The quest for gender equality and empowerment of women is enshrined in the internationally-agreed declarations, commitments and development frameworks for which a majority of African countries are signatories i.e., i) the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), ii) the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), iii) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), iv) the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and its gender component, v) the African Union (AU) Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality, and vi) Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), etc. Although the countries are expected to report on progress made in the implementation of these declarations to improve gender equality, they are not able to account for it adequately due to insufficient gender-disaggregated data and statistics. Insufficient inclusion of gender issues in planning, programming and implementation leads to inability to capture progress from a gender disaggregated perspective as the progress reporting can only capture gender equality issues if gender sensitive indicators and targets are set at the planning and programming stage.
The Beijing Conference on Women in 1995 marked an important step in the development of gender-disaggregated data and statistics. It was the first time that an international instrument – the BPfA - comprehensively addressed the question of producing and disseminating gender statistics. Governments agreed on a set of important actions to "generate and disseminate gender-disaggregated data and information for planning and evaluation" (Platform for Action and the Beijing Declaration). However, a large number of African countries reporting on the status of the implementation of the Dakar and the BPfA during the Beijing + 10 Decade Review in 2004 indicated a lack of adequate data to reflect achievements and gaps where these exist. The Commission on the Status of Women in its 10-year review of the BPfA also acknowledged that the “activities for the advancement of women had been limited partly by the lack of gender statistics and data disaggregated by sex, age and in many areas, inadequate methods for assessing progress”. As at 2006, the situation has not improved - the global report to the 37th Session of the UN Statistical Commission held in March 2006, noted the general lack of data as a key constraint to addressing gender issues. It identified inadequate statistical capacity, lack of gender mainstreaming in national statistical systems and inadequate concepts and methods as some of the challenges hindering countries’ ability to collect, analyze and disseminate gender statistics and sex-disaggregated data. This in turn, has restricted countries’ ability to make informed decisions for policy making, planning, programme formulation, implementation and monitoring that is gender-inclusive.
Under the UNDP Regional Project for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Africa, the flagship initiative “Gender Economic Policy Management Initiative” (GEPMI) is contributing to strengthening national and regional capacity of technical staff in ministries, women machineries, CSOs and RECs to include gender analysis in their work. The particular target group - African policy makers, economists, planners and practitioners are being trained in Gender Responsive Economic Policy Management and Gender-Aware Economics at both short-course and master’s levels to facilitate effective formulation, implementation and monitoring of gender-responsive MDG-based policies, strategies, plans and budget frameworks. So far the programme has turned out over 200 students between 2010 and 2011. This will lead to a demand for reliable gender statistics and sex-disaggregated data in the near term, first for them to utilize the acquired skills and competences and second to integrate the gender perspectives into their activities to formulate targeted interventions for addressing gender inequalities.
In this connection, and as proposed in the project document, UNDP is seeking to collaborate with the African Centre for Gender and Social Development (ACGSD) of United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) to assess the capacity of African national statistics bureaus and RECs to collect, analyze and disseminate gender statistics and sex-disaggregated data. This activity will reinforce existing/on-going initiatives spearheaded by UNECA, the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21), World Bank and other development partners. These include national initiatives on the design and implementation of National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (currently being undertaken by many of African countries) coupled with regional actions such as the United Nations Gender Statistics Global Forum established to promote the continuous assessment of global trends in the development of gender statistics, and the Statistical Commission for Africa (STATCOM-Africa).
The implementation of this activity will cover the assessment of the status of gender statistics and sex-disaggregated data in four RECs and how this can contribute to equality and equity in development planning and evaluation; organization of a workshop to validate the assessment by the selected member countries and a statistics experts group, and finally publication of knowledge products emerging from the country assessments.
The assessment will be undertaken by four consultants and will detail best practices, challenges and key issues for the selected four RECs in the area of gender statistics and sex-disaggregated data. The assessment will use a common template so that the results from the RECs can be effectively analyzed. Based on the reports of the RECS assessments, UNECA and UNDP will prepare a consolidated report which will be reviewed at an experts’ meeting. UNECA and UNDP will work with the consultants to finalize the assessment report based on the comments made at the experts’ meeting. The overall purpose of this consultancy is to provide support to ACGSD and to jointly undertake activities that build the capacity of RECs to work with national statistics bureaus to collect, analyse and disseminate gender statistics and sex-disaggregated data and link this to planning for national development that is equitable. Further the consultancy will from the onset include policy makers at technical level who will be the users of the gender statistics and the sex disaggregated data. This consultancy complements the 5 country assessments being carried out separately.
The specific objectives are:
- To assess the status of gender statistics in the four RECs (SADC, ECCAS, ECOWAS and EAC;
- To organize a workshop to validate the results of the assessment;
- To publish an assessment report on the status of gender statistics and sex-disaggregated data in the five African countries and the four RECs;
- To use evidence for training statisticians in gender statistics and sex disaggregated data.
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| Education:
- Advanced university degree in Statistics, Economics, Information Systems, Development Studies, Sociology or related field is required. However, a first level university degree, together with extensive experience will be acceptable in lieu of the advanced degree.
Work Experience: - At least 10 years of experience in research and policy analysis in the areas of social research, monitoring and evaluation, qualitative and quantitative methodology, operational research, survey design and/or developing gender statistics is required. Practical experience in the context of Africa, in training and developing gender statistics is desirable.
Language: - English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For this post, fluency in oral and written English is required. Working knowledge of the other is desirable.
Other Skills:
- Comprehensive knowledge of UN Fundamental Principles for Official Statistics and the UN experiences on gender statistics any other methodological document on gender statistics is desirable.
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