Gender Equality, Care and Religion - International Consultant - Home Based

Background:

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, 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.

In the Arab region, UN Women and other partners are implementing an exciting and unique three-year regional programme entitled “Dare to Care” (DTC) with the goal of transforming patriarchal social norms and masculinities, with a regional coverage in six countries (Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon and Palestine) and in-country investments in four of them: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. 
This ground-breaking regional programme aims to promote social norms change for gender equality and women’s empowerment using the involvement of men and boys in unpaid care and household responsibilities as one key entry point. The programme is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the German International Development Cooperation (GIZ) and the Basque Agency for Development Cooperation. It works towards the achievement of three following three outcomes:

• Outcome 1: Societies across the MENA region demonstrate an increased involvement of men and boys in caregiving and household responsibilities and more empowerment of women and girls;
• Outcome 2: Key institutions effectively transform patriarchal masculinities and social norms, with a focus on advancing caregiving and household responsibilities of men and boys and the economic empowerment of women and girls;
• Outcome 3:  More men and boys are able to take their share in caregiving and household responsibilities with more enabling laws and policies that promote their caregiving and household responsibilities, and paternity leave.

Under the above Outcome 3, UN Women seeks to develop a policy brief that explores Islamic perspectives and jurisprudence on the care economy from a feminist analytical perspective. This policy brief aims to provide policymakers in the MENA region with a comprehensive understanding of how Islamic teachings and legal frameworks address issues related to the care economy. The policy brief is also expected to strengthen the capacity of women's rights and gender equality advocates with technical knowledge of the importance of women’s rights to possess a share of the assets and finances upon divorce that reflect the amount of unpaid care and domestic work undertaken by women during their years of marriage.

Description of Responsibilities/ Scope of Work:

This consultancy is under the framework of the “Dare to Care” regional programme. The consultant will work in close collaboration and under the direct supervision of UN Women’s “Dare to Care” Regional Programme Manager, and in close cooperation with the “Dare to Care” Regional Programme Analyst and other “Dare to Care” team members of UN Women Country Offices.

All deliverables will be reviewed and cleared by UN Women before the payments are approved by the Regional Programme Manager.

Further, the consultant will be required to work in a very collaborative and consultative way with UN Women “Dare to Care” Country Office teams and other relevant stakeholders from the Arab region, as needed.

The consultant will provide substantive technical support to carry out the following functions:

• Conduct a thorough literature review on Islamic perspectives and jurisprudence related to the care economy, with a focus on the Arab region;
• Engage with key stakeholders, including religious scholars, feminist economists, and policy-makers, to gather insights and perspectives;
• Analyze the collected data and literature to produce a comprehensive policy brief;
• Provide policy recommendations that are informed by the feminist analysis of Islamic perspectives on the care economy.

Deliverables

The deliverables of this consultancy assignment are described in the below table. The final deliverables will have to include the inputs provided by UN Women before payment is released to the consultant.

The main deliverable of the consultancy is the development of a policy paper that analyzes and highlights the value of Islamic teachings and practices in promoting the care economy and the importance of advancing the 6 Rs Framework of the care economy – namely Recognizing, Reducing, Redistributing, Rewarding, Representation and Resourcing – using religious arguments and perspectives that are grounded in Islam. The paper is to address and make linkages to international and regional normative frameworks on the care economy, including the UN System policy paper entitled "Transforming Care Systems in the Context of the Sustainable Develo