Country: Somalia
Closing date: 14 May 2013
UN Women (UNW) 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, 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 partnership with civil society and other relevant actors.
Gender responsive budgeting (GRB) is an approach that seeks to facilitate coherence between government planning/budgeting and gender equality goals through ensuring that government plans include programmes that address gender gaps and that government budgets include the financial resources necessary to implement such programmes. In 2009, UNIFEM’s GRB programming consisted of a portfolio of cross regional, regional and country level programmes that spanned eleven countries in Africa including Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Cameroon, Zambia, Mali, Niger, Kenya and Ethiopia. The main purpose of GRB interventions is improving the allocation of resources towards women’s priorities. GRB intervention also serve other purposes including strengthening linkages between economic and social policy outcomes. GRB programmes support the application of a range of tools for identifying needs, setting priorities, planning, programming, budgeting and M&E.
In response to calls from gender equality advocates for increased accountability for implementation of gender equality commitments in economic policies and financing decisions related to aid and domestic resources, UN Women seeks to hire a Consultant to provide technical assistance aimed at improving women’s access to resources and services at the local level through ensuring gender responsive planning, programming and budgeting at the local level. The Consultant will focus on the JPLG’s existing decentralization and local governance programmes implemented at local level in Somalia. In addition, this initiative will build on UN Women’s global experience in working with governments, local representatives and civil society organizations on gender responsive budgeting. The interventions will target the selected districts’ local level planning and budgeting processes and will seek to demonstrate the positive impact of gender responsive planning and budgeting processes on increasing women’s access to services and achieving gender equitable development results.
The objectives of the Consultancy will include the following:
• To strengthen national plans for gender equality so that they have defined targets, financing and implementation arrangements in line with national planning and budgeting processes. • To strengthen capacity and accountability of key stakeholders (local government, community and Ministry of Women) to implement gender equality commitments and address women’s priorities in national planning, budgeting systems and programming.
The Consultant will work under the direct supervision of the UN Women Deputy Regional Director and in close collaboration with the Programme Officer for Somalia.
The Consultant will assess and work in one district in Somaliland and use the pilot to collate best practices and lessons learnt to other district and regions. Taking a pilot approach, GRB will initially target the following institutions: Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Somaliland and District councils in Somaliland. The consultant will be expected to conduct preparatory actions in the selected district. This will consist of the following tasks: • In close consultation with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, organize and facilitate a national workshop to share results of a gender assessment of Gabiley District in Somaliland • Conduct capacity building the women group on GRB • Conduct capacity building of actors involved in the planning and budgeting process • Support the review of the District Development Framework (DDF) and produce a gender report annex to the DDF • Share gender assessment report and DDF audit with JPLG and district councilors • Share the gender report annex to the DDF with women groups to be used as their working document for district level gender accountability • Organize district council session on gender accountability “open days” • Organize a national workshop on GRB/GELD tools
Qualifications Education: Master’s degree in Economics, public finance, administration, Development Studies, related field.
Experience: Proven experience on gender equality and women’s empowerment; Specific expertise on related issues of financing for gender equality, including Gender Responsive Budgeting and Gender and Aid Effectiveness, and gender and economics; Substantive knowledge and experience of local development and gender and development; Deep understanding of economic governance and decentralization processes; Expertise on local level GRB; In depth knowledge of performance budgeting and MDG-based-planning; Excellent written and oral communication skills in English
Language: Strong written and spoken English. Ability to speak Somali language will be an advantage
How to apply:
Please send your curriculum vitae marked “Consultant – Gender Responsive Budgeting” by 14th May 2013 to consultancies.eharo@unwomen.org
Women are strongly encouraged to apply. Applicants are required to fill the P11 Form and submit it together with the application. Find the P11 Form for Service Contract Holders on this link http://www.so.undp.org/index.php/UNDP-Somalia-vacancies.html
UN Women will only be able to respond to those applications in which there is further interest.