National Consultant to develop Armenia’s UN1325 3rd National Action Plan (two consultants – Local Post for Armenia)

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.

Over the decades, UN Women has played a crucial role in supporting the development and implementation of WPS National Action Plans (WPS NAPs) as the main tool by which these global WPS frameworks are translated into concrete strategies, actions, and outcomes at national levels. UN Women is committed to support women and women’s human rights defenders  to actively participate and contribute to conflict prevention and resolution as well as in peace building in line with norms and approaches underlined by United Nations Security Council Resolutions on WPS to ensure gender perspectives are integrated in peace processes, women’s role in decision making is strengthened and effective mechanisms for ensuring the protection and participation of women and girls at all stages of peace processes are in place.

In Armenia, UN Women supports state and non-state partners towards the achievement of substantive gender equality in line with national and international commitments. UN Women works on the levels of policies and legislation, institutions, and grassroots, in order to achieve transformative results for increased gender equality and greater protection of the rights of women and girls.

Armenia is among 107 countries adopted the NAP on WPS. Armenia adopted its first National Action Plan (NAP) on UN1325 in 2019 for the period 2019-2021 developed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). The second NAP was developed for the period of 2022-2024 which includes localization of WPS agenda in the cross-borders, and ensuring gender perspective on recovery and integration, enhancing security, post-war recovery, and confidence-building, including improved border management, countering violent extremism, conflict transformation etc.

MFA Armenia intends to initiate a process of development of its next National Action Plan on WPS and focus it on nexus between humanitarian/refugee response, recovery and peace building and requested UN Women to support the NAP development.  Therefore, UN Women is looking for two WPS national consultants to support the development on the NAP in an inclusive participatory manner considering new priorities and lessons learnt from the previous NAPs implementation. The National Consultants will work under the overall supervision of the UN Women Representative/Liaison for the South Caucasus and a direct engagement and contacts with UN Women Programme Specialist.

Duties and Responsibilities

Description of Responsibilities/ Scope of Work

1. Develop a roadmap for WSP NAP elaboration:

• Draft a roadmap for NAP development and agree with the MFA WPS Focal Point on key milestones, timeline, resources and results.
• Present the suggested roadmap to the respective stakeholders (Intersectoral Task Force, CSOs, etc.) to discuss and agree on roles, responsibilities, modalities for engagement of partners and their contribution for the NAP development
• Support MFA WPS Focal Point to organize the regular meetings of the intersectoral task force consultation and representatives of civil society in line with the WPS NAP development process, agree on forms of engagement of partners, joint actions and deadlines.
• Set-up the drafting group with clear ToRs.
• Agree on external and internal communication approaches to support the NAP development.
• Design and conduct WPS NAP prioritization workshop with all relevant stakeholders to discuss lessons  learnt from previous NAPs and agree on key priorities for the next NAP.
• Support the launch of WPS NAP development process.

2. Support to develop capacity of stakeholders to design and implement WPS NAP

• Undertaken a quick capacity needs assessment of key partners engaged into WPS policy development and implementation
• Update the existing training materials/package to use for the capacity development workshop (including the necessary guide, PPTs, resource materials).
• Facilitate the capacity development workshop for the task force and NAP drafting group.
• Support partners to better understand approaches for NAP M&E, costing and budgeting.
• To organize to have several zoom meetings to learn from the NAP experience of other countries.

3. Facilitate WPS NAP development

• Facilitate consultations with relevant state and no-state partners on a progress of the implementation of NAP for 2022-2024.
• Develop consultation report by summarizing the inputs made by participants and indicating key conclusions, next stesp and recommendations.
• Undertaken necessary desk review of available materials/reports/assessments to use their findings and data to design a simple questionnaire for state entities to report on their efforts/progress on NAP 2022-2024 implementation, challenges and lessons leant.
• Draft an outline for the NAP, its result based logical framework with key actions addressing the agreed priorities, suggested SMART indicators, targets, baseline, responsible institutions.
• Facilitate consultations for the NAP costing and budgeting, Draft NAP M&E framework and budget.
• Share the draft NAP with key stakeholders for feedback/comments.
• Conduct regular briefing for the MFA and the intersectoral task force on NAP development process, challenges and suggest solutions (on a monthly basis)
• Support national and local consultations with CSOs in an inclusive and intergenerational format to foster their meaningful contribution to the NAP development.

Deliverables.

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

As part of this assignment, no travel will be necessary.  

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:  

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES: 

• Technical credibility in policy research 
• Technical credibility in gender analysis
• Partnerships building
• Negotiation
• Planning 

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s Degree in law, international relations, international development studies, human rights, gender/ women’s studies equality, WPS; alternatively, the first level degree (bachelor’s) in combination with 4 years of working experience will be accepted.

Experience: 

• At least two years (in combination with masters’ degree) of programmatic and/or analytical work experience in the field of women, peace and security (WPS)
• At least two years (in combination with masters’ degree) of demonstrated knowledge of Armenia’s international commitments in the field of GEWE
• At least two years (in combination with masters’ degree) of experience on GEWE related policy development, collect, analyze data and organize meetings, events.
• Experience in design and delivery of trainings/capacity development on GEWE priorities, based on capacity needs assessment
• Experience in writing analytical reports;  
• Excellent Armenian and English communication and writing skills; (Samples of previous work will be required.)

Language:

Fluency in Armenian and English.

How to Apply:

• Personal CV or P11 (P11 can be downloaded from: )
• A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page)