Consultant - Gender Analysis of the Legal Framework at UN Women

UN Women - In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. In doing so, UN Member States took an historic step in accelerating the Organization's goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system, which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment. We are recruiting to fill the position below: Job Title: Consultant - Gender Analysis of the Legal Framework (the Constitution and Electoral Act 2010), with special refence to Women’s participation in politics Location: Nigeria Type of Contract: Individual Contract Post Level: National Consultant Duration of Initial Contract: 40 working days over a two months’ period (from date of signing contract) Duties and Responsibilities Objectives:

To do the inventory of key legislations and administrative texts guiding the electoral system in Nigeria,
To examine the gender discriminatory aspects of the electoral system legal frameworks, and how these have affect women as voters and candidates
To examine the level of integration of gender by INEC in implementing these provisions and make recommendations to improve gender integration in their mechanisms and systems.

Main Activities and Responsibilities

The gender analysis of legal instruments will assess the overall provisions supporting women’s participation in electoral processes.
It is expected that the analysis will assess the extent to which these legal frameworks have in anyway support or hindered women’s participation in political activities in Nigeria and make recommendations on how to reform provisions and enhance women’s representation in elective positions.
The assignment will be conducted under the direct supervision of the UN Women Nigeria Country Office and key findings will be published and disseminated to key stakeholders for further programming.

Specifically, the Consultant will be responsible for the following tasks:

Task 1: Prepare Inception Report: Complete an inception report and submit to UN Women. An inception report with proposed methodology for the analysis (including timeframes), which should include the following components:
- Desk review: The analysis should be informed by an initial desk review of (a) the general legal framework (Constitution, Electoral Act 2010) including INEC institutional mechanisms and how it is supporting women political empowerment
- Proposed Structure for Analysis; which includes a summary on the proposed sections and sub-sections of report of analysis. The analysis should address issues surrounding all Legal Frameworks and Electoral Act 2010 as it relates to gender; women’s participation in politics before, during and after elections, and other issues as may be identified by the UN Women Country Office.
- Qualitative interview protocol; (a) detailed list of proposed key stakeholders to be interviewed and for FGDs. Interviewees may include key members of legislature, executive and judiciary, male and female members of political parties, women candidates and aspirants, the Electoral Management Body (INEC and ISEC) UNDP, other development partners
Task 2: Conduct a gender analysis of the legal frameworks using agreed methodology
Task 3: In collaboration with UN Women country office, hold de-briefing sessions for stakeholders, sharing initial findings, gaps in legal instruments, specific challenges under the context hampering women from political participation, challenges met while conducting analysis, including lessons learnt, and with recommendations and responsibilities for key stakeholders particularly, the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary.
Task 4: Finalize and Support Dissemination of Findings:
- Prepare executive summary of the main findings for feedback, and present final draft report for clearance by UN Women.
- Complete annexes, acronyms and classify all the resources used, including interviews.
- UN Women will be responsible for production of report document
- Contribute/facilitate dissemination of findings at a larger stakeholders meeting to be organized by UN Women

Key Deliverables:

Inception report, which includes proposed methodology for conducting analysis (5 days from commencement)
Submission of draft report to UN Women which includes summary and initial analysis of desk review, field works findings and recommendations and debriefings with key stakeholders and evaluation of challenges and lessons learned from the process (Task 2 and 3) 25 days from commencement
Submission of final report of analysis/findings, dissemination as in Task 4 above (40 days from commencement)

Methodology:

It is expected that the gender analysis would adopt participatory methodology at every stage of the process involving all relevant stakeholders.
This will also involve gap analysis, focus group discussions (where appropriate), dialogue, key informant interviews (KIIs) with selected Stakeholders, memoranda from relevant stakeholders (especially the Civil Society Organizations), Desk review of existing local, national and international legal instruments in relevant areas, including others deem fit by the consultant.

Expected Outcome:

It is expected that report of the analysis will form a tool for advocacy in pursuit of legal and policy reforms.
It will provide a comprehensive analysis of the working in political environment and constraints faced by women politicians in Nigeria.
It will recommend steps and measures that could provide enabling environment for women’s participation in political activities that would address gender imbalance and discriminations at all levels in Nigeria.

Competencies Core Values and Guiding Principles:

Demonstrates integrity by modeling UN Women values and ethical standards.
Demonstrates a commitment to UN Women’s mission and vision.
Able to work effectively within a team.
Displays cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability.
Able to multi-task and juggle competing demands.
Can assess and prioritize work needs quickly.
Able to relate to external partners, including other international organizations and agencies, NGOs, grassroots community groups, etc.

Functional Competencies:

Sound expertise in gender equality and women’s empowerment, including women’s political participation
Communications or knowledge management experience an advantage.
Outstanding networking, team-building, organizational and communication skills.
Capacity to work with diverse partners including governments, donors and civil society.
Ability to work effectively and harmoniously with people from varied cultures and professional backgrounds.
Academic and practical research experience.
Fluent in Microsoft word, excel, e-mail, web-based applications and databases.
Demonstrated leadership and personal examples of promoting knowledge management and a professional learning environment.
Results based management skills.
Ability to produce well-written documents demonstrating excellent interpersonal communication skills.

Required Skills and Experience Education:

Advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent) in Gender Studies, Law, Political Science, Sociology, International Relations, Law-related fields and equivalent practical experiences.

Experience:

A minimum of 10 years (Master’s degree) relevant work experience in the field of legal profession, constitutional expert, gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Experience working with multi-stakeholder organizations is essential: governments, CSOs, and the UN/ multilateral/bilateral institutions.
Research experience, communications, advocacy experience are assets.
Substantive experience in women’s leadership and participation and/or violence against women.
Experience in working in a multicultural environment.
Sound knowledge of international standards on human rights, women’s rights and related instruments.
Experience with UN Intergovernmental processes including those related to women’s empowerment, gender mainstreaming and gender equality is an asset.

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