Background
The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of women (UN WOMEN) is the UN organization dedicated to gender equality. Established in 2011, UN Women focuses on accelerating the attainment of the rights of women globally through the promotion of women’s equal participation in all aspects of life by working with UN Member States to develop and apply global standards and frameworks for achieving gender equality, and support national governments and the civil society to design and develop laws, policies, programmes and services needed to implement these standards.
In 2012, UN Women established a Humanitarian Unit anchored within the Women, Peace and Security pillar that works to consolidate and support humanitarian work, including DRR- disaster risk reduction, preparedness, risk prevention and mitigation, at the global, regional and national levels. UN Women’s engagement in humanitarian action and DRR is to ensure consistency and sustainability in addressing gender equality concerns across the humanitarian-development continuum. The importance of gender integration in DRR/DRM is embeded in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, the ground-breaking resolution that acknowledges the impact of conflict and disasters on women, recognizing the importance of utilizing women’s contribution and active participation in conflict prevention, peace-building and relief and recovery and DRR/DRM. UN Women works with government, humanitarian and disaster risk reduction stakeholders to achieve Resolution 1325 and to ensure that women, men, boys and girls have equal responsibilities to manage disaster risks, to respond and recover from emergencies. In addition, gender has been recognized as a key factor in achieving resilience of disaster affected communities in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction as was a key commitment in the World Humanitarian Summit.
Kenya is affected by regional instability and spill-over effects from politically unstable and volatile neighbors, Somalia, South Sudan and the Great Lakes Region. This has resulted in a refugee influx to the country with Kenya currently hosting some of the largest refugee camps globally, with over 485,000 registered refugees and asylum-seekers, which women and children constitute 80% according to the latest data from UNHCR Kenya. As of February 2018, a total of 113,008 South Sudanese refugees are in Kenya, constituting 23.4% of total refugees. With the unresolved conflict in South Sudan, the number is expected to continue raising beyond this figure. Women and children are the majority of new arrivals, referencing insecurity and food scarcity as the reason for leaving their homes.
The Government of Kenya (GoK) and partners continue to provide assistance in Kakuma, however food rations only meet 70% of the nutritional requirements and women may be more severely impacted due to intra-familiar dynamics. In-kind and cash-based support is provided to refugees in Kakuma and Kalobeyei. Both refugees and host communities are facing severe food insecurity exacerbated by the ongoing drought in Kenya impacting livelihoods and crops. Currently there is no gender analysis or assessment available providing information on the specific needs and interests of women refugees in Kenya and the Refugee Response Plan has no provisions for gender-based needs beyond protection issues.
Within the IASC Cluster response, gender is identified as one of four priority cross cutting issues to be integrated in all stages of humanitarian action in the interest of helping to ensure quality and accountability of humanitarian assistance. Gender-responsive humanitarian action helps to ensure a more accurate understanding of a humanitarian situation, facilitates the design of more appropriate responses, highlights opportunities and resources within an affected community, and can provide a link between humanitarian assistance and long-term development. It helps to ensure that humanitarian assistance is planned and implemented in a way that benefits all sectors of the affected population, in line with an analysis of their specific rights, needs, and capacities.
Duties and Responsibilities
The UN Women’s Humanitarian and DRR work in Kenya seeks to support government and key stakeholders in the development and implementation of gender responsive humanitarian policies, strategies and programmes to promote women leadership and participation in key decision making, build the capacity of key stakeholders including women and men to ensure their equal participation in the humanitarian and DRR work and to strengthen and coordinate gender mainstreaming amongst different stakeholders including the UN System.
UN Women, through the Women’s Leadership, Empowerment, Access and Protection in Crisis Response (LEAP) seeks to provide and strengthen technical, coordination and capacity support to humanitarian stakeholders working in the Kakuma Refugee Camp as well as the surrounding drought and conflict affected host communities. UN Women will leverage ongoing work, including the development of a localized Gender and Gender-based Violence Humanitarian Training Manual and strengthening the use of IASC gender Marker.
UN Women will furthermore facilitate the engagement of women-led CBOs working in humanitarian settings in the humanitarian architecture. The programme will contribute to improved access to urgently need livelihood options and skills of women from both settlements and host communities building social cohesion between the two, drawing on best practices from the UN Women Dadaab Women Integrated Livelihood Project. Coupled with strengthened protection services and SGBV prevention efforts, the vulnerability and food insecurity of South Sudanese women and women from host communities will be reduced. Furthermore, their participation in decision making will be enhanced through coalition building and leadership development, to engage in local structures such as peace, food, relief and water committees to allow their needs and priorities to be taken into account. Research and documentation of existing innovative resilience strategies by displaced and host community women and girls will inform the programme approaches.
It is in this context that UN Women’s Peace & Security and Humanitarian Action unit seeks to hire a gender expert to undertake a Gender Analysis and Assessment in Kalobeyei-Kakuma Refugee Camp to determine the level of gender mainstreaming in key coordination structures within the Camp. The assignment will focus on:
The level or awareness of key existing tools for gender mainstreaming in humanitarian work;
Analysis on; the level of gender mainstreaming in the coordination structure within the camp, capacity of the coordination structures to deliver gender-responsive services, existing gaps in gender mainstreaming and actionable recommendations for strengthening gender mainstreaming in the coordination structures.
It is expected that the selected consultant will prepare a comprehensive report that will meet the standards and expectations of UN Women in terms of structure and content. The report findings will inform programming and policy.
SPECIFIC TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITY:
Under the overall supervision of the Women Peace and Security Specialist and in close consultation with UNHCR in Kakuma Refugee Camp, the Consultant will be expected to undertake the following tasks:
Review available background data on gender issues related to coordination structures within the camp;
Map out the existing coordination structures within the camp;
Conduct quantitative and qualitative assessment of the gender mainstreaming in the coordination structure in the camp;
Consult with key institutions within county government that are addressing humanitarian and disaster risk reduction work as well as the gender machinery;
Consult with humanitarian partners within the UN System, INGOs, NGOs, CBOs and FBOs among others to gather their views on gender mainstreaming;
Visit Kalobeyei camp to gather views from humanitarian stakeholders on the level of gender mainstreaming in the coordination structures in the camp;
Assess the capacity of the coordination structures to deliver gender-responsive services and the existing gaps;
Identify gender-based constraints and recommendations of suggested actions for ensuring that both men and women benefit from the project’s activities;
Produce a comprehensive report highlighting the level of gender mainstreaming in the coordination structures in the camp; the existing gaps and actionable recommendations for strengthening gender mainstreaming in the coordination structures.
DELIVERABLES
Provide detailed workplan for assignment (approaches, logistics, tools, timing, etc.) of field work for approval;
Draft report according to the outline provided by UN Women for review and input. The report should:
comprehensively highlight the level of awareness of key existing tools for gender mainstreaming in humanitarian work;
analysis on the level of gender mainstreaming in the coordination structure within the camp;
capacity of the coordination structures to deliver gender-responsive services;
existing gaps in gender mainstreaming;
actionable recommendations for strengthening gender mainstreaming in the coordination structures;
the contact details of the key coordination structure and produce a simple guide on mainstreaming gender in humanitarian coordination structure;
Final report that incorporates UN Women feedback.
METHODOLOGY
The research methodology will include as a minimum:
Compilation of a list of reference documents as extensive and detailed as possible;
Desk review of a number of selected documents from the list above, that may provide the information necessary for the core sections of the gender analysis. In this desk review, relevant recommendations and strategies that have not yet been addressed may be compiled in a preliminary “Recommendation list”;
List of key informants covering a wide range of stakeholders (government, UN, INGO, NGO etc) in the camp.
Competencies
Required Skills and Experience
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE:
Master degree in social science , gender and development or humanitarian studies with over 10 years of professional experience working on gender responsive programming in development and/or humanitarian/post-conflict settings;
Familiar with humanitarian programming, the coordination system and practical experience working with international organizations, such as the UN, or other regional or international intergovernmental / non-governmental organizations is an asset;
Proven experience combining formal expertise on gender mainstreaming and gender equality with experience of applying these concretely to specific humanitarian programmes sectors, plans, policies and business processes;
Strong communication skills, with proven expertise in writing coherent and analytical policy and programme documents;
Good planning, goal-setting and prioritization skills;
Effectiveness in establishing and fostering good relations with government counterparts, UN Agencies, multispectral coordination mechanisms, donors and NGO partners;
Good knowledge of MS Word, Excel or equivalent software;
Ability to work independently as well as in a team.
REMUNERATION:
Remuneration will be based on experience and qualifications using UN Women Rules and Regulations.
UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.
