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 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. Established in October 2012, the UN Women Country Office for Malawi works in close collaboration with the Government of Malawi, the UN Country Team and the Civil Society to advance the women’s national agenda, promote women’s empowerment and gender equality.

The development of UN-Women’s Corporate Strategic Plan (SP)- 2018-2021, takes place at an important inflexion point for the gender equality and women's empowerment agenda and for UN-Women and in co- incidentally with the development of the succor National Strategic Plan and UNDAF for Malawi. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has reaffirmed the centrality of gender equality and women's empowerment for sustainable development both as a dedicated Sustainable Development Goal and as central to the achievement of all SDGs. The extensive 20-year review and appraisal of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, conducted in 2015, has identified key priorities for the full, effective and accelerated implementation of the Platform for Action.  The 15-year High-Level Review of Security Council resolution 1325 and the adoption of Security Council resolution 1325 has further deepened and strengthened the women, peace and security agenda. In addition, the CSW concluding observations for Malawi have also been key to strengthen GEWE in Malawi.  In addition, gender equality perspectives were successfully mainstreamed in a number of sectoral outcomes, thereby strengthening the scope and depth of the gender equality agenda.

As the midterm review of UN-Women's Strategic Plan 2014-2017 noted, attention to the gender equality agenda has never been so high, but women and girls continue to face major obstacles to equal opportunities and outcomes in a global context marked by a number of major challenges. UN-Women is also at a critical turning point, six years after the start of its operations. Many lessons have been learned since UN-Women's creation and while there have been remarkable accomplishments, challenges remain for the Entity to be able to fully deliver on its mandate and bring about transformative change for women and girls. A series of independent assessments and evaluations, as well as the midterm review of the Strategic Plan 2014-2017, have provided major lessons and recommendations to strengthen UN-Women's strategic focus, institutional capacity, and internal systems. These lessons and recommendations will play a key role in informing the development of the Strategic Plan 2018-2021.

In line with the UN Women global strategic plan 2018-21, UN Women field offices are to develop Strategic Notes (SN) 2018-21 and Annual Work Plans 2018 to establish important priorities and intended results based on the strategic directions identified in the SP.  Development of SN would be guided by three major components; 1- Narrative, 2- Development Results Framework, 3- Organization Effectiveness and Efficiency Framework (within the context of integrated resource management/mobilization). SNs would articulate a compelling vision of what the office desires to achieve by 2021 in the host country, in response to the most urgent and important national priorities and goals, the 2030 Agenda, normative mandate and other corporate mandates. The SN will be supported by a robust results framework with a strong theory of change to ensure that Programme objectives are clearly linked with the organization’s mandate and caters to the need of the stakeholders in the host country. 

UN Women Office in Malawi has initiated the process to develop SN 2018-21 to define the institutional strategy in Malawi for the next four years to respond to its universal triple mandate, linking this to the Malawi Government’s National Development Plan (2017-2022), UNDAF (2019-2023); the UN Women Global Strategic Plan (2018-2021), and the All Africa Strategy - as informed by key global and regional frameworks and the 2030 Agenda using the Human Rights Based Approach. It is intended that the new SN will clearly identify key strategic priorities, programming areas and approaches, based on an analysis of the status of gender disparities in Malawi and a causal analysis of the underlying factors, national development priorities, agreed areas of UN support to the government of Malawi, and a prioritization of  strengthening normative-coordination-operational linkages within the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, streamlining overall structure of the results framework, integrating priorities identified in Beijing+20, aligning the UN Women Flagship Programme Initiatives (FPIs) and identifying indicators that capture UN Women’s impact with annual milestones. The Strategic Note will also build on the success and lessons of past Strategic Note and lessons learnt from relevant thematic and programmatic evaluations.

The consultant is expected to provide technical expertise throughout the process of developing the SN. During the assignment, the consultant will work closely with the Country Representative, the National Program Officer, and the M&E officer, as well as Programme and operations colleagues, and provide technical expertise in shaping the document which would include scoping, visioning, drafting, validating and finalization. S/he will conceptualize and hold a series of stakeholder’s consultations, consolidate stakeholder’s feedback and incorporate the feedback in the final SN. 

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant will work under the guidance of the UN Women Representative and will be responsible for the following specific tasks:

  • Develop a report inception and hold a meeting with the Senior Management Team (SMT) (Country Representative and Programme Specialists) to agree on the methodology for the assignment; and agree on the deliverables of the assignment and the responsibilities and deliverables of the assignment in line with the corporate timelines for the delivery of the New Strategic Note;

  • Undertake desk review of documents and guidelines relating to UN Women Global Strategic Plan 2018-21 formulation process;

  • Undertake current review on national development strategy, programmers and policies and key documents for areas critical and relevant to women’s empowerment and gender equality in Malawi

  • Analyze UN Women’s Global Draft Strategic Plan 2018-21, lessons learnt and recommendations of Mid Term Review of the current SN for the Malawi CO (2014-17), recent evaluations of UN Women’s programs in Malawi and UN Women’s SP 2014-17, QCPR 2017-2020, UNDAF Malawi evaluation (2012-2016) and stakeholder consultations to develop key recommendations.

  • Conceptualize and facilities stakeholder’s consultations with critical stakeholders from the Government, Civil Society Organizations, the Private and Public Sector, UN Agencies, Donor agencies;

  • Conduct a minimum of three in-depth consultations with UN Women staff and one of these with other UN Agencies to define thematic scope, problem analysis of each priority area and align the scope with SDG framework and UNDAF results;

    The above will lead to the below key deliverables:

  • Situational Analysis for the SN 2018-21 for UN Women in Malawi based on data and evidence that lays the ground for prioritizing gender issues and thematic priorities;

  • The proposed Theory of Change for the UN Women Malawi SN 2018-21;

  • Comparative Advantage and Partnership Analysis for UN Women in Malawi;

  • Partner and stakeholder consultations (CSOs, Government and private sector) including validation of the Strategic Note

  • Draft structure and integrated results framework of UN Women Malawi Strategic Note-2018-21.

  • Final draft document of the Strategic Note (2018-2021) to UN Women Malawi (Specifications of the strategic note will be shared during the inception meeting)
  • The draft structure of UN Women 2018 Annual Work Plan (AWP) outlining the key outcome areas and Theory of Change in line with UN Women corporate RBM standards Throughout the deliverables ensure revision of the draft to incorporate feedback received from stakeholder consultations and peer reviews. Undertake mission travel to select places as needed.

 

Competencies

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 the 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.

Required Skills and Experience

Education - Master’s degree or equivalent in social sciences, gender studies, public administration, international relations, international law, public policy, or a related field.

Experience

  • At least 10 years of relevant professional experience, at an international level in designing and facilitating strategic planning processes and drafting strategic/business plans for development and human rights institutions;

  • Demonstrable knowledge and understanding of UN Women’s mandate and experience in policy analysis, strategic planning and programme formulation, especially in the fields of gender equality and women’s empowerment is required

  • Strong knowledge of UN system operations is highly desirable and of the Delivering as One strategy and framework;

  • Demonstrated experience in supporting similar kinds of strategic planning exercises with proven experience in providing technical support with a facilitation role;

  • Knowledge of Results -based management;

  • Experience in humanitarian and development programming/planning;

  • Knowledge and experience of the development, humanitarian and human rights context in the Malawi is an asset;

    Language

  • Fluency in English (written and oral) is required, knowledge of Gender programming is considered an asset