Starting date   :  15 July 2010
Closing date   :  30 July 2010 

Announcement No. UNIFEM/SRO/SSA/2010/007

Position :  International Consultant – “Safe Districts and Cities”

Organization : United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

Duty Station : Islamabad, Pakistan

Duration : 1^st August 2010 -30 September 2010  

No of Days – Total 7 Working Days

Type of Contract : SSA – (Short Service Agreement)

Terms of Reference - UNIFEM Consultants “Districts without Violence against Women, Safe Districts & Cities for All”

UNIFEM is the women's fund at the United Nations. Established in 1976, it provides financial and technical assistance to innovative approaches aimed at fostering women's empowerment and gender equality. Since September 2007 it has set up an office in Islamabad, Pakistan under the South Asia Regional Office (located in New Delhi, India). Today the organization's work touches the lives of women and girls in more than 100 countries. UNIFEM also helps make the voices of women heard at the United Nations — to highlight critical issues and advocate for the implementation of existing commitments made to women.

The United Nations Development Fund for Women within its given mandate articulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 39/125 (1984) and 62/135 (2008), is providing innovative and catalytic programming to achieve gender equality in line with their national priorities and to strengthen action on gender equality across the UN system of development cooperation. UNIFEM is committed to facilitate Government of Pakistan in institutionalizing gender equality and promoting women’s empowerment in its work through innovative and catalytic programming. UNIFEM’s work is guided by the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the frameworks provided by the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). UNIFEM strategy in Pakistan is about strengthening the capacity of government, non- governmental and UN system to deliver on gender equality commitments by ensuring that voices of women and human rights based approach are integrated fully in the development agenda of the country. UNIFEM is uniquely positioned to support initiatives of the government and nongovernmental organizations leading towards a full realization of gender equality and women’s empowerment commitments in line with the national and international gender equality and human rights commitments. 

Violence against women and girls is increasingly being recognized as a pandemic in Pakistan and Government of Pakistan and Civil Society organizations are committed to address violence against women and girls. To address this pandemic requires the combined efforts of women and men, civil society and human rights organizations, different levels of governments, private and public sectors, health and educational institutions, as well as multi-lateral agencies. Different groups emerged against this violence at the local level, and then developed to sub-national and national level campaigns. Even today, local women’s rights groups and increasingly also local men’s groups on gender-based violence are leading to changes in understanding and perceptions about the nature of this violence and the need to question the characterization of this violence as a ‘private’ matter between women and their partners, families, and culture, or a matter of shame for the woman, her family and community.

UNIFEM provides support to innovative initiatives that promote women’s human rights with special focus on their economic security, political participation, and freedom from violence. The Safe Districts and City Pilot is an initiative that works to build the capacity of Local Authorities to address issues of harassment and violence against women in partnership with local communities and other stakeholders. While working with communities to develop local initiatives for crime prevention, it was found that women’s safety is often overlooked in the general approach. When women are involved in activities that are of concern to them, they are able to identify the factors that contribute to fear of being victims of crime which policing cannot address. Such issues include the environment in which women live and work.

This Programme includes two pilot projects one is “Districts without Violence against Women, Safe Districts for All” in partnership with World Population Foundation (WPF) in Pakistan, where UNIFEM will provide the technical assistance and WPF will implement the project in selected districts. Second pilot project is “City without Violence against Women, Safe Cities for All” in partnership with ISCOS, AASHA, PWF (Pakistan Workers Federation) and ILO in Pakistan. One partnership will focus upon districts and other on cities initially for pilot basis. This project will identify violence as a key problem and insecurity faced by women in selected areas. The phenomenon is related to the different forms of violence against women both in public and in private spaces.

UNIFEM is seeking two consultants to provide support to UNIFEM and Partners in designing and implementation of Safe Districts and Cities pilot project based on the their experience and lesson learned from other regions where this project has been implemented.

Purpose:

“the overall purpose of this consultancy is to provide technical support to UNIFEM Gender, HIV&AIDS and Violence against Women (VAW) team and implementing partners’ staff for effective project designing and implementation of Safe Districts/Cities programme, strategy development, provide technical assistance in designing the work plan, tools for assessment/monitoring and successful initiation of the project implementations ”

 Under the supervision of the UNIFEM Country Programme Director, and in close coordination with program officer, the Consultants will be responsible the following tasks: 

1. The consultants are expected to have an initial meeting with UNIFEM CPD and concerned staff to share the work plan and way forward to initiate the projects so that have a consensus on way forward before going to interact and coordinate with partners and stakeholders.
2. The consultants are expected to provide orientation and build the capacity of UNIFEM staff and partner organizations about the concept of safe districts and cities, their lessons learned and experiences to design and implement the pilot projects, consultants will share all the designed documents (concept paper, list of activities/interventions, implementation strategy, monitoring tools and coordination mechanism). Partners will have initial concept paper and consultants will support in refining and finalizing the concept paper/project proposal.
3. The consultants are expected to visit Project Area, assist in identifying the activities and development of work plan for the implementation of the project. The consultants need to have field visit (Jakababad and Multan) and meetings with different stakeholders to know the ground realities and circumstances to be able to provide effective assistance.
4. At the end of the consultancy  the consultants will have a De-briefing and Consultancy Progress sharing

Highlight minutes of the meeting including concrete agreement between WPF agreed upon strategy, follow up steps, roles and responsibilities. 

1. Initial Meeting with CPD and UNIFEM concerned Staff (half day on arrival)
   • Meeting Minutes
   • PowerPoint presentations

2. UNIFEM Staff and Partners’ Capacity Building (Two Day)

·         Power point presentations

·         Finalized/agreed concept paper of safe districts and safe city

·         Session Report

3. Project Area Visit, Design activities and Coordination Mechanism (3 Days)

·         Project area visit report

·         List of possible interventions/activities

·         Project Implementation work plan

·         Coordination mechanism among stakeholders

4. De-brief (One Day)

·         Presentations

5. Other deliverables:

 ·         The consultant is to submit the end consultancy report with way forward and future recommendations.  

Outcome 8: Community-level initiatives generate effective models for advancing women's human rights & eliminating gender inequality

Output 8.2: Agreement reached among development assistance partners on what constitutes relevant  community level initiatives to advance WHR and eliminate gender inequalities in specific sectors/ areas

Corporate Competencies:

§  Demonstrates commitment to Violence against Women, Women Rights and Women Protection values.

§  Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability

§  Extensive knowledge on social, cultural, legal aspects and Government system in Pakistan.

§  Display cultural sensitive behaviour and respect cultural norms and differences.

Functional Competencies:

§  Shares knowledge and experience

§  Ability to perform a variety of standard tasks related to in-depth analysis, screening and collecting of documents/bills/ordinance, provision of information

§  Focuses on result and responds positively to feedback

§  Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude

§  Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure

Development and Operational Effectiveness:

§  Ability to perform a variety of standard tasks related to in-depth analysis, screening, collecting and designing of documents, provision of information

Leadership and Self-Management:

§  Focuses on result and responds positively to feedback

§  Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude

§  Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure 

The consultant is expected to work for 7 Days in the month of Aug - Sep 2010 

Education: Degree in social sciences, preferably in gender studies/women rights/human rights 

Experience: 7 to 10 years of relevant consultative experience is required at the national and international level and experience in implementation of similar projects. 

Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc) and knowledge of spreadsheet and database packages, experience in handling of web based management systems 

Language Requirements: Fluency in the UN and national language of the duty station 

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 :

sameer.shaikh@unifem.org and arooj.asad@unifem.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.