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. Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, the UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

Peace and security represent one of the key thematic areas of UN Women’s mandate. Based on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and nine subsequently adopted resolutions, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda, recognizes the gendered nature of conflict and peacebuilding. Accordingly, one of the goals of the WPS Agenda is to promote gender equality and strengthen the participation of women in all aspects of conflict prevention, peace processes, peace operations and peacebuilding. Participation of women in peacebuilding and conflict resolution is one of the four pillars of UNSCR 1325 and WPS agenda. Though efforts are being made to include Women in Peacebuilding and conflict resolution efforts, women are still absent from peace processes. This is due to absence of comprehensive response on the participation of women in peace and security among other hindrances such as gender inequality at all levels.

The country’s current context demands more local intervention to readdress the gaps in increasing women’s participation in peacebuilding. The situation, Ethiopia went through recently clearly shows that, while women are prime responders to a crisis and play a central role in the survival and resilience of families, communities a nation they are the most excluded in the decision-making, planning, coordination, and even in the benefits. In Ethiopia, the low women’s representation in the high-level peace process is the epitome the structural violence and lack of commitment to mainstream women at all stages of decision-making.

Curbing this age-old and deep-seated challenge requires a systematic localized intervention that starts at the community level. Securing safe space for grass-root women and empowering them to influence any local decisions is key to ensure a sustainable and lasting peace. It also gives an impetus to ensure that women in positions of influence and impact will amplify the women’s voice from a legitimate standpoint basing their advocacy in a wide-based, strong, informed grass-root community.

As key stakeholders’ women have started organizing themselves on the WPS agenda. The Ethiopian Women Peace Builders (EWPB) is the first of its kind in Ethiopia. Initiated by the Network of Ethiopian Women’s Associations (NEWA), the EWPB is designed as a broad-based and inclusive organization of women peacebuilders, composed of organizations and individuals from every region of our country. It is designed to build capacity, coordinate activities of women peace builders, and to facilitate national, regional, grassroots, and community-level actions that implement a UNSCR 1325 NAP in Ethiopia.

EWPB was established with the mission of promoting concrete participation and active leadership in all processes to prevent and resolve conflicts, to prevent and protect women from conflicts, protect women’s access to rehabilitation after violence as well and prepare Ethiopian women from all regions to be able to deal with conflicts in their communities.

To achieve its aim, the EWPB with the support of NEWA implemented a project called “Coffee for Peace” Women’s Community Conversations. The project engages women in peace and security at the local, community, and national levels, empowering them to raise their voices and influence the most powerful decision-makers. The “Coffee for Peace” initiative is also intended to help EWPB members apply their expertise and knowledge of peacebuilding to tangible community-level initiatives. By engaging women at all levels of society and ensuring their viewpoints are considered in peacebuilding and security processes.

In February 2024, the EWPB Steering Committee identified a capacity-building training specifically designed to strengthen the capabilities of EWPB members. To achieve that, NEWA and UN-Women planned to provide a three-day capacity-building training to empower EWPB members to become active peacebuilders in their communities and contribute to the ongoing Ethiopian peace process through enhanced knowledge, skills, and mobilization capabilities.

This ToR therefore is prepared to guide the organization of a three-day two round capacity building training workshop on Enhancing the skills and knowledge of Ethiopian Women Peace Builders on peacebuilding frameworks and advocacy.

Organizational setting, reporting and collaborators.

The consultant will be reporting to Program Specialist, WPSHA, and will be supported by WPS Programme Officer, who will be the point of contact on the contract and payment issues. Inputs on the documents will be provided by UN Women and NEWA.

Monitoring and including reporting requirements

The consultant will work closely with UN Women and NEWA. The training content and materials will be shared in advance to UN Women and NEWA for comments and close follow up. The reviewed content will be shared back to the consultant who will incorporate comments as a way forward proceeding to the training.

Duties and Responsibilities

The national consultant will be engaged in preparing and delivering the training and is expected to carry out the following tasks:

• Develop and design a three-day training Programme on Enhancing the skills and knowledge of Ethiopian Women Peace Builders on peacebuilding frameworks and advocacy.

Content: First round

• Introduction to WPS Agenda. Deep dive into the four pillars UNSCR 1325 (Prevention, Protection, Participation, Reconstruction) and their application to Ethiopian women’s peacebuilding efforts.
• Gender, Conflict, and Peacebuilding. Explore the unique roles women play in conflict and peace processes, analyzing case studies of successful women-led initiatives.
• Conflict Analysis. Learn tools and frameworks to identify the root causes of conflict within their communities.
• Negotiation and Mediation Skills. Develop effective communication, active listening, and trust-building techniques for successful negotiation and mediation in conflict situations.

Content: Second round Advocacy to increase women’s participation in peacebuilding and conflict-resolution interventions

• Introduction to WPS Agenda. Deep dive into the four pillars UNSCR 1325 (Prevention, Protection, Participation, Reconstruction) and their application to Ethiopian women’s peacebuilding efforts.
• Introduction to the concept of advocacy and different strategies and approaches of advocacy in gender, peacebuilding and conflict resolution issues.
• Identifying barriers to Participation of Women in Peace and Security
• Reflection and analysis of the situation of women participation in conflict resolution and peace building initiatives,
• Supports to formulate advocacy approaches/strategy/action plan on how they can influence women’s participation in conflict resolution and peace building.

• Prepare major points of discussion (e.g., using Power Point) that could be easily referred to in the organization of the training.
• Contextualize the training to reality of the participants; develop exercises and simulations by collecting stories. .
• Develop and conduct pre- and post-assessment of the training and prepare a final workshop report of the consultancy that includes assessment of participant evaluations.

Deliverables

1. A comprehensive training program with the following components for individual sessions: Learner Objectives, Time, Session Overview, Materials, Handouts, Special Preparation Steps, Tasks, Key Points for Discussion
2. A PowerPoint presentation and other reading materials to be shared during the training.
3. Conduct a three-day two round capacity building training program.
4. A workshop report covering the pre and post assessment evaluation, challenges and lessons learned on the training for the two rounds.

The training is expected to have a practical component where the trainees are able to deliberate on sample stories and come up with their own examples and share their experiences.

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is a home-based consultancy. As part of this assignment, there will be a maximum of 1 trip to Bishoftu to conduct the capacity building training.

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

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

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment/application-process#_Values

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES:

• Sharing knowledge and experience
• Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside UN Women
• Demonstrates excellent written and oral communication skills. Communicates sensitively, effectively, and creatively across different constituencies.
• Demonstrates very good understanding of and experience in communications and outreach/advocacy.
• Focuses on results for the client and responds positively to feedback.
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude.
• Proven networking skills and ability to generate interest in UN Women’s mandate.
• Multidisciplinary skills and the ability to communicate effectively.
• Ability to work both independently and as part of a team.
• Sensitivity to regional political, gender and cultural balance.

A high standard of professionalism.

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in Gender/women’s studies, Peace and Security Studies, Peace and Development, Sociology, Human Rights, or related field is required.

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Experience and skills

• A minimum of 7 years of demonstrable experience in area of peacebuilding, conflict transformation, gender, and conflict at the national, regional and/or international level
• The consultant should have in depth knowledge Women Peace and Security Agenda, Peacebuilding and conflict resolution and Advocacy in peacebuilding in Ethiopian Context.
• Technical expertise and strong understanding of gender and the role of women in Peacebuilding and conflict resolution.
• Demonstrated ability and experience to facilitate trainings for adults, senior experts and officials in the areas outlined.
• The consultant should especially have an experience giving creative and engaging trainings.
• Prior experience in providing training on gender and peacebuilding and advocacy is an advantage.
• Experience in developing lessons plan with relevant learning topics and exercises.
• The ability to engage and motivate interactive dialogue and peer learnings amongst trainees.
• Experience in working in a diversity team is an asset.
• An ideal candidate should have creativity, strong organizational ability, capacity to deliver on time, excellent presentation skill and be responsive to feedback.

Languages:

• Fluency in English and Amharic is required.
• Knowledge of any other Languages an asset.

• Personal CV or P11 (P11 can be downloaded from: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-P11-Personal-History-Form.doc )
• A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page)

Reports from two other capacity building trainings conducted by the consultants on similar or related topic.