REQUEST FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST
FOR Capacity building and empowerment of potential leaders from women and marginalized groups for local level election 2022
Following the success of the Constituent Assembly (CA) election in 2008, the UNDP Nepal launched the Electoral Support Project (ESP) in August 2008 to provide technical assistance to the Election Commission of Nepal (ECN). ESP support aims at building sustainable and enduring institutional and professional capacity of ECN, its secretariat and district offices that could easily and effectively be used in future elections. The ESP consists of two phases. The phase I (2008-2012) focused exclusively on long-term electoral capacity building and the Phase II (2012-2022) focuses on capacity building of ECN officials and technical assistance for future electoral cycles.
The Government of Nepal has announced local level elections for May 13, 2022. Thus, UNDP ESP will support the ECN to aware and inform voters about the upcoming local level elections and its processes. To make the election free, fair and credible, voters and electoral stakeholders should be well informed and aware on voter education and information for local level elections. One of the project's main outputs is "Increased democratic participation in the cycle of elections, particularly for disadvantaged and underrepresented segments of the Nepali society." The project has been supporting the Election Commission, Nepal, in its efforts to make elections more inclusive.
Nepal's 2017 local elections were held in three phases on May 14, June 28, and September 18. These elections opened the door for over 14,000 women to serve as elected political leaders at the local level. The Local Level Election Act, 2017, facilitated this by mandating women fill at least two of the five ward committee positions. As the first local government officials to be elected in 20 years, these women and their male counterparts had a historic opportunity to demonstrate a new level of government accountability to their communities. At the same time, these representatives shoulder an enormous responsibility to deliver on the promises of Nepal's decentralization efforts envisioned by the 2015 Constitution.
In this context, to ensure women's meaningful representation and participation from intersecting identities in decision making positions in the upcoming local level elections on 13 May 2022, UNDP/ESP in partnership with UN Women is joining efforts towards empowering and motivating potential leaders from women, Dalit women and other marginalized groups and providing them with the required knowledge and skills to run and be perceived as competitive candidates in the coming elections. A series of empowerment support to potential women leaders from intersecting identities will be designed and implemented.
For this purpose, ESP is seeking to contract a national level two NGO/CSOs organization working in this field for capacity building and empowerment of potential leaders from women and marginalized groups for local level election. Among two, one NGO will work in Province 1 , Madhes Province, Bagmati Province and Gandaki province (province 1,2,3 and 4) and another one will be working in Karnali province, Lumbini Province and Sudurpaschim Province (province 5,6 and 7). There will be a provision of sub partnerships also in case the selected NGO doesn't have presence in some areas.
The overall objective of this programme is to promote women's participation and candidacy in the upcoming elections. The specific objectives of this undertraining would be to:
a) Engage with political parties and potential leaders from women, Dalit and marginalized groups to promote women's political participation as candidates/potential candidates.
b) Support and facilitate advocacy dialogue/interaction, public hearing with constitutional commissions, platforms among CSOs and major political parties (including male political leaders as an ally) to promote women's candidacy and their meaningful representation and participation during elections.
For the details, please see the TOR at https://www.np.undp.org/content/nepal/en/home/procurement.html
Time frame: 1.5 Month (20 April to 31 May 2022)
The technical and financial proposal should be submitted in email address [email protected] by 13 April 2022 (Wednesday).
The notice will be published in the newspaper and UNDP website.
