Gender Responsive Conflict Specialist Research - International Consultant - Home Based

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.

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.

The Arab States region remains one of the most conflict-affected regions in the world, with multiple protracted and emerging crises, including in Syria, Yemen, Libya, Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq. These crises generate profound humanitarian, political, economic, and developmental consequences. The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda remains critically under-implemented, and the gap between WPS commitments and action continues to widen. Women and girls bear a disproportionate burden of conflict, facing heightened risks of gender-based violence, displacement, loss of livelihoods, and systematic exclusion from peace negotiations, political transitions, and recovery processes.

Yet women in the region have been active peace builders, community leaders, and agents of resilience and recovery.

The relationship between conflict and gender inequality is complex, context-specific, and mutually reinforcing. Conflict erodes protections, reshapes social norms, and deepens gender inequalities. Conversely, gender inequality fuels conflict dynamics. Advancing the WPS agenda requires a rigorous understanding of these interlocking dynamics as the foundation for effective advocacy, programming, and policy engagement. UN Women’s Regional Office for the Arab States recognizes the urgent need for a rigorous, evidence-based, and gender-responsive conflict analysis that captures the differentiated experiences of women and men across the region, examines structural drivers, and identifies concrete entry points for advancing the WPS agenda at national and regional levels.

Such an analysis will strengthen UN Women’s advocacy and policy engagement with Member States, UN system partners, regional bodies, and civil society, and contribute to more gender-responsive conflict prevention, peace building, protection, and humanitarian response across the Arab States region. The analysis will inform and strengthen UN Women’s programmatic engagement on WPS, including support to Country Offices in the region, and programmatic interventions related to peace building and conflict prevention.

The consultancy will be managed by the UN Women Regional Office for the Arab States, under the direct supervision of the Regional WPS-HA Advisor. The consultant will maintain regular communication with the WPS team throughout the assignment, providing progress updates and flagging any methodological or contextual challenges in a timely manner. All key deliverables will be subject to review and approval by UN Women task manager prior to finalization.

The analysis should be explicitly situated within the current regional context, examining how major events such as October 7 and the regional escalation (Iran and US/Israel conflict) and their aftermath have reshaped conflict dynamics, gender relations, and the WPS landscape across the Arab States region. The analysis should resist broad regional generalizations and outline the distinct conflict typologies across the region, including conflict-affected fragile settings, post-conflict contexts, and countries in political transition, recognizing that each typology carries a distinct gender and WPS risk profile, shapes women’s rights and protection differently, and requires differentiated analytical entry points and programmatic responses.

In line with UN Women and DPPA guidance on gender-responsive conflict…