Consultant – Finalising a Primer on “Enhancing the Participation of Marginalized Groups in Decision Making Processes”

The Bureau for Development Policy (BDP) is responsible for articulating UNDP’s development policy, using evidence gathered through country applications, regional experiences and global interactions. BDP has a key role to play in helping country offices to accelerate human development by supporting the country offices in the design and implementation of programmes and projects that effectively contribute to the national-level policies and results. UNDP’s work in democratic governance is reinforced by its network of over 166 offices and its global partnerships with democratic governance institutions. Democratic Governance Group (DGG), which is part of BDP, tracks governance policy, promotes knowledge networks, and contributes to shaping the global dialogue on governance. The work of DGG focuses on fostering inclusive participation, strengthening responsive governing institutions, and promoting democratic principles. Driven by demand, and working through the Regional Bureaux and the Regional Service Centres (RSC), DGG provides the tools, analysis and capacities that country offices need to make a real difference in UNDP’s practice areas. In 2008, DGG’s inclusive participation cluster developed a draft primer on “Enhancing the Participation of Marginalized Groups in Decision-Making Processes”, designed to provide practical guidance to UNDP’s country offices engaged in programming in this area. This draft primer now needs updating, editing and finalizing, and to be validated at a meeting involving country office participants. Objectives. A wide variety of participatory approaches and methodologies aimed at promoting citizen engagement with public institutions, especially at the sub-national/local level, already exist. More recently, several participatory performance management systems have emerged as tools to improve the responsiveness of service providers to the needs of users and stakeholders, and to amplify the voice of citizens so they can have a more direct influence over policy, public investment decisions, and delivery of services. However, many of these initiatives assume that citizens and stakeholders are on a level playing field and thus implicitly disregard existing socio-economic, political, cultural, and gender differences among them . Not surprisingly, such initiatives can fall prey to ‘elite capture’ and actually end up widening inequalities . Similarly, groups with wide social networks are often more likely to participate in community groups . Throughout this process, the voices and concerns of marginalized groups who typically lack economic and social resources, can be excluded from community decision-making and thus have no voice in the new forms of accountability. Moreover, several of these approaches additionally assume that engagement or dialog alone is a sufficient condition to bring forward wider participation and inclusion . There is thus no explicit concern in undertaking such initiatives within the various phases of the policy-making cycle or in developing mechanisms where these marginalized groups can decidedly influence decision making processes. Furthermore, open engagement with national, regional and local governments is essential to influence the policies being implemented by each of these levels of government. In this context, the overall objective of the primer is to improve the participation of marginalized groups in public policy and decision making processes and to ensure that public polices also address the needs and priorities of marginalized groups. These groups usually include women, the youth, indigenous peoples, minorities, disabled persons, and the poor, among others, and must be explicitly targeted in developing interventions aiming at increasing social inclusion . Needless to say, participation gaps have dramatic consequences for human rights, the quality of democratic citizenship, and the legitimacy of governments. It is thus essential that the voices of the most vulnerable groups are heard, that governments respond by providing the adequate formal and informal channels to engage in dialogue and deliberation.

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant’s main activities will be to: Review the existing draft of the primer and supplementary material, and develop a plan on how the primer should be finalised. This will include suggestions on an appropriate structure, revision and updating of existing material, writing of any new sections, and editing of the document. It will also include reviewing existing UNDP documents and corporate templates to advise on overall appearance of the final product. After approval of the plan by the cluster advisors, undertake the revision of the primer. Develop the agenda for a validation workshop with participation of various Country Offices (date and location to be decided), and work with cluster advisors to facilitate that meeting. Finalize the primer, including working with UNDP staff to advise on final design and lay-out issues. The output of the consultancy will be a print-ready primer.

Competencies

Excellent proven English drafting skills. Ability to write in clear and concise manner. Ability to synthesize large amount of data. Strong understanding of development prgramming and the current development agenda, including the MDGs.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: Graduate degree in sociology, political science, development or related field. Experience: Minimum 10 years of extensive research and writing experience on development and governance issues. Thorough knowledge in the area of citizen participation and policy making. Superior command of English and an additional UN language is strongly desirable. Knowledge of UNDP work, especially in the area of democratic governance. The consultant will be supervised by the Democratic Governance Adviser, Oslo Governance Centre, who will ensure input from other advisors in DGG’s inclusive participation cluster.

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.

Consultant – Finalising a Primer on “Enhancing the Participation of Marginalized Groups in Decision Making Processes”