Nepal adopted a new Constitution in September 2015, with the intent of transforming the then unitary and centralised system of governance into a federal and decentralised one as a vehicle to ensure equality, equity, and social justice. Nepal’s federal system is characterised by three levels of government (federal, provincial, and local) with non-hierarchical relationships within the levels of government. The Constitution stipulates that the three levels shall be the main structures of the Federal, Democratic and Republican Nepal and all levels shall exercise the power of state of Nepal pursuant to the Constitution and law. The powers of the three levels of government are enshrined in five Schedules of the constitution in the form of exclusive and concurrent powers. The federal system of governance became fully functional in February 2018 after all seven province governments were formed following the general election in November 2017.

With an objective to support on the implementation of federalism in Nepal, the Government of Nepal introduced a flagship programme of Provincial and Local Governance Support Programme (2019-2024). Following an initial period of delivery and agreement by Government of Nepal (GoN), Provinces, stakeholders, and Development Partners that Provincial and Local Governance Support Programme remained necessary and relevant, a decision was taken to extend Provincial and Local Governance Support Programme, with changes necessary to make the programme more effective, efficient, and responsive to the needs of Provincial Local Governments (PLG).

The Provincial and Local Governance Strengthening Programme (PLGSP) 2024-2029 is the national framework programme of the GoN to build institutional, organizational, and individual capacity at all levels of government, with special focus on the provincial and local levels. It aims to attain functional, sustainable, inclusive, and accountable provincial and local governance. Following an initial period of delivery (2019-2023), and agreed by the GoN, Provinces, Development Partners, and other stakeholders, PLGSP will continue for the next five years, with necessary changes to make the programme more effective, efficient, and responsive to the emerging needs of PLGs in advancing federalism in Nepal.

An extensive stakeholder engagement, consultations and re-programming process was undertaken between July 2023 and June 2024 that resulting in a substantial revision in the PLGSP Programme Document (ProDoc). This reprogrammed ProDoc outlines how re-programmed PLGSP emphasizes building the capacity and capability of PLGs’ to deliver on the institutional and individual capacities for advancing federalism in Nepal over the next 5 years. The ProDoc has focused on three outcomes for Federal, Provincial and LG level impacts, each with three related outputs. Three outcomes include: Outcome 1: Federal level government institutions and inter-governmental mechanisms are fully functional in support of federal governance as per the Constitution; Outcome 2: Provincial governments have efficient, effective, inclusive, and accountable institutions and organizations; Outcome 3: Local governments have capacity for Good Governance and for delivering inclusive basic services to all people. Furthermore, there are 9 outputs against the outcome mentioned. Four cross-cutting thematic streams: (i) Inclusive federalism acts, regulations, policies, and strategies; (ii) Collaboration within and across federal institutions and governments, and civic engagement; (iii) Supportive systems and tools for PLG inclusive federalism capacity; (iv) capacity development and transformation (applied to all 3 levels) have also been defined and articulated well. The programme considers the broad principles and approaches including focus on federal devolution, transparency, and accountability, embedding transformative gender and diversity/inclusion agenda, human rights based and participatory approach, devolved, contextual and flexible programme design and implementation and adaptive programming. Further, unpacking structural barriers in political institutions, promoting ownership and trust in provincial and local government system and changing power dynamics in government institutions addressing intersectionality are the expected pathways for Gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) transformation in the programme. Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration (MoFAGA) is the executing agency of the GoN for PLGSP in collaboration with the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers Provincial and Local Governments.

UNDP as the partner of PLGSP and Technical Assistance (TA) provider, has been working with the MoFAGA on the implementation of PLGSP since its inception. The TA component of the programme has also been revised accordingly to facilitate the transformation in the behaviours of the authorities towards federalism for inclusive service delivery, it is fully aligned with revised PLGSP incorporating learnings from the earlier TA engagement. The intent of the revised TA is to leverage UNDP’s technical expertise and facilitation role to support positive transformations that enable implementation of federalism in Nepal, ultimately contributing to more inclusive and effective delivery of inclusive services by PLGs to their people especially for the most marginalized and women.

To this effect, TA will support PLGs for their institutional and organizational capacities. The TA support to federal government will help develop and implement necessary laws and policies to strengthen inter-governmental relationships thereby supporting cooperative federalism. To attain the sustainable achievement described above, TA has been categorized into Implementation Support TA (ISTA) and Transformational TA. ISTA focuses more on supporting the governments in the implementation of PLGs thereby building their institutional and individual capacities. Whereas Transformational TA focuses more on supporting behavioural transformation through research and analysis as well as providing high level expertise as needed. Overall, the TA staff (ISTA and Transformational TA) works together in close coordination with each other in overall guidance of respective government and UNDP Country Office.

Position Summary:

The position holder has a key role in strengthening capacity of the PLGs in Gender and Social Inclusion that are transformative in behaviours. S/he will develop and revise the existing GESI tools and systems that will be adopted at all three tiers of the government. The incumbent will also ensure the program extends its support to PLGs in their GESI initiatives through a range of available TA services. Further, the incumbent is also supposed to contribute on mainstreaming GESI into whole cycle of the programme from planning and reporting. S/he will support to conduct numbers of training/orientations on GESI to the TA and other concerned stakeholders of PLGSP.

Under the overall guidance of the National Programme Manager, National Programme Director, as well as Governance and Rule of Law Portfolio and Gender Analyst of UNDP, the GESI Analyst will work under the direct supervision of the Federal Governance Specialist (International). The incumbent will closely work with MoFAGA, OPMCM and provincial and local government to strengthen GESI in the programme interventions including behavioral changes.

Provide guidance and facilitate the programme initiatives on GESI:

• Conduct research, analysis on GESI issues, identify opportunities, challenges and design new approaches, partnerships, relevant tools to incorporate those into the PLGSP strategies, planning and programming, and to develop corresponding capacities.
• Investigate, address, and regularly track the GESI issues of respective province, at the individual (knowledge, attitudes, behaviors), interpersonal (families and social networks), community, and organizational levels as well as within the enabling environment (national, provincial, and local laws and policies).
• Provide technical support in finalizing the annual strategic implementation plan and budget and provincial annual strategic implementation plan and budget.
• Develop TA packages for capacity building and creating a favorable environment for GESI policies, programming, and implementation of the adopted policies at all three tiers of government.
• Analyze results and learnings on GESI, and formulate recommendations as needed.
• Provide technical assistance and advice national counterparts and their institutions on GESI in relation to regulatory frameworks, gender responsive planning and budgeting, public financial management, meaningful participation of women and marginalized groups, and receiving basic services, economic empowerment, access to justice, disaggregated data, violence against women, social norms and harmful practices, peace, and security, in support of realization of the Programme outputs.
• Develop and update PLGSP GESI strategy as per the programme document.
• Support PLGSP to conduct necessary orientation and induction for the TA staff and PLGSP officials.

Support the development of necessary tools and frameworks for GESI transformative behaviors across each province, at the individual, interpersonal, community, organizational and policy levels:

• Identify key GESI issues in federalism behaviors and propose/develop appropriate tools/system that could help to address those issues.
• Conduct necessary research and studies on the behavioral aspect of gender and social inclusion and develop tools and systems for transformative change.
• Define, develop, revise existing tools and systems in practices for transformative GESI.
• Support the development of monitoring frameworks and relevant guidelines for all tiers of Government and to track periodic updates on GESI behaviors in the service delivery process.
• Ensure PLGSP reporting system tracks changes in behaviors of the Government institutions providing services.
• Ensure data analysis, monitoring, and reporting, reflects intersectionality in GESI dimensions.
• Support to develop/strengthen the policies, strategies, code of conduct, guidelines on Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) at three tiers of Governments.
• Support Provincial Research & Training Academy (PRTA) in developing training manuals and materials on GESI.

Support planning of the GESI activities for all tiers of Government and facilitate its implementation:

• Identify key GESI areas for all three tiers of Government, for strategic implementation plan and trimester workplan in accordance with the ProDoc Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) framework, and the guideline provided by the PCU.
• Ensure the identified areas are in line with Government of Nepal’s commitments to various international instruments particularly the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and all other GON commitments.
• Act as focal point for PLGSP related GESI research and analysis especially in the inception phase and its implementation during the programme period.
• Conduct an assessment/survey focusing on the aspects of gender and social inclusion aspect in governance.
• Provide inputs to key PLGSP processes such as baseline survey, third party monitoring, mid-term, and final evaluation.
• Ensure transformative GESI components are integrated in all relevant PLGSP-related products and processes.
• Ensure GESI input on laws, policies, and programs of all three tiers of the government are incorporated in the programme deliverables.

Strengthening coordination and partnership to better integrate GESI into the PLGSP implementation:

• Coordinate with other stakeholders (including development partners and their supported programmes) engaged in promoting GESI and implementation of federalism to facilitate learning and sharing of experiences and best practices.
• Assist MoFAGA and Office of Chief Minister and Council of Ministers (OCMCMs) in providing necessary technical guidance regarding GESI policies and programmes to relevant constitutional commissions.
• Provide technical expertise to Provincial Programme Support Unit (PPSU) and Provincial Research and Training Academy (PRTA) in developing GESI capacity development packages, systems and tools and their implementations.
• Work in coordination with the sectoral agencies of the GoN on devising/revising GESI related policies and strategies as required and their implementation.
• Develop and maintain a roster of GESI experts, initiate/strengthen Communities of Practice (CoP) in line with SDG principle of Leaving No One Behind (LNOB) for PLGSP and mobilize accordingly.
• Map agencies working on GESI in federal context to identify areas of collaboration.
• Strengthen synergy and coordination with different line ministries, development partners, UN agencies, I/NGOs to create knowledge sharing platform.

Strengthening a system to document good practices and learning on GESI:

• Collect GESI-related best practices from PLGSP and other areas of work at the sub-national level which could be replicated in the other areas/scaled up. For this a GESI repository of PLGSP and beyond to be established.
• Develop dedicated knowledge products on GESI and ensure the GESI analysis is incorporated in all other programme knowledge products.
• Prepare programme specific success stories reflecting behavioral changes from all three tiers of Governments in service delivery.

Other:

• Strictly Comply with the policies, strategies, code of conduct, guidelines on Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA).
• Strict compliance with the UNDP applicable rules, regulations and policies related to ethics and integrity.
• The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the programme.

• Fluency in English and Nepali is required.
• Knowledge of any other national language will be an asset.