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 in Liberia focuses on four thematic areas (1) Governance and Participation in Public Life (2) Women Economic Empowerment, (3) Ending Violence Against Women and Girls, and (4) Women, Peace, and Security. UN Women also works closely with the UN Country Team in integration of women’s rights and gender equality in all spheres of UN work.

UN Women together with UNDP has been supporting the National Election Commission (NEC) of Liberia to mainstream gender in the election process and promote women’s political participation in Liberia. The NEC is the Electoral Management body of Liberia, responsible for conducting and supervising all public elections and referenda in Liberia. It was established by an act of the Liberian Legislature in 1986, and its functions are governed by the Liberian Constitution and other electoral laws. The NEC is responsible for voter registration, candidate nomination, ballot preparation, polling station management, vote counting, and results declaration. It is also responsible in ensuring that all electoral processes are conducted in a free, fair, transparent, inclusive and gender responsive manner.

The NEC has taken several measures to mainstream gender in electoral processes and promote women’s participation in electoral activities. For instance, the NEC has established a gender unit that is responsible for promoting gender mainstreaming in all of its activities. The gender unit of the NEC has developed a gender policy that guides the Commission’s efforts to promote women’s participation in electoral activities. The policy outlines strategies to increase women’s participation in voter education, voter registration, and voter mobilization. It also provides for the inclusion of gender-sensitive language in electoral materials and the promotion of women’s leadership in the electoral process.

The NEC has been implementing the Liberia Electoral Support Project (LESP) since 2020 and two additional projects with UN Women since 2021. Among the key interventions are promoting gender responsiveness of the NEC and influencing political parties to be gender sensitive. Consultations with the NEC have revealed the need to review the gender policy and develop a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Policy with an action plan. The policy and action plan will include both internal and external domain strategies to strengthen gender and social mainstreaming mechanisms, increase the representation of minority groups, and systematize gender and social inclusion training and capacity building. The aim is also to foster all-inclusive perspectives throughout the Liberia’s electoral processes during and post 2023 election. To develop a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Policy, a rapid gender audit is necessary to get a baseline data and ascertain the extent to which the National Elections Commission (NEC) is responsive to gender equality and inclusivity principles in its policies, systems, and practices. The assessment will be guided by the principle of intersectionality by including women from all walks of life (women of all ages, disability status, living conditions) with due consideration to the fact that women are not a homogeneous group.

In this context, UN Women is seeking to engage a national consultant to conduct the rapid gender audit, review the existing gender policy and draft disability policy and develop a new Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Policy for NEC.

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant will be responsible for conducting a rapid assessment and develop a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Policy of NEC. Specifically, the Consultant will be responsible for the following tasks:

Prepare Inception Report

• Complete an inception report and submit with proposed methodology for the assessment and development of the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Policy, including how it addresses the following components: A) Desk review: the assessment should be informed by an initial desk review. The purpose would be to review (a) the general legal and policy framework (Constitution, New Elections Law, Code of Conduct for Political Parties, Farmington Declaration on Peaceful Elections, Violence Against Women in Politics Protocol and other relevant guidelines and regulations) (b) the efforts and accomplishment achieved by NEC to this date with regards to inclusiveness B) Qualitative interview protocol: (a) proposed questionnaire/survey tool for conducting interviews; (b) detailed list of proposed key staff and the Board to be interviewed to be reviewed/agreed by NEC and UN Women; (c) list of external partners to be surveyed, including, Inter-Party Consultative Committee, women’s auxiliaries of political parties, and disabled people’s organizations.

Conduct of NEC’s Rapid Gender Audit

• Using agreed methodology and in close collaboration with NEC, UN Women and UNDP, carry out the rapid gender audit of NEC, and prepare the draft report with findings. The report should include, among other things, the legal basis for mainstreaming gender equality and social inclusion into NEC (constitutional mandate and the legal framework and the role of NEC to oversight to political parties), human resource policy, sex disaggregated human resource profile of NEC along with positions each sex is occupying. Also, women with disability human resource profile of NEC should be provided.
• Review and forward concrete immediate, short, and long-term recommendations to help review and develop the gender and social inclusion policy including action plan.

Develop Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Policy.

• Review existing gender policy (6.5 pages) and develop NEC’s Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Policy based on findings of the assessment report.
• Facilitate multiple validation workshops and incorporate input provided.

DELIVERABLES AND DURATION

Duration of the Assignment

The assignment is estimated for 30 working days over a two-month period, with travel within Liberia.

The selected consultant is expected to produce the following deliverables:

Upon receipt of the deliverables and before the payment of the first instalment, the deliverables and related reports and documents will be reviewed and approved by NEC, UN Women and UNDP. The period of review is one week after receipt.

All data collected by the consultant must be submitted in Word, PowerPoint or Excel formats and will be the property of NEC, UN Women & UNDP. Final reports will follow the United Nations Editorial Manual, which can be found here.

Inputs

• NEC and UN Women will provide the Consultant with background information and documents.
• UN Women will directly cover travel costs of the consultant outside Monrovia as per UN Women’s rules and regulations.

Confidentiality and Proprietary Interests

The Individual Consultant shall not either during the term or after termination of the assignment, disclose any proprietary or confidential information related to the consultancy service. Proprietary interests on all materials and documents prepared by the consultants under the assignment shall become and remain properties of UN Women, UNDP and NEC.

Competencies

Core Values

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Functional Competencies

• Sound expertise in gender equality and women’s empowerment, including women’s political participation.
• Communications or knowledge management experience an advantage.
• Academic and practical experience in conducting gender audit and developing gender policies
• Fluent in Microsoft word, excel, e-mail, web-based applications and databases.
• Demonstrated leadership and personal examples of promoting knowledge management and a professional learning environment.
• Outstanding networking, team building, organizational and communication skills.
• Capacity to work with diverse partners including governments, donors and civil society.
• Ability to work effectively and harmoniously with people from varied cultures and professional backgrounds.
• Results based management skills.
• Ability to produce well-written documents demonstrating excellent interpersonal communication skills.

Institutional arrangement and reporting

UN Women will contract one consultant who will work to undertake the assignment as described in this ToR. The consultants will report to UN Women and will be directly reporting to UN Women but will be accountable to NEC at every step of undertaking the Audit and development of the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Policy.

Required Skills and Experience

Required skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Law, Gender Studies, Political Science, Sociology, International Relations, or relevant field and/or equivalent practical experience.

Experience:

• A minimum of seven years of relevant work experience in the field of gender equality and women’s empowerment particularly focusing on women’s leadership and political participation.
• Experience on undertaking gender assessment and development of gender equality and inclusion policy and tools.
• Research experience, communications, advocacy experience are assets.
• Substantive experience in women’s leadership and participation.
• Experience in working in a multicultural environment.
• Sound knowledge of international standards on human rights, women’s rights and other related instruments.

Language:

• Fluency in oral and written English and Amharic is required.