National Consultant on Support for Donor Government Coordination Mechanisms to Ensure Inclusive and Gender-Responsive Recovery, Kyiv, Ukraine, SSA

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. In Ukraine, UN Women delivers results across its strategic priorities through its triple mandate of normative support, UN system coordination, and operational activities, mobilizing urgent and sustained action to advance gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. Prior to the full-scale invasion, UN Women had already been actively supporting national priorities, including women’s political participation, gender-responsive public policy, and women’s economic empowerment. In Ukraine, by 2029, UN Women aims to ensure that more women and girls, including those at the greatest risk of being left behind, lead, influence, and benefit from inclusive gender-responsive humanitarian action, governance, recovery, rights, and economic growth. One of the priorities of UN Women’s work in Ukraine focuses on enhancing national and local capacities of government, women’s rights organizations (WROs), and women activists to drive gender-responsive governance, advance the EU accession process, and implement the Women, Peace and Security Agenda while safeguarding the rule of law, human rights and gender equality. The full-scale armed invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022, which is a grave violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and the UN Charter, caused untold destruction, displaced millions, and resulted in unacceptable violations of human rights and international humanitarian law and the most significant modern challenge to global peace and security. The war continues to impact women and girls, as well as other vulnerable and marginalised groups, disproportionally. To respond to this, UN Women is providing technical support to the Government of Ukraine to ensure inclusion and gender mainstreaming to recovery processes. The Constitution of Ukraine, its legislative and policy frameworks guarantee equality of men and women in Ukraine in all sectors. Ukraine has endorsed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), acceded to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and has ratified major international instruments on gender equality and women’s rights, including UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Law of Ukraine “On Ensuring Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities of Women and Men”, adopted in 2005 as a key law on gender equality and women’s empowerment provides for the legal framework of men and women’s parity in all spheres of social life through providing legal support for equal rights and opportunities, removal of gender-based discrimination and prevention of misbalance between women’s and men’s opportunities in implementing the rights granted to each of them by the Constitution and other laws. During the full-scaled armed invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, the Government of Ukraine continues to prioritize gender equality and women empowerment within all processes of EU accession and recovery, including policy and budgets development, implementation, monitoring and coordination. International technical assistance (ITA) coordination system is envisaged by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 153 «On Establishing a Unified System for Attracting, Using and Monitoring International Technical Assistance» of February 15, 2002, and consists of three interdependent levels: the «Development Partnership» Forum, the Strategic Platform and sectoral (intersectoral) working groups (SWGs), among which the SWGs have the most practical working focus. The work of the SWGs is based on the principles of partnership and cooperation, and is guided by mutual accountability and transparency. Key principles include co-chairmanship, joint agenda setting, minutes and access to shared information, and feedback between levels. In the summer of 2024, the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers, together with the ministries concerned and in cooperation with development partners, updated the number and composition of sectoral working groups, as well as the concept of the SWGs. Thanks to the updated concept of the SWGs, the ministries will be able to address the following tasks with development partners: Facilitate identification and expedient disbursement of committed financial resources to cover Ukraine’s most urgent needs as identified by the Government. Lay the foundation for mobilizing new resources and contribute to ensuring implementation and coordination of priority projects. Support implementation of policy reforms based on the Government’s Reform Matrix and other key overarching sectoral strategies and policies. Support efforts on ensuring transparency of international assistance flows and accountability for investments in recovery activities, including by enhancing data management systems. The co-chairs of the sectoral working groups are the heads or deputy heads of the central executive authorities of Ukraine and representatives of development partners. If necessary, thematic subgroups may be formed within the sectoral working groups to cooperate in specific areas. ( International technical assistance coordination in Ukraine | Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine ). Among nineteen sectoral working groups, a SWG “Gender Equality” was established to coordinate international technical assistance with sectoral reform priorities and action plans for the implementation of policies to ensure equal rights and opportunities for women and men. The SWG is co-chaired by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on European and Euro Atlantic Integration (DPMO), Government Commissioner of Gender Equality Policy (Government Commissioner) and Embassy and Canada and Sweden. In addition, in 2023, the Government of Ukraine established the Platform for Gender Mainstreaming and Inclusive Recovery (the Platform) under the Government Commission on Coordination of Executive Bodies for Ensuring Equal Rights and Opportunities of Women and Men, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister on European and Euro Atlantic Integration. Its primary mission is to facilitate cooperation among various stakeholders, including government ministries, civil society, and international organizations, to ensure that gender equality and inclusion are central to Ukraine's recovery process. To ensure participatory approach, the Platform also created the CSO Consultative Panel. The Platform is working in coordination with the SWG “Gender Equality” of the Government-donor coordination architecture. The Platform is also closely coordinating with the Alliance of Gender-Responsive and Inclusive Recovery, initiated by the Ukrainian and German governments together with UN Women in 2024. UN Women recognizes that Ukraine's EU accession and recovery processes need inclusion, meaningful engagement and participation of different groups of women and men. In order to support the national partners in strong donor-government coordination efforts for inclusive and gender-responsive EU accession and recovery, UN Women has introduced a range of the activities to strengthen capacities of the coordination mechanisms in partnership with the institutions of the National Women’s Machinery, namely the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, and the Government Commissioner on Gender Equality Policy. As part of its work and to enhance the coordination efforts of the Government of Ukraine and donor community on the way to inclusive and gender-responsive EU integration and recovery, UN Women is looking for a National Consultant to Provide Expert Support for Donor Government Coordination Mechanisms to Ensure Inclusive and Gender-Responsive Recovery.