Consultancy Opportunity: Gender and Peacebuilding Consultant

Duration of Assignment: To start immediately and start with 6-month contract, renewable upon review.
Location: Sahel Region

About the Strengthening Civil Courage Program

“Strengthening Civil Courage” (SCC) is a five-year program led by a four-member consortium funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is comprised of organizations which focus on the promotion and advancement of human rights. These include, Netherlands-based PAX and Amnesty International Netherlands, ABAAD as well as DefendDefenders which works in the East and Horn of Africa Sub-region. SCC’s primary aim is to integrate civilians in peacemaking and peacekeeping processes and support them in countering human rights violations. Given the important role that social inclusion and gender equality play on all aspects of peace work and conflict transformation, the SCC alliance aims to ensure that its work is, at a minimum, gender-sensitive and where possible gender-transformative.

One of the main regions of focus is the Sahel, specifically Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Since 2012, the Sahel has been the stage of a large-scale armed conflict between different groups and factions. Numerous human rights violations and abuses are committed on a near daily basis by the conflict parties, with civilians caught in the middle. This counts specifically for women, while unemployed youth are an easy target for radicalization. The SCC Sahel Program works with civil society actors from the three countries to address common security and human rights issues. The program mainly works with (women) human rights defenders, groups working in civic space, good governance, access to justice, those monitoring and documenting human rights violations, as well as civilian populations and communities. The program also involves evidence-based advocacy at national, regional and international levels for joint information-sharing and strategy meetings, that inform lobby and advocacy initiatives targeted towards regional decision-making bodies and the EU.

Overall Objective of This Assignment

The SCC Alliance seeks an experienced gender consultant with a background in conflict and peacebuilding who can provide ongoing technical assistance to SCC alliance members (Amnesty International Netherlands, Defend Defenders, and PAX) and their partners on how to design and implement gender-sensitive programming in the Sahel region.

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant will work closely with the Country Lead of the Sahel Programme and other Alliance partners throughout all phases of this assignment. The time estimated to dedicate to the following responsibilities is three to five days per month, sometimes more depending on the needs of the local partners and the planning and reporting cycle of the programme.

The consultant will:

• Provide technical support Alliance members and local partners to strengthen their capacities on gender-sensitive programming.
• Work with local partners through workshops, in-person, online meetings, and other means to develop clear strategies on how they will integrate a gender lens into SCC program activities.
• Guide SCC Alliance and local partners on how to do a gender-sensitive conflict analysis of their program contexts.
• Work with SCC Alliance and local partners to identify ways to strengthen institutional commitments to gender equality (e.g. gender equality workplace policy)
• Advise on moments and tools for gender-sensitive analysis, programming and reporting in line with the planning and reporting cycle of the program.
• Periodically liaise with the SCC Gender Working Group to share lessons learned and also share with Sahel partners opportunities for gender capacity strengthening.
• Participate in Alliance country team meetings as needed.

Skills Required

• Strong background in gender and conflict / peacebuilding / security work.
• Strong knowledge of gender-sensitive and transformative programs and approaches.
• Strong experience working with civil society organizations in West Africa, particularly the Sahel region.
• Experience developing capacity-building strengthening methodologies and tools such as manuals, curricula, trainings, workshops, online and self-paced learning, etc.
• Experience conducting trainings and providing practical, actionable guidance on gender-sensitive approaches.
• Adept at distilling complex concepts and topics into simple, practical language.
• Excellent writing and verbal communication skills in French and English.
• Consistently approaches work with a positive and constructive attitude and demonstrates an openness to manage complexity and multiple demands.
• Fluency in French and English is required.
• Being based in the Sahel region is strongly preferred.