Consultant, Gender Audit

Vacancy Announcement no. 003/2012

Post Title:	Consultant, Gender Audit
Project Title:	Conducting Gender Audit for FAO Kenya
Duty station:	Nairobi
Duration:	2 Months
Start Date:	ASAP
Reporting to:	Gender and HIV Officer  and the FAO Representative

Background

Gender equality is central to FAO’s mandate to achieve food security for all by raising levels of nutrition, improving agricultural productivity and natural resource management, and improving the lives of rural populations. FAO can achieve its goals only if it simultaneously works toward gender equality and supports women’s diverse roles in agriculture and rural development. Gender equality is not only an essential means by which FAO can achieve its mandate; it is also a basic human right.  In pursuing its goals, FAO is mandated by the United Nations system to promote and protect Human Rights and Gender Equality and to work in a way that ensures that it contributes to their realization by addressing underlying causes of human rights violations including discrimination against women and girls.

FAO has developed a Gender equality policy and a framework  to guide its efforts to achieve gender equality in all its technical work and to assess results, and calls on the whole organization to contribute to these efforts.   To ensure measurement of progress towards gender equality results as outlined in the gender policy, a gender audit becomes necessary.

The gender audit process is crucial in identification of pertinent programme shifts to ensure empowerment of women/girls and gender equality by mainstreaming gender in all FAO’s interventions. It will enhance/improve gender responsiveness/sensitivity of all persons involved in implementing the Kenya country programme, will build capacity to adequately analyze gender issues, aid planning, monitoring and evaluation at both the programme and management levels and assist baseline identification to measure progress. Overall the audit is expected to identify gaps regarding gender mainstreaming and give clear recommendations on corrective actions.

The gender audit will also examine gender issues related to recruitment, supervision, and gender accountabilities as expressed in job descriptions and PERs, as well as attitudes within the office towards those who promote gender issues which may advance or discourage promotion of gender-based programming or gender-sensitive recruitment, job descriptions and PERs.

Overall objectives

The main objective of the audit is to promote organizational learning at the individual and office levels by probing into the existing organizational culture, structure of the institution and alliance with other organizations on gender mainstreaming.  This process is expected to

• Implement a systematic gender audit of strategies and activities in FAO Kenya within the frameworks of the programme of cooperation with the Government.
• Analyze the overall levels of gender awareness of FAO staff in terms of basic concepts and best practices/innovative approaches towards gender mainstreaming, and vis-à-vis knowledge of FAO’s institutional mandates and policies on gender mainstreaming and national policies on gender equality
• Review partnerships and cooperation between key agencies and FAO around gender equality and gender-based violence.
• Assess and make recommendations regarding the application of FAO gender policies in recruitment, supervision, and gender accountabilities as expressed in job descriptions and PERs, and the generation of a working environment that is gender sensitive.
• Identify capacity development needs for effective gender mainstreaming and make recommendations on how to address them in the context of PEMS and staff development opportunities.
• Provide  baseline for indicators under Strategic Object (SO- K) and for the gender-related work in the Organization.

Scope of Work

The gender audit will be conducted in a participatory manner where stakeholders shall be involved as well as FAO, and observations and recommendations coming forward will be incorporated in an action plan. The gender audit in addition to other tools will use the Participatory Gender Audit (PGA) developed by ILO and contextualize them to FAO Kenya. 

The methodology will ensure examination of all FAO interventions with a gender lens. Gender mainstreaming in programme design, in programme implementation and institutionalizing effective gender monitoring systems and tools should come out visibly during the audit. The audit will cover the entire office from human resources to operation and in all programmatic areas and in which staff from all levels including senior management will participate.

The consultant will undertake the following activities in collaboration with Country Office personnel:

1. A literature review of relevant documents
2. Focus group interviews among FAO staff in Kenya
3. Interviews with key informants (Relevant Government  Ministries, UN and selected implementing partners)
4. A series of participatory meetings with FAO Kenya staff on both programmatic and operational issues, with programme staff and partners, and with FAO staff and district staff as per the guidance provided by the FAO ILO Gender Audit Manual
5. Observations of 5-7 project activities implemented by programme sectors to see whether these have taken a gender perspective into account in design, planning implementation and evaluation/report writing.
6. Briefing staff and solicit feedback
7. Cooperate with the FAO Gender Team on development of an action plan.
8. Provide the final report

Deliverables

As a result of the consultant shall;

•  Develop relevant gender monitoring indicators, 
• Submit a detailed Report on the assessment process, results, findings and recommendations including a strong and comprehensive Executive Summary of the entire exercise with:
• Separate sections of the report on the results of the analysis
• An overall analysis of the value of self-assessment tools and exercises for the country office gender-mainstreaming planning and implementation
• Detailed assessments of 6 programme interventions
• Analysis of operational/Human Resources issues
• Cast a PowerPoint presentation of the key findings that can be shared with counterparts in meetings, dissemination workshops, and other venues
• An action plan defining the way forward

Qualifications of Consultant

The consultant should have advance university degree in economics, gender, development studies, social science, or other relevant disciplines, with specialized focus on gender mainstreaming etc. The consultant should have 5- 7 years or more work experience and familiarity with gender equality programming in the UN, preferably with experience and familiarity with FAO.  This should include experience in applying the most recent tools used in gender equality programming, and familiarity with key concepts and application of gender mainstreaming guidelines as well as awareness of international legal instruments such as the CEDAW, (noting links between CRC and CEDAW reporting).

FAO is an equal opportunity employer; qualified women are encouraged to apply.  Acknowledgements will only be sent to applicants in whom FAO has a further interest.

Interested candidates who meet the above qualifications may send their application letter, and a detailed CV clearly marked CONSULTANT, GENDER AUDIT; STRICTLY BY EMAIL not later than 6 June  2012, addressed to:

Office of the FAO Representative in Kenya

FAO Representation in Kenya

United Nations Office at Nairobi 

Block P, Level 3

Gigiri

PO Box 30470, 00100

Nairobi Kenya

E-mail : vacancy-Kenya@fao.org

ONLY EMAIL APPLICATIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED