National Consultant on Women’s Political Participation Community Support , Kyiv, Ukraine,SSA

Background:

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.

In Ukraine, UN Women supports the Government and civil society in advancing gender equality and implementing national and international commitments, including the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda. Its work focuses on four priority areas: (1) Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action; (2) Ending Violence against Women and Girls; (3) Women’s Economic Empowerment; and (4) Governance and Participation in Public Life. UN Women also contributes to the integration of gender equality across the United Nations system in Ukraine.

UN Women’s Strategic Note (2025–2029) is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework for Ukraine and supports national priorities across humanitarian response, early recovery, and long-term reconstruction, with a focus on the humanitarian–development–peace nexus.

One of the key thematic impact areas of the UN Women Strategic Plan 2026-2029 is women’s leadership and decision-making. The efforts shall bring the following expected results in this area: 

• Greater parity in decision-making, particularly at local levels, enabled through legal reforms, special measures and institutional safeguards that prevent and respond to violence against women in public life.
• Strengthened institutional capacity, across legislatures, public institutions, statistical offices and national women’s machinery, to track and deliver commitments to women’s leadership.
• Increased capacity and influence of diverse women’s rights organizations and networks, particularly those led by young women and those facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, to hold duty bearers accountable and drive change through transformative leadership and social norms change.
• Enhanced power and visibility of women leaders and their networks, including in public and private domains where women are underrepresented.

More than four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, the war continues to impact women and girls, as well as other vulnerable and marginalised groups, disproportionally. Women in Ukraine experience higher rates of poverty and displacement than men, worsening inequalities, and multiple types of gender-based violence, including conflict related sexual violence. Among the 12.7 million in need of humanitarian assistance, women and girls constitute the vast majority. Despite women’s engagement at the forefront of the humanitarian, defence and early recovery efforts, barriers to their representation in formal decision-making and to equality in the workplace persist.

The recovery and reconstruction of post-war Ukraine offer an opportunity to address many of the country’s longstanding inequalities between men and women. Despite the consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion since 2022, the Government of Ukraine has demonstrated that women’s rights and gender equality remain a priority, through the adoption of gender responsive policies and legislation in 2022-2025. It is crucial that these policies and legislative commitments are translated into action to deliver a gender equal and inclusive society. Implementation of Ukraine’s recovery agenda should match this political goodwill and ensure a gender transformative approach which not only applies to the rebuilding of physical infrastructure but expands to all socio-economic spheres including social protection, labour force participation, care economy, education representation, peace building,security and defense, as well access to quality services such as legal aid, psychological, sexual and reproductive health, political decision making, etc.

UN Women recognizes that Ukraine's recovery process needs meaningful engagement and participation of women leaders and activists to represent different voices and needs of different groups of women and girls. The women activists and leaders are leading the change in achieving transformative GEWE results at all levels: national, regional and local. Ukraine has made some progress in creating preconditions for achieving gender equality in political sphere by adopting relevant legislative framework and establishing 40% quotas. However, women remain seriously under-represented in the country’s political institutions of all levels. Overall, Ukraine continues to lag the global average in the number of women participating in political life, especially at the national level. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union and UN Women, in 2025 Ukraine ranked 119th out of more than 180 countries, with women holding 21% of seats in Parliament. Compared with the EU Gender Equality Index, Ukraine still demonstrates a gender imbalance in leadership positions across government levels: women make up 4 of 17 members of the Cabinet of Ministers and 21% of MPs, both below the EU average of 33%. However, women’s representation in local councils is comparatively stronger at 37%, exceeding the EU average. 

In line with the 2025-2029 UN Women Strategy in Ukraine, UN Women Ukraine, in cooperation with the Central Election Commission and the Equal Opportunities Caucus of the Ukrainian Parliament, has been implementing a new programme to support women’s political participation. Established in 2024, the initiative “She Leads Ukraine” draws on UN Women’s extensive global expertise in this area and mapping the needs related to women’s political participation in Ukraine. In 2024 UN Women Ukraine launched a political participation capacity development programme for women leaders in Ukraine, based on UN Women’s global curriculum, covered a wide range of topics, including transformative leadership, communications, voter outreach, fundraising and financial planning, as well as campaign management. As a result, UN Women trained 35 trainers have delivered leadership and candidacy cascade trainings that strengthened the capacities of more than 650 women leaders from diverse backgrounds and from all regions of Ukraine since 2025. 

The key follow-up of the capacity development activities of the “She Leads Ukraine” Initiative, UN Women is establishing a Community of Trained Women Leaders by conducting additional learning sessions and networking events. UN Women started with organizing the National Forum “She Leads Ukraine” and by conducting regional forums: one for the southern oblasts of Ukraine in Odesa (Odeska, Mykolaivska, Khersonska) and for the northern oblasts (Chernigivska, Sumska, Kyivska) in Kyiv. The forums bring together local and community women leaders, civil society representatives, politicians, and international partners to discuss the future of women’s political participation and share lessons learned from ongoing efforts to ensure equal representation in decision-making.

As part of its work, UN Women is looking for a National Consultant on Women’s Political Participation Community Support to provide expert and advisory support for development of the Community of Trained Women Leaders to ensure women’s participation and representation in all spheres of public life. 

Description of Responsibilities /Scope of Work

Under the overall guidance of the UN Women Programme Specialist and direct supervision by the Programme Analyst, the National Consultant will provide expert and advisory support for development of the trained community of women leaders to ensure women’s participation and representation in all spheres of public life.  

The assignment will include but not be limited to the following tasks:

1. Platform of women leaders trained under the She Leads Ukraine initiative is maintained based on the strategic priorities and conceptual approach 

• advising on conceptual and strategic ways to support the community platform for networking, upskilling and experience exchange; 
• administering the platform and onboarding new participants; 
• identifying additional learning and support needs among women leaders and participants through collecting and translating requests from chats and interactions into learning formats and topics;
• contribution to increasing the visibility of women leaders and women’s political participation initiatives and support with promotion of the community in social media;
• support dissemination of information about community activities, opportunities, and success stories through communication channels and partner networks; 
• collecting and documenting stories, lessons learned, and good practices related to women’s leadership and political participation; 
• strengthening partnerships between women leaders, civil society organizations, local authorities, and relevant stakeholders.

2. Support to women’s political participation activities for women leaders trained under the She Leads Ukraine initiative is provided 

• providing expert support in the implementation of activities related to women’s political participation and leadership; 
• support the organization and facilitation of different events (e.g. learning sessions, forums, consultations, networking meetings, etc.) and contribute to the development of agendas, discussion topics, and recommendations for events related to women’s political participation; 
• coordinate communication with participants, speakers, trainers, and other stakeholders;
• support implementation of leadership and candidacy training activities for women leaders;  
• contribute to development and adaptation of training materials and community support tools in line with the Ukrainian wartime and recovery and EU integration context; 
• promote mentoring, coaching, and leadership support initiatives for women interested in political participation; 
• support peer-to-peer exchange, mentoring, and networking opportunities among women participants from different regions and backgrounds. 

3. Analytical support, monitoring and reporting provided

• providing analytical input related to women’s political participation, leadership trends, and community needs; 
• contribution to the preparation of analytical briefs, recommendations, summaries, and reports related to programme activities; 
• support collection and analysis of feedback from programme participants and stakeholders; 
• identifying emerging needs and opportunities for strengthening women’s political participation and leadership. 
• monitoring the community development progress and preparing brief strategic insights for the program team;
• monitoring implementation of community support activities and engagement of programme participants;
• maintaining records and databases of community members, activities, and outreach efforts; 
• preparing regular narrative reports, summaries, and recommendations related to assigned activities. 

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is primarily a home-based consultancy. It may require occasional travel to training locations within Ukraine, contingent upon the consultant obtaining security clearance.

Competencies :

Core Values:

• Integrity;
• Professionalism;
• Respect for Diversity.

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Values and Competencies Framework: 

Functional Competencies:

• Innovation
• Resilience  
• Research experience
• Partnership building
• Negotiation 
• Commitment to continuous improvement
• Crisis management skills

Required Qualifications:

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in Political Sciences, Public Policy and Administration, Social Sciences, Law or related field is required.

Experience:

• Minimum two years of progressive professional experience in the field gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Proven experience in coordination of partnership on gender equality and women’s leadership. 
• Proven experience on preparation of policy papers on gender equality and women’s leadership.
• Knowledge of the Ukrainian context on gender equality and women’s political participation would be a strong asset.
• Previous experience with development agencies and the United Nations will be an asset, especially work with UN Women. 

Languages:

• Fluency in English and Ukrainian is required.

Statements :

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.

Diversity and inclusion:

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)

Note: Applicants must ensure that all sections of the application form, including the sections on education and employment history, are completed. If all sections are not completed the application may be disqualified from the recruitment and selection process.