Background

Ethiopia continues to face a major humanitarian crisis caused by climate shocks, disease outbreaks, conflict, and insecurity, aggravated by economic and financial challenges. 2024 is an exceptional year in terms of compounded negative humanitarian conditions. To address these needs the 2024 Ethiopia Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) requires US$ 3,237 billion to target over 15 million people, including 4 million internally displaced people (IDPs).

 

Accumulating Shocks and the need for recovery

Droughts and floods in Ethiopia have been increasing in duration and frequency over the past several years due to notable accelerated changes in the regional climate. This has amplified the humanitarian impacts. for communities and weakened their resilience to future shocks. The impacts of the protracted drought, caused by five failed rainy seasons that ended in 2023, continue to be felt in many areas, including across the south of the country, in Oromia, Somali, South Ethiopia, and Southwest Ethiopia regions. The recovery from the last drought is expected to take multiple years, and in absence of strong recovery interventions in drought affected areas, these will be more vulnerable to shocks with large numbers of people remaining in protracted need of humanitarian assistance.

 

The lack of recovery and long-term durable solutions for IDPs main shocks that has resulted in substantial number of protracted IDPs demonstrates that displacement is not only a humanitarian concern, but also a peace and development challenge. Considering that conflict is a main driver of displacement, peace-building initiatives are crucial both to prevent future displacement and to restore peace and enable returns. Development action is also essential to reduce vulnerabilities and enable improved conditions for returns through systems strengthening, as well as to

prevent future displacement by sustainably building the resilience of communities, infrastructure and social services to recurring climatic shocks.

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 center 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. Globally, UN Women works to make the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) and the Agenda 2030 a reality for women and girls and stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life, focusing on five priority areas: women lead, participate in and benefit equally from governance systems; women have income security, decent work and economic autonomy; all women and girls live a life free from all forms of violence and ensure that women and girls contribute to and have greater influence in building sustainable peace and resilience, and benefit equally from the prevention of natural disasters and conflicts and humanitarian action.

 

UN Women is committed to ensuring equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of humanitarian action. UN Women works in crises prevention, preparedness, and response to reduce vulnerabilities, address risks, promote resilience and leverage women’s leadership. In crisis settings, UN Women supports in the coordination of gender mainstreaming, evidence-based response, targeted programming and in building capacities of humanitarian stakeholders including governments and local actors to achieve their gender commitments.

Due to the significantly deteriorated humanitarian situation in Ethiopia, humanitarian needs have significantly risen across the country. More than 20 million people are being targeted for humanitarian assistance, almost three quarters of them women and children. Different humanitarian crises affect women, girls, men, and boys differently. While all have different capacities, risks and coping mechanisms, women and girls remain the most at risk due to their intersecting vulnerabilities. Their already limited access to financial and other resources, lack of access to basic services, disproportionate responsibilities of care work and households and limited access to decision-making and power make them disproportionately affected in situations of displacement, conflict and disruptment of livelihoods. The integration of gender into humanitarian programming throughout the programme cycle helps to ensure that the specific needs, capacities, and priorities of women, girls, men, and boys are recognized and addressed to ensure effective, equitable, and participatory humanitarian action.

Duties and Responsibilities

To this end, UN Women is seeking the services of a national consultant to conduct data collection for annual comprehensive gender assessment and analysis (GA) on two different humanitarian crises in Ethiopia. The partner is expected to collect comprehensive primary and secondary data and develop a comprehensive RGA report. The crises in question are:

  • The humanitarian situation in Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions caused by the conflict in Northern Ethiopia.
  • The humanitarian situation caused simultaneously by drought and conflict, particularly in the Somali region and in the western, central, and southern regions of Oromia.
  • The refugee girls and women’s situation in the refugee camps (Gambella and Benishangul regions),
  • Developing the Gender in Humanitarian Action Brief Profile for Ethiopia.

The data collected must cover the following topics:

  • How are different demographic groups (gender, age and disability disaggregated) affected?
  • What protection do these groups receive and what protection needs exist?
  • What are the existing protection structures existing to respond to the major protection risks and gender issues in the camps, IDP collective sites and host communities?
  • Is there WLOs/WROs operating in the regions targeted and identified?
  • What are the capacities of these groups to respond to the crisis and mitigate its effects?
  • How are men and women influencing and participating in decision making regarding humanitarian response (informally and formally)?
  • How do different groups access services and what are their needs regarding this?
  • Has the crisis affected existing gender roles?

The duration of the contract will be 95 days. The selected entity is expected to produce the following deliverables:

Deliverable

Estimated Duration

Identify locations and target groups of the gender assessment and analysis GA&As and submit to UN Women for review and agreement and inception report

7 days

Undertake the comprehensive assessemt and anaysis (GA&A) assessment,  compile, analyze and deliver the collected data as a GA&A report and work on Gender in Humanitarian Action Profile for Ethiopia.

60 days

Plan a training for humanitarian stakeholders and submit session plans and materials for approval of UN Women

10 days

Deliver the training in a context-, conflict- and gender-sensitive manner and submit a training report with brief Gender in Humanitarian Action Profile for Ethiopia.

14 days

Competencies

Core Values: 

  • Respect for Diversity 
  • Integrity 
  • Professionalism 

Core Competencies: 

  • Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues 
  • Accountability 
  • Creative Problem Solving 
  • Effective Communication 
  • Inclusive Collaboration 
  • Stakeholder Engagement 
  • Leading by Example 

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies:  

https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment/application-process#_Values 

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES: 

  • Ability to work with minimal supervision.
  • Evidence of having undertaken similar assignments
  • Experience around analysis of national plans and strategies, budget analysis and development of assessments.
  • High level written and oral communications skills in Amharic and English
  • Result-oriented, team player, exhibiting high levels of enthusiasm for gender equality, diplomacy and integrity.
  • Demonstrate excellent interpersonal and professional skills in interacting with government and development partners at regional and federal level
  • Experience in conducting assessment, writing high quality reports both in English and Amharic

Required Skills and Experience

Education

  • MA degree in development study, Gender and Development, Human right, international cooperation and Humanitarian Aid, Public administration, project management, social work, social policy, and sociology

Expierence

  • 10 years of practical hand on experiences in conducting gender and gender-based analysis, protection analysis in the humanitarian development peace nexus in the country and beyond
  • A proven track record of effectively carrying out data collection and working with nongovernmental organizations, community-based organizations, and especially international non-governmental organizations and UN agencies.
  • Sound access to the Amhara, Afar, Tigray, Oromia, Somali and Gambella regions, where priority areas will be targeted based on discussion on the methodology of the data collection.
  • Practical experience in gender assessments
  • Practical experience in operating in humanitarian settings and knowledge of refugee context.
  • Experience working in the UN System in humanitarian emergencies is an asset.
  • Demonstrated experience in conducting assessments on gender-based violence, gender rapid assessment, protection risk assessment, multi-sectoral initial rapid assessment, gender needs or other related fields.

Language and other skills

  • The consultant must be able to fluently undertake the required services in English and Amharic (both writing and speaking); knowledge of other national languages spoken in the location in question is an asset.
  • The consultant must have full command of all Microsoft applications and sound computer skills.

How to Apply

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided?on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need. 

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application. 

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)