UN Women Job Opportunity, Thursday 17, September 2015

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.

Under the guidance and oversight of the supervisor, the Administrative Associate supports the Office Operations by performing a variety of standard administrative processes ensuring high quality and accuracy of work. The Administrative Associate promotes a client, quality and results-oriented approach.  S/he works in close collaboration with the Operations, Programme and projects staff team to ensure consistent service delivery and to resolve complex administration related issues and information delivery.

NATIONAL CONSULTANT, WOMEN PEACE & SECURITY (WPS)

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Objective of the Assignment:

Under the overall guidance and supervision of the Programme Manager, Women Peace and Security and the WPS Section of UN Women Head Quarters, the Consultant will form and lead a team to undertake the studies in each of the three states, and offer options and experience drawn from international best practice.  The Consultant will engage relevant stakeholders, including Government Ministries Department and Agencies (MDAs), CSOs, Development Partners, Security Agencies and exiting Peace Committees in each state, with clear collaborative roles in the implementation, monitoring and reporting of relevant elements of the peace architecture. The consultants will also assess the activities and plans of other donors – notably the National Stability and Reconciliation Programme of UK DfID – as well as of other UN Agencies such as UNDP, to ensure substantive coordination and synergy wherever possible.

The specific objectives of the assignment is to review the existing peace and security architecture in Adamawa, Plateau and Gombe States  from a gender and human rights perspective and provide recommendations to strengthen the system for sustainable peace and security.

Tasks:

Form a technical research/review team, lead and coordinate the processes involved in the review of Peace and  Security Architecture in Adamawa, Plateau and Gombe States;

Undertake desk reviews of relevant peace and security literature and documentation in Nigeria, with special focus on gender dimension in Northern Nigeria;

Undertake a gender analysis of existing peace and security architectures globally with the aim of documenting best practices and lessons learned;

Review and document findings and lessons learned from other international experiences of integrating gender perspective in contexts of conflict and insecurity, and bring value addition  into the Northern Nigeria WPS programme;

Develop relevant research instruments and methodology;

Engage local data collectors at federal and state levels to generate information required to strengthen existing peace and security architecture in target states from a gender perspective;

Collect relevant gender disaggregated data at federal and state levels on existing peace and security mechanisms, including Early Warning and Early Response, Local Peace and Security structures and their capacity to reduce insecurity;

Drawing from the baseline survey of the Northern Nigeria Women Peace and Security Programme,  identify gaps and needs particularly in the engagement of women in peace and security in the three states of focus, and the impact of violent conflicts and insurgency in neighboring states of Yobe and Borno;

Based on the findings of the baseline survey and other primary and secondary data, develop a Gender Sensitive Peace Architecture for each of the target states;

Drawing from review findings, both locally and internationally, identify opportunities for mainstreaming gender perspectives in peace and security frameworks in Northern Nigeria.

Methodology:

It is expected that the Consultant would adopt participatory methodologies at every stage of the process, involving all relevant stakeholders at federal and state levels. This will involve gap analysis, focus group discussions (where appropriate), community dialogue, key informant interviews (KIIs) with selected Stakeholders, memoranda from relevant stakeholders(especially the Civil Society Organizations), Validation/Review Meetings with Stakeholders, Desk Review of existing local, national and international documents and instruments in relevant areas, amongst others to achieve expected outputs.

SCOPE OF WORK:

The review of the existing Peace and Security architecture from a gender and human rights perspective will be conducted in Adamawa, Plateau and Gombe States, as well as Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory. Efforts will be made to concentrate more on each of the state capitals and the selected Local Government Areas (LGAs) for Programme implementation (i.e. four LGAs per state).

The Consultant will be supported by team members to:

develop the research/review methodology for the assignment;

conduct data analysis of key findings, and provide comprehensive report, with substantive  recommendations to stakeholders at all levels;

facilitate stakeholders validation meetings in each of the target states on key findings, gaps analysis and recommendations, as  well as the revised version of peace and security architecture in each of the target states;

develop a comprehensive peace and security architecture from a gender and human rights perspective in each of the target states, reflecting synergy at local, state, national and regional levels for publication and dissemination.

Deliverables:

Programme implementation plan for the assignment;

Methodology including research and review  instruments;

Report of Situation Analysis on Peace and Security Architecture in Adamawa, Plateau and Gombe States, Nigeria. The report, among others should contain analysed data, including tables and background information covering findings, value addition to knowledge management,  conclusions and recommendations;

A Comprehensive Gender Strategy/Peace and Security Architecture for Government and stakeholders in Adamawa, Plateau and Gombe States, as well as the Federal Government of Nigeria. The document should include synergy with neighbouring states in Northern Nigeria, as well as national and regional integration for sustainable peace and security;

Final report (narrative and financial) of all activities conducted within the framework of the assignment with recommendations.

COMPETENCIES

Competencies Summary:

Integrity:

Demonstrating consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions as well as values and ethical standards, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

Ethics & values:

Promoting Ethics and Integrity / Creating Organizational Precedents.

Commitment:

Demonstrates commitment to UN Women’s mission and vision.

Cultural Sensitivity and Adaptability/Valuing Diversity:

Demonstrating an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff;

Demonstrating an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.

REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

Education:

Master`s degree or equivalent in security studies, gender studies, social sciences or related disciplines.

Experience:

A minimum of 15 years of relevant international experience in women;

Of which a minimum of 15 years of demonstrated international experience in conducting gender analysis and developing gender responsive policies, programs and strategies;

Peace and security research;

Strong knowledge of the women, peace and security agenda, in particular the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and subsequent resolutions;

Demonstrated competencies in the application of gender analysis tools and methodologies;

Demonstrated competencies in the conduct of participatory multi-stakeholder approaches;

LANGUAGE REQUIREMENTS:

Written and oral proficiency in English is required.

TO APPLY

All bidders are required to submit their technical and financial proposals, as well as CVs of proposed team members, showing their qualification, technical competence and experience relevant to the assignment. This should be submitted via email to procurement.Nigeria@unwomen.org or hard copy to Programme Manager, UN Women WAEC Building 2nd Floor, 10 Zambezi Crescent PMB 2851, Maitama Abuja, Nigeria.

METHODOLOGIES FOR EVALUATION OF PROPOSALS

TECHNICAL EVALUATION: (Total obtainable score – 70):

All proposals that passed through the preliminary evaluation will be scored out of 70 based on the criteria mentioned in the table below. To qualify in the technical evaluation a proposal must obtain minimum 70% of the total obtainable technical score or at least 49 points. Any proposal obtaining a score less than the minimum required score (49) will be technically disqualified. Proposals achieving 70% or more points in the technical evaluation will be considered for financial evaluation.

Years of experience in national and/or international level in development field (15 marks);

Capacity and experience on research, data analysis and statistical methods (20 marks);

Extensive experiences on Gender, Peace and Security Architecture Analysis and Reviews at local and international levels (25 marks);

Experience with UN system and its programme (10 marks).

Applicants may also be invited for a face to face or Skype/telephone interview as part of the technical evaluation process. The interview shall not bear any additional score but shall be used to validate the scores given above by assessing the knowledge on the subject matter.

FINANCIAL EVALUATION: (TOTAL OBTAINABLE SCORE – 30):

All technically qualified proposals will be scored out 30 based on the formula provided below. The maximum points (30) will be assigned to the lowest financial proposal. All other proposals receive points according to the following formula.

p = y (µ/z)

WHERE:

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated;

y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal;

µ = price of the lowest priced proposal;

z = price of the proposal being evaluated.

Supervision and Performance Evaluation:

The consultant will work under the direct guidance and supervision of the Programme Manager, UN Women Nigeria Office and the Peace & Security Unit, UN Women Head of Office and UNICEF’s Project Coordinator. The consultant will regularly brief the UN Women Country Team and UNICEF on the progress.

Based on clearance by the UN Women and Evaluation Group Chair, the consultancy fee will be paid on agreed installments payments in line with target deliverables. The Consultant will receive the final remuneration after successful completion of assignment positively evaluated by UN Women.

DURATION:

The duration of the consultancy is 75 days, commencing by September 2015, following the signing of contract. In a situation where there will be need to extend the contract duration, the Consultant will notify UN Women in writing at least 15 working days before the contract expires. UN Women will not entertain any costs extension other than the approved contract amount indicated on the contact agreement.

DUE DATE: 25 September, 2015