Call For Expression of Interest

Call For Expression of Interest To Develop A Training Manual On The Roles Of Women In Conflict Resolution And Peace Building

The International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) Nigeria is a non-profit, non-governmental organization made up of over 4,000 female lawyers with several years’ experience in utilizing the law to address social problems in Nigeria. The organization’s mandate is the enhancement, promotion, protection and preservation of the rights and welfare of women and children in Nigeria FIDA Nigeria implements key projects and activities aimed at providing access to justice to indigent persons, particularly women and children.

RATIONALE
Violence and conflict are deeply gendered as people’s ideas and attitudes towards violent conflict and how they experience it depends on gender relations, roles and norms. In many societies, the ability to use violence is attributed to men, and often linked to ideas about manliness and masculinities. The use of violence is also linked to unequal power relations.

These unequal power relations has created relations of dominance of men over women and men over other men, which are upheld and justified through social, moral, cultural, religious, political and economic norms. Conflict has the potential to reinforce the ”unequal dualism” between women and men by amplifying masculine notions of strength, determination and fearlessness versus depicting women as passive mothers or as supporting and caring wives in need of protection.

In indigenous Nigeria Communities, women are rarely included in decision-making circles let alone in dialogue around peace and security strategies. This is as a result of cultural characterization of the gender roles that women in such communities have been saddled with. Due to scores of men killed during conflict, women are forced to assume head of household in most homes, but continue to face structural and cultural barriers to economic opportunity. Despite the persistent exclusion of women from social and political power to alter these conditions, women nonetheless do regularly function as parties to conflicts as negotiators, informants, mentors and as members of non-armed groups.

As noted in the Platform for Action of the Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women, “while entire communities suffer the consequences of armed conflict and terrorism, women and girls are particularly affected because of their status in society as well as their sex”. This has caught women in a vicious paradox because while, on the one hand, they are the main civilian victims of conflicts, they are, on the other hand, often powerless to prevent them, excluded from the negotiating tables when it comes to their resolution and marginalized in the post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation efforts. The general exclusion of women from decision-making positions prior to, during and following violent conflict, reinforces their victimization.

Civil Society Organizations have begun to consider that women can play a particularly important role in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and have appreciated the positive contribution women can make in post-conflict reconstruction and peace consolidation. Hence, empowering women in conflict situations would help prevent gender-based violence such as the abominable crimes of rape, forced pregnancy, sexual slavery and among others.

It is against this background that FIDA Nigeria through her Canada Fund for Local Initiative seeks to urge focal communities to ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels, institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts because we recognize that women’s equal participation in the peace process is an essential condition for establishing lasting peace as they bring alternative perspectives to conflict prevention at the grass-roots and community levels.

To achieve the aforementioned, FIDA Nigeria seeks to train Communities and Grassroots women on Conflict Resolution and Peace Building to enhance their peace advocacy skills, conflict mitigation, response and resolution.

Purpose of Consultancy
FIDA Nigeria is seeking to engage a consultant to develop a training manual on the Roles of Women in Conflict Resolution and Peace Building which will be used for the purposes of promoting the inclusion/participation of Women in Peace Building and Conflict mitigation across focal communities in Plateau State, Nigeria.
This manual will be used to build the capacities of community women leaders through highlighting the importance of verifying escalated security alerts and crisis response mechanisms in target communities.

Duties and Responsibilities

The successful candidate will be tasked to develop a comprehensive manual on the roles of women which shall cover but not limited to the following components/modules: Introduction to Gender and Peacebuilding, roles of women in peacebuilding, Gender Analysis of Conflict and Violence, Skills for Women in Conflict Mitigation and Peacebuilding amongst others as directed by the FIDA project team.

Review and Validation of the Training Manual
In collaboration with the Project Team, the Programme Manager shall review and validate all contents of the training manual. A proposed training manual outline and method for teaching each topic/chapter shall be submitted to fidanigeria@yahoo.com.

The training materials developed must be delivered to the National Programme Manager on a date not later than the deadline for submission via email at fidanigeria@yahoo.com.

Requirements
The applicant should be a national or international educational, research, think-tank, or any relevant organization with the expertise and reputation for developing training manuals in peacebuilding and conflict resolution.

Duration
The assignment is for a period of five weeks from the date of signing the contract.

Fees
The fees for this assignment is subject to negotiation with the selected individual.

How to apply
Qualified candidates should send curriculum vitae and cover letter detailing relevant experiences to the address to the Country Vice-President/National President to hr@fida.org.ng or fidanigeria@yahoo.com
The subject of e-mail should be “Application for Consultancy to develop a training Manual”

Deadline: Applications should be submitted on or before 30th August 2022.