Gender, Climate Change and DRR Officer

Details

Mission and objectives

The Government of Nepal has adopted important normative frameworks for women’s human rights, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals, and UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820. These commitments are enshrined in the Constitution of Nepal and efforts are being taken to ensure that all laws and policies conform with the constitutional provisions on gender equality. 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. Established by General Assembly resolution 64/289 of 2 July 2010 on system-wide coherence, with a mandate to assist the Member States and the United Nations system to progress more effectively and efficiently towards the goal of achieving gender equality, women’s empowerment, and upholding women’s rights, UN Women’s global programmatic priorities for the period 2018-2022 are: (a) a comprehensive and dynamic set of global norms, policies and standards on gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls is strengthened and implemented; (b) women lead, participate in and benefit equally from governance systems; (c) women have income security, decent work, and economic autonomy; (d) all women and girls live a life free from all forms of violence; and (e) women

Context

With the continuing spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world are facing an extraordinary challenge wherein a health-related humanitarian crisis has evolved simultaneously into a socio-economic crisis. This has led to an unprecedented cessation of economic activities and erosion of income opportunities for millions, especially those in the informal sector. While there is a limited number of confirmed cases in Nepal (682 as of 25 May 2020) , the gendered impacts of COVID-19 have begun to manifest. Over two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, third and fourth waves continue to unfurl across fragile economic and social landscapes, with the most devasting consequences for individuals and groups with pre-existing vulnerabilities. Nepal is still battling with catastrophic COVID-19 outbreaks. The GoN has made substantial progress in integrating gender in climate change policies and plans through sectoral and provincial plans, policies, strategies, programmes and institutional mechanisms. To address climate change and integrate gender, the GoN in 2010 developed the National Adaptation Program of Action identifying gender as a cross-cutting issue. In 2012, the Climate Change Gender Action Plan operationalised gender concerns in climate change efforts to enhance implementation and contribution to promote gender equality. This has led to introducing a climate budget code to track climate public expenditure. The Nepal Climate Change Policy 2019 is considered a significant milestone in integrating gender. This Policy recognizes the integration of GESI through its objectives of mainstreaming in adaptation and mitigation programs across the eight sectors through guidelines and working policies. The policy also focuses on addressing the vulnerabilities of women and marginalized groups. It has outlined the institutional mechanisms for integrating climate change and GESI at the national and sub-national levels. The first intended national determined contribution (INDC), 2016 did not make specific reference to gender, nor were the targets directly gender-sensitive. However, the second NDC of 2020 rectified these lapses and addresses the GESI concerns distinctly both in the mitigation and adaptation components by identifying GESI as a cross-cutting area. Further, it also called for integrating GESI in the NDC targets and developing an Action Plan for such an integration. Significant efforts are being carried out to mainstream GESI, particularly in areas such as clean energy generation, mini and micro hydropower, sustainable management of the forest, and promotion of agriculture and sustainable farming practices. Some actions in this regard are setting up quotas for women and marginalised communities in the community user group, including at the executive levels, are targeted them for training and in some cases for financial and in-kind support. The national climate change gender action plan, 2012, had the objective to operationalize gender concerns in climate change efforts to enhance implementation and contribute to the promotion of gender equality in Nepal. It outlined the institutional mechanisms for integrating gender in climate change under which it proposed the formulation of Gender Clusters in the Ministries headed by the Gender Focal Point (GFP). Nepal is also initiating the process of developing a Green, Resilient and Inclusive Development Strategic Action Plan (GRID-SAP) under the leadership of Ministry of Finance.

Task description

Under the direct supervision of the Programme Specialist (WPS, Humanitarian, DRR Programme), the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks: a. Build partnerships and support in developing resource mobilization strategies: • Provide technical support to the development of partnerships and resource mobilization strategies • Identify potential programmatic areas of cooperation, based on strategic goals of UN Women Nepal, countries' needs and donors’ priorities and develop the relevant partnerships b. Advocate and facilitate knowledge building and management and communication • Ensure documentation of the programme implementation process and products produced are following UN Women guidelines • Contribute to the exchange of information and knowledge products internally and externally of the programme • Organize major advocacy campaigns, events, training, workshops and knowledge product • Provide media advocacy support • Support the organization with consultations, meetings, and training for the programme unit (including on virtual platforms). • Develop background research for preparing thematic briefs, speaking points, periodic progress reports, meeting and events reports, etc. • Develop in preparing case studies and human-interest stories • Participation in partner meetings and stakeholder consultations • Assist with documentation and record-keeping of project documents. c. Provide technical inputs on Gender and DRR and climate change programme/portfolios: • Support in developing different tools • Analyse and document climate risk trends in Nepal from a gender perspective • Identify and advise on strategic entry points and emerging areas of work on UN Women’s cli-mate change, DRR and humanitarian programme • Support development of new areas of programming in the country related to gender-responsive DRR and Climate change, including drafting of project proposals, TORs and documents, and providing support to UN Women country offices. • Support country office with innovative approaches for developing women’s resilience to climate change by introducing new skills, technology, livelihood options, entrepreneurship. • Provide support to monitoring, and reporting. This includes preparation of analytical reports, briefing notes, background papers, summaries, correspondence and talking points; preparation and finalization of knowledge resources, collection and analysis of data, and providing in-puts to quarterly reporting. d. Support coordination with UN System, Development Partners. • Support coordination efforts with UN System, International Development Partners to support mainstreaming gender equality and women’s empowerment, raise potential problems and provide solutions. • Guide to establish performance indicators, and monitoring achievement of results in line with the workplan • Identify capacity building needs and support partners through technical assistance, mentoring, training, cross-partner learning, and capacity development initiatives • Provide coordination support and participate in meetings including with other UN Agencies, government and development partners e. Support in providing inputs to advocacy, knowledge building and communication efforts specific to all governance programme • Support with background research for project briefs and presentations • Support coordination and organization of advocacy activities and campaigns events, training, workshops, and knowledge products. • Assist with inputs towards the development of knowledge management products • Assist with documentation and collation of best practices and review of relevant literature (including laws and policies)