International Consultant – Development of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment strategy

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 realization of the global normative framework on gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE) is championed by member states and supported by the United Nations Country Teams and UN missions. In this scope, the UN has to ensure adequate integration of GEWE in strategizing for achievement of development and humanitarian goals. To ensure the UNCT’s adherence to the implementation of GEWE commitments, accountability tools to integrate and measure the UNCT’s performance on gender mainstreaming has been developed by the UNDCO, UN Women and RCOs. The main two tools are the gender SWAP scorecard and the gender marker which provide the UNCT with an overview of their performance, highlight the gaps and challenges, and recommend actions for improvement. 

In April 2021, the UNCT-SWAP Gender Equality Scorecard assessment was conducted in Sudan by the RCO and coordinated by UN Women with 22 members of an Inter-agency Indicator Assessment Team (IAT) drawn from the GTG, the UNCG and the OMT. The UNCT-SWAP Gender Equality Scorecard assessment was concluded at the end of the 2018-2021 UNDAF cycle. The first Gender Equality Scorecard for Sudan was completed in 2012. The current UNDAF adopts the Delivering as One approach. In its planning, implementation, and evaluation the UNDAF 2018 – 2022 was guided by the five UN programming principles and designed to align with the Government’s national development priorities. The gender equality SWAP assessment findings identified specific areas in need of strengthening, including capacities for gender mainstreaming in planning and M&E, resource allocation for GEEW programming, communication and advocacy, leadership to champion GEEW, linking of planning for GEEW to results, and tracking of gender parity in staffing.

In response to the above mentioned, the UN SWAP action plan indicated the high need for a UNCT / UNITAMS integrated GEWE strategy. UNRCO and UN Women are hiring an international consultant to develop the UNCT / UNITAMS integrated GEWE strategy with the aim of strengthening the UN commitment and performance on GEWE.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Conduct comprehensive desk review and develop inception report

Following a meeting with UN Women, UNITAMS and RCO to set the assignment main goals and strategic guidance, the consultant will conduct a comprehensive desk review to relevant key documents provided by UN Women and the RCO. The desk review is expected to give an overview of the context and highlight the main challenges and priorities to be considered when developing the UN Gender Equality Strategy. The documents include but are not limited to:

• Report UN – SWAP gender scorecard report for Sudan 2021;
• UNDAF 2018 -2021
• ISF
• CCA 2022
• UNSCR 2524 establishing UNITAMS and its followers;
• Sudan gender profile 2020
• UNSCR 1325 National Action Plan
• Women Empowerment policy 2007
• Humanitarian response plan 2022
• UN Protection of Civilians Policy 2022
• UN Joint Framework on Rule of Law

• Development of the inception report
  • The inception report should include a context analysis, detailed methodology of the work, sampling parameters, and lay out how and when the data is going to be collected;
  • List of proposed stakeholders to be consulted;
  • Assignment workplan with clear baseline, targets, milestones and a timeframe.

• Lead internal and external consultations:
  • External consultations
    • This process is expected to engage external stakeholders to collectively identify upcoming trends and challenges for gender equality as national actors and set common goals and best ways of working together. The consultations will target counterparts for GEWE such as UNITAMS, government institutions, CSOs, the women’s movement and INGOs.

• Internal consultations
  • This process consists of holding internal consultations with UNITAMS and UNCT
    • Reflecting on the good practices, challenges, needs, lessons learnt, and ways of improvement from the previous and ongoing work on gender equality;
    • Reflecting on the challenges, priorities, needs, and way of improvement in previous and ongoing joint efforts on GEWE;
    • Prioritizing key entry points for UNCT and UNITAMS to work on GEWE and anticipate the challenges and opportunities accordingly;
    • Building on the findings of emerging key national priorities to identify the priority interventions and improvements of UNCT work on GEWE in an innovative manner.

• Lead validation workshop for the draft gender equality strategy
  • Following the finalization of the draft strategy, the consultant will lead a validation workshop to reflect on the draft strategy, receive comments and reviews, and finalize the integrated gender equality strategy and action plan based on the feedback received.

• workplan:

Deliverables:

• Submission of an inception report including a proposed work plan in 5 working days after the internal and external consultations
• Submission of a draft of the gender equality strategy to UN Women after 20 working days of the inception report submission
• submission of a final gender equality strategy after receiving feedbacks from UNCT and UNITAMS, and the validation workshop

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Fluency in English;
• Excellent written and analytical skills
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills including of multistakeholder forums and dialogues
• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example

Required Skills and Experience

Educations:

• Master’s Degree or equivalent in Social Sciences, Gender and Development, Human Rights, International Development or other relevant fields;
• At least 10 years of professional experience in gender equality and development with international organizations;

Experience:

• Experience on gender mainstreaming and results-based management;
• Familiarity with UNDAF/UNSDCF processes and UN Inter-Agency coordination processes;
• Previous experience with the Gender Equality Scorecard, narrative report and follow up action matrix for UNCT;
• Proven experience in producing UN analytical reports in the area of gender equality and women’s rights ;
• Proven experience in research and critical assessments, development of gender mainstreaming materials and technical support to UNCT.
• Prior work in Sudan in the field of GEWE.

Languages:

• Fluency in spoken and written English is required.
• Knowledge of Arabic language is highly desired.

Please note that applications without a completed and signed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

UN Women Personal History form (P-11) can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment .

UNWOMEN 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.