Political participation consultancy opportunity on UN Women’s global political empowerment & leadership training curriculum development

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, UN Women will work 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 in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

Women’s leadership and political participation is one of UN Women’s primary areas of work as mandated in its inception, recognizing the integral role of women in strong and stable democratic processes. Through its Leadership and Governance section, UN Women works to implement Goal 1 of its Strategic Plan 2014-17 “Women lead and participate in all areas of decision-making”. To that end, UN Women developed a comprehensive, peer-reviewed theory of change (TOC) on women’s political empowerment and leadership and a strategic programming approach to enable more women of all ages to fully participate, lead and engage in political institutions and processes. The TOC is grounded in the achievements, knowledge generated and lessons learned from the implementation of UN Women’s Strategic Plans 2011-2013 and 2014-2017, and are designed to guide countries towards reaching Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 5.5: “ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life.”

Capacity development of women leaders through training is a core activity undertaken by UN Women Country Offices. A variety of training tools and approaches have been used to date with varying degrees of success and consistency across countries. In 2016, UN Women supported a mapping and analysis of more than 200 training courses produced by both UN Women and external organizations on various aspects of women’s leadership. The mapping yielded recommendations for a standard UN Women curriculum on women’s political leadership that could contribute to UN Women’s goal that more women of all ages fully participate, lead and engage in political institutions and processes. UN Women is now seeking a consultant with advanced training expertise to design a comprehensive, modular training curriculum on women’s political empowerment and leadership. 

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Under the supervision of the UN Women Policy Advisor and/or Policy Specialist on Political Participation and in collaboration with the UN Women Training Centre, the consultant will be responsible for designing a comprehensive, modular training curriculum on women’s political empowerment and leadership that will take the form of a UN Women training manual for women’s political empowerment and leadership.

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