National Project Officer - Promoting the Role of Libyan Women as Agents of Peace
Advertised on behalf of : UN Women
Location : Tripoli, LIBYA
Application Deadline : 19-Sep-15
Type of Contract : Individual Contract
Post Level : National Consultant
Languages Required : Arabic, English
Duration of Initial Contract : 6 months
Expected Duration of Assignment : 6 months
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 center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.
Through its regional office in Cairo and a number of country and multi-country offices, UN Women supports programmes across the Arab States/North Africa region. One key focus is broadening the scope of women's citizenship, leadership and political participation, especially in transitional countries. This is essential to ensuring that transitions are both fully inclusive and democratic, and respond to the needs and priorities of women and girls. UN Women helps strengthen women's networks and their advocacy capacities in close partnership with national women's groups and transitional governments.
In Libya, many women's organizations were established following the uprising, and managed to collaborate with other women's organizations in the region, especially in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. These organizations were able to get engaged in many national, regional and global events that focused on women's rights and political empowerment. Some of them have also received training in advocacy, lobbying and legislations in order to be prepared for the democratic changes.
However, women have lost out in the new governance bodies, despite their roles in the uprising. Almost four years into Libya's uprising, the percentage of women represented in elected bodies, decision-making positions or those provided with the opportunity to directly influence decisions affecting their lives remains low.
The Libyan interim governments included few women (16.5%) in the General National Congress (GNC) and only 10% of registered candidates for the Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDA) elections were women. The limited numbers of women participating directly in such roles demonstrates the gap between the aspirations of many global and regional commitments and the reality women face on the ground. Much more work is needed to secure the roles and capacities of women as leaders and active participants in Libya's future.
Following very challenging Political Dialogue's rounds, an agreement was initialed in July, 2015 with the main goal of creating a unified country. To carve a space for women's active engagement in the political dialogue, UNSMIL and UN Women joined forces to create a Women's Track that allow a safe space for women CSOs to express the needs, concerns and aspirations of the different segments of the Libyan fabric. Yet, more work needs to be carried out, on the ground, to help Women's organizations in Libya ensure females active engagement in the public and political spheres, during the peace process and post agreement (the rebuilding of the new Libya).
Duties and Responsibilities
Objective of the Assignment
The Promoting the Role of Libyan Women as Agents of Peace Project is funded by the Government of the Swiss Confederation; with an overall goal to actively engage Libyan women in dialogues and negotiation processes. The project has two main outcomes: 1) Libyan women have generated trust and voiced solidarity though a developed minimum agenda for peace and reconciliation, and 2) Libyan women demonstrated a module of negotiation with armed groups.
The Project Officer (PO) will support UN Women ROAS and the Project's Steering Committee (PSC) in fulfilling the project's pre-set goal, objective and activities. through providing technical, management and coordination support. The Project Officer will be a Libyan national, based in Libya and will work under the overall guidance of the UN Women ROAS Regional Director and the PSC as well as the direct supervision of the UN Women ROAS Political Participation Advisor.
The Project Officer will, on a daily/regular basis, follow up with the different stakeholders/partners to ensure the effective and efficient implementation of the project's activities and to periodically report on the programmatic and financial progress of the project.
