UN Women: Strengthening Dialogue & Partnerships for Disability Inclusion

Deadline: 7-Jul-23

UN Women East and Southern Africa seeks to partner with an Organisation of persons with disabilities (OPDs) operating in East and Southern Africa to guide actions that can strengthen UN Women’s partnerships with organizations of women and girls with disabilities working on EVAWG in East and Southern Africa.

The collaboration will contribute to UN Women EVAWG Programmes establishing partnerships with organizations of women and girls with disabilities and interventions inclusive of women and girls with disabilities.

UN Women is 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 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 in East and Southern Africa (ESA).

Ending violence against women and girls (EVAWG) remains a priority area for UN Women in East and Southern Africa, as the most widespread violation of human rights including interventions addressing the intersection between gender inequality and disability. Women and girls with disabilities face intersectional discrimination and exclusion, based on their gender and disability, among other status, which include attitudinal, environmental and institutional barriers. These factors contribute to the higher risk of violence for women and girls with disabilities, although lack of adequate disaggregated data on violence against women and girls with disabilities results in EVAWG policies, funding allocations, service provision and programmes which do not adequately reflect the needs, engage or respond to the rights of women and girls with disabilities.

UN Women East and Southern Africa’s Strategic Note 2022-2025, recognizes the need to collaborate with regional partners, including UN agencies, for enhancing disability inclusion across the East and Southern Africa Region’s (ESAR) efforts, with an initial focus on its work in ending violence against women and girls.  These efforts will enable UN Women to better contribute to upholding the rights of women and girls with disabilities and involve increased collaboration with organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs), especially women-led OPDs and support to coalition building and strategic partnerships between Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) and women’s rights organizations, youth organizations and other civil society partners to promote leadership of women and girls with disabilities.

Funding Information

• The budget range for this proposal should beno more than USD20,000
• Timeframe: 7th August 2023 through 31st December 2023.

Description of required services/results

• Through the partnership, the organization of persons with disabilities will contribute to:
  • Creation of a directory of networks and organizations of women and girls with disabilities working on gender equality, including EVAWG, based in ESAR to inform future engagements, drawing from the 2020 UN Women Mapping of Discrimination Against Women and Girls with Disability, existing UN Women partnerships and organizational networks/knowledge in the region.
  • Design 1 – 2 virtual consultative forums for discussion and knowledge exchange between organizations of women and girls with disabilities and UN Women in ESAR to create channels for raising priorities and exploring opportunities for greater collaboration. This should include a summary report (3-5 pages) of key issues and recommendations from each forum.
• Plan and convene 1-2 virtual sessions for organizations of women and girls with disabilities to learn more about opportunities to collaborate with UN Womento advance gender equality in the East and Southern Africa Region. This should include a summary report (3-5 pages) of key issues and recommendations resulting from the learning sessions to inform UN Women’s future partnership approaches.

Competencies

• Technical/functional competencies required by submitting organization:
  • The organization must a proven record of:
    • Technical knowledge of disability inclusion within gender and development programming within East and Southern Africa. This should include understanding of national and regional frameworks related to disability rights and gender equality.
    • Knowledge of OPDs in East and Southern Africa (regional and country-level) and experience collaborating with other OPDs for programmatic or advocacy efforts.
    • Past experience designing and coordination of accessible virtual forums on topics related to gender equality and/or disability inclusion
    • Knowledge and past projects demonstrating disability inclusive programming approaches and organisational development or institutional strengthening
    • Experience in working in multi-stakeholder partnerships: government, civil society, community-based organizations and others.
  • Organizational: CSO Criteria
    • The eligible organization should also meet the legal, programmatic, and technical criteria defined below:
      • Be an organization of persons with disabilities (OPD); Women-led OPDs are encouraged to submit proposals.
      • Gender equality must be a demonstrated priority area of work for the organization
      • Duly registered under the laws of the country of operation with East and Southern African region and legally authorised to operate
      • Demonstrates relevant programmatic experience of at least 3 years in disability inclusion and gender equality and ideally, related to ending violence against women and girls.
  • Other competencies, which while not required, can be an asset for the performance of services:
    • Experience working with United Nations will be an added advantage.

For more information, visit UN Women.