Consultant – Governance Programme

SSA Announcement UNWOMEN/PAK/2011/003 - International Consultant – Governance Programme

Organization : UNWOMEN

Duty Station : Islamabad, Pakistan

Duration : 1 Feb 2012 - 30 June 2012 ( 128 days)

Type of Contract : SSA – (Short Service Agreement)

1. Background and Purpose:

UN WOMEN Pakistan is committed to provide technical support to Government of Pakistan in advancing the gender equality and women’s empowerment commitments made under; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Beijing Platform for Action, Convention on the Rights of the child (CRC), Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CRD) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

In Pakistan as compared to the region there are higher numbers of women in Parliament contributing to stronger emphasis to women’s issues. This political participation of women is contributing towards facilitating women’s direct involvement in public decision-making and is a means of ensuring better accountability for women. At the same time vigilance needs to be paramount to ensure women friendly reforms in election related laws and policies and its implementation. Women’s participation in politics as voters, candidates, and political activists’ needs to be further strengthened and an enabling environment in which women can exercise their political rights without fear and coercion yet needs. Temporary measures like allocating 10% quota for women on winnable seats by political parties, voters and civic education programs and voters registration seats are also equally important to ensure increased women representation and participation in elections.

UN Women in collaboration with UNDP under its Electoral Cycle Support to Election Commission of Pakistan (ECAP) will be providing technical assistance to Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to ensure gender mainstreaming at all levels in preparation for the upcoming election in 2013. A separate project office will be established for ECAP Project by UNDP. UNW among other staff will place an International Consultant to work closely with the UNW programme team, ECAP project team to facilitate ECP in its endeavours of voter’s education and gender mainstreaming.

He/she will be based at ECAP Project office, and work in close collaboration and direction of ECAP team leader and Secretary ECP or a person nominated by the secretary. However, the final mechanism will be agreed upon with ECP and clearly notified within two months of joining. The International Consultant will provide regular updates on his/her work or emerging opportunities/challenges to the Secretary ECP, ECAP team and UNW Governance programme team fortnightly

Tasks and Responsibilities:

The tasks and responsibilities for the International Consultant are as follows:
• Providing technical assistance to ECP to develop and adopt implementation plans and operational strategies around CEDAW and other national and international commitments of the GOP on Gender Equality (GE), Women Empowerment (WE),
• Support the development of gender policy for ECP and its implementation plan by working closely with key actors involved in the process and ECP Secretary and designated officer for the purpose.
• Provide recommendations and plans for gender mainstreaming in all areas of research, legal reforms and voters education materials.
• Review and provide quality technical input in all the processes related to research, legislative reforms, campaign, voters education, capacity building of ECP to ensure that gender is mainstream in all processes at all levels.
• Ensure strong gender perspective in all monitoring and evaluation plans and human resource policies of the project.
• Ensure that electoral research that is outsourced also maintains gender perspective and its findings are analysed from the perspective of men and women and disseminated accordingly.

Deliverables:
Some important deliverables includes;
• Implementation plan and operational strategic plans for gender mainstreaming agreed with ECP
• Best practices and recommendations for gender mainstreaming are documented and shared with ECP
• Fortnightly and quarterly progress reports submitted to ECP


Requirements, Qualifications, and Experience:

- Advanced university Degree or equivalent in Development Studies, gender studies, anthropology, and legal studies with special focus on women issues or any other related field.
- Minimum 10 to 12 years international experience in working with the Government and international organizations on development issues, with strong experience in Gender and Development issues and programmes;

Competencies:
- Experience in report writing, editing, communications and coordination skills in English.
- Good time management and interpersonal skills.
- Extensive work experience in Social Sector focusing on promotion of women's human rights and gender equality.
- Knowledge of CEDAW, and other related international Conventions & instruments. Also, knowledge of Pakistan's all national and international commitments related to women is valuable.
- Knowledge of International legislative framework and electoral processes.

Application Process:

Interested applicants may apply to this announcement, using the “UN Personal History Form - P 11” and the latest CV.

All applications to this vacancy should be sent to :
unwomen.pakistan@unwomen.org

Please insert Announcement Number in the Subject of the E-mail. Applications without the SSA Announcement Number or with the incorrect Announcement Number will not be accepted.

NOTE : Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.