Result of Service

• Community-specific intervention strategies based on the findings of community consultations and research activities conducted in Phase I of the Project, which provide concrete recommendations for interventions, analyze community-based practices and customary norms, and identify underlying causes of conflict and violence, and potential entry points.

• Concept notes including budgets, agendas, invitation letters and visual materials (such as banners, leaflets) for suggested interventions.
• Information, education, and communication (IEC) strategies and visual materials for interventions, including to educate communities, especially women and youth groups, about legal frameworks and mechanisms to enforce their rights, enhance awareness on crime prevention, problem-solving and community safety, SGBV, and child protection.

• Reports of workshops and trainings conducted (including participant lists) identifying lessons learned and strategic recommendations.
• Reports of other activities supported under project, that include all necessary data required for project reporting requirements as well as lessons learned and strategic recommendations.
• Annual and quarterly progress reports that align activities to project outputs and identify entry points for future interventions.

Work Location

South Sudan

Expected duration

12 months (initial), possibility of extension subject to availability of funds

Duties and Responsibilities

The Rule of Law Adviser will be based in Bor but will be undertake frequent travel to project locations within Jonglei and the GPAA. The incumbent will report to the Director, RoLAS, or a delegated Rule of Law Officer.

• Provide on the ground support and assistance to develop, coordinate and implement rule of law activities under the Project and contribute to the achievement of project results, which may include:
o Conducting needs assessments of justice actors to identify entry points and areas of support and to draw linkages between formal and customary justice actors.
o Coordinating support to accountability mechanisms (such as fact-finding missions or mobile courts) put in place with community agreement and oversight to address incidents that may act as a catalyst for escalating violence.
o Coordinating targeted trainings to justice actors to build capacities to effectively respond to conflict drivers and criminal patterns, such as abduction and cattle raiding.
o Supporting community-based mechanisms and frameworks focused on specific areas identified by communities as root causes of violent conflict (e.g., land, cattle, abductions) to adhere to the rule of law and observe human rights.
o Supporting the establishment and/or strengthening of community oversight mechanisms to monitor violence and disputes and serve as a reporting and referral mechanism to formal and traditional justice actors.
o Supporting communities to establish local mechanisms to advance reconciliation and healing and address past and long-standing grievances, including agreements to return abducted women and children.
o Assessing community-based practices and customary norms which may be harmful or discriminatory, especially in relation to women and youth, identifying entry points for strengthened confluence with human rights and national frameworks.
o Conducting community awareness-raising activities to educate communities, especially women and youth groups, about legal frameworks and formal and customary mechanisms to enforce their rights, enhance awareness on crime prevention and community safety, SGBV, and child protection.
o Engaging civil society or community-based organizations to provide targeted support to victims through access to legal assistance, psycho-social and trauma healing.
• Coordinate with Project partners and other members of the Area Reference Group to ensure that rule of law activities are conducted in an integrated and complementary manner.
• Collect and maintain information required for project reporting.
• Perform any other duties, including carrying out assessments, implementing events and other activities in furtherance of the project, as determined by the RSRTF or the Director, RoLAS.

Qualifications/special skills

• Bachelor or an advanced university degree in law, criminal justice, political sciences, or a related discipline.
• At least two (2) years following completion of master’s degree or equivalent, four (4) years following completion of LL.B or equivalent, of progressively responsible, professional experience in law, criminal justice, political sciences, or a related discipline is required.
• Experience with the South Sudan formal and customary justice system and institutions is required
• Demonstrable ability to engage with sensitivity and strategic foresight in situations involving stakeholders from antagonistic ethnic communities and/or political factions is required.
• Familiarity with the social, political, economic context in Jonglei and GPAA is required
• Practical experience related to the interface between the work of formal and informal/customary justice institutions and conflict resolution is desirable
• Demonstrable familiarity with justice programming and CVR is desirable.

Languages

• Fluency in written and spoken English and Arabic.
• Knowledge of other local languages spoken in Jonglei/GPAA is desirable.

Additional Information

Background

High levels of organised violence in Jonglei and the Greater Pibor Administrative Area (GPAA) continue to have a negative impact on the political, social, and economic development of the region. External actors are often not fully cognizant of the dynamic motivations and interactions among the interpersonal, grassroots, state, and national level political and economic agendas that produce these consistently high levels of organised violence alongside an otherwise incrementally progressing national peace process.

The South Sudan Reconciliation Stabilisation and Resilience Trust Fund (RSRTF) is funding several projects to address the renewed violence that has gripped Jonglei and the GPAA since 2019. In December 2020, the RSRTF approved the project entitled “Community Violence Reduction (CVR) in central southern Jonglei and the Greater Pibor Administrative Area (GPAA)” (the Project). The Project aims to support and enable communities on the Duk Ridge, in greater Pieri, greater Akobo, and lowland Pibor to experience exercising economic power in non-violent ways through collaborative, consensus-building processes that lead to concrete improvements for the communities on a material level, according to priorities they identify, and to counter multi-layered manifestations of violence. Coordinated by the World Food Programme (WFP), the Project will be implemented by a consortium of UN and non-UN entities to achieve five objectives:
(i) Fostering the development of collaborative resource allocation, planning and implementation methodologies within and among communities in central-southern Jonglei and the GPAA;
(ii) Implementing targeted interventions identified and selected by communities as having the potential to reduce violent competition between them over resources;
(iii) Strengthening informal justice systems and frameworks, including through locally driven reconciliatory mechanisms and building foundations to concretise linkages to an effective formal justice system; while
(iv) Reducing the economic marginalization of youth and women; and
(v) Supporting norms of non-violence, conflict management, and reconciliation.

Phase I of the Project began in January 2021 and ended in March 2023. Phase II of the Project was approved in March 2023 and is expected to run until March 2025.

To support implementation of the third objective – “Strengthening informal justice systems and frameworks, including through locally driven reconciliatory mechanisms and building foundations to concretise linkages to an effective formal justice system” – the UNMISS Rule of Law Advisory Section (RoLAS) intends to hire a National Consultant with experience in implementing community-focused rule of law programming in South Sudan.

No Fee

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.