UN WOMEN: National Consultant-Knowledge Management, and Advocacy Officer

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.  Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, the UN Women leads and coordinate United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.  

UN Women in Bangladesh supports the government to implement commitments to international normative standards on gender equality and women’s human rights. In line with the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for 2022-2026, the corresponding UN Women Bangladesh Strategic Note (2022-2026) defines UN Women’s strategic engagement in Bangladesh, which was launched in 2021. The country strategy focuses on strengthening the national structures and mechanisms for gender mainstreaming in policies, plans and budgets; supporting efforts to prevent and eliminate violence against women; promoting women’s access to decent and safe work; promoting policies and government investment in women’s empowerment and resilience building in the context of climate change, humanitarian crisis as well as other threats to peace and security. UN Women works with a range of stakeholders in Bangladesh including the government, civil society and women’s organizations, youth, UN agencies and donors, to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.  

Bangladesh faces a significant challenge of violence against women (VAW). According to the national survey on Violence against Women (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 2024), almost two-thirds (70 per cent) of ever-married women experienced one or such forms of violence by their husband at least once in their lifetime and 54 per cent of women have experienced physical and/ sexual violence in their lifetime[1].  While intimate partner violence is the most prevalent form of VAW, rape and sexual violence in public spaces, specifically on public transport, in educational institutions and at the workplace as well as online/virtual spaces is increasing. Studies conducted by Action Aid Bangladesh revealed that 80 per cent of garment workers in Bangladesh have either seen or directly experienced sexual violence or harassment in the workplace[2] and 84 per cent women and girls from seven cities in Bangladesh face ‘derogatory comments and sexually coloured abusive language’.[3]  Violence and harassment therefore continue to hinder progress on gender equality, limiting women’s access to education, employment and other opportunities. 

In terms of the legal framework, the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has enacted legislations such as the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act (2000) that defines violence against women and children. It lays out prevention and protection measure and includes physical (including rape) and emotional violence against women and children. The Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act of 2010 addresses violence occurring at home; and the Mobile Court Act of 2009 authorises executive magistrates to restraint verbal and sexual harassment of women in public space. Bangladesh also amended certain discriminatory clauses of other key laws to respond the needs of addressing discrimination in accessing to justice for the rape survivors such as Evidence Act (Amendment) 2022. For preventing sexual harassment, following a public interest litigation in 2009, the High Court issued a landmark directive to prevent sexual harassment in institutions (workplace and educational institutions). The Directive requires institutions to take necessary measures to eliminate sexual harassment within their jurisdiction by defining sexual harassment. In 2024, there has been a renewed focus on the enactment of the Sexual Harassment (Prevention and Protection) Bill, with the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs (MoWCA) forming a technical committee to accelerate the law enactment process. However, implementation gaps contribute to a culture of impunity, with a low conviction rate. Limited accessibility to the justice system, discriminatory attitudes, and underreporting due to prevalent social norms further compound the problem. However, access to quality essential services to gender-based violence (GBV) survivors and effective coordination among state and non-state service providers have exacerbated the challenges of preventing and responding to violence against women. 

UN Women in partnership with the European Union is implementing a project entitled “Ending sexual and gender-based violence in public spaces, in the context of work and tertiary educational settings in Bangladesh” (referred as ESGBV project). The project aims to strengthen the institutional mechanisms at workplaces, tertiary educational institutions and public spaces to prevent and respond to violence against women (VAW).  The project will address harmful gender and social norms by leveraging evidence-based prevention approaches to transform institutional cultures and behaviour.

The project has three key objectives: (1) To strengthen enabling environment through policies, systems and improved institutional knowledge, resources, and practices to prevent sexual and gender-based violence in public spaces, including for workplace and tertiary educational institutions; (2) To transform harmful social and gender norms and practices; (3) To strengthen agency and leadership of civil society and women rights organisations. 

Through this project, partnerships will be developed with multi-stakeholders including  the national women’s machinery,  relevant ministries  and departments  for policy development, advocacy, and knowledge and evidence generation  and establishing monitoring and learning mechanisms to enhance the implementation of laws and policy framework, and social norm change for preventing and responding to sexual and gender-based violence at workplaces, tertiary educational institutions and public spaces.

The project will be implemented at the national level (Dhaka) and 20 Unions, 10 Upazilas under 5 selected districts of Bangladesh - Bogura, Jamalpur, Khulna, Kurigram and Patuakhali. The districts are selected based on the high prevalence of VAW including child marriage, climate vulnerabilities, and UN Women’s cross thematic interventions. 

Against this background, UN Women is seeking the services of a highly qualified National Consultant to support the programme team on knowledge management, strategic advocacy, engagement with stakeholders, and evidence generation through learning initiatives to achieve the objectives of ESGBV project. 

Objective: 

The overall objective of the consultancy is to support the EVAW programme team to establish a knowledge management mechanism, strategic advocacy with multi stakeholders, evidence generation through learning sharing initiatives that are to be directly implemented by UN Women, as per the agreed project document and work plan. 

Scope of work, deliverables, timeline and payment schedule: 

Under the direct supervision of the Programme Coordinator, Ending Violene Against Women, and working in close collaboration with EVAW team and Communication Analyst, Planning, Monitoring, and Reporting Analyst, and Coordination and Partnership Analyst; the national consultant will be responsible for the following tasks: