Senior Gender Analyst

Proposed position Senior Gender Analyst

Activity name, description and number

Decision-making at the municipal level in the area of local economic development is more inclusive and participatory: Activation and support for LED Forum
Ref: IDEAL19.ps.ge

Background of the Country Programme and expected results

The IDEAL Palestine programme aims to build the capacity to form and implement inclusive Local Economic Development projects and policies of staff and leaders of selected Palestinian municipalities and its supporting organizations, i.e. the Ministry of Local Government (MoLG), the Municipal Development and Lending Fund (MDLF), and the Association of Palestinian Local Authorities (APLA).

Specific objectives of IDEAL Program:

1. Palestinian municipalities can create better conditions for economic growth and generate more employment opportunities, through more effective, gender sensitive, and responsive services in the area of Local Economic Development (LED);
2. Decision-making processes at the municipal level in the area of local economic development are more inclusive, gender sensitive, and transparent;
3. The policy and institutional environment for LED in Palestine enables the role of local governments as LED providers.

This assignment concerns itself with Outcome (2).

Context for current Terms of Reference

IDEAL supports 5 municipalities in drafting and implementing full Local Economic Development policy creation and implementation cycles. These municipalities are Ramallah, el-Bireh, Dura, Qalqilya and Jericho. To ensure their inclusiveness and transparency, these cycles must be informed by local advisory bodies that include various citizens groups, especially vulnerable groups. For this purpose each municipality has established a Local Economic Development Forum (LED Forum).

The LED Fora should consist of a group of representatives from diverse local backgrounds, including MSMEs, CSOs, and sex and age groups. 

In order to be successful, active support from municipal decision-makers (mayors, councils) for the inclusive and participatory functioning of the LED Forums is required. The process of formulating LED policy should be inclusive and gender sensitive and should create opportunities at the local level in order to ensure that women can play a fair and active role in this process.

A political economy analysis will be drafted by a senior political analyst to assist in understanding the power relationships at local level, in order to inform IDEAL on recommendations to strengthen the support for inclusive and participative LED Forum processes.

Aim of this assignment

The aim of this assignment is twofold: 

1. The Gender Expert will contribute to the political economy analysis with the specific goal to ensure that the analysis captures existing gender gaps and the report is gender sensitive;
2. The Gender Expert will analyse the municipal LED policy formulation process, with the aim to determine the gender gap in this formulation process.  

Activities to be performed

The consultant should: 

• Visit each of 5 municipalities jointly with the senior political analyst and interview mayors, council members involved with LED, key current LED Forum members, municipal LED Unit managers, and key representatives of CSOs not involved in the LED Forum;
• Analyze for each of the 5 municipalities the current gender gap in the LED policy formulation, taking into account and showing the political and economic local processes and how that influences:
• Gendered attitudes and decisions regarding the participation within the LED Forums;
• The level of participation (occasionally/structurally) of women in the LED Forum; 
• The level of involvement of female officials/staff in decision making roles in regards to LED policy; 
• Whether the collection and selection of the Community Driven Initiatives is gender sensitive.  

The consultant will cooperate closely with a senior political analyst, provided by IDEAL programme management. 

The consultant may expect VNG International to facilitate contacts with each of the municipal organizations, but the consultant is expected to coordinate all meetings and visits together with the senior political analyst. A VNG International coordinator will accompany the consultants during the visits.

Outputs (expected deliverables)

1. A chapter that provides a synthesis of conclusions and general recommendations on actions to advance gender equality and empower women within the LED forum (to be included in the overall advisory report on power relations in each of the 5 municipalities written by the sr. political analyst). 
2. A report that explains the current gender gap within the LED policy formulation process and provides recommendations on actions to create a more gender sensitive formulation process. 

All reporting is to be done in English

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Qualifications of the consultant

• A minimum of 10 years’ experience working with the public sector in Palestine and preferably with the municipal sector;
• A minimum of 5 years’ experience in delivering research and/or advice to international development programmes on gender and gender relationships;
• A university degree in gender studies or similar; 
• Demonstrable research experience and excellent writing skills
• Fluency in Arabic and English

Interested candidates should send their CVs and research/publication samples to Mrs. Amal Odeh, [email protected] before 27 August 2019. Please mention Senior Gender Analyst in the subject line.

Foreseen number of working days 12 days  (2 days preparation, 5 meeting days, 5 days reporting)

Period of the assignment September

Place of the assignment Ramallah, el-Bireh, Dura, Qalqilya and Jericho