In the spirit of accelerating more comprehensive inter-generational dialogues, knowledge generation and sharing guided by the 2030 Agenda and Generation Equality Forum, UN Women East and Southern Africa region is looking for 9 members on voluntary basis for the Youth Steering Committee. The successful members should dedicate at least two hours every quarter for consultations and meetings. 

The membership of the Steering Committee will include: 

• Diverse young girls, boys, women, and men between the ages of 15-35 segmented into three clusters (15-24, 25-29,30-35) 
• Young women and men with a record of accomplishments  on programmes and advocacy initiatives related to gender equality and young women and men’s engagement work in their countries and the East and Southern Africa region.
• Young people from the East and Southern Africa region 
• Young people representing diverse backgrounds and experiences, including groups less represented in other UN platforms and fora.

FILL IN SUBMISSION FORM HERE 

Complete nomination forms should be submitted to UN Women by 21st October 2022. 

1.1 Contextual Background

Africa is the only region where the youth bulge will continue to grow in the foreseeable future, presenting both an opportunity to reap the demographic dividend and an imminent time bomb and threat to social cohesion.[1] By 2030, the continent is projected to be home to over 600 million (reflecting 60% of the total population) young people and 1 billion by 2050, making Africa the world’s youngest continent.[2] In the East and Southern Africa region, the youth proportion is 52%.[3]

The recent regional consultations on strengthening youth leadership and supporting their active engagement in all aspects of life bordering the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the exclusively youth-steered 2018 Africa Youth Conference and 2019 Abidjan and Addis Ababa Generation Equality Fora, have opened an opportunity for UN Women East and Southern Africa country offices and Regional office to engage on broader issues of accelerating progress towards more comprehensive information, knowledge generation and sharing.

The roll-out, build-up and successful conclusion of the Generation Equality Forum has ignited a transformative approach to Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls across the board. Through its six ambitious Action Coalitions (Gender-Based Violence, Economic justice and rights, Bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), Feminist action for climate justice, Technology and innovation for Gender Equality, Feminist movements and leadership), GEF centers the leadership of youth. The GEF Mexico and Paris Fora initiated an enduring movement for action and accountability that provides a vital moment for young activists, feminists, and allies to achieve transformative change for future generations. The Mexico Forum resulted in a highly visible engagement by youth, with 43.8% of participants being 34 years old and younger.[4] These statistics point to the need for UN Women and other actors to take a more strategic approach to youth engagement on various gender dimensions, including but not limited to leadership and governance, ending all forms of violence, economic justice and peace-building processes. 

1.2 Steering Committee

The UN Women East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) covers work in Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The Multi-Country Office (M/CO) in South Africa oversees work in several countries in Southern Africa. The Regional Office also supports nine Non-Resident Agency Countries (NRAs). The ESA Strategic Note 2022-25 identifies partnerships with young women and men in pursuing gender equality as a critical element of the work in this region. The Regional Youth Engagement Strategy, thus aligned with the strategic note to elevate meaningful engagement with young people. Annually the RO (Regional Office) will work with young people-led organizations that focus on GEWE on issues such as ending violence against women and girls, supporting young people’s participation in humanitarian action, economic empowerment, peacebuilding and conflict resolution, governance and political participation at national and local government levels, and key intergovernmental processes to review GEWE commitments such as CSW (Commission on the Status of Women) and their economic empowerment. The work of RO will also strengthen the capacity of the UN system better to address the intersectional issues of youth and gender.

The RO seeks to establish a Youth Steering Committee to act as a strategic advisory group on integrating the meaningful engagement of young women and men in implementing the SN (Strategic Notes) 2022-25 as set out in ESARO’s Youth Engagement Strategy. The Youth Steering Committee would act as a sounding board for the RO team, guiding them on the design of programmes, so that they address the gender needs of young people in their diversity while supporting the amplification of youth voices and facilitating their participation in key processes to influence policy, advocacy and programming on GEWE in the region.

Members of the Group will be drawn from young people aged between 15 and 35 years from the East and Southern Africa region.

UN Women shall provide secretariat services for the Steering Committee by coordinating meetings, producing documentation and meeting minutes, managing correspondence, information management/ dissemination and related tasks. 

1.3 Role of the Steering Committee

The Committee has the primary role of advising the RO and Regional Youth Engagement specialist(s)/ Focal Points based in-country offices on strategies to meaningfully engage young people and outreach activities related to the focus areas of the Youth Engagement Strategy.[5] The duties and responsibilities of the Steering Committee shall include:

• Provide strategic input to RO programming, ensuring it integrates the interests of young people in various contexts;
• Advise the RO and weigh in on the design of youth-specific initiatives as set out in the SN 2022-25 and the Regional Youth Engagement Strategy, e.g., related to CSW, Generation Equality regional or country activities; planned research or knowledge products; background documents for key inter-governmental processes; 
• Contribute to the shaping of events by providing information on potential panelists, speakers and moderators for UN Women ESA or global youth-related events;
• Participate in UN Women events when requested to ensure that this meaningfully centers and reflects on young women and men’s gender equality agenda.
• Develop a joint communique- outcome documents resulting from various workshops and consultations.
• Provide other inputs into the background papers and processes as may be required by the RO. 

1.4 Membership 

The Membership of the Steering Committee will include:

1. Diverse young girls, boys, women, and men between the ages of 15-35 segmented into three clusters (15-24, 25-29,30-35)
2. Young women and men with a record of accomplishment of working on programmes and advocacy initiatives related to gender equality and young women and men’s engagement work in their countries and the East and Southern Africa region.
3. Young people from the East and Southern Africa region
4. Young people representing diverse backgrounds and experiences, including groups less represented in other UN platforms and fora.

1.5 Steering Committee Meetings

The Steering Committee will get an initial orientation on UN Women’s Strategic Note and work in the region. The Steering Committee will meet quarterly on the first Tuesday of the relevant month, primarily through virtual platforms upon agreement with the committee members. The meetings and interactions shall be held via MS Teams, Email exchanges and Zoom conferencing, and physical meetings will be organized where possible.

1.6 Recruitment Criteria 

An initial call for expression of interest will be issued to recruit nine youths with the greatest passion for youth development. After every two years, members who go beyond the 35-age limit will be replaced through the same process. 

Who is Eligible?

Age:15-35 years old with a good mix of those who fall within ages 15-24, 25-29 and 30-35. This is premised on the AUC definition of youth. 

15-24 years – three slots

25-29 years – three slots

30-35 years – three slots

One-third of the Steering Committee members, one from each age bracket, will be retained in every selection cycle for the institutional memory and replace the rest every two years 

 Leaving No One Behind: Three slots will be reserved for young women and men living with disability.

Experience and Practice:

• Must have good gender awareness and commit to the values of UN Women, including respect for all women and girls.
• Youth with a track record of engagement in youth development and empowerment focused on inclusive economic growth, employment, and entrepreneurship; engagement in governance/political participation, leadership and decision making; or preventing violence and other harmful practices against women and girls.
• Should have some understanding of or interest in development issues, including awareness of and participation in development issues affecting young people. Knowledge of SDGs is appreciated but not a mandatory nomination criterion.
• Interested in policy and programming interventions, governance, gender equality and women’s empowerment should be prioritized. 
• Must be persons of integrity and have a good standing in their communities.
• Young people passionate about making Africa better by working with others to ensure that various gender inequalities are eliminated and the rights of women and girls to live full lives are fulfilled.

Availability: The position is on a voluntary basis, and selected members should be available to dedicate at least 2 hours every quarter for the consultations and meetings described in 1.6 above.

Inclusivity: The selection should consider gender balance and representation based on geography, age and disability. UN Women will take measures to ensure that group members can participate meaningfully and actively in this role.

[1] International Labour Organization (2020). Global Employment Trends for Youths 2020: Africa. Available at https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/briefingnote/wcms_737670.pdf

[2] https://www.citiesalliance.org/newsroom/news/cities-alliance-news/%C2%A0burgeoning-africa-youth-population-potential-or-challenge%C2%A0

[3] World Bank. 2016. Chart: The World's Youngest Populations Are in Africa. Available at https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/chart-worlds-youngest-populations-are-africa

[4] Generation Equality Forum Mexico Report, 2021.

[5] Step 1: Broaden representation and inclusion of young women in decision making structures and processes within M/COs and regional office, national and regional bodies

Step 2: Intentionally build the capacity of youth particularly to meaningfully engage in acceleration of gender equality agenda

Step 3: Strengthen spaces/platforms/networks and opportunities for youth to amplify their voice and receive feedback on gender equality

Step 4: Generate and disseminate gender-youth analyzed data, statistics and knowledge products

Step 5: Strengthen RO, M/COs and regional bodies partnership and coordination framework to catalyze coherent and structured youth engagement in all UN Women ESARO led programme, policies and campaigns

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) Ethiopia Office in collaboration with the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) invites you to submit an abstract for presentation at a Conference to be held on 8th and 9th of December 2022 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia under the title ‘’Women’s equal and effective participation in political and public life: An imperative for inclusive democracy and sustainable development ‘’.

The conference aims to create a platform for concerned stakeholders including the gender machinery, democratic and political institutions, associations of women and youth, civil societies, individual gender activists and partners from intergovernmental organizations to discuss the status and participation of women in leadership and politics. In particular, the conference will focus on exploring pertinent issues affecting women’s participation in political and public life both at national and local government level such as institutional/organizational and political culture, normative frameworks, accountability systems in peace and security. With the spirit of leaving no one behind, issues of intersectionality and inclusion are expected to be further explored to see the extent to which groups such as young women and women with disability face additional barriers to access positions of power.

The conference is expected to result in identification of emerging challenges and best ways to tackle the same; best practices and innovative solutions to overcome the critical barriers that are faced by women, particularly those facing intersecting forms of discrimination; analyze the impact of COVID-19 and conflict on the participation of women in leadership as well as help decision makers envision how the participation of women in crisis management and decision making could result in better, inclusive and sustainable outcomes.

Researchers, academicians, policy makers and other practitioners on leadership and governance, gender equality and women’s empowerment are welcome to submit original research papers, discussion papers or case studies to the conference.

Abstracts are expected to be focusing on the following themes:

• Political culture and women’s participation in political processes in Ethiopia  
• Organizational/institutional culture and its impact on women’s participation in leadership and decision making
• Power with: Networking for women’s increased participation in leadership and decision making
• Organizational culture and women's participation in leadership and decision making
• Impact of conflict on women's participation in leadership and decision making
• Normative frameworks and accountability mechanisms on the promotion of women's leadership and decision making
• Women's leadership and decision making in local governance
• Women with disabilities in political and public leadership

Submitting an Abstract

1. All abstracts must be submitted by the 9th of November 2022. Submissions made after the deadline will not be considered. Presenters shall give due attention to the key dates and deadlines for preparation and submission of papers as strict adherence is expected.
2. The abstract shall present your paper presentation in a short summary and shall not exceed 350 words in length. It must be submitted in English and should not include figures, charts, literature reviews and bibliographies. The abstract must at least have the following headings:
   1. Introduction
   2. Objective
   3. Methodology
   4. Findings and Conclusion
3. Abstracts must be submitted by the presenter who must be able to attend the conference.
4. Submissions that do not adhere to the requested format may be returned to the authors for re-submission.
5. Only individual submissions will be accepted. Individuals may submit only up to two abstracts across all thematic issues.
6. The abstracts will be reviewed as they are submitted and once an abstract is submitted revision to the text either grammatically or content wise is not allowed.
7. Abstracts submitted to or presented at other national or international conferences may be submitted. However, the presenter shall clearly indicate with its submission the details of its previous presentation status.
8. Abstracts must be submitted via email to: ethiopia.public@unwomen.org cc.  [ Click to reveal ] 
9. Upon receiving the abstracts, you will receive a confirmation email.
10. The decision of the selection committee in relation to the paper selection process is final.

Key dates and deadlines

• Call for Abstracts opens: 12th of October 2022  
• Call for Abstracts closes: 9th of November 2022
• Notification to authors: 18th of November 2022
• Submission of final Presentation Paper: 28th of November 2022
• Travel arrangements:  6-7 of December 2022
• Presentation of the papers 8-9 December 2022

Terms and Conditions

Submission of abstracts implies the author’s agreement to publish the abstract in all Conference publications including UN Women and EHRC website and other knowledge products UN Women and EHRC wish to disseminate.  

Abstracts submitted only from Ethiopia will be accepted. Acceptance of abstracts does not imply any payment from the organizers. However, for the selected paper presenters, the costs of travel, accommodation and stay in Addis Ababa for the given dates of the Conference will be covered. In addition, the selected papers for the presentation will receive an award of 40,000 ETB cash prize. The award will be given once the presenter makes the presentation during the conference and submit a final edited version of the paper after incorporating comments, if any, as a lump sum amount.

The CFP is to secure partnership with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) with a track record in human and women’s rights and gender equality, community and grassroots sensitization especially through various community engagements approaches to promoting rural women and girls’ agency and voices at the local levels to accelerate rural women’s economic empowerment at Kusini and Kati districts in Kusini Unguja Region in Zanzibar.

UN Women Nigeria CO seeks the service of an I/NGO as a responsible partner for the implementation of the WPS Programme in Kaduna and Plateau states. The programme seeks to realise a more peaceful and gender-equal society by creating an enabling environment for the implementation of WPS commitments through strengthening policy frameworks, capacity, coordination and oversight function of state entities for a meaningful participation of women in governance, and peace and security.

Composed of representatives from donors, United Nations entities, and civil society organizations, the WPHF is a global pooled funding mechanism which aims to re-energize action and stimulate a significant increase in financing for women’s participation, leadership, and empowerment in peace and security processes and humanitarian response. The WPHF is a flexible and rapid financing mechanism. It supports quality interventions designed to enhance the capacity of local women to prevent conflict, respond to crises and emergencies, and seize key peacebuilding opportunities.

The WPHF breaks silos between humanitarian, peace, security, and development finance by investing in enhancing women’s engagement, leadership, and empowerment across all phases of crisis, peace and security, and development. It addresses structural funding gaps for women’s participation in key phases of crisis, peace and security, and development by improving the timeliness, predictability and flexibility of international assistance. Notably, it will ensure a timely investment in conflict prevention after receipt of early warning signals from women and will accelerate the dispersal of development assistance after successful peace negotiations. It recognizes that peace cannot be created nor sustained without investment in civil society organizations. Therefore, the WPHF invests in strengthening civil society organizations, particularly in grassroots women’s organizations, with the required financial and technical support.

The overall goal of the WPHF’s theory of change is to contribute to peaceful and gender equal societies. Achievement of this goal will require that women are empowered to participate in, contribute to, and benefit from conflict prevention, crisis response, peacebuilding, and recovery. Since its launch in 2016, WPHF has been supporting over 200 civil society organizations and is present in 20 countries or group of countries.

The WPHF is governed by a Funding Board at the global level, which is comprised of four UN entities (currently UN Women, UNHCR, UNFPA and PBSO), four donor Member States (currently Norway, Germany, Sweden and Australia), as well as 4 Civil Society Organizations (currently Feminist Humanitarian Network, Kvinna till Kvinna, Action Aid and Women’s Refugee Commission).

UN Women acts as the WPHF’s Technical Secretariat at the global level. UN Women also acts as Management Entity for civil society organizations where UN Women has a country presence.

The proposal submitted must be aligned to the impact statements of the respective WPHF funding stream that the organization chooses to apply to:

Programmatic Funding Stream (select one of the below focus)

• WPHF Impact area 1: Enhanced role of civil society organizations in advocating for and ensuring accountability on WPS commitments

OR

• WPHF Impact area 4: Increased representation and leadership of women in formal and informal peace processes and/or implementation of peace agreements

AND/OR apply for institutional funding (Stream 1)

Institutional Funding Stream (WPHF impact area 1) to reinforce the institutional capacity of civil society organizations working on the implementation of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda in Sudan.

Please read through the WPHF Tip Sheets for guidance on the result framework for Impact area 1 and 4 and institutional funding. More information is also available here: https://wphfund.org/call-for-proposals-in-sudan/ 

Call Opens: 21 March 2022

Deadline for Submissions: 15 May 2022 (8 weeks)

UN Women in partnership with AUC and in close collaboration with ITU, ECA, UNESCO and UNICEF will be launching the 2nd phase of the initiative in March 2022 in Tanzania. The launch will be preceded by a 3-day Training of Trainers (ToT) which aims to create a pool of trainers who will provide training in a two-week-long national coding camp to young girl coders on an array of coding courses in the selected priority countries in 2022 and 2023. The TOT will also ensure that training modules and teaching systems are standardized.

Thus, UN Women invites interested 2 ICT experts to design a training curriculum and train selected 66 trainers from 11 countries The training will enable trainees to acquire skills and knowledge in coding and ICT and be able to support national coding camps in their countries.

At the end of 2021, there were 4.3 million persons internally displaced in Ethiopia. Women and girls have been directly and profoundly impacted by the conflict in Northern Ethiopia and constitute the majority of IDPs and survivors of SGBV. Mounting insecurity has limited humanitarian access and the ability to deliver life-saving assistance to the affected regions. The conflict further exacerbated the existing vulnerabilities of women and girls affected by crises and contributed to additional risks of violence, exploitation, and abuse.

Consecutive years of drought in Ethiopia’s southern regions have worsened food security, disrupted the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmers and herders, and increased the threat facing women and girls. Likewise, women’s unequal economic participation coupled with the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 is severely holding back recovery.

The Women, Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) is issuing a Call for Proposals aiming at responding to the needs of local women’s organizations in fragile and humanitarian settings, with two (2) funding streams:

Funding stream 1: Institutional funding: from 2,500 USD to 30,000 USD

This funding stream will provide institutional funding to local civil society organizations working on gender specific issues in peace and security and humanitarian contexts, to ensure they are able to sustain themselves and to improve their impact.

Funding stream 2: Programmatic funding: from 30,000 USD to 200,000 USD

This funding stream will finance projects responding directly to the humanitarian crisis and the protection of women and girls.

Deadline: 26 April 2022

UN Women in partnership with AUC and in close collaboration with ITU, ECA, UNESCO and UNICEF will be launching the 2nd phase of the initiative in March 2022 in Tanzania. The launch will be preceded by a 3-day Training of Trainers (ToT) which aims to create a pool of trainers who will provide training in a two-week-long national coding camp to young girl coders on an array of coding courses in the selected priority countries in 2022 and 2023. The TOT will also ensure that training modules and teaching systems are standardized. 

Thus, UN Women proposes to select 60 trainees from 10 countries namely Mali, Niger, Mozambique, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Africa, Senegal and DRC (6 trainees per one country) in a competitive process to attend the TOT. The training will enable trainees to acquire skills and knowledge in coding and ICT and be able to support national coding camps in their countries. 

Find application details in the documents below.