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International Consultant-to develop a Policy Brief on Best Practices of Malawi and Zambia IBSA Program on Ending Child Marriage and the Linkages to the AU’s Strategic Plan on Ending Child Marriage

Addis Ababa

  • Organization: UNWOMEN - United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
  • Location: Addis Ababa
  • Grade: Consultancy - International Consultant - Internationally recruited Contractors Agreement
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Political Affairs
    • Operations and Administrations
    • Legal - Broad
    • Human Rights
    • Democratic Governance
    • Women's Empowerment and Gender Mainstreaming
    • External Relations, Partnerships and Resource mobilization
    • Children's rights (health and protection)
  • Closing Date: Closed

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.

The UN Women office in Ethiopia plays a dual role, representation to the African Union (AU) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and representation to Ethiopia. In this regard, under its regional function, the Ethiopia country office engages with the AU and its various organs, the United Nations system particularly ECA, regional CSOs and international NGOs, as well as the diplomatic community and in particular, delegations to the African Union. Through the office, UN Women provides technical support to member states, the AU and ECA in the adoption, implementation and monitoring of commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE) at the regional level, and in accordance with its mandate. Development of knowledge products and disseminating advocacy messages and good practices that inform decisions and priorities of the AU and its organs are some of the strategies supported by UN Women.

The dignity, security, and resilience of women and girls recognized by AU strategy on GEWE is compromised when violation of their rights occurs especially within their communities due to cultural context allowing harmful traditional practices such as early-child marriage and female genital mutilation. In response to such human right violations, the AU Campaign to End Child Marriage was launched on May 29th 2014 at the 4th Conference of Ministers of Social Development, since then UN Women have partnered with the campaign playing a vital role with the assistance in technical support and the secondment of staff. Following the completion of its first phase the AU Strategic Plan to End Child Marriage (2019-2023) has an overarching goal of accelerating actions at member state level to end child marriage. Among the objectives of the new strategy two of them are, i) to Increase awareness of child marriage to achieve sustained leadership and commitment of the Africa Union and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) at the highest political level and Implement a research agenda including documenting of good practices and ii) to put in place platforms for knowledge exchange to improve evidence-based policy making and facilitate inter-country learning.

 

ABOUT THE PROPOSED CONSULTANCY

Violence against women and girls is a global pandemic and a human rights violation.  In Africa, more than 1 in 3 women (36.6%) report having experienced physical, and/or sexual partner violence or sexual violence by a non-partner2. Across Africa, 125 million girls and women alive today were married before their 18th birthday. Despite the large number of child marriages across Africa, progress driven by best practices have been seen.

The IBSA Project entitled Eliminating Child Marriages in Malawi and Zambia and Offering Scholarships to Child Marriage Survivors “is funded by the India, Brazil and South Africa Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation through the UN South-South Cooperation (UNSSC).  Among the expected outcomes of the project, the two are; for the Governments of Malawi and Zambia to enforce the national legislation to eradicate child marriages at national and local level and to reposition the outcomes from the project into strategic communication, convening and documentation to share best practice through the African Union for making this a regional approach.

In this regards, UN women proposes to develop a Policy brief that will analyze the best practices of Malawi and Zambia IBSA project in light of the AU’s strategic plan to End Child Marriage (2019-2023), the   African Union strategy on GEWE (2018-2028) and the UN Women Africa Strategy.

With the objective of sharing inter-country best practices to advance progress in eliminating child marriage, the Policy brief will be disseminated amongst member states, regional organizations, the African Union through the AU Ending Child Marriage Campaign and other platforms.

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant will support the following tasks;

  •  Undertake mapping of the global, regional and national frameworks and key initiatives aligned to the AU strategic plan to end child marriage.
  •  Work closely with Malawi and Zambia/ESARO colleagues to gather data on best practices in Malawi and Zambia
  •  Analysis of IBSA project in the two countries and its contribution for the realization of
  • AU’s commitment to GEWE and the 5-year Strategic plan to end child marriage

Competencies

Compliance with UN core values and Core 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.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

  • MA in Social Sciences Research especially in Political Science, International Law, Gender, International Development and related fields;

Experience

  • The consultant shall have at least 5 years of progressive experience in national, sub- regional and regional policy advocacy, research, capacity building and programming initiatives on Ending Violence against women and girls (EVAWG) and human rights in Africa

Languge

  • Excellent knowledge of written and oral communication in English. Knowledge of any other AU language is an asset
  • Full command of Microsoft applications, particularly Word, and other relevant software.
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.
This vacancy is now closed.
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