By 
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 center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system’s 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 peace. Built on the four pillars of participation, prevention, protection and relief and recovery, it reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peacebuilding, peacekeeping, humanitarian response, and in post-conflict reconstruction. The WPS agenda stresses the importance of women’s equal participation and full involvement in all efforts to maintain and promote peace and security, urges all actors to increase the participation of women in peacebuilding, and incorporates gender perspectives in all United Nations peace and security efforts. It also calls on all parties to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, in situations of armed conflict.
UN Member States have the primary responsibility to implement the WPS agenda and they are called to do so through National Action Plans (NAPs) or other national-level strategies. In April 2019, Ethiopia committed to develop a National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. The Ministry of Women and Social Affairs with its mandate given on Proclamation No. 1263/2021 Article 36 (1)(a) has a mandate to initiate policies, strategies, and laws for women, youth, children, persons with disabilities, elderly and other vulnerable groups in development; prepare detail programs compatible with the country’s overall
development plan; and implement the same upon approval. Based on its mandate, the ministry has taken the initiative to lead the National Action Plan development with inclusive engagement of stakeholders.
The government set up a national technical committee to facilitate the process of development of the NAP. The technical committee is composed of relevant government ministries and institutions, civil society organizations and international organizations. The technical committee requested UN Women Ethiopia to work as its secretariat in October 2022. A high-level steering committee provides overall oversight for the development of the NAP.
The technical committee has drafted a roadmap for the process and identified needs and areas for support. Consultations will be held country-wide, and the NAP will be drafted based on those findings. UN Women provides technical and financial support to the process. As part of its overall support for this key milestone in Ethiopia, UN Women is seeking the support of an experienced national consultant to facilitate the NAP development process and support key stakeholders, based on best practices.
Objectives
The objective of the consultancy is to support the government of Ethiopia through the leadership of Ministry of Women and Social Affairs, in developing National Action Plan on Women Peace and Security. In addition, the consultancy will have the objective of increasing the capacity of the National Technical Committee and all stakeholders, including the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs and Ministry of Peace, national CSOs etc. to effectively lead the NAP development and implementation of the national Action Plan on Women Peace and Security in Ethiopia.
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