Consultant – Legal Assessment Consultant for Afghanistan

Job Description

Background of the project

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is one of the world’s leading agencies working in post-conflict and development contexts, supporting communities in over 40 fragile, failed and developing states. In this capacity, we work to restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted, struggling to endure and wishing to advance on a path of development. The IRC opened the country program in Afghanistan in 1988. Our programs span the range from humanitarian relief to early recovery and development activities, focusing on emergency response, protection, education, economic wellbeing, and health. The IRC works in 9 provinces throughout Afghanistan, among which some of the most security volatile, and employs over 1,000 staff.

The IRC Protection and Rule of Law (PRoL) unit is currently providing protection services in 6 provinces in Afghanistan: Nangahar, Helmand, Laghman, Khost, Herat and Badghis. Those services include protection monitoring, information services, Individual Protection Assistance, Community Based Protection, Legal awareness and assistance, and Protection Case Management.

With the change in political regime in August 2021, the legal framework has changed, and thus the IRC is seeking a consultant to undertake and oversee a legal assessment and develop an analytical framework that looks at how to promote people’s rights in Afghanistan, particularly women and girls in this new context. This assessment will understand the scale of the new barriers affecting women and girls’ access to their rights in Afghanistan. Using the assessment results, the consultant will develop programmatic recommendations for future programming in legal assistance in Afghanistan. The consultant is expected to work closely with the Protection and Rule of Law Coordinator, protection team in Afghanistan, and the Protection and Rule of Law Technical Adviser.

Objective: Assess the new legal environment in Afghanistan in order to identify programmatic gaps and opportunities in legal information, counselling, assistance, representation and system strengthening, and to inform further programming specifically to promote women and girls’ access to their rights. Ensure that this assessment is fit for purpose to inform design and delivery of access to justice services, aligned with the IRC’s Access to Justice through Legal Empowerment approach.

Deliverables:

The consultant will deliver:

1. Conduct a desk review of legal assessments that already took place in Afghanistan, both prior and after 15th August 2021. 2. Participate and/or align with progress made in the Working Group for Legal Services in Humanitarian contexts through consultation with the PRoL TA. 3. Review existing legal assessment tools and other analytical frameworks and design a comprehensive legal assessment and analytical toolbox for a legal assessment in Afghanistan, including a reporting template. 4. Design a short training package on how to conduct the assessment 5. Draft a final report on the assessment findings both on the applicable legal framework in Afghanistan and programmatic recommendations in term of legal aid programming.

Qualifications

Requirements:

Education

- Bachelor or Master’s degree in Law

Preferred skills and experience

- Demonstrable experience in protection and access to justice programming, preferably within an NGO setting.

- Previous experience in consulting and/or project management

- Expert communication skills (written and verbal) in English, with a demonstrated ability to data collection, analysis and report drafting, in a cross-cultural environment

- Knowledge of Dari and/or Pashto a plus

- Practical experience in providing thought leadership, analytical thinking

- Experience in training and mentoring teams remotely

- Experience working in Afghanistan preferred

- Demonstrated understanding of human rights and particularly the rights of women.

Application and Bidding Procedure

Interested applicants should develop and submit a proposal in English to respond to the above-mentioned tasks. The proposal should include:

- A cover letter, including expected daily consultancy rate

- Applicant’s CV

- Relevant detailed professional background including past performance working on case management

- A suggested workplan to work on those deliverables in the allocated timeframe, specifying a suggested number of reviews and adjustments.

- Examples of previous consultancy work