National Consultant as Resource Person/Co-Facilitator – Dialogues and trainings for Military and War Widows on Women’s Participation in Leadership and Peacebuilding

Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality and 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 and the third gender as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. 

All human development and human rights issues involve gender dimensions. Globally, UN Women focuses on key priority areas that are fundamental to women’s equality, that can unlock progress across the board. The six priority areas include increasing women’s leadership and participation in political spaces, ending violence against women, enhancing women’s economic empowerment, engaging in all aspects of women peace and security processes, making gender equality central to national planning and budgeting through Gender Responsive Budgeting and advancing gender in intergovernmental processes.

The UN Security Council Resolution 1325 recognizes that conflict affects women and girls differently when compared to men and boys, and that women must be part of conflict resolution and long-term peacebuilding processes. In this regard, UN Women has a universal mandate to assist countries and the UN system in progressing more effectively and efficiently towards achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women, as well as upholding women’s rights. UN Women plays a critical role in the development and strengthening of international norms and standards alongside their implementation through operational and coordination activities, while also informing the development of those norms and standards through experiences on the ground. It has also established strategic partnerships and networks with a wide range of stakeholders, including governments, women’s human rights advocates, and civil society organizations.

Following the aftermath of the war in 2009, Sri Lanka has made several commitments to peacebuilding, reconciliation and good governance, and represents a historic opportunity to advance accountability and reconciliation as necessary steps towards long-term and sustainable peace. In this regard, the Sri Lanka Peacebuilding Priority Plan (PPP) was developed, in collaboration with the UN, to serve as the framework for a coordinated Government, UN and development partners’ response to peacebuilding in Sri Lanka. The PPP places particular emphasis on integrating gender perspectives within its framework. As such, it aims to ensure that peacebuilding initiatives in Sri Lanka include leveraging women’s capacities and contributions, and developing strategies for inclusion, which recognize their roles, and diverse experiences of conflict. Without women’s engagement at the stages of peace consolidation, the dangers of relapse are greatly heightened. Empirical evidence reveals a strong connection between the inclusion of women in peace processes and more durable and stable peace. Despite this however, the most challenging gap in terms of women’s inclusivity in decision making, concerns the participation of women in peace processes and post-conflict political transitions.

This is particularly relevant to the context of Sri Lanka, given that, when compared to other development indices, the political participation of women claims the widest gender gap in the country. 

In this context, with generous support from the Multi-Partner Trust Fund for the implementation of project on addressing Sexual Bribery experienced by Military Widows and War Widows in Sri Lanka to enable resilience and sustained peace, UN Women aims to focus on the empowerment of Female Heads of Households (hereinto referred to as FHHs) including military widows (predominantly Sinhalese widows in the North Western and North Central Provinces) and war widows (predominantly Tamil widows in the Northern Province) by addressing the high incidence of sexual bribery and exploitation, which acts as a significant barrier to their socio-economic advancement. The project will empower military and war widows on leadership and business skills development to support sustainable income generation, to relieve dependency and indebtedness, and enable resilience against re-victimisation from sexual bribery and sexual exploitation.  

UN Women believes that women’s leadership will not only facilitate social cohesion and reconciliation but become increasingly significant in Sri Lanka’s development trajectory to reach an upper-middle income status. Therefore, the project will focus on promoting FHHs leadership and participation to strengthen their role in decision-making processes by developing a peacebuilding agenda that is broadly owned, open and transparent.

Duties and Responsibilities

UN Women is seeking the services of a consultant who will support the lead consultant in facilitating open dialogues on peacebuilding and reconciliation with identified widows representing widows’ collectives in three districts: Anuradhapura, Kurunegala and Kilinochchi.

The dialogues and trainings will function as phase two and phase three of the project’s overarching goal to empower FHHs (including military and war widows) and strengthen their role in peacebuilding and decision-making processes within their own communities, thus contributing to the country’s peacebuilding agenda, in line with the Peacebuilding Priority Plan. The dialogues will be followed by a series of trainings on leadership and life skills development.

The first phase entails a perception survey to understand the views of FHHs (including military and war widows) on peacebuilding and reconciliation in the current context of Sri Lanka. Based on the findings of the perception survey, the consultant will support the lead consultant in conducting a series of dialogues and trainings, along with a follow-up assessment workshop. The consultant’s role as a co-facilitator will entail conducting sessions in local languages, specifically in Tamil.

The consultant will also support the lead consultant in establishing linkages with FHHs and partner organisations working at the district level to understand the characteristics of widows’ collectives and self-help groups that were created and strengthened through the project, within the three targeted project districts. The consultant will be working under the supervision of the National Programme Analyst at UN Women - Sri Lanka to ensure the following: 

Competencies

EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

Required Skills and Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree in Conflict and Peace Studies, Gender and Development, International Relations, Public Administration, Human Rights or equivalent in relevant fields of Social Science.
• At least 3 years of demonstrable experience on women’s leadership, policies or programmes on peacebuilding and reconciliation, and governance issues.
• Previous experience in conducting training programmes in a similar capacity is required.
• Prior expertise in working with provincial and local levels of governments is desirable.
• Analytical and writing skills in English.
• Fluency in Tamil language (spoken and written) is required. 

EVALUATION

Applications will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis.

• Technical Qualification (100 points) weight; [70%]
• Financial Proposal (100 points) weight; [30%]

A two-stage procedure is utilised in evaluating the applications, with evaluation of the technical application being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. Only the price proposal of the candidates who passed the minimum technical score of 70% of the obtainable score of 100 points in the technical qualification evaluation will be evaluated.

Technical qualification evaluation criteria:

The total number of points allocated for the technical qualification component is 100. The technical qualification of the individual is evaluated based on following technical qualification evaluation criteria:

Financial/Price Proposal evaluation:

• Only candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation will be considered and evaluated for the financial proposal submitted.
• The total number of points allocated for the price component is 100.
• The maximum number of points will be allotted to the lowest price proposal that is opened/ evaluated and compared among those technical qualified candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation. All other price proposals will receive points in inverse proportion to the lowest price.

PAYMENTS

Payments for this consultancy will be based on the achievement of each deliverable and certification that each has been satisfactorily completed. Payments will not be based on the number of days worked but on the completion of each stated deliverable within the indicated timeframes. Payments will be made upon submission of deliverables with an approval of the National Programme Analyst at UN Women Sri Lanka. The consultant will be required to travel on mission, Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) and travel costs in compliant with UN Women Travel Guideline will be reimbursed to the consultant at actual amount upon submission of receipts and travel stubs.

SUBMISSION OF APPLICATION

Interest candidates are encouraged to submit their application through the UN Women website as well an electronic application to hr.bangkok@unwomen.org and copy to r.limkitisupasin@unwomen.org not later than 31st October 2019, COB.

The submission package includes:

• Updated CV
• Personal History Form (P11)
• Technical proposal: Writing Sample in English and Tamil languages
• Financial proposal

Incomplete proposals will not be considered. Please ensure that a competitive financial proposal is submitted as it will be evaluated cumulatively with the technical proposal. The Financial proposal itself will be weighed at 30%.