Deadline: 10-Jun-21
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) seeks expressions of interest from civil society organisations (CSOs) with a regional scope working in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) representing vulnerable populations.
The Caribbean Observatory on SRHR is to be set up and led by a CSO. It is aimed at advocating for strengthened policy and programmatic linkages between family violence and SRHR, which will improve coverage, access to, and uptake of both SRHR and GBV services for vulnerable populations, and promote social monitoring towards the advancement of integrated SRHR/GBV in the region. The Observatory will also provide timely and independent analysis and will serve as an advocacy platform for change of harmful social norms across the Caribbean, promotion of south-south cooperation, innovation and expertise.
The regional programme will add value in a number of ways, including:
- Support the integration of protection and prevention programming within the COVID-19 national and regional action plans, during the crisis response and in the recovery phase
- Ensuring that countries without a country level Spotlight programme benefit from the regional public goods developed through the regional programme
- Supporting regional integration and functional cooperation both within and between regional institutions as approaches to ending family violence are mainstreamed into approaches to crime and security, health, justice and data and research
- Build capacities of regional level organisations to provide technical support to national institutions that will contribute to sustainability
- Support the demands of civil society for inter-governmental and state action and accountability to end family violence.
- Provide models for Caribbean specific community approaches to support behavioural and cultural change.
Expected Results
The expected results include:
- Institutional strengthening:
- Regional intergovernmental institutions (security, justice/judiciary, police, disaster reduction response (DRR), social welfare and health sectors) will have the capacities (through the generation of knowledge, standardised tools/protocols and financial resources) to detect, prevent, monitor and respond to family violence and to drive improvements in comprehensive multi-sectoral response and delivery of essential services at country level; including in relation to the COVID-19 response.
- Prevention approaches:
- Model of cultural and behavioural change across the life course driving primary and secondary family violence prevention and sexual and reproductive rights programming across the region;
- Institutions of socialisation (schools, youth groups, families, faith-based institutions and cultural influencers) mobilised and equipped to implement and monitor prevention programmes based on best practices in changing unequal gender norms, harmful stereotypes and ending family violence against women and girls; and
- Regional models for tertiary prevention for perpetrators of family violence strengthened and accessible for national level implementation.
- Research and Data:
- The generation of regionally agreed protocols and standards for the collection, analysis, use and reporting of administrative data on family violence to be implemented at national level;
- Expansion of the CARICOM pool of experts on family violence data management, strengthened data collection and analysis on VAW/G including in the context of COVID-19; and
- New knowledge on the linkages between family violence and vulnerable population groups and the economic costs of family violence that will inform resource allocations for comprehensive national level approaches.
- Supporting women’s movement:
- Women’s organisations across the region more effective and with greater population reach in their advocacy, programming and influencing and monitoring of state and inter-governmental accountability to end family violence;
- Organisations providing services to victims of family violence resourced for rapid response to the COVID crisis; and
- Intergenerational connectivity between women’s organisations across their diversities for sharing practices and as a platform for regional social accountability
Eligible Countries: Complementing the Spotlight country programmes in six Caribbean countries (Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago).
Eligibility Criteria
Organisations wishing to apply to host the Caribbean Observatory on SRHR should meet the following requirements and competencies:
- Interested and committed to host the Observatory in the short and also long term
- Be a CSO with a regional scope working in SRHR and in at least two intersecting areas from the following: prevention, mitigation and response of violence against women and girls; gender equality women’s empowerment; child protection; human rights; and access to justice
- Have experience working with different grassroots and vulnerable populations including women, adolescents and members of the LGBTQI+ community
- Proven experience in and technical capacity for advocacy, policy dialogue around SRHR and lobbying for policy and legislative reforms
- Strong understanding of gender equality and women empowerment principles, community mobilisation and engagement for social norms change
- Have the capacity to undertake communication for development
- Possesses technical capacity to manage programmes and projects effectively
- Possesses a high capacity to foster partnerships and coordinate with other stakeholders
- Experienced in resource mobilisation and effecting sustainability initiatives
- Be registered by the relevant bodies
- Have established physical offices/presence in several countries across the region
- Have a pulse for what is happening on the ground in relation to SRHR
- Previous experience working with UN agencies is an asset but not mandatory.
For more information, visit https://caribbean.unfpa.org/en/vacancies/call-proposals-spotlight-initiative-civil-society-organisations-across-caribbean-host