Organization Mission

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is the Secretariat Department responsible for strengthening international human rights mechanisms; enhancing equality and countering discrimination; combating impunity and strengthening accountability and the rule of law; integrating human rights in development and in the economic sphere; widening the democratic space; and early warning and protection of human rights in situations of conflict, violence and insecurity.

Context

OHCHR’s 2024-2027 Human Rights Management Plan aims, within its Non-Discrimination Pillar, at the follow Outcome1: “States adopt laws, policies, programmes and practices that combat all forms of discrimination and address inequalities, including their intersectional dimensions, informed by disaggregated data.” The project supports the OHCHR Indigenous People and Minorities Section (IPMS) and the OHCHR Innovation Hub in designing and developing questions for a methodology to provide comparable international data on the state-of-play of equality law at national level.

Key Responsibilities

(1) to render existing questionnaire formats for assessing the state of play of national anti-discrimination law into formats usable to produce objective questions (in the main yes-no) for use in developing a pilot methodology;
(2) to supplement this existing research with additional research and expertise into possible questions for the methodology, including through consultation with experts if relevant and feasible;
(3) to support the application and interpretation of the pilot methodology;
(4) to support outreach efforts to gain a greater understanding of related data initiatives, including but not necessarily limited to UN Women SDG5 monitoring, ILO labor equality mapping methodologies, ILGA World mapping methodology, World Policy Center mapping methodologies and others;
(5) Other project goals may be articulated in the course of project implementation.
The project works under the guidance and supervision of OHCHR IPMS and Innovation Hub designated staff. The volunteer will be expected to produce multiple drafts of pilot methodology documents, to take part in planning and methodology meetings, and to join outreach efforts, including to render minutes documents and other summaries of relevant discussions, literature and materials.

Required Skills and Experience

Candidates should have strong research and analytical skills. Knowledge of human rights (including international human rights law frameworks) is required, with an understanding of equality and anti-discrimination law desirable. An understanding of SDG-context data matters is desirable. The applicant must, be enrolled in, or have completed, a first university degree programme (minimum bachelor’s level or equivalent).