BACKGROUND

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. UN Women places women’s rights at the center of all its interventions and leads and coordinates United Nations System efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Government efforts on empowerment of women and gender equality building effective partnership with civil society and other relevant actors.

Background/Context

UN Women in Nigeria is working with the Government, UN agencies, international non-governmental organizations, local actors to empower conflict affected women and girls and improve their access to opportunities, rights and services including justice and livelihoods in Northeast Nigeria. North-East Nigeria has experienced heightened crisis since 2009 due to the insurgency by the Non-State Armed Groups and counter-insurgency operations by the Government of Nigeria. The crisis, which is principally a protection crisis has impacted women, men, girls and boys differently. [1]According to the 2019 multi-year Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), an estimated 1.8 million people are displaced, and new displacements are ongoing. [2]Of this number, women and children are the most affected at 87%. Women and girls have been targeted with rape, abduction and conscripted to serve as spies and forced to carry person-borne improvised explosive devices (PBIED). While men and boys have been targeted for recruitment and are at higher risk of being killed.

The humanitarian community has been providing life-saving assistance to millions of affected people since 2016[3]. In the context of the strong ongoing partnership between the UN and the Government of Nigeria in providing life-saving and recovery assistance to conflict affected population in the Northeast, UN Women Nigeria established a sub-office in 2018 in Maiduguri Borno State to facilitate enhanced support to women and girls affected by the insurgency. With a view to enhancing gender sensitive humanitarian response programming and delivery, UN Women supports capacity building efforts of humanitarian actors and implements projects on protection, empowerment of women and resilience building. Following the emerging shift in ensuring that  humanitarian-development nexus needs are  addressed together in order to reduce risk, build resilience in the short, medium and long term given the nature and given that humanitarian and recovery responses are not gender neutral, it is  imperative that gender sensitive responses are embraced to improve the effectiveness of assistance and resilience-building efforts, through better targeted support.

In this context UN Women in Nigeria UN Women, with the support of the Government of Japan, is implementing a project on Strengthening the resilience of conflict-affected women; and their leadership in humanitarian action, peace processes and socio-economic recovery in Borno and Yobe States. An important aspect of this partnership will include conducting a gender audit of two sectors of humanitarian response delivery.  UN Women will engage the services of an experienced gender consultant to conduct a gender audit of two humanitarian sectors, namely the protection and livelihood sectors. The audit will assess differential access to, and control of resources and benefits women and men encounter through humanitarian relief and recovery projects. This will pave the way for the integration of gender equity measures into humanitarian and development programmes and practices of organizations to bring about sustainable organizational change. The consultant will work, under the overall guidance of the UN Women Nigeria Deputy Representative, with day-to-day reporting to the Maiduguri Sub-Office Programme Coordinator.

[1] Nigerian Humanitarian Response Plan-2019

[2] UN Women Northeast Donor Mission Briefing Note-2019

[3] The 2019 Multi-Year HRP

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Objectives and planned outcomes

The gender audit consultant is expected to conduct a participatory Gender Audit, which will assess how the two sectors have been mainstreaming gender priorities at sector level and at partner levels programmatically, and recommend measures for further enhancing gender mainstreaming in all actions of the sectors (looking for example, at quality of gender analysis under the HNO for the priority sectors and the programmatic priorities as well as resource allocations under the relevant sections of the HRP). Specifically, the Gender Audit aims to:

• Assess the extent to which the livelihood and protection sector plans and strategies are gender responsive, and how sector partners are mainstreaming a gender perspective in their programming, in accordance to global standards, including the IASC gender standards commitments;
• Determine the extent to which sectors have been able to articulate gender priorities and assess existing knowledge, capacity and resources within the relevant clusters to promote the empowerment of women and girls in humanitarian settings;
• Develop recommendations for promoting gender equality principles and strengthening gender responsive programming in alignment with IASC gender policy and accountability framework and other humanitarian standards and frameworks, such as the Agenda for Humanity, with the view to strengthening integration of gender related commitments in sector plans, strategies, programs, communications and practices.;
• Identify strengths and weaknesses with respect to gender mainstreaming, and provide actionable recommendations, including short and medium terms steps necessary to deliver effective and quality gender responsive programming that addresses and meets the needs of the affected population with particular focus on the needs and priorities of conflict/crisis affected women and girls.
• Assess the quality and effectiveness of existing mechanisms aiming to further strengthen their participation and engagement in priority setting in relation to the humanitarian and crisis response and enhance accountability and results for crisis affected women and girls, men and boys including on PSEA/SH related matters.

Methodology

The Consultant will work closely with UN Women staff, protection and livelihood sector leads, partners, OHCT members and the Humanitarian Gender Technical Team and adapt the ILO participatory gender audit tool to conduct the gender audit of two humanitarian response sectors, Protection and Livelihood.  To have a clearer understanding of the context and gender mainstreaming in the northeast humanitarian response so far as well as guide development of an inception report demonstrating how the proposed gender audit adopted in line with context realities, the consultant will have inception meeting with the two sector leads, women led CSOs, Ministry of Women and Affairs and Social Development and  State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) Similarly, the consultant will work with focal points and partners as the designated contact point in setting up meetings, exchanging information, providing documentation, organizing and facilitating workshops (where necessary) to the sectors partners. The gender audit will be concluded with a feedback session where initial findings are presented to UN Women team and to the sectors partners for comments/feedback and the development of a strategy/work plan in relation to the next steps.

The selected consultant will organize and conduct a gender audit of the livelihood and protection sectors within the context of the North East Nigeria humanitarian operations, covering Borno and Yobe States. S/he, will provide conceptual, as well as technical, expertise for the efficient delivery of the gender audit activities. The audit design and methodology will be discussed and agreed with the UN Women team and key stakeholders from the clusters and GIHA members? at the beginning of the consultancy. The consultant will use different methods: desk review, questionnaire, interviews, and focus groups/discussion sessions during the assignment.

The gender audit will review the quality of gender mainstreaming in the livelihood and protection sector programming, to provide a baseline for progress in the two sectors to identify capacity gaps and inform the development of sector specific gender mainstreaming guidelines, strategic processes, plans and resource mobilization and allocation. A two-pronged approach will be used-focusing at both the sector level and partners capacities, resources and strategies in relation to gender mainstreaming.

The gender audit will focus on the following areas:

1. General statistics/Quality of Gender analysis and Gender responsive humanitarian needs assessment;
2. Management and gender mainstreaming support at the sector level in relation to development of plans and strategies; including yearly plans in the HRP, HNO, advocacy strategies and technical support
3. Sector planning, prioritization and resource allocations with focus on gender elements and priorities
4. Sector partners’ resources and capacities in relation to supporting and implementing gender responsive humanitarian action and areas for capacity development;
5. Gender mainstreaming in programmes and advocacy/communication related actions and initiatives
6. Staffing and human resources required for gender responsive humanitarian action
7. Financial resources/budget; monitoring and evaluation
8. Partnerships for the advancement of gender responsive humanitarian action
9. Mechanisms to enhance accountability towards the crisis affected women and girls-men and boys, linking this discussion to existing community based complaint mechanisms

Report should:

• Contain an executive summary (mandatory)
• Be analytical in nature (both quantitative and qualitative)
• Be structured around the key issues/entry points highlighted above and related findings/lessons learnt
• Include key findings and good practices as well as opportunities and entry points to scale these up
• Include recommendations and a strategy on the next steps

Key Deliverables

• Inception report and Methodological plan, tools and time-frame
• Briefing session during the process of data collection
• Number of workshops and sessions with stakeholders as part of the inception, roll out and validation of the gender audit
• Final report, including recommendations, action plan and monitoring strategy for the developed action along with an MIS tool.
• Debriefing session with Senior Management Team

Key Performance Indicators

• Gender Audit workplan;
• Gender Audit instruments (examples: matrix with key questions and means of verification, questionnaires, interview protocols, meeting programmes, focus group methodologies, etc.)
• Documented records of interviews and observations with stakeholders. Draft Gender audit findings.
• Presentation of findings to key stakeholders
• Draft report delivered to UN Women for consideration and for comments.
• Enhanced understanding of the UN Women mandates in the Project.

COMPETENCIES

CORE VALUES AND GUIDING PRINCIPLES:

• Integrity:  Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

• Professionalism:  Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

• Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity:  Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

CORE COMPETENCIES:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability and Responsibility
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES:

• Gender and policing in humanitarian context
• Excellent knowledge of Gender and Humanitarian, Women’s rights and participation in leadership and decision making
• Excellent networking skills
• Knowledge of the North East Nigeria humanitarian crisis and its gender impact
• Excellent writing skills
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Full compliance with UN Women ‘s regulations and operating procedures
• Ability to plan work assignments and to establish priorities
• Ability to break down complex information and simplify to facilitate understanding by persons with limited literacy
• Negotiating skills and ability to work at all levels with others to reach mutually benefiting and lasting understandings
• Excellent investigation skills and experience engaging vulnerable populations to bring he desired issue to the fore.
• Promotes a knowledge sharing and learning culture.
• Excellent interpersonal skills; capacity to recognize and respond appropriately to the ideas, interests and concerns of others;
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relations with people in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environment with sensitivity and respect for diversity

REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

Education and Certification

• Postgraduate degree in international relations, gender, development studies relevant social science subject
• ILO Participatory Gender Audit certification desirable

Experience

• Excellent knowledge of gender, and progressively responsible experience in gender mapping and analyses, conducting gender audit and promoting gender equality and gender mainstreaming, including in humanitarian settings and in relation to humanitarian and crisis response
• Previous experience or engagement with conflict affected communities.
• Proven experience of developing and delivering multi-stakeholder workshops and focus group discussions
• Excellent English written and verbal skills
• Knowledge of issues related to gender equality in Nigeria is desirable
• Knowledge of gender mainstreaming in humanitarian programming and planning is desirable
• Working for an international NGO desirable

Language Requirements

• Excellent oral and written English language skills, and one of the languages spoken in the North-East. Knowledge of Hausa is desired