RFP - Advancing feminist youth leadership on intergovernmental processes

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About the Organization

UN Women is the UN organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.

UN Women is the global champion for gender equality, working to develop and uphold standards and create an environment in which every woman and girl can exercise her human rights and live up to her full potential. We are trusted partners for advocates and decision-makers from all walks of life, and a leader in the effort to achieve gender equality.

About the Proposal

UN Women has been consistently amplifying voices from the ground through its advocacy and communications campaigns that underscore feminist priorities of women and girls in the country. UN Women’s ‘Generation Equality Forum’ (GEF)  Programme  focuses on building on the centrality of women’s, youth and grassroots organizations and solidarity networks. The programme invests in the leadership and aspirations of grassroots women’s and youth organizations, especially those from marginalized communities who face structural barriers and discrimination.  UN Women is the National Convener for The Generation Equality Forum (GEF) is working globally to support youth-led organizations and networks, young women’s and girls’ human rights groups, and young gender equality advocates.  It is promoting safe and enabling environment at the local, national, sub national and global level.  The GEF advocacy efforts promises to tackle the unfinished business of empowering women through a new, ground-breaking, multigenerational campaign: “Generation Equality: Realizing women’s rights for an equal future”.

UN Women’s global Generation Equality Framework has identified Feminist Movement and leadership Building as one of the overarching priorities. The key components of Generation Equality Campaign are:

• Increasing youth and women’s leadership and participation in intergovernmental processes and global agenda-setting dialogues and
• Building ownership and action within government for strong policy commitments towards ending violence against women and girls in all diversities.

The first phase of Generation Equality Forum in India invested in the Feminist Movement and Leadership Action Coalitions to catalyse collective action and spark global and local conversations across generations. Youth engagement had been institutionalized in the GEF process by establishing a Task Force which comprises 40 Youth members, 300 National Gender Youth Activists and a constituency of over 500 youth-led organizations. In addition, youth leadership has been further strengthened by including youth representatives in the GEF governance structure as members of the Core Group, Action Coalitions Working Group, Civil Society Advisory Group and Multi-Stakeholder Steering Committee.

The Programme in its first phase, strengthened an ecosystem of 100 youth leaders’ partners, built cross linkages and advanced discourse towards feminist youth leadership building.

Building on the successful implementation of the previous phase the UN Women’s India Country Office (ICO) is inviting non-governmental organisations to submit proposals for a grant towards Young Feminist Leadership Building for its next phase. In the next phase spread over two years that is 2023-24, UN Women will continue to strengthen feminist leadership and movement building, with a focus on youth and policy advocacy with the objectives of:

• building capacities of young feminists to play leadership roles in advancing gender equality, and
• scaling diverse feminist initiatives aimed at leadership building.

The proposed programme will effectively mobilise civil society, including youth-led networks, women ‘s organisations and other marginalised groups and stakeholders, to ensure their full participation and involvement in national-level dialogues to advocate for accountability and urgent action on access to rights and entitlements as equal citizens.  At one level, this will entail feminist analysis of the legislations, policies, systems and programmes for women’s leadership and participation, and strengthening feminist jurisprudence. At another level, this will involve feminist model building and mobilization, through partnership and collaboration between youth led feminist organizations and those working on issues of inclusive governance.

UN Women through the GEF will provide technical and programmatic support to the selected organisation(s) in developing, designing, and rolling out feminist leadership interventions with the objective of Leaving No One Behind (LNOB).

Scope of Work

The Feminist Leadership building programme will convene and support multi-partner advocacy strategies, platforms and dialogues between governments, youth led organisations, civil society and other stakeholders. The programme will promote youth voices and reach to build broad-based support for the gender equality agenda. The proposed partnership will create spaces for connections and learning across communities, organizations, and sectors. This will be achieved by creating off and online Communities of Practice with wider participation of government, civil society organizations and other stakeholder to engage them addressing the challenges and providing solutions for accelerating gender equality in India.

UN Women is inviting proposals from CSOs to implement the next phase of the GEF programme that would lead to following outcomes:

• Increased representation of youth voices in national and local development programming and policy reforms aimed at enhancing adolescent girls and young women’s leadership and political participation.
• Amplified voices of youth advocates to end violence against women and girls.
• Active engagement of boys and young men for gender equality
• Increased collaboration and intergenerational partnerships between youth and women’s empowerment initiatives for gender equality.

Eligibility

• Be duly registered legally as an organization under appropriate laws.
• Have an established organisational culture of accountability and commitment to delivery of results.
• Internal programmatic, administrative, and financial capacity for budgets of more than $50,000 annually supported with a track record of quality and timely project results.
• Have a permanent office within India and been in operation for at least 5 years.

Technical/functional competencies required

• Substantive knowledge and demonstrated experience of implementing  largescale/national/regional programmes focusing on youth and women’s leadership, capacity building, political participation and mentorship.
• Demonstrated experience of incubating and mentoring young feminist leadership (publications/ white papers/ policy notes etc. on feminist leadership grassroots programme should be submitted as annexures for the technical capacity review).
• Existing staff with technical expertise on gender equality issues, specifically on women’s human rights, women’s political participation and leadership.
• Have a primary focus on advancing women’s equality and human rights, with these goals clearly reflected in its organisational mandate and programmatic interventions; must be committed to feminist principles and rights-based approaches.
• Existing engagement/ access to women and youth focused organisations, networks and groups.

Qualifications of Team Leader

• Advanced university degree in Social Work, Gender Studies, Women Studies, International Development, or a related relevant field
• At least 8 years of experience in youth related projects with demonstrated experience on project cycle management, financial and administrative management will be considered an advantage;
• Experience of managing projects funded by UN agencies or other international organizations will be an added advantage but not mandatory.

Qualifications of Team members

• Advanced university degree in Social Policy, Development Policy, Gender Studies, Social Work or a related relevant field is required.
• At least 7 years of experience on field level programmes and working with youth networks, youth led spaces on leadership, ending violence against women and women’s economic empowerment.

The following criteria will be used for evaluating the proposals received from CSOs:

• CSOs having a national presence and outreach in India.
• CSOs and networks engaged at national or regional level in building and strengthening feminist leadership youth programmes.
• Demonstrated experience of at least 5 years incubating and mentoring youth leadership programmes and intersectional approach to gender equality
• The proposer should cover at least three proposed geographical locations with youth representation from at least 8 states across India (South, West, North-East, North, Central India).
• Relevant publications/white papers/ policy notes etc. that best demonstrate/describe the organisation’s capacity in integrating/advancing feminist leadership grassroots programme should be submitted as annexures for a technical capacity review.
• Technical qualifications and required experience of the proposed Team Leader and team members.

Deadline

5th June 2023

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