UN WOMEN Jobs – 106760

Ethiopia has adopted normative frameworks on gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE). The normative frameworks are guided by the supreme law of the land, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) Constitution, that recognizes the right to equally enjoy all rights guaranteed under the Constitution for all women as provided under Article 35. The Country has also adopted policy frameworks that focus on the rights of women such as the National Action Plan on Gender Equality (2006 -2010), the Women Development and Change Strategy and Package (March 2017) and the Ten Years Development Plan that has gender sensitive development indicators and targets. The national policy and strategy frameworks on GEWE are strengthened by the international commitments the country has adopted including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BDPfA), Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), Sustainable Development Goals, Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa, Agenda 2030, (SDGs) and Africa Agenda 2063. Besides its effort to implement these human rights and development frameworks on GEWE, Ethiopia has started the review process for the National Policy on Ethiopian Women (1993), which has been in place for more than two decades, to align it to international and national human rights and development frameworks and to adopt a transformative rights-based approach.

While the Country takes commendable efforts to implement these guiding principles in the promotion and protection of the rights of women, the challenge remains in securing the benefit and active participation of women from and in economic, political and social spheres. This is manifested through persistent gender inequality existing at all levels, emanating from deep rooted gender-based stereotypes and traditional gender roles. Unpaid care work, lack of access to educations, unemployment and under-employment, unequal representation in leadership and decision-making positions and rampant gender-based violence are just few of the hindrances women face. The situation worsens in humanitarian and emergency setting as clearly seen from the disproportional impact COVID 19 had on women and men.

Thus, it is undeniable that addressing these deep-rooted and long-lasting challenges requires coordinated efforts among all actors, including civil society organizations (CSOs), working on GEWE. Cognizant of this fact, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) has been strategically engaging civil society organizations in strengthening solidarity and feminist movement building to bring desired changes on the gender equality agenda, globally and nationally. Similarly, UN Women Ethiopia Country Office has been closely working with CSOs, with an effort to ensure their voices are heard and captured in its programmatic interventions as well as normative engagements. UN Women ECO used various coordination platforms to engage CSOs including the Civil Society Advisory (CSAG) that is serving as a sustained engagement forum among CSOs. Through the CSAG, UN Women has been able to undertake various advocacy and capacity building initiatives to strengthen the capacity of CSOs in selected GEWE thematic areas including on evidence-based advocacy, accountability frameworks on GEWE and citizen generated data.

However, these efforts are not sufficient to meet the huge capacity building demand within CSOs to effectively play their advocacy and movement building role. This is partly due to the restrictive environment CSOs have been functioning under the previous CSO law prior to 2019 that limited their engagement in human rights and gender equality issues resulting in abating their capacity in numerous areas. Thus, building on these existing efforts and strengthening the capacity of CSOs to enable them to significantly contribute to the gender equality and the empowerment of women agenda has become critical. Thus, UN Women, in collaboration with the CSAG, is planning to undertake a capacity needs assessment to identify key priority areas to inform future capacity building initiatives involving CSOs. Furthermore, UN Women intends to hire a national consultant to conduct the needs assessment followed by a training of trainers (ToT) to selected CSO representatives who will be responsible to cascade the training to the larger CSOs in the Country based on the findings of the Assessment.

OBJECTIVES

The general objective of the assessment is to identify the capacity needs of Civil Society Organizations and to provide Training of Trainers based on the findings of the assessments.  Specifically, the assessment will:

• Assess, identify, categorize and set priorities for capacity development interventions focusing on resource mobilization; program development, management and evaluation, organizational skills, financial management, planning and reporting, results-based management, presentation skills, networking and strategic planning for newly emerging CSOs.
• Assess and evaluate whether the CSOs have been engaged in capacity development processes and identify:
  • Methodologies used and lessons learned
  • Budget and human resource allocated
  • Results obtained
• Evaluate the current readiness, level of awareness and capacity of the CSOs for implementing recommended capacity development plans on identified priorities.  
• Develop capacity development plan which is easy to turn into action including comprehensive programmes for Training of Trainers on prioritized thematic focuses that will enable to reach as many CSOs as possible.

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