Background

Gender equality and women’s right are fundamental human rights recognized through various international instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Right. Among the many commitments made, gender mainstreaming is outlined as a prior instrument to ensure equality in political, social and economic sphere.  Understanding this, the Ethiopian government has committed itself into mainstreaming gender in various sectors policy and programs. Still women and men in Ethiopia are affected by the existing policies and interventions differently. To address these issues gender audit is an important tool in ensuring gender is well mainstreamed in all areas and at all levels. Gender audit evaluate the status of gender equality through assessing organizational policies, programs, and budget allocations. It mainly takes account of the internal practices and environments for effective gender equality practice. Though gender audit is done by internal and/or external professionals, it is one of self-assessment gender mainstreaming tools. It enhances the capacity of an organization and its projects by examining its qualitative and quantitative information from a gender perspective.

The Budget, as an important component in the gender audit process, is an instrument that lead towards economic and social development. In line with managing the government budget, financial audit is concerned with budgetary records of an institution “emphasizing whether the records have been properly entered and adhere to prescribed accounting principles and standards.”  Linking this principle with gender audit, gender focused financial audit helps whether or not allocated budget for gender related interventions are utilized in accordance with its plan. Another component in the budget management process is performance audit. Performance audit is an “audit of economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which a government organization, a program, a project, an activity or a function uses its resources in carrying out its responsibilities.” Putting clear indicators of gender in performance audit helps to monitor and evaluate activities on the ground with an ultimate objective of improving efficiency and effectiveness of programmes/projects with interventions that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The practice of budget allocation and spending (tracked mainly through both financial and performance auditing) in an organization shows the level of understanding and commitment on gender issues. Considering gender audit in the budget process it is necessary to ensuring gender equality. Furthermore, auditing in a gender lens helps to establish a baseline, identify gaps and barriers as well as provide recommendations for innovative gender responsive implementation in the future; Secondly, it is a disciplinary mechanism, which direct budget planning and implementing strategy to reflect gender sensitive and responsive components; Thirdly, by showing situational gender dynamics, it ultimately conveys gender responsive budgeting system by ensuring allocation of adequate funds for achieving gender equality commitments.

This is because the promotion of gender equality and women empowerment in sectors strategic plan and program is fundamental to ensure the promotion of human right and equality. Undertaking gender audit is therefore an effective method to achieve organizational goal. In Ethiopia the Government body mandated to audit budgetary institutions is Office of the Audit General.

The Office of the Federal Auditor General Ethiopia (OFAG) audits 165 public bodies, guided by audit manual and guideline and international standards. It has a mandate to carry out financial and performance audit and report findings on their achievement. According to the gender gap analysis of the Public Finance Management conducted by MoFEC and UN Women, gender issues are neither reflected in the audit guidelines nor in the reporting template and so are not reported. Despite a past attempt to carry out a performance audit on gender issues, they have not yet to be adequately covered.

For this reason, it has been agreed with OFAG on the need to recruit a national consultant to develop a context based Gender Audit training manual and to provide Training by using the manual.

I. Purpose

The purpose of developing this gender audit manual is to build the capacity of auditors in OFAG to monitor and evaluate progress against gender audit.

II. Objectives

The primary objective of this consultancy is to develop a Gender Audit manual. The secondary objective of the consultancy is development of training manual based on the gender audit manual and provision of training.

Specific objectives include:

• Assess the existing auditing process of OFAG from gender perspective through primary and secondary data collection;
• Review the audit manual and reporting template from gender perspective including assessing regional and global gender performance audit good practices Produce
• Contextualized Gender Audit manual, and indicators for gender responsive auditing practice taking learnings from the good practices at regional and global level;
• conduct training using the training manual

Duties and Responsibilities

Expected results

Expected Results of the manual development are:

• Entry points for auditors to audit budget from gender perspective identified   and documented
• Manual for OFAG auditors with guidance on how to conduct gender audit of sectors in terms of promoting women empowerment and gender equality

Expected Results of the ToT are:

• Enhanced understanding on the importance of gender performance auditing and how gender mainstreaming is aligned in financial and performance auditing process; 
• Increased knowledge on how to identify gender gaps in financial and performance auditing process. 
• Acquired knowledge on how to conduct gender audit training using the manual developed

Expected deliverables includes;

• Inception report
• Inception workshop report (which includes understanding of ToR, proposed methodology, Deliverables and schedule as the main components) with no more than 7 pages;
• Summary of Consultations;
• Draft gender audit manual;
• Presentation of the draft manual at Validation workshop;
• Validation workshop report;
• Final Gender Audit manual
• Gender Audit training manual in English and Amharic version (in hard and soft copy).
• Delivery of training and submission of training report on Enhanced capacity of auditors on gender auditing to train using the manual 
• Piloting of the manual

Competencies

Compliance with UN Core Values

• Personal commitment, ability to work independently, and capacity to work effectively and harmoniously with persons from varied cultures and professional backgrounds. 
• Demonstrates integrity and fairness by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Commitment to UN Women’s mission, vision, values and strategic goals;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
• Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment

Required Skills and Experience

Academic qualifications

• Master’s degree in Auditing, economics, business administration and Social Science Studies with strong background in Gender and auditing; 

• Comprehensive and documented knowledge of issues related to gender and audit;
• Knowledge of training methods and techniques;
• Proven experience on presentation, training and facilitation skills for top government officials;
• Skilled in identifying the gaps of trainees during the training;

Years of experience

• Minimum 10 years of experience conducting gender audit
• Experience on manual development, conducting and facilitating high-level capacity building and training programs for government officials;
• Proven experience on presentation and facilitation skills for top government officials;
•  Previous experience working with Government Organizations.

Language and other skills

• Excellent knowledge of written and oral communication in English and Amharic;
• Excellent communication skill;
• Excellent command of Microsoft applications, particularly power point;