International Expert on Gender and Stakeholder Engagement at United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Duties and Responsibilities

The “Large-scale Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) Project in The Gambia: developing a climate-resilient, natural resource-based economy aims to build the climate-resilience of rural Gambian communities and facilitate the development of a sustainable natural resource-based (green) economy by implementing large-scale EbA within and adjacent to agricultural areas, community-managed forest reserves and wildlife conservation areas of The Gambia. The project is funded by the Green Climate Fund and implemented over a six-year period. The Accredited Entity is UNEP and the Executing Entity is the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources. The project is being implemented in Lower, Central and Upper River Regions.

The project has three components, as follows:

• Component 1: Large-scale Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) to build a climate-resilient natural resource base across The Gambia;
• Component 2: Establishment and strengthening of natural resource-based businesses in The Gambia.
• Component 3: Policy support, institutional strengthening and knowledge generation to support large-scale implementation of EbA in The Gambia.

The Mid-term Evaluation (MTE)concluded in April 2021 identified the need for the Project to strengthen its expertise on gender to ensure that a complete line of driving gender benefits exists from the local level to the central level. This includes focusing attention on partnerships with key gender groups that already work in the Gambia and the inclusion of more female decision makers in the PMU and PSC. It also involves engaging regional and community-based women champions that can rally interest and drive action on the ground with the view of ensuring that a complete line of driving gender benefits exists from the local to central level. In line with the recommendation of the ESIA report, additional efforts should entail the potential integration of a gender impact evaluation that not only assesses the potential positive impacts on women, but also clearly assess the potential for negative impacts resulting from the project. To achieve all these recommendations, the project should urgently revise the indicators to mainstream gender better in the result frameworks. It should further increase awareness of the project activities with a focus on the gender benefits and reassess its active engagement and involvement of women in carrying out the activities.

The development of a gender and social inclusion action plan (GAP) is a requirement for the projects funded by the GCF based on an assessment of gender-related risks. This gender-risk assessment was carried out as part of the ESIA, and a GAP developed to provide an opportunity to deepen the gender risk assessment further, making a direct link to priority recommended actions that can take the EbA project from gender-aware to gender sensitive, building on the 32 mitigation actions related to gender and social inclusion. Some elements of high relevance to gender were included in the ESMP, in particular the stakeholder engagement plan and the grievance redress mechanism. When completed, the main safeguard risks to be managed and the management plans established will need to be translated to annual project work plans.

The EbA project has produced four Annual Performance Report (APR) to the GCF each of which contains the list of challenges encountered and the risk mitigation strategies and initial activities to implement the stakeholder and gender action plans. The 2021 is the latest of these APRs and provide a list of priority actions for the EbA project moving forward, and focusing on ESMP/ESMF actions, the stakeholder engagement plan and the Gender Action Plan progress report

The key positions in the Project Management Unit (PMU) comprise the project manager, the finance director, the field operations coordinator, the private sector specialist, the monitoring and evaluation officer, the procurement officer, the national gender and stakeholder engagement specialist and four (4) regional coordinators. The PMU team is technically supported by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and Prime Africa in addition to individual consultants drawn in for specific assignments. As part of its mandate to address the capacity gaps identified by the mid-term evaluation, the ESMP and the GAP, the EbA project is seeking to hire an International Gender and Stakeholder Engagement Consultant to support the National Gender and Stakeholder Engagement Officer (NGSEO) in rolling out the activities recommended in these reports GAP finalized in 2021.

Objective of the assignment:

The overall responsibility of the International Gender and Stakeholder Engagement Consultant is to support the National Gender and Stakeholder Engagement Officer (NGSEO) to mainstream equitable gender access and a gender-responsive strategy throughout the project.

Reporting line:

• The consultancy will be under the supervision of Programme Management Officer, Climate Change Adaptation Unit

Specific duties and responsibilities:

There are three specific tasks related to this assignment, as follows:

Support the implementation of the GAP and stakeholder engagement strategy which will include:

• drafting of TORs for packages of work and developing the workplans of the PMU staff tasked to implementing the GAP and stakeholder engagement strategy in a collaborative process;
• working closely with the Women’s Bureau
• identifying NGOs that can be engaged to support the implementation of the GAP and stakeholder engagement strategy and provide support to establishing the ToRs for the work;
• Develop a Code of Conduct that integrates Global Compact Principle and Women’s Empowerment Principles, with a focus on PS2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8.

Support the implementation of gender-related mitigation actions in the ESMP. This will include inputs to:

• Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice and Behaviour (KAPB) study on EbA to be implemented by the project, related to Component 2;
• develop TORs or inputs into TORs for awareness raising strategies and propose contracting methods and potential partners or contracting entities;
• Ensuring strategies to ensure access to grievance response mechanism by women and men.
• Integrate gender access and benefit sharing considerations in the design and analysis of all M&E for activities including capacity building, training, livelihoods support activities, natural resource enterprises, knowledge management of EbA and best practice, working closely with the M&E officer

Qualifications/special skills

• Academic Qualifications: An advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in a field relevant to the assignment, for example in gender studies, public administration, social sciences, social anthropology, rural development, or another relevant field is required.
• A first level degree in combination with two additional years of relevant experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced degree.
• A specialization in environmental issues would be highly preferred
• Experience: A least 7 years of relevant experience in analysing and integrating gender dimensions into policy and programme formulation and implementation, especially in the context of land/natural resource use and management, agriculture and climate change is required;
• Experience of working at the project level in Africa would be desirable;
• Language: Fluency in oral and written English is required.

Closing date: 27 May 2022