International Consultant: Gender Review of the Country Programme and Development of the Country Office Gender Strategic Plan, Dar es Salaam, TANZANIA
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
International Consultant: Gender Review of the Country Programme and Development of the Country Office Gender Strategic Plan, Dar es Salaam, TANZANIA
Level : P-3 (International Entry level professional)
Duty Station : Dar es Salaam (TANZANIA)
Deadline : 20 September 2017
UNICEF is in the final year of implementing its Gender Action Plan (GAP) 2014-2017 and is shaping the transition to Phase 2 of the GAP for 2018-2021. The GAP II builds on the successes and lessons learned from implementing the GAP 1. The GAP II continues to provide strategic guide to the organization's promotion of gender equality across all programmes at the global, regional and country levels using the twin-track approach a) integration of gender equality outcomes across all programme areas, and (b) specification of “targeted gender priorities” focused on empowering adolescent girls. The GAP II prioritizes five targeted areas around girls' empowerment: Promoting adolescent girls’ nutrition and pregnancy care, preventing HIV/AIDS and HPV; Advancing girls’ secondary education, learning and skills including STEM; preventing and responding to child marriage and early unions; Preventing and responding to gender based violence in emergencies and facilitating accessible and dignified menstrual hygiene management. The GAP II also focuses on specific gender results within UNICEF's key sectors such as Health, Nutrition, HIV/AIDS, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Education, Child and Social Protection to advance women's and girls' empowerment and gender equality. The GAP II would also further focus on the institutional change and strengthening in order to achieve gender results, including resource mobilization and allocations, measurement and evaluation of results, talent and capacity strengthening, and knowledge management and communications.
According to the GAP, “the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is central to the mandate of UNICEF and its focus on equity. In order to achieve the results for children that UNICEF sets forth in pursuing its mandate and to realize the rights of every child, especially the disadvantaged, it is essential to address one of the most fundamental inequalities that exist in all societies i.e. gender inequality. A broad range of evidence shows that gender, poverty and geographic residence are three of the strongest factors determining disparities in child well-being and rights. As the only United Nations agency with the rights of children at the heart of its mandate, UNICEF is in a position to foster gender-equitable child outcomes as a catalyst to a more equitable world not only today, but also in the long term, by redefining gender roles and power relations for the men and women of tomorrow.”
Early Childhood Development (ECD) and Adolescents are the two key programming priorities for the UNICEF Tanzania Country Office (TCO) in the new country programme 2016-2021. TCO has developed strategies to move the ECD and adolescent agenda forward, having adopted a multi-sectoral approach with inputs from the health, nutrition, education, HIV and AIDS, child protection, WASH, social policy and other sections. The gender programming as well will be coined around the ECD and adolescents development priorities. The Country Office in its current programme cycle (2016-2021) seeks to enhance the realization of children’s rights and equity through the following UNDAP outcomes: a) Improved access to equitable, acceptable and affordable quality health services; b) increased coverage of equitable, quality and effective nutrition services among women and children under five; c) improved, scaled up and equitable use of proven HIV prevention, treatment, care and support interventions; d) ensure that vulnerable groups have increased access to safe and affordable water supply sanitation and hygiene; f) enhanced equitable and inclusive access to quality basic education and lifelong learning; g) enhanced prevention of and response to violence against women and children g) increased coverage of comprehensive and integrated social protection (interventions and services) for the poor and vulnerable.
To achieve the above mentioned results and contribute to the reduction of poverty and achieve equal rights of boys and girls, UNICEF TCO recognizes that advancing gender equality and empowerment of girls and women is a fundamental principle in the context of the current country programme, national development priorities and SDGs. As well, to achieve converging programme components around parenting, family care practices, and early childhood development components and adolescents, shared roles and benefits between men and women, boys and girls in development must be well defined and implemented. Thus, as part of UNICEF’s efforts to strengthen gender mainstreaming and achieve gender equality results, the TCO is planning to undertake the gender review of its current country programme 2016-2021 and devise gender programming strategic direction. It is anticipated that the gender review will stimulate self-reflection and assessment as well as critical thinking to identify and define desired changes, actions and pathways towards achieving gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment in UNICEF supported programmes in line with the GAP priorities.
In anticipation of conducting the Mid-Term Review of the country programme in 2018; and seeking to optimize ways in which gender has been mainstreamed across programme areas, for example, with respect to programming for early childhood and adolescent development with specific and differentiated age groups or where targeted interventions may be required as recommended in the Gender Action Plan, the TCO Gender Programmatic Review (GPR) is timely planned. The findings of the GPR will first feed into the development of the TCO gender strategy and later the Mid-Term Review processes. As well, the findings will be used to improve the country programme strategies and activity plans for the remaining part of the current country programme cycle. In the long term, the review will assist UNICEF Tanzania Country Office and its partners to better mainstream gender equality concerns in their planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting processes so as to increase the positive impact on children and women in Tanzania.
Objectives of the consultancy
The purpose of this consultancy will be:
Assess the extent to which gender targeting and mainstreaming has been effectively integrated into the UNICEF Tanzania Country Programme, including its programme designs, strategies and activities, and the extent to which the country office is contributing to strengthening its own capacity on gender and gender mainstreamingAssess the extent to which the TCO is achieving institutional effectiveness performance indicators on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls as identified in the GAP.Make recommendations and formulate specific actions on the institutional, targeted and mainstreaming priorities and how to address gaps in sector programmes.Using available data and information on the situation of gender issues in the country and sector programmes, develop the Country Office Gender Strategic Plan (10-15pages) aligning to the new GAP II, SP and CPD.
Specific Tasks
Desk review/research of available statistics and analysis of gender disparities, including related to CEDAW, CRC and Convention on the Rights of people with Disability;Mapping country programme outputs and activities as well as existing and planned partnerships (programme and donor) against the GAP II 2018-2021 and the Regional Gender strategic framework;For each Programme Component (Health, Nutrition, HIV and AIDS, WASH, Education, Child Protection, Social Inclusion, Operations, Emergency Preparedness and Response, Communication, C4D and Monitoring, Evaluation and reporting): assess the quality of gender mainstreaming in programme planning and implementation through:Review of multi-year and annual work plans; sample TORs, PCAs JDs, Donor proposals and project concept notesAssess the level of gender mainstreaming in programme monitoring, reporting, research and evaluation through a review of: Programme Monitoring Reports, Donor Reports and Annual Reports and Research and Evaluations ReportsAssess capacity of programme staff in ensuring effective gender mainstreaming and if there is any gap propose corrective measures.Develop recommendations for mainstreaming gender effectively for each country programme componentIdentify key gender issues per programme sector (Health, WASH, HIV/AIDS, Nutrition, Education, Child protection , Social Inclusion, emergency, programme monitoring and Evaluation and operations)Formulate programmatic responses to address gender bottlenecks and barriers that prevent the achievement of priority gender results;Identify key gender results that are most relevant to the country programme context, meet the GAP principles, utilize the GAP's dual programmatic approach (i.e. targeted gender priorities and gender mainstreaming);Identify key relevant indicators to measure progress for gender results, and propose new indicators if needed;Identify priority capacity gaps in effectively mainstreaming gender and provide recommendations to address them,Provide specific recommendations for mainstreaming gender effectively for programme componentSpecify the required resources and partnerships to achieve gender results; andDevelop action points of what the CO will do in terms of outputs and results, as well as the means to achieve these in terms of funding and capacitiesHold sector programme specific staff meetings to review their results framework and identify key gender issues, priority gaps, bottlenecks and way forwardFormulate specific action points for integration gender into the MTR CPD process.Develop theory of change for advancing gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment in TCODraft and finalize TCO Gender Strategic Plan (10-15 pages)
Methodology
The main review method is desk review of relevant documents including;International, regional and national policy agenda with relevance to Gender and UNICEF sectoral priorities.Available data, documents, reports and studies on gender and development in Tanzania to inform the gender review of the UNICEF Tanzania Country Programme Document (2016-2021)Conduct interviews with programme staff, focus group discussions in developing the TOC and key informants from the relevant ministries departments and government agencies and partner NGOs/CSOs to assess the programming environment of gender results articulation with the national gender frameworks and existing partnerships. This will inform relevant TCO strengths and needs for strengthened gender programming.
Expected Deliverables
Phase 1: Inception: Introductory meetings and consultations with UNICEF team (Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar), relevant UN agencies, government ministries, departments and agencies, Donors, CSOs and other Key stakeholders and submission of the inception report
Phase 2: Country programme gender review:Undertake desk review of the TCO country programme and other relevant national and international gender conventions and policy documents. As well as Undertake consultation with TCO management, sector programmes in both Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar
Phase 3: Gender Strategy Development: Deliverable 4: Draft the TCO gender TOC and strategy with M&E framework; Deliverable 5: Review and finalize the draft TCO gender strategy
Expected background and Experience
The selected candidate should possess the following background and experience:
Advanced degree in gender studies, development studies, sociology, economics, law, and or public administration and at least eight years of progressively responsible professional experience working on gender and developmentDemonstrated capacity and experience of more than 5 years on Gender analyses, development and evaluation of Gender Strategies, especially in Early childhood development and adolescenceProven experience in sector planning and policy analysis and the development of national strategies and programme guidelines will be an added advantage.Experience leading participatory consultations and capacity development processes with a wide variety of national and local stakeholders.Demonstrated strength in collaborative working arrangements.Should be available to travel in selected regions/districts in Tanzania when needed.Fluency in English is required, and fluency in Kiswahili will be an asset.
Payment
Payments will be made upon submission and acceptance of the specified deliverable and submission of invoice. Payment of travel and accommodation allowances will be made in line with the respective UNICEF rules and regulations.
UNICEF reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if work/outputs is incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines.
Policy both parties should be aware of:
Under the consultancy agreements, a month is defined as 21 working days, and fees are prorated accordingly. Consultants are not paid for weekends or public holidays.Consultants are not entitled to payment of overtime. All remuneration must be within the contract agreement.No contract may commence unless the contract is signed by both UNICEF and the consultant or Contractor.For international consultants outside the duty station, signed contracts must be sent by fax or email. Signed contract copy or written agreement must be received by the office before Travel Authorisation is issued.No consultant may travel without a signed travel authorisation prior to the commencement of the journey to the duty station.Unless authorised, UNICEF will buy the tickets of the consultant. In exceptional cases, the consultant may be authorised to buy their travel tickets and shall be reimbursed at the “most economical and direct route” but this must be agreed to beforehand.Consultants will not have supervisory responsibilities or authority on UNICEF budget.Consultant will be required to sign the Health statement for consultants/Individual contractor prior to taking up the assignment, and to document that they have appropriate health insurance, including Medical Evacuation.The Form 'Designation, change or revocation of beneficiary' must be completed by the consultant upon arrival, at the HR Section.
The successful candidate will be offered a remuneration package under UN system.
UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified candidates from all nationals, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organisation.
