Arabic would be an added advantage but not a prerequisite.