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.
In Mozambique, this role is exercised in the context of the overall support provided by the UN system under the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2017-2020. UN Women’s Strategic Note for Mozambique covering the period 2017-2020 focuses on providing financial and technical support to the Government of Mozambique across four thematic areas: women’s economic empowerment (WEE), women’s leadership and participation, institutional strengthening around gender mainstreaming and gender responsive budgeting, women peace and security, as well as combating, preventing and responding to violence against women and girls. In this context, it puts a strong focus on young women’s economic empowerment as part of the strategy to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights. Additionally, it favours girls and young women in the development of high-profit initiatives and labour market opportunities at district and provincial levels.
Placing women’s rights at the centre 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.
Young people are the fastest growing segment of the population in both poor and middle-income developing countries, and their welfare is fundamental to achieving key economic and social objectives. Fully engaged, educated, healthy and productive young people can help break multi-generational poverty, are resilient in the face of personal and societal threats and, as skilled and informed citizens, they can contribute effectively to the strengthening of their communities and nations. On the contrary, if subjected to violence and harmful practices, discrimination or deprived of resources and services, the consequences for young people are almost always evident in the status of their sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and rights as well as in the general economic progress.
Despite the progress achieved at policy and governance level, women (and girls) are still subject to gender discrimination. The economic deprivations of families, as well as girls and women’s lack of access to economic opportunities and resources affect their SRHR; a recent small-scale qualitative research showed that girls’ and young women’s poverty and their poor bargaining power within society exposes them to greater risk of unsafe sex. This appears to be driven by a combination of lack of economic alternatives and existing social norms and cultural practices, lack of information and awareness, as well as lack of access to or power to use contraceptives – with adolescent girls particularly at risk.
Based in the premisse that the challenges requires a multidisciplinary approach the United Nations in Mozambique, with the financial support from DFID is implementing the joint programme “Action for Girls and Young Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Mozambique”. This programme includes actions to support development of skills of vulnerable girls from 10 to 24 years old, in the areas of communication, participation, sexual health and reproductive health and rights, economic empowerment and human rights. The program anticipates that a stronger emphasis in providing economic opportunities for girls and young women to respond to poverty that drives them to the risks even when they have access to information, knowledge about sexual health and reproductive health and rights.
UN Women will contribute for the economic empowerment component integrated in the result 2.9 “Access to micro finances, vocational training and development of small and medium small and medium enterprises for girls and young women. Evidence show the positive effect of girls and young women’s economic empowerment on their agency, and consequently on their health, uptake of health care services, number of children, health of their children etc. Based on the fact that young women’s capacity to bring about economic change for themselves is increasingly viewed as the most important contributing factor to achieving equality between women and men, Rapariga Biz anticipates that a stronger emphasis on providing economic opportunities for the target group will assist in addressing the inequalities present in the geographic areas fueling the vulnerabilities and marginalization of girls and young women.
The study is aligned with the UN Women Africa Strategy (2018 – 2021) that intends to ensure that «No Woman and Girl is left Behind» as Africa implements and strives to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – particularly Goal 5: “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. It further allows UN Women to coordinate its actions in achievement of the Africa’s Agenda 2063 Goals and Aspirations striving for «An Africa whose development is people-driven, relying on the potential of African people, especially its women and youth, and caring for children» (Aspiration 6). UN Women strategy underscores not only the immense benefits of empowering women and girls, but the inherent value of women’s rights, and empowerment as a women’s human rights imperative.
In this context, UN Women is seeking to hire a National Consultant to assist in conducting a demand and market analysis to identify opportunities and challenges for the economic empowerment of girls and young women in the Province of Zambézia. The exploratory study will collect relevant information, develop and accompany the functioning of experiments/pilot investments on young women entrepreneurship development as well as, design a strategy and an action plan and define the interventions based in the local context. The National Consultant will work under the overall coordination of the UN Women Country Representative and direct supervision by the Women’s Economic Empowerment Portfolio Programme Officer.
Under the overall guidance and direction of the supervisor, the Consultant will work closely with the programme team, Provincial Government, UN Agencies involved in the Rapariga Biz (e.g. UNFPA, UNICEF and UNESCO), private sector and civil society to ensure the technical direction and best results from the study and key outputs are achieved in a cost effective and timely manner. The Consultant will be responsible for conducting the scoping study that will provide baseline data for achievement of the Rapariga Biz result on: “Girls and Young Women in safe Spaces in Zambézia Province are economically empowered.” Drawing on lessons learned from on-going efforts in the Province of Nampula to ensure girls and young women, as well as offering mentors economic empowerment opportunities, UN Women seeks to ensure that tailor-made activities are implemented for the local context in Zambézia.
UN Habitat Mozambique Urban Profile, 2012
The study aims to shed light on the current status on employability and entrepreneurship development for young women in the province of Zambézia and serve as an advocacy tool and policy recommendation guideline with national stakeholders including the private sector.
Guiding normative frameworks and reference documents: Constitution of the Republic of Mozambique (CRM); UN Women Flagship Programming Initiative; UN Women Africa Strategy (2018 – 2021); CEDAW (article 14); Beijing Platform for Action; Project Document “Action for Girls and Young Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Mozambique”; Sustainable Development Goals; Policy of National Employment; Strategic Provincial and District Development Plans; Government Five-Year Program 2015-2019; Report of Mozambique on the Implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action; International Labour Organization (ILO) knowledge products and methodology on women’s entrepreneurship development; the UN Women and UN Global Compact Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs); the Power of Procurement: How to buy from women-owned businesses; IPEME technical assistance frameworks to business, among others.
Post-Graduate degree (Masters) in business administration, rural development/agronomy, development studies, economics, sociology, gender studies, and related fields;
Fluency in Portuguese and English both spoken and written. Fluency in the local languages spoken in Zambézia is desirable.
In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives....
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