Facilitator- Feminist COP 27.

1. Background

The African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) is a pan-African, feminist and membership-based network based in Nairobi, Kenya with over 800 individual and institutional members across 50 African countries and in the diaspora. FEMNET envisions a society where African women and girls thrive in dignity and well-being, free from patriarchal and neoliberal oppression and injustices.

FEMNET recognizes that the commitment to alter relations of power, structural injustices, and systemic oppression lies at the heart of feminism. FEMNET is therefore committed to pushing towards altering power structures that perpetuate gender inequality by nurturing the African women’s movement to enable women and girls in their diversity to effectively claim, affirm, and use their collective power to end all forms of exclusion, oppression, exploitation, and injustices against them.

Founded in 1988, FEMNET exists to facilitate and coordinate the sharing of experiences, information, and strategies for human rights promotion among feminists, activists and women’s rights organizations as a strategy for collective organizing; policy influencing & advocacy; strategic communication; capacity strengthening as well as feminist solidarity and movement building.

Over the years, FEMNET has strategically positioned herself as a convener, organizer and facilitator of critical dialogues around women’s economic justice and rights; transformative women’s leadership; sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR); climate justice and natural resource governance as well as, ending all forms of violence and harmful/ discriminatory practices against women and girls.

FEMNET continues to be intentional in influencing decisions made at national, regional and global levels, constantly ensuring African women voices are amplified and their needs, priorities and aspirations are prioritized in key policy dialogues and outcomes that have direct and indirect impact on their lives. FEMNET mobilizes African women to hold their States accountable to women’s rights and gender equality commitments.

Vision: African women and girls thrive in dignity and well-being, free from patriarchal and neoliberal oppression and injustices.

Mission: To mobilize African women for the achievement of gender equality and the realization of women’s and girls’ rights at all levels.

FEMNET’s Core Values

• Feminist solidarity
• Respect for diversity
• Intersectionality
• Integrity
• Commitment to women’s rights
• Professionalism and learning

2. Context.

The climate crisis continues to ravage lives and livelihoods of millions of people across the world. In spite of contributing the least to climate change, Africa experiences some of the worst effects with prolonged droughts, floods, cyclones and other extreme weather events hitting vulnerable populations the hardest, causing displacement, health and economic impacts, and food and water insecurity. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that in order to limit global warming, there needs to be “rapid and far-reaching transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities”. For this to happen, all voices must be taken to account in decision making and in developing solutions to the crisis; and the most affected must receive Climate Finance to build their resilience and contribute to sustainable development.

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis, yet in Africa, their voices are silenced and marginalized, their lived realities are misrepresented and trivialized, their experiences invisiblized, and because of this, their needs go unfulfilled.

Furthermore, marginal communities like the indigenous, migrants, and internally displaced populations who experience more vulnerabilities are left further behind. Left alone to survive multiple crises, African women who are known to care deeply about the environment that they live in, are organizing themselves to build their collective power to preserve and share indigenous knowledge and innovations to protect the environment, fight climate change and dismantle systems of oppression. The women and girls of Africa are certain that their voices must be heard, the climate narratives on the continent must be told and that policies and financing must address their lived realities in order for climate justice to be realized.

3. African Activists for Climate Justice.

FEMNET has a focus on climate justice and is currently implementing the African Activists for Climate Justice Project in eight (8) countries across Africa. The strategic focus on climate justice aims to support an intersectional, diverse and robust climate justice movement in Africa which connects gender justice and climate justice movements in the continent and across the globe. To this end, FEMNET will initiate the African Feminist Academy for Climate Justice, which is designed to strengthen the capacity of African Women’s Rights Organizations (WROs), Girls and Young Women Organizations (GYWO) and feminist groups to be abreast with science, history, politics, and economics of climate change, and to be change-makers nationally, regionally and globally.

Feminist COP

COP 27 will be held in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. Touted to be a restricted space, there are many arguments on the space further barring the participation of those who could offer solutions to the climate crisis. In this context, women’s participation is likely to be significantly reduced, their safety threatened and their voices drowned.

FEMNET is therefore collaborating with feminist organizations and partners across the global south in from 20th to 23rd October 2022 to convene a Feminist COP 27 that aims to build solidarity and marshal support for feminist asks at COP 27.

The feminist COP is an important convening as it will give feminists who will not attend COP 27 an opportunity to demand climate justice and parties’ fair share of climate action for both mitigation and adaptation

4. Specific Tasks.

FEMNET is seeking a consultant(s) to develop a curriculum and manage the workshop scheduled for 20th to 23rd October,2022. The specific tasks are indicated below:

• Develop an inclusive content for the Feminist COP that takes into account scientific, economic, political and social issues at local, regional and global levels with a pan African feminist & gender lens;
• Deliver an innovative curriculum to a diverse hybrid audience from across Africa and realize outcomes of the workshop stated in the Feminist COP Concept Note;

Facilitate and manage Feminist COP in collaboration with the FEMNET Climate Justice Coordinator;

• Ensure that Participants are facilitated to make contributions during all workshop sessions, and that free sharing of ideas and strategies is equally encouraged;
• Develop necessary methodologies, resources and tools needed to realize workshop objectives which include guiding questions for group sessions, Presenters and Moderators’ guidelines, evaluation and action planning at the end of the workshop;
• Work in collaboration with the workshop Rapporteur to ensure that the final report of Feminist COP 2022 captures all discussions, recommendations and action plans.

5.Liaison, Coordination and Reporting.

The consultant will work closely and report to the Climate Justice Coordinator at FEMNET Secretariate. Prior to the activity date, the consultant will be required to have a briefing session with the event convener to better understand the activity, program, deliverables and logistics involved.

6.Duration of the Assignment.

The assignment should take no more than six(6 days – 1 day for preparation, four(4) days for facilitation of the workshop and one (1) day for development of the workshop report.

7. Key competences of the consultant(s).

• Advanced university degree in Natural Resource Management, Climate Change, Economics, Development studies, Gender studies and social sciences studies is preferred, although relevant profiles may be considered.
• Experience in knowledge management and development and delivery of curricula in relevant fields, preferably climate change and gender justice.
• At least 5 years’ experience facilitating feminist conversations and related workshops, supported by strong research skills.
• Sound theoretical and practical background in the field of Gender and Natural Resource Governance, Women’s economic empowerment, public service delivery, climate action & justice and citizen participation.
• Experience with policy making processes and basic principles of public policy research will be an advantage.
• Africa Regional experience working on similar issues.
• Strong writing, analytical, research and ICT skills, and ability to apply these skills in interdisciplinary contexts.
• Solution oriented with innovative problem-solving ability.
• The consultant should espouse Pan African Feminist values.

Other attributes

• A track record of producing innovative, out–of–the-box climate change or related communications strategies and products
• Excellent communication skills and fluency in spoken and written English.
• Capability to deliver high quality outputs and within tight deadlines
• Ability to break down complex information into user friendly knowledge products.

8. Selection of Consultant(s).

The consultant shall be contracted by FEMNET. The contract will include Withholding Tax (WHT) deduction in line with laws of contracting where FEMNET is headquartered. The contract will include 5% Withholding Tax (WHT) for consultants in Kenya and 20% WHT for consultants outside of Kenya. A WHT certificate will be issued to the consultant. Payment will be done through bank transfer to the consultant bank account. FEMNET will not meet the costs of bank charges. Payment schedule will be agreed upon with the consultant upon successful selection. In case of team/firm applicants, a designated assignment contract manager (lead consultant) will be the contact between FEMNET and the team and responsible for all deliverables.

10. Intellectual Property Rights.

The consultant expressly assigns to FEMNET any copyright arising from the outputs produced while executing the service contract. The consultant may not use, reproduce, disseminate, or authorize others to use, reproduce or disseminate any output produced under the service contract without prior consent from FEMNET.

11. Terms of Service.

This is a non-staff contract and therefore the consultant is not entitled to insurance, medical cover or any other status or conditions as FEMNET staff.