Background

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the UN, UN Women 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, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women Ethiopia Country Office (ECO) is thus dedicated to advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment. UN Women Ethiopia Country office new Strategic Note (SN) 2021 – 2025, which is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2020-2025, sets out to work in four thematic priority areas 1) ending violence against women and girls; 2) governance and participation in public life; 3) economic empowerment and resilience; and 4) peace and security, humanitarian action, and disaster risk reduction.

Under the governance and participation in public life thematic area, UN Women endeavors to advance the overarching objective of enabling women’s full and equal participation in leadership and decision-making roles, ensuring that women and girls benefit from governance that is responsive to gender dynamics. Interventions under this initiative targets the multifaceted barriers that impede women from participating equally and effectively in public and political spheres as leaders and decision-makers. In addition, it seeks to enhance the gender responsiveness of crucial democratic and governance institutions, encompassing parliament, regional councils, local governments, political parties, and electoral management bodies in Ethiopia. The thematic area is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (2020-2025) and responds to Outcome 1: All

individuals in Ethiopia have the rights and opportunities to fulfill their potential with equality and dignity, and Outcome 2: All people in Ethiopia live in a cohesive, just, inclusive, and democratic society. It also aligns with the Government of Ethiopia’s 10-year Perspective Plan (2020/21-2029/30) with an emphasis to promoting gender equality and empowerment of women.

With this background, UN Women has been working closely with local partners to increase women’s effective participation and equal representation in leadership and decision making since 2017 by employing multipronged strategies. Among the strategies, availing a sustainable backstop for women leaders on capacity building on transformative leadership and political empowerment are key.

In pursuit of this objective, UN Women collaborated with the Amhara Bureau of Women, Children, and Social Affairs, as well as Bahir Dar University, to establish a Transformative Leadership for Gender Equality (TLGE) Training Center at Bahir Dar University. This initiative followed the institutionalization of a curriculum on transformative leadership for gender equality in 2020, along with the development of training materials based on this curriculum. UN Women has been using this curriculum to empower women leaders in Ethiopia while at the same time progressively refining and expanding its content. The Presidential Leadership program for Women Leaders is one of the flagship leadership programs UN Women implemented where the content of the TLGE training also incorporated issues related to women peace and security.

As part of its SN 2022-2025 and Annual Workplan 2024-2025, UN Women intends to continue supporting women leaders through capacity-building programs, ensuring their equal and effective participation in leadership and decision-making processes. This support also aims to ensure that women and girls benefit from governance that is responsive to gender dynamics in Ethiopia, ultimately striving for inclusive, democratic governance, and sustainable development in the country.

The training programs are expected to result in:

• Enhanced knowledge and skill of diverse groups of women leaders (including young women and women with disability) and aspirants to lead effectively and meaningfully participate in governance structures at federal and regional level and influence decisions for inclusive, effective and gender responsive development.
• Increased level of satisfaction on the application of new skills by women leaders and aspirants contributing to their continuous climb of the leadership ladder.

UN Women is therefore currently seeking to recruit resource persons on a retainer contract basis to facilitate multiple rounds of training on transformative leadership and women political empowerment using the transformative leadership of gender equality and the women empowerment training package.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of UN Women Leadership and Governance Program Specialist, the consultant will undertake the following tasks:

• Review with UN Women’s training package on transformative leadership for gender equality and women political empowerment including the facilitator guide.
• Facilitate sessions of the training programme on transformative leadership and decision making and sessions on women political empowerment for targeted group
• Conduct pre/post training evaluation among participants, gathering daily feedback and adjusting the training programs as necessary.
• Assess participants’ capacities of participants before and after the training by using appropriate assessment tools.
• Prepare and submit a comprehensive report on the training, detailing encountered challenges, lessons learned and recommendations for future capacity building initiatives by UN Women
• Consolidate and harmonize all training reports into a single document for submission to UN Women.

DELIVERABLES

• Deliver training sessions focusing on transformative leadership for gender equality and women political empowerment utilizing the designated training package, including agenda power point presentation, exercises, pre and post training, daily and general training assessments.
• Produce summary report outlining key issues and main points of action from the training workshops and key summaries of training sessions and results of pre and post assessment of the training.
• Advise UN Women on the best follow up strategy to monitor how and what changes or trainees’ leadership developments are being influenced by the training.

Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
• Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment

Functional Competencies

• Sound expertise in gender equality and women’s empowerment, including on women’s participation in public and political life
• Advanced expertise in training curriculum design and development.
• Training facilitation experience in different countries.
• Broad knowledge of training techniques and tools.
• Good communication skills.
• Fluent in Microsoft word, excel, e-mail, web-based applications and databases.
• Demonstrated leadership and personal examples of promoting knowledge management and a professional learning environment.
• Outstanding networking, team building, organizational and communication skills.
• Capacity to work with diverse partners including governments, donors and civil society.
• Ability to work effectively and harmoniously with people from varied cultures and professional backgrounds.
• Ability to produce well-written documents demonstrating excellent interpersonal communication skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• Minimum of master level degree in social sciences, particularly on governance, law, management, political science, leadership or another relevant field.

Experience

• A minimum of five years’ experience in developing training materials and facilitating transformative leadership trainings,
• Strong knowledge of women’s human rights issues, transformative leadership, and capacity development.
• Personal commitment, ability to work independently, and capacity to work effectively and harmoniously with persons from varied cultures and professional backgrounds.
• Proven experience with developing and applying adult learning methodologies and providing training for Government institutions and community-based organizations.
• Past experience with collaborative training development of training and facilitation of workshops with diverse stake holders.
• Past experience working with UN agencies is an asset.

LANGUAGE

• Written and oral proficiency in Amharic and English is required. Fluency in Affan Oromo and any other local language is an asset.

Application:

• All applications must include (as an attachment) a completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment.