National Consultant to develop a coordination and political engagement strategy to advance women’s participation and leadership in politics and peacebuilding

This opening expired 1 year ago. Do not try to apply for this job.

Application deadline 1 year ago: Thursday 5 May 2022 at 23:59 UTC

Open application form

Contract

This is a National Consultant contract. More about National Consultant contracts.

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.

UN Women’s goal in Liberia is to promote women’s human rights and gender equality which are key in sustaining and furthering achievements in stability and development. In this regard, its programming in the Country is connected to five corporate priority areas: women’s leadership and political participation (WPP); enhancing women’s economic empowerment (WEE); engaging women in all aspects of peace and security processes (WPS), advancing women’s rights to live free from violence (EVAW) and Gender Responsive Governance. In addition, UN Women also coordinates and promotes the UN system’s joint work in advancing gender equality.

As part of its WPS programming in Liberia, UN Women has been providing support to Peace Huts. The Peace Huts are structures created by women to provide counseling for those that had experienced grief and trauma as well as supporting ex-child soldiers after the civil war. UN Women has supported the peace huts since 2009 in different areas, including construction and capacity building to support women in Peace Huts to become recognized brokers of peace, mediation and negotiation in communities. With our partners, UN Women has supported the Peace Hut women to strengthen their capacities in a comprehensive set of skills including peace building, leadership, conflict mitigation, SGBV prevention and response, gender, women's rights, natural resource management, and HIV/AIDS prevention.

In 2017, The UN Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), UN Women, and The World Bank (WB) embarked on a joint comparative study to explore the cost-benefit utilities and effectiveness of Liberia’s Peace Huts in preventing conflict, violence and strengthening peace. The study concluded that development and peace building related interventions around the Peace Hut Women of Liberia will need to focus on building their capacity to become an integrated center for knowledge acquisition and empowerment on key women, peace and security commitments; to develop their long term project priorities and strategies; and enhance their skills for leadership and coordination with various stakeholders including government institutions; broker networking opportunities between peace huts and other key stakeholders for greater collaboration as well as support in the documentation and visibility of their contributions.

UN Women’s leadership and political participation pillar has incorporated this recommendation into the “Supporting Community Engagement on Women’s Political Participation” project, which will strengthen coordination, capacity building, and support to Peace Huts and other local women’s associations so that they can become more actively involved in peacebuilding and conflict resolution and exercise their voice and agency from clan to town, district, county, to national governance. It will also strengthen the capacities of community women to contribute meaningfully to prevention and response to Violence Against Women in Elections and Politics (VAWIE/P). AWP Output 1.1.3 requires coordination mechanisms for women in peacebuilding and political participation established and/or strengthened. One of the activities delivering on this output is to hire a consultant to develop a political engagement and coordination strategy for CSOs working on women’s political participation with peace hut women.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objectives of the assignment

The main objective of this consultancy is to strengthen coordination mechanisms for women in peacebuilding and political participation. The consultant will build on peacebuilding and civil society organizations mappings and assessments to develop a coordination and political engagement strategy. S/he will map the work of peace huts, women’s groups, and networks on women’s participation in peacebuilding and politics in different geographical areas. The consultant will provide a mentodology for developing the coordination mechanism/strategy in a manner that is inclusive and participatory. The final product will include practical guidelines and mechanisms for coordinated, strategic action to promote women’s participation and leadership in peacebuilding and local and national governance.

Scope of work and tasks

Under the overall guidance and management of the Deputy Country Representative and supervision from the Program Specialist on Women Political Participation, the consultant will perform the following tasks:

Task 1 - Desk review and development of an inception brief for the coordination and political engagement strategy for women’s leadership in peacebuilding and governance structures.

  1. Conduct preliminary consultations/briefing with UN Women, PBO, and the National Peace Hut leadership to develop a draft inception brief (6-8 pages) that includes:

  2. Introduction

  3. Purpose
  4. Background information (findings from desk review)
  5. Proposed research design (Description of strategy development methodology and research questions, research tools etc.)
  6. Proposed timeline for strategy development including the schedule for data collection with proposed dates and locations
  7. List of persons to be consulted
    1. Conduct a desk review of existing relevant documents and studies;
    2. Revise the inception brief and submit to UN Women for final approval

Task 2 – Carry out qualitative data collection and analysis to identify coordination challenges and recommendations for a coordination mechanism to improve communication, learning, sharing, and joint advocacy to advance women’s leadership and participation in peacebuilding and governance structures, from local to national level.

  1. Collect data to assess coordination challenges and recommendations for coordinated action to advance women’s leadership in peacebuilding and governance. This may include interviews, focus groups and a strategy development workshop.
  2. Feedback session on the data collection
  3. Analyze data collected
  4. Develop a summary report (6-8 pages) and PowerPoint presentation that succinctly describes findings of the analysis. The summary report and accompanying PPT will include:

  5. Research findings (current coordination and WPP advocacy practices, challenges, etc.)

  6. Key recommendations to advance women’s leadership in politics and peacebuilding.
  7. Draft diagram of the coordination mechanism

Annexes:

  1. Research tools
  2. List of persons interviewed and workshop participants
    1. Present initial findings, recommendations, and coordination mechanism for feedback from UN Women, PBO, Peacehut women, MGCSP, etc.

Task 3. Develop a practical coordination and political engagement strategy to advance women’s participation and leadership in politics and peacebuilding mechanisms. The coordination and political engagement strategy should include recommendations for improving coordination on WPS and WPP with peace hut women and other women’s groups/networks, and with relevant stakeholders in local and national government. The strategy must be fully costed.

  1. Draft the coordination and engagement strategy and share for inputs
  2. Revise the strategy according to feedback provided. The consultant will be expected to write the strategy so it is easily accessible and practical for the understanding of diverse women.
  3. Submit the revised draft for final feedback
  4. Validation and orientation session on the strategy/coordination mechanism.
  5. Revise and submit final draft that responds to feedback provided.

Expected Deliverables

The national Consultant will produce the following deliverables:

#

Deliverables

Indicative Deadline

1

Inception brief that includes:

  1. Introduction
  2. Purpose
  3. Background information (findings from desk review)
  4. Proposed research design (Description of strategy development methodology and research questions, research tools etc.)
  5. Proposed timeline for strategy development including the schedule for data collection with proposed dates and locations
  6. List of persons to be consulted

Final version 15th May 2022

2

A summary report and PowerPoint or SlideShare presentation (approximately 6-8 pages without annexes, 1.5 spacing) that succinctly describes findings of the analysis.

The report will include:

  1. Brief introduction (0.5 page)
  2. Research findings (current coordination and WPP advocacy practices, challenges, etc.) (max 5 pages)
  3. Key recommendations to advance women’s leadership in peacebuilding and governance. (2-3 pages)

The presentation will present the information from the summary report concisely and in a manner that is visually appealing (fewer text and more graphics)

Final version 15 June, 2022

3

A practical coordination and political engagement strategy to advance women’s participation and leadership in politics and peacebuilding mechanisms

Final version 18 July, 2022

Competencies

Evaluation

Applications will be evaluated based on the Cumulative analysis.

  • Technical Qualification (100 points) weight [70%]
  • Financial Proposal (100 points) weight [30%]

A two-stage procedure is utilized in evaluating the proposals, with evaluation of the technical proposal being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. Only the price proposal of the candidates who passed the minimum technical score of 70% of the obtainable score of 100 points in the technical qualification evaluation will be evaluated.

Technical qualification evaluation criteria:

The total number of points allocated for the technical qualification component is 100. The technical qualification of the individual is evaluated based on following technical qualification evaluation criteria:

Technical Evaluation Criteria

Obtainable Score

Experience and skills

80 %

Language and other skills

20 %

Total Obtainable Score

100 %

Only the candidates who fit the minimum requirements will be longlisted, and additional documentation may be requested. Candidates with a minimum of 70% of total points will be considered as technically-qualified candidates and will be shortlisted for potential interview.

Financial/Price Proposal evaluation****:

  • Only the financial proposal of candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation will be considered and evaluated.
  • The total number of points allocated for the price component is 100.
  • The maximum number of points will be allotted to the lowest price proposal that is opened/ evaluated and compared among those technical qualified candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation. All other price proposals will receive points in inverse proportion to the lowest price.

All the deliverables, including annexes, notes and reports should be submitted in English.

Upon receipt of the deliverables and prior to the payment of the first installment, the deliverables and related reports and documents will be reviewed and approved by UN Women. The period of the review is one week after the receipt.

Inputs

  • UN Women will provide the Consultant with background materials relevant to the assignment

  • The Consultant is expected to work using his/ her own computer.

  • UN Women will provide a vehicle and a driver to facilitate field work

Performance evaluation:

Consultant’s performance will be evaluated based on: timeliness, responsibility, initiative, communication, accuracy, and quality of the products delivered.

Submission of package

  1. Cover letter explaining fit for the role
  2. CV, including contact information for 3 references;
  3. Technical proposal (2-3 pages) in which the consultant mentions recent similar work and reference to previous clients.
  4. A written sample of previous qualitative study or strategy.
  5. Financial proposal. The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount per each deliverable, including any travel, per diem and administrative fees, based on the template in Annex 1. The lump sum costs must be accompanied by a detailed breakdown of costs calculation.

All applications must include (as an attachment) the CV and the financial proposal. Applications without financial proposal will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further processing.

Please note that only short-listed candidates will be invited to the interview.

Selected candidates will need to submit prior to commencement of work:

  1. A copy of the latest academic certificate
  2. UN Women P-11 form, available via http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment
  3. A statement from a medical doctor of ‘good health and fit for travel’
  4. Before any travel outside of Monrovia, the consultant will need to provide proof (certificate) of completed “Basic and Advanced Security in the Field” (which can be accessed here: www.undss.trip.org or https://training.dss.un.org/course)

Required Skills and Experience

Required experience and qualifications

The Consultant should fulfill the following requirements:

Education

Master’s degree in economics, women and gender studies, social science or other related fields.

Experience:

  • At least 5 years of proven experience conducting research including significant experience of collecting and analyzing quantitative data.
  • Proven experience facilitating consultative workshops
  • Proven experience in strategy development;
  • Prior experience working in women peace and security and/or women’s political participation would be an asset.

Language and other skills:

  • Proficiency in oral and written English
  • Ability to effectively utilize computer software (i.e. MS Excel, Access, oracle, SPSS etc.) for database development and management.
  • Excellent facilitation and training skills.
  • Experience of working with a diverse team and responding appropriately to constructive feedback.
Added 1 year ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: jobs.undp.org