Gender and Law Specialist (Cancelled)

IDLO and Gender Equality

IDLO is working to empower women and girls and ensure gender equality through the rule of law. It identifies gender-sensitivity and responsiveness as among its core values and guiding principles. It is “committed to promoting gender equality” and ensuring that all its work is gender-informed and benefits from gender analysis. 

IDLO’s gender work is guided by its Gender Strategy 2019 – 2020.  It focuses on four main areas of work (i) empowering women and girls to claim their rights; (ii) enhancing institutional capacity to respond to women and girls’ justice needs; (iii) eliminating discriminatory laws and strengthening legal and policy frameworks on gender equality; and (iv) championing justice for women and rule of law issues in global policy processes.   IDLO’s works on gender in various countries, including in Afghanistan, Honduras, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Mali, Mexico, Mongolia, Myanmar, Philippines, Somalia, Tanzania, Tunisia, and Uganda, and across thematic areas, such as on gender-based violence; women’s legal and economic empowerment; women justice professionals, women and customary and informal justice; and the elimination of discriminatory laws. 

Elimination of Discriminatory Laws

In March 2019, IDLO expressed its commitment to support the Equality in Law for Women and Girls by 2030: A Multistakeholder Strategy for Accelerated Action (Equality in Law Strategy).  The Strategy is led by UN Women with IDLO as an implementing partner, along with, among others, the African Union, the Commonwealth, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Secretaría General Ibero-Americana, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Equality Now, Global Citizen, Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, International Association of Women Judges, Muslims for Progressive Values, and the Women’s Learning Partnership.

The Strategy provides a framework for a concerted and multi-stakeholder approach aimed at fast-tracking the elimination of discriminatory laws and documenting experiences and lessons learned for scale-up and replication.  

Consistent with IDLO’s Gender Strategy, the Equality in Law Strategy highlights the global challenge brought by these laws. In particular, it highlights that over 2.5 billion women and girls around the world are negatively impacted by discriminatory laws and the lack of legal protections, often in multiple ways and almost 90% of the world’s economies still have at least one law that differentiates between men and women, impeding their economic opportunities. 

THE POSITION 

Against this background, IDLO is implementing a Project which works towards the elimination of discriminatory laws, in support of the Equality in Law Strategy. The overall goal of the Project is to facilitate elimination or reform of laws that discriminate against women and girls. IDLO intends to engage the services of a Gender and Law Specialist who will grow and support IDLO’s programming work and policy leadership in this area. The Gender and Law Specialist will also support implementation of specific areas of its Gender Strategy. 

KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES 

The Gender Specialist will work under the supervision of the Senior Legal Adviser, Gender and/or any other reporting line as may be determined by IDLO, and in close coordination with the Gender, Policy and Research teams. The Gender Specialist will undertake the following responsibilities: 

1. Support IDLO’s work on the elimination of discriminatory laws, in particular: 

• Develop IDLO’s program of work on the elimination of discriminatory laws, including development of a roadmap/workplan identifying opportunities to grow IDLO’s programming and policy leadership in this area;
• Provide technical advice to IDLO staff on how to develop, build and implement projects to enable reform of discriminatory laws;
• Support engagement with relevant actors and opinion leaders to strengthen political will for reform;
• Provide quality control and publication-ready review of comprehensive country gender legal assessments (including Kenya, Sierra Leone, Philippines) and help standardize outputs and key messages for dissemination

2. Strengthen IDLO’s program of work on women justice professionals and gender-based violence, including development of a roadmap/workplan in these areas;  

3. Provide technical support in integrating gender issues in the development and implementation of projects and programs;

4. Contribute to overall implementation of IDLO’s gender strategy and tools; and  

5. Support IDLO’s policy advocacy work, with a focus on the following areas: justice for women, gender-based violence, legal and economic empowerment of women, women’s participation as justice professionals, elimination of discriminatory laws, and women and customary and informal justice. 

IDEAL CANDIDATE PROFILE

Education and Work Experience

• An advanced degree (Masters or Equivalent) in Law or Gender Studies, Gender and Development from a recognized university.
• Minimum of 5 years of relevant experience in the area of gender and law or rule of law development with a gender focus. 
• Have at least 3 to 5 years of experience in the field of program management, implementation, monitoring and reporting with demonstrable experience managing gender programs, preferably in an international setting (UN, IGO, international NGO). 
• Proven experience in conducting gender and legal assessments.
• Proven experience in providing technical advice to governments and institutions in the areas of gender and law, in particular, gender-responsive justice sector reforms and others.
• Expertise in strategy development and program scale up on access to justice, rule of law, and gender equality.  
• Excellent spoken and written English is required. Additional language/s would be highly desirable.

Specific Knowledge / Skills / Competencies

• Excellent research and writing skills to publication standards; 
• Capacity to interpret political and policy developments and to relate them to IDLO’s mandate and activities;
• Proven people management experience;
• Excellent interpersonal and communication and team coordination skills; and ability to work constructively with several internal and external stakeholders in multicultural settings;
• Self-motivated, hands-on and solution oriented professional, able to function effectively in a rapidly changing and dynamic work environment;
• Articulate and who can relate to people at all levels and possesses excellent communication skills;
• Keen sense of ethics, integrity and commitment to IDLO's mandate.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

For this internationally recruited position, IDLO shall offer the selected candidate an Affiliate contract of twelve (12) months, with possibility of extension subject to performance and availability of funding.

IDLO shall also offer a yearly basic salary of EUR 52,000 and a benefits package including provident fund contribution, health insurance, a comprehensive leave entitlement package, and relocation and installation support available for internationally recruited employees and in accordance with IDLO Employee Regulations and Rules. 

The incumbent will be based in The Hague and will be available for international travel, even to post-conflict countries as required. The estimated start date is end of April 2020. 

Applications will be screened on regular basis; a qualified applicant might be recruited before the deadline. In the interest of making most effective use of resources, only the short-listed candidates will be contacted during the selection process.

IDLO is an Equal Opportunity Employer and values diversity in all areas of its operations. We welcome and encourage diverse applications. IDLO is an Equal Opportunity Employer and values diversity in all areas of its operations. We welcome and encourage diverse applications.

DISCLAIMER AND CLOSING DATE

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of the work being performed by the Contractor assigned to this work. This is not an exhaustive list of all duties and responsibilities.

The Director General of IDLO reserves the right to amend and change responsibilities or even to cancel the recruitment to meet business and organizational needs as necessary.

Application deadline is the 31 March 2020 (23:59hrs Rome time).