By 
UN Women, the UN entity dedicated to gender equality and women’s empowerment, was established in 2010 to accelerate progress in addressing the needs of women and girls worldwide. To this end, UN Women supports UN Member States in adopting international standards to achieve gender equality and works with governments and civil society to design the laws, policies, programs and services needed to ensure that these standards are effectively implemented and benefit women and girls everywhere. UN Women’s 5 priority areas of intervention are :
– Strengthen women’s leadership and participation;
– Ending violence against women;
– Integrating women into all aspects of peace and security processes;
– Strengthen women’s economic empowerment;
– and place gender equality at the heart of national planning and budgeting processes.
Like other West African countries, Niger is facing the effects of climate change. These changes are affecting areas and populations that are already vulnerable, both through poverty and the degradation of natural resources. These vulnerabilities are manifested in significant land degradation, increased fragility of ecosystems, and extremely reduced socio-economic development opportunities.
The decline in agricultural productivity, the increasingly difficult practice of livestock farming and the disruption of the reference points of peasants, farmers and herders are direct consequences of climate change. Coupled with migratory flows, these consequences aggravate food insecurity, increase potential conflicts (herders/farmers, migrants/sedentary), malnutrition, overexploitation of natural resources, gender-based violence, unequal access to basic social services and disrupt the socio-economic structures of rural communities. As women are the main labor force in the fields, they are more affected by the direct consequences of these climate changes. Moreover, they are more and more inclined, as much as young people, to opt for displacement to more fertile lands with the risks of protection impacts that this may have. This situation makes local populations more vulnerable, providing fertile ground for criminal networks. This multidimensional violence increases the vulnerability of populations.
Niger UN Women Country Office is undertaking several initiatives to reduce the adverse effects of climate change, particularly on women and young women. As such, UN Women focuses on the promotion and implementation of adaptation strategies with a key role for women.
The UN Women Country Office is looking for an “international senior consultants” to strengthen its response in Women and Girls in Nexus Water- Food- Energy in Niger including resource mobilization strategy/actions. The international Consultant will design a specialized team to be able to cover the expectation of this Consultation.
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