SSA National Consultant- Gender and Security Sector Reform Coordinator

Contract

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

Background

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. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, 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 supporting Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. UN Women is leading the global efforts related to the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda.

One of the key areas of work for the UN Women Jordan Country Office (CO) is providing technical support to Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) and other government stakeholders such as Jordan Armed Forces (JAF) and Public Security Directorate (PSD) in the implementation of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, including the Jordanian National Action Plan (JONAP) on United Nations Security Council resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS).

Towards the promotion of the WPS agenda, JONAP advances gender equality and women’s empowerment while also responding to Jordan’s latest security challenges. JONAP priorities well align with other national development priorities and with Jordan’s commitments to promote and respect human rights, justice, equality, and participation embodied in various national frameworks such as the National Strategy for Women 2020-2025, Gender Mainstreaming Policy, Jordan Response Plan for the Syria Crisis 2020-2022 and Comprehensive National Plan for Human Rights 2016-2025. In 2019, UN Women and JNCW launched the pooled fund programme for the implementation of the JONAP with the support of a donors’ consortium consisting of Canada, Norway, Finland, Spain Cyprus, and the UK. In just four years, the pooled fund programme has paved the way for significant achievements in women’s participation and representation in the security sector, in local pandemic recovery planning, and in fostering a culture promoting gender equality and tolerance.

Under the JONAP I phase, the national security sector in Jordan has strengthened systems and mechanisms to advance gender responsiveness of the police and military operations and peacekeeping missions after capacity-building and policy adoption with the support of UN Women. There is positive progress toward changing the masculine institutional culture to support women’s increased participation at the Public Security Directorate (PSD) and Jordan Armed Forces (JAF).

The percentage of national security sector personnel who are women increased by an average of 2 percentage points across all security institutions. Jordan has contributed to gender mainstreaming in UN peacekeeping missions by increasing the number of women for the last four years. Women’s participation has increased from 13 percent in 2018 to 16 percent by 2022 for JAF and from 3.6 percent in 2018 to 10 percent in 2022 for PSD (from 34 to 100 women).

The Government of Jordan (GoJ) boosted the national ownership of the WPS agenda and drafted the JONAP II phase (2022-2025) with the coordination from the JNCW, political backing from the Intermenstrual Committee for Women’s Empowerment (IMC), and technical support from UN Women. UN Women will continue providing technical support to implement the JONAP II in partnership with JNCW and national stakeholders through the pooled fund modality including providing technical support to JAF and PSD in continuing the gender mainstreaming in their policies and operations and implementing the GMS and respective work plans under JONAP II.

UN Women will hire a national consultant to provide technical support and institutional capacity building to all security agencies on gender-responsive security sector reform in line with JONAP II. The national consultant will provide technical assistance to all security sector agencies. The objective of the Assignment: The main objectives of this assignment are to support security sector agencies to strengthen their institutional capacities in the implementation of their Gender Mainstreaming Strategies (2021-2024) and in line with their annual work plans with UN Women.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall guidance of UN Women’s Country Representative, and the direct supervision of the Women, Peace and Security Programme Specialist, and in collaboration with the security sectors focal points, the national Consultant will be responsible for the following duties and responsibilities:

1. Develop work plan for the assignment, including the methodology, the specific activities and timeline (to be approved by UN Women).
2. Conduct regular consultations and strategic meetings with all security sector agencies, especially engaging the Head of Gender Offices, the Gender Advisors, and the Gender Focal points.
3. Provide institutional capacity-building training/workshops on gender mainstreaming and UNSCR 1325 for officials from the security sector agencies. (The number of workshops will be aligned with the annual work plans).
4. Provide technical assistance and facilitation to agencies during the Gender audit assessment, and coordinate with the selected company that will conduct the assessment
5. Provide technical support and facilitate the implementation of the “Women’s leadership program” that will be piloted in all agencies (external implementing company).
6. Coordinate and facilitate the “Languages courses” implementation for the years 2023,2024 with selected companies.
7. Provide support to Security sector agencies to conduct the TOT for the Gender Focal points, Gender Advisors, the Key leaders seminars, and coordination meetings with external and internal parties.
8. Support the Gender Champions from the Security Sectors to finalize the “Gender-responsive guidelines for police work” and facilitate the launch event in October 2023.
9. Support the data collection, monitoring and evaluation process in relation to JONAP II reporting, and ensure the data is validated between the security sector agencies and JNCW.
10. Draft gender and security sector briefs upon the request of UN women and provide inputs for quarterly and annual reports on gender and security sector reform in Jordan.
11. Other agreed tasks relevant to responsive security sector reform in Jordan.

The consultant is expected to deliver the following results:

• Monthly timesheets and brief progress reports about implemented activities and achieved results with supporting documents (summary of strategic meetings, training reports, other materials) submitted. (by the 5th of each month)- starting from August 2023.
• Final report about the progress and achievements, lessons learned, and recommendations submitted (up to 5 working days)- by the end of September 2024. All monthly reports, briefings, and final reports should be submitted in English language.

The Consultant will be provided with UN Women’s programme-related necessary materials and strategic guidance by UN Women during the implementation of the assignment.

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity.
• Integrity.
• Professionalism.

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues.
• Accountability.
• Creative Problem Solving.
• Effective Communication.
• Inclusive Collaboration.
• Stakeholder Engagement.
• Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf

Functional Competencies:

• Demonstrated knowledge of gender equality and climate interventions.
• Excellent written skills.
• Experience in conducting similar mapping exercises.
• Fluency in English and Arabic.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• A master’s degree in law, political science, social sciences, gender studies, public administration, or relevant fields
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• At least 2 year of relevant work experience in development programme/project implementation, coordination, managing complex and multi-component programme interventions with national partners, preferably related to security sector reform is required;
• Demonstrated experience in supporting similar kinds of capacity building exercise with proven experience in providing technical support with a facilitation role is required
• Demonstrated knowledge of gender mainstreaming in the security sector reform is an asset
• Experience coordinating and liaising with government agencies and/or donors is an asset.

Language Requirements :

• Good written skills in English and fluency Arabic are required.

Evaluation Criteria:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology: Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation will be considered for the financial evaluation.

Criteria Weight Technical 70% (70 points):

• Education: 10 points
• Experience and skills: 50 points
• Language: 10 points

Financial:

Lowest Financial Proposal: 30% (30 points)

• The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:
• The contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical);
• The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula: (Lowest Bid Offered*)/ (Bid of the Consultant) x 30;
• 'Lowest Bid Offered' refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 49 points in the technical evaluation

Application:

Interested Individual Consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• A cover letter with a brief presentation of your consultancy explaining your suitability for the work and link to portfolio of work.
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-07/UN-Women-P11-Personal-History-Form-en.doc;
• Financial proposal; Proposed inclusive monthly rate.

The above-mentioned documents should be merged into a standalone file including all of them, since the online application submission does only permit to upload one file per application. Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification.

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)