UN WOMEN Jobs - 73764- National Political and Advocacy Specialist

National Political and Advocacy Specialist

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Sanaa, YEMEN

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

15-Aug-2017

Application Deadline :

06-Aug-17 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

Up to 60 Working Days

Languages Required :

Arabic English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

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

UN Women is the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, dedicated to advancing gender equality and women’s human rights globally. Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and focus on mobilizing efforts towards the effective implementation of UN resolution 1325 (2000), 2122 (2013) and related resolutions which commit the international community to ensure women’s participation and leadership in all aspects of conflict resolution and peace building related activities. 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.

UN Women established its presence in Yemen in 2014 working in close collaboration with the UN system providing coordination and programme support to strengthen the UN response to addressing national priorities for gender equality and women’s empowerment, in line with UN Women’s strategic vision. UN Women in Yemen has entered into a partnership with UN entities in the country to support women’s engagement in Yemen’s current transition focusing on supporting women’s effective engagement in Yemen’s peace processes and in political participation. UN Women also focuses on supporting women’s effective engagement in the overall humanitarian response with partners and beneficiaries.

Context:

UN Women has been working since Dec 2014 with Yemeni women’s leaders, civil society groups and activists in enhancing their knowledge regarding negotiations, conflict resolution and peace-building. In October 2015 in Cyprus and in December 2015 in Jordan, UN Women convened a group of around 45 Yemeni women and facilitated the creation of a women’s platform entitled, “Yemeni Women Pact for Peace and Security” (YW Pact), that is a unified platform of women leaders representing different political parties, civil society, activists, and social workers from inside and outside of Yemen whose main objective is to amplify the voices of women in calling for permanent peace, immediate cease of fire, and urgent response to the humanitarian situation in the country.

The programme seeks to influence the political dialogue process in Yemen through a women’s caucus – with the objective of women’s engagement in track I peace processes, while diversifying and intensifying track II and III processes.

In addition, the programme focuses on continue strengthening the capacity of the YW Pact members to engage in peace deliberations and to provide substantive inputs into peace processes – while at the same time seeking to broaden the base of the YW Pact to include a larger group of Yemeni women leaders and activists from communities within Yemen. As well as, it will continue to build and strengthen strategic alliances and coalitions in order to influence peace processes and ensure more inclusive dialogues.

This includes engagement in advocacy and consultations activities aimed at encouraging new thinking that can inform the official political and peace process. To support the Pact efforts, UN Women plans to organize a number of advocacy and consultative meetings, workshops for the Yemeni Women's Pact and Women Activists to promote and strengthen a sustained and effective role for women in the political and peace-building process.

Thus, UN Women is seeking the services of National Political and Advocacy Specialist / Consultant to promote and strengthen a sustained and effective role for women in the political and peace-building process as well as to support YW Pact members to engage and influence the political dialogue process in Yemen.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall supervision of the Programme Officer and under the guidance of UN Women Head of Office in Yemen, will be responsible for:

Provide ongoing political analysis on the most effective methodologies for influencing key stakeholders to enhance the role for women in the political and peace-building process;
Based on UN Women International Senior Political Adviser technical guidelines, develop strategies, initiatives and means that Yemeni Women Pact can adopt to ensure meaningful and active participation in the political dialogue process, influence the dynamics of peace negotiations and implement gender specific provisions in all conflict, peace-building and reconstruction processes;
Support the national consultants in implementing an appropriate process of the consultative, advocacy, dialogue sessions and local mapping of women, influential CSOs, women organizations and groups, women leaders and youth from different regions of the country to participate in peace, this will be in cooperation with the UN Women International Senior Political Adviser and UN Women Yemen team in order to achieve the desired results;
Based on Yemeni contextual dynamics, provide technical inputs, analytical information and data to enrich the consultative and advocacy sessions including drafts of meeting agendas, statements, and position papers;
Promote and advise on the inclusion of gender equality issues in the initiative’s strategic interventions;
When needed, conduct mentoring/orientation sessions to enhance YW Pact capacity in planning and implementing advocacy activities and promoting the feminist agenda in the peace process.

Key Deliverables:

Submit periodic updates and analytical briefs as determined by the UN Women team in coordination with the consultant – to be determined and amended on a monthly basis as needed;
Based on the UN Women International Senior Political Advisor framework, prepare an action plan for the drafting process of an inclusive and gender sensitive roadmap for the peace and transitional processes developed by YW Pact and the UN Women Yemen team;
Provide a draft of gender sensitive roadmap based on consultation and advocacy meeting outputs detailing women groups and activists’ statements and recommendations;
Provide a technical proposal on how to conduct the regional advocacy conference where the roadmap will be presented;
Monitor the YW Pact activities on strategic alliances and coalitions and suggest improvement to further strengthen efforts to influence peace processes and ensure more inclusive dialogues;
After reviewing the required documents, provide improved documents with analytical information and data to enrich the consultative and advocacy sessions;
Develop and draft technical papers and contribute to the finalization of agendas for the meetings, consultation papers, key messages to various stakeholder groups and any other implementation related issues;
Provide ongoing advice to the UN Women Yemen team and the meeting facilitators towards ensuring high level communications and advocacy, social mobilization, and strategic planning;
Provide ongoing support and advice to strengthen documentation and dissemination of ‘success stories’ related to women’s participation in political and peace processes;
The National Political and Advocacy Specialist / Consultant will report to UN Women as follows:
- Monthly situation and programmatic report;
- Monthly delivery reports upon which payment will be made.

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.

Functional Competencies:

Ability to produce well-written documents demonstrating excellent interpersonal communication skills;
Outstanding networking, team-building, organizational and communication skills;
Ability to work effectively and harmoniously with people from varied cultures and professional backgrounds;
Results based management skills;
Ability on Facilitating and encouraging open communication.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf

Required Skills and Experience

Academic Qualifications:

Master or equivalent degree in Political Science, Conflict Management, or other relevant Social Sciences. PhD is advantage.

Experience:

9 years of relevant experience working in the field of political affairs and conflict resolution, or similar types of programming;
Previous experience working on advocacy programmes is required;
Previous experience working in the field of gender, women’s political participation is desirable;
Experience in preparing analytical reports;
Familiarity and experience with the Yemen context, the constitutional process, Transitional Justices issues and political dialogue is an asset.

Language Requirements:

Strong written and oral Arabic required and English language skills preferred.

Evaluation Criteria:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology: Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for the financial evaluation.

Criteria Weight Technical: 70%

Criteria: The consultant should have relevant academic qualification. (Weight: 15%. Maximum obtainable Points: 15);
Criteria: 9 years of professional experience in the field of political affairs, and conflict resolution, working on the field of gender, women’s political participation (Weight 35%; maximum obtainable points 35);
Criteria: The consultant should have demonstrated professional experience with the Yemen context, strong background in conducting advocacy programmes, political dialogue (Weight: 10%. Maximum obtainable Points: 10);
Criteria: Strong written and oral Arabic required and English language skills preferred and experience in preparing analytical reports (Weight: 10%. Maximum obtainable Points: 10).

Financial: Lowest Financial Proposal: 30%:

Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical);
The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula: (Lowest Bid Offered*)/(Bid of the Consultant) x 30;
'Lowest Bid Offered' refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 49 points in the technical evaluation.

Applications:

Interested Individual Consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

The following documents should be included as part of the proposal;

A cover letter with a brief presentation of your consultancy explaining your suitability for the work;
UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment
Personal CV.
Financial proposal; Proposed daily fee per day.

The above-mentioned documents should be merged in a standalone file including all them, since the online application submission does only permit to upload one file per application. Incomplete submission will not be reviewed and is ground for disqualification.