The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is a specialized agency dedicated to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights globally. It focuses on ensuring access to essential reproductive health services, promoting maternal health, advocating for voluntary family planning, and addressing gender inequality and discrimination. UNFPA works tirelessly to empower women and young people, providing them with the knowledge, resources, and services they need to make informed decisions about their bodies and futures. Through its efforts, UNFPA plays a vital role in promoting sustainable development and improving the lives of millions of individuals around the world.
The African Union (AU) serves as the continent's premier institution for promoting unity, peace, and socio-economic development among its 55 member states. It spearheads initiatives to prevent and resolve conflicts, promote political integration, foster socio-economic development, and uphold human rights and good governance. The AU is committed to advancing the status of women and promoting gender equality across Africa, as outlined in its various legal instruments and policy frameworks. Through its diverse programs and activities, the AU works to create a more prosperous, peaceful, and equitable future for all Africans.
The African Women's Leadership Network (AWLN) is a pan-African network that brings together women leaders from various sectors to champion gender equality, women's empowerment, and sustainable development on the continent. AWLN engages in advocacy, capacity-building, social mobilization, and networking activities to amplify the voices of African women, promote their leadership, and address key challenges facing women and girls. The network focuses on five thematic pillars, including political participation and leadership, peace and security, economic empowerment, social mobilization, and mentorship. Through its efforts, AWLN strives to create a conducive environment for women's leadership and participation in decision-making processes at all levels. The network has launched six thematic pillars, including social mobilization, which seeks to foster a stronger socio-economic development, support the fight against violence against women and girls, address humanitarian challenges and advocate for a just and equitable world, and build a chain of solidarity in support of those affected by disaster and catastrophes.
Collaborating for the project to implement AWLN's social mobilization pillar would yield several significant outcomes. The Social mobilization pillar of AWLN is the thematic area of AWLN focusing on advocating for the well-being of the population, especially women and children, ensuring social justice, social protection and the empowerment of the most vulnerable. This pillar endeavors to engage and include all relevant fabric of the society to create an enabling ecosystem to drive positive social transformation.
Firstly, it would establish a formal partnership between UNFPA, AU, and AWLN, leveraging their respective expertise, networks, and resources to maximize impact. Secondly, the project would raise awareness and mobilize support for key issues affecting women, including gender-based violence, reproductive health, economic empowerment, reaching communities across Africa through targeted advocacy, capacity-building, and community engagement activities. Thirdly, it would empower women leaders and grassroots organizations to advocate for gender-responsive policies and programs, enhancing their capacity to drive positive change in their communities and societies. Lastly, the project would contribute to a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable future for Africa by promoting gender equality, women's empowerment, and social justice across the continent. Through collaboration, UNFPA, AU, and AWLN can create synergies and achieve transformative outcomes that benefit women and girls and advance the overall development agenda in Africa. The African Women Leaders Network (AWLN) is a pan-African initiative launched by the African Union and the United Nations aimed at enhancing the leadership of women in Africa. As part of its strategic framework, AWLN has identified social mobilization as a crucial pillar to achieve its objectives. To further this goal, AWLN seeks to collaborate with the African Union and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to implement projects targeting social mobilization efforts.
Social mobilization entails:
Women’s access to income opportunities, social protection systems, education, vocational training and capacity building on the fulfilment of human rights for all, in particular for those who are trapped in poverty and those who are marginalized or in vulnerable situations and subject to discrimination. Engaging with the most marginalized and excluded women and girls, and building their leadership skills, respond to women’s lived realities, and provide excluded and marginalized women with the means that enable them to participate in decision making and become leaders. Advocating for the immediate needs of excluded and marginalized women, including their access to education, stable incomes, social protection, and equal and effective participation in all spheres. Promoting positive masculinity and scale up efforts to engage men, including men in leadership positions, to promote positive masculinities and rally support for the social protection work of the AWLN and its partners.The objective of this consultancy is to draft a comprehensive project proposal for the implementation of the AWLN social mobilization pillar in collaboration with the African Union and UNFPA.
The consultancy is expected to be completed within two (2) months starting from 3 June 2024.