Consultant (Thematic Assessment)

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VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT NO. UN WOMEN/NEP/2011/002

	Date of Issue: 23 March 2011
	Closing Date:31 March 2011

Post Title : Consultant (Thematic Assessment)

Organization : UN Women

Duty Station : Kathmandu, Nepal

Type of Contract : Special Service Agreement

Duration : One month

This vacancy is open to all Nepali citizens. Preference will be given to equally qualified women candidates, especially from excluded groups such as Dalits, Janajati, Madeshis, etc.

Background

The 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. Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, the UN Women will lead and coordinate United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women Nepal has been able to make significant contributions in achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment by adopting rights based approach and using empowerment framework. In its efforts towards addressing issues related to women's human rights, empowerment of women and gender equality, UN Women Nepal has partnered with several line ministries of the government, UN agencies, other development partners, civil society organizations, academia and media. It is also working with non-conventional partners such as men and boys, youth and faith based organizations for women’s empowerment and gender justice.

UN Women’s support for implementation of international instruments is packaged by adopting a triple role: advocacy, brokering and capacity building of stakeholders. In partnership with the National Planning Commission, Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction, Ministry of Local Development, Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Labour and Transport Management of the Government of Nepal, UN Women has been promoting gender equality and gender justice.

UN Women Nepal also invests dedicated efforts in capacity development of partners in its programme implementation strategy. The collaboration with the SAARC Secretariat on spearheading the SAARC Gender Info Base (SGIB) Project, a regional project covering the eight Member States of SAARC is a flagship programme which includes VAW, HIV/AIDS and feminization of poverty as its thematic areas.

To strengthen the collaboration with UN and Donor Agencies, UN Women participates in a number coordinating mechanisms including Peace Support Working Group on UNSCRs 1325 & 1820, UN Gender Theme Group and the UN Joint Team on HIV/AIDS. UN Women Nepal also hosts the Secretariat for awarding the grants for the UN Trust Fund on VAW and holds regional PAC in Nepal.

UN Women’s current strategic approach is targeted towards the following five focused areas:

· Expanding women’s voice, leadership and participation

· Ending violence against women

· Strengthening implementation of women’s peace and security agenda

· Enhancing women’s economic empowerment

· Making gender equality priorities central to national, local and sectoral planning, budgeting and statistics

Under its thematic priority area, Expanding women’s voice, leadership and participation, UN Women’s programme builds on its past work and emphasizes on increasing participation and representation of women in the decision making processes. In the context to the new opportunities provided by ongoing political transformation process, UN Women will continue to work with government functionaries, political parties, the Constituent Assembly, UN agencies and civil society organizations to come up with a gender sensitive new Constitution. UN Women’s work in promoting access to justice to women will also focus on the transitional justice mechanisms. UN Women has been supporting the government of Nepal and civil society organizations to promote implementation of UNSCRs 1325 and 1820.

In this context, UN Women has been executing the programme titled “Making Politics Work with Women (MP3W)” with the overall goal of achieving gender equality in democratic governance in Nepal. This programme has been implemented in partnership with the government, civil society, media and private sector organizations. To contribute to realizing this goal, the programme interventions have been primarily geared towards enhancing women’s representation and participation in political and peace processes and ensuring gender sensitive new constitution. This programme has been operational at the national level as well as district levels. While the national level activities are geared towards strategic results relating to engendering policy and legal frameworks and the capacity enhancement of duty bearers, the district level interventions are primarily focused on strengthening the capacity of rights holders to enable them to effectively articulate their demands, and claim and exercise their rights. The district level interventions have been primarily concentrated in Kailali, Kaski and Kathmandu districts.

Prior to the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections, the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MWCSW) in collaboration with UN Women and civil society organizations supported a number of interventions for increasing women’s political participation. The important ones include lobbying with and mobilization of strategic partners, engendering of the Election Act, lobbying and advocacy for increased women's representation in the CA, civic education, capacity building of potential women candidates, engendering the TRC Bill, preparation of a gender sensitive model Constitution and taking forward UNSCR 1325.

After the historic achievement of about 33% women's representation in the Constituent Assembly and building upon the accomplished results, programme interventions have been focused on strengthening the roles of women and men members of the CA through their meaningful participation in the CA deliberations and thereby, contributing to the drafting of a gender sensitive new constitution of Nepal; capacity enhancement of rights holders to effectively articulate their priorities and demanding accountability from duty-bearers, all contributing towards the realization of gender equality in democratic governance in Nepal. For capacity enhancement of rights holders, two important initiatives implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MWCSW) include civic education and promotion of Women’s Political Watch Groups (WPWGs). The objective of the WPWGs was to demand accountability and commitment from politicians and political parties to gender equality and women's rights. The WPWGs were to advocate for selection of women candidates prior to the elections and in the post election period, monitor government’s fulfillment of election promises on gender equality and women’s rights particularly related to service delivery and justice.

Prior to the CA elections, the civic education programme focused on enhancing awareness on gender equality issues and women's participation in elections. Post CA elections, the focus of the civic education programme has been on emerging issues relating to constitution building, gender equality, women's human rights, and gender based violence against women and girls.

In the three programme districts, WPWGs were formed and provided orientation in March 2008. In the pre-election phase, these groups were supported and mobilized to act as catalysts for women candidates, highlighting platforms addressing women’s needs, especially in service delivery and justice delivery. During elections, the political watch groups were mobilized for monitoring purposes towards violence-free and fair elections.

Post CA elections, capacity development trainings have been provided to these district level WPWGs to enable them to effectively function as an institution; to advocate for gender equality in governance and political processes in particular related to the enactment of a, gender sensitive new Constitution for Nepal, formulation of gender responsive policies and programmes, and gender responsive service and justice delivery; and to effectively monitor the performance of elected representatives, political parties and other relevant duty bearers in advancing the agenda of gender equality and gender justice. These Watch groups have carried out several awareness and advocacy consultations in their respective districts with guidance and support from the Women Development Offices (WDOs) under the MWCSW.

The above-mentioned initiatives – civic education programme and promotion of WPWGs – have been implemented for the past two years in 3 programme districts. It is important to assess the implementation and achievements of these initiatives and document the processes and lessons learnt to improve their effectiveness in the long run and identify elements that can be scaled up to other districts. In the light of this, UN Women Nepal requires the services of a consultant with a strong background in monitoring and evaluation combined with experiences in women’s empowerment and gender equality issues, to assess the civic education and activities of the Women Political Watch Groups.

Under the guidance and direct supervision of the UN Women Programme Coordinator, Nepal, and in consultation with the Programme Support Manager, the consultant will undertake a rapid assessment of the initiatives on civic education and Women’s Political Watch Groups in three MP3W Programme districts. The objectives of the assessment are to: i) appraise the appropriateness of the design and implementation strategy of civic education and Women’s Political Watch Groups; ii) document the processes adopted in the implementation of these initiatives; iii) identify the constraints faced during the implementation of these initiatives; iv) document and analyze the lessons learnt; and v) make recommendations for improving the effectiveness of these initiatives.

The Consultant will be responsible for the following:

1. Desk review the following documents:

· UNIFEM’s Strategic Plan (SP 2008-2011) and South Asia Sub-Regional Strategy (2008-2010)

· Project document and progress reports of MP3W programme

· Project documents and progress reports of other UN Women programmes

· Relevant annual reports of UN Women

2. Design study methodology and survey tools (checklists, interview guides, etc) with focus on participatory process for collection of the needed information. Some of the proposed methods for information collection include key informant interviews, focus group discussions, observation of WPWG activities if possible and other interactive meetings involving pertinent stakeholders[1] at the central and district levels.
3. Based on the results of tasks 1 and 2, prepare a detailed work plan with timelines for completion of the study and an initial outline of the report.
4. Discuss the methodology and survey tools with the UN Women team and MWCSW for feedback.
5. Collect the needed information through agreed upon methodology including field visits.
6. Analyze the collected information and prepare the draft study report.
7. Submit the draft report and make a brief presentation on study findings to UN Women (Nepal and SASRO) and MWCSW for observations and comments.
8. Finalize the draft report incorporating the pertinent comments and suggestions made by UN Women staff from Nepal, SARO and HQ (Asia/Pacific/Arab States Geographic section and the Governance, Peace and Security section) and other partners.
9. Submit a hard copy together with the electronic version of the final report to UN Women Nepal.

Professional Qualifications

• At least a Master’s degree in social science (Gender and development, sociology, economics, political science or related field)

Experience

• At least 10 years of experience in design and execution of development programmes, especially focusing on women’s political empowerment and broader democratic governance processes
• Strong background in monitoring and evaluation
• Experience in human rights based approach and results based management
• Strong analytical and writing skills in English
• Good understanding of UN Women’s work in the region, especially in Nepal
• Strong knowledge of various software including MS Excel, PowerPoint and Word.

Knowledge and Skills

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates commitment to UN Women’s mission, vision and values
• Displays cultural, gender, religious, ethnicity and age sensitivity and adaptability

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Shares knowledge and experience through promotion of participatory learning process
• Works actively towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas; and acts on learning plans and applies newly acquired skills

Development and Operational Effectiveness

· Ability to perform a variety of tasks (multi tasking) related to programme development and resource mobilization

• Good knowledge of rights-based approach and result-based management
• Ability to generate innovative ideas and approaches; and to provide inputs in developing programme policies and strategies

Leadership and Self-Management

• Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure

Language

· Excellent knowledge of English and Nepali, both written and spoken. Good knowledge of local languages will be desirable.

Applications to this vacancy should be addressed to:

Ms. Sangeeta Thapa

UN Women Programme Coordinator, Nepal

102/42 Thapathali, Kathmandu

UN Women Programme Office, Nepal

at jobs.np@unwomen.org

Candidates should also complete a United Nations Personal History Form (P.11), obtainable from the UN website. The completed P-11 form and/or detailed CV should be submitted along with the application.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

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[1] Important stakeholders include members of WPWGs, concerned staff of MWCSW, WDOs and other involved partners, members of District Advisory Committee for Women in Politics, and community groups including women’s groups in the 3 programme districts.