National Consultant – Gender Advice for Bangsamoro Women Commission

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.

Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women will lead and coordinate United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Security Council Resolution 1315 (UNSCR1325, 2000) is the landmark resolution on women, peace, and security (WPS) that links gender equality to the maintenance of international peace and security. In the Philippines, the UN Women played a vital role in advancing the WPS agenda since 2015, including support to advance the WPS normative framework at the national, regional, and local levels, including the inclusion of gender and women empowerment provisions in the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) and subsequently the establishment of the Bangsamoro Women’s Commission (BWC) in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

The programme, Empowering Women for Sustainable Peace in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, is a Joint Programme (JP) of UN Women Philippines and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) funded by the Global Affairs Canada under the guidance of the UN Resident Coordinator Office and the Bangsamoro Planning and Development Authority. The fundamental objective of the programme is to prevent insecurity and violence by harnessing the potentials of both women and men and addressing structural gender inequality and discriminatory gender norms that are barriers to sustainable peace. While it focuses on empowering women to participate and lead in peacebuilding, conflict prevention and resolution, it also aims to enhance ownership and responsibility of the BARMM governments in promoting gender equality and inclusion of peace and security processes.

The programme is a three-year that will be implemented in close coordination with BARMM ministries, offices, and agencies, as well as with civil society organizations in the BAMRM. The JP will be implemented primarily within the BARMM and in the Bangsamoro communities adjacent to the region.

The UN Women primarily support the BWC, the lead agency promoting the welfare of and empowering Bangsamoro women and their families, protecting their rights and preventing abuses. BWC also serve as the primary policy driver of the WPS agenda in the region wherein the major outputs of the Joint Programme were aligned with the current priorities of the commission.

The Consultant will be supervised by the Programme Specialist and Team Leader of Women Peace and Security. All deliverables will be reviewed and endorsed to the Team Lead of UNW-PHL WPS for approval and processing of payments Description of Responsibilities /Scope of Work In view of the foregoing, the UN Women – Philippines Programme Office (PPO) is looking to hire a National Consultant-Gender Advice to provide technical support to Bangsamoro Women Commission on the delivery of priority policies and guidance note under the Joint Programme. The Consultant shall be under the direct supervision of the UN Women-WPS Programme Specialist, and under the overall guidance of the BWC, shall undertake the following tasks:

1. Act as the direct focal person of UN Women in the BWC in the implementation of the Joint Programme.
2. Provide substantive technical input, assistance, and advisory to the BWC on the planning, programming, execution, monitoring and reporting of the Joint Programme deliverables in close coordination with UN Women. 3. Provide technical support in the crafting/development, writing, and finalization of key priority policies and gender and development (GAD) agenda of the BWC.
4. Coordinate with BWC and with other key BARMM Ministries/Offices/Agencies (MOAs) on the implementation and delivery of commitments under the Joint Programme.
5. Provide substantive inputs on the module and technical support for the localization/rollout of the 3rd Regional Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2023-2028.

Deliverables:

1. Data collection tool/s for CSOs and non-government actors on the RAP WPS MEAL Framework (January 15, 2024)
2. Final approved input accepted by BWC on the draft modules of the 3rd RAP WPS Roll-Out, including additional section providing guidance on local contextualization and integration in local plans. (March 15, 2025)
3. One JMC