International Consultant: Coordinator of Gender Statistics, Maputo, Mozambique

The National Institute of Statistics (INE), through its Division of Demographic, Vital and Social Statistics (DEMOVIS) has annually produced the publications "Women and Men in Mozambique” and “Statistics on Domestic Violence", containing sex-disaggregated data from censuses, surveys and sectors’ administrative records. However, it has been verified that there is still a significant gap in the statistical capacity to generate data and indicators that assess the progress in achieving gender equality in some critical areas of concern, such as:

These limitations are underpinned by the fact that the production of gender-sensitive statistics does not involve only data disaggregation by sex. Sex-disaggregated data form one important component, but comprehensive and informative gender statistics need also to cover issues (such as maternal mortality or prostate disorders) that might affect only one sex; and require a gender-sensitive framework in the data analysis for all social, economic and environment statistics and cross-sectorally.

Without gender statistics that measure the status of women and men and their roles in social, economic, health, and political spheres, decision makers have limited ability to assess progress in achieving gender equality or in prioritizing actions to address gender disparities. Because of their importance to advancing the status of women, the development of gender statistics was identified as a high priority in the 1995 Beijing Platform of Action. UNFPA has a mandate to support countries to incorporate a gender perspective into data collection and analysis and ensure that gender and reproductive health indicators are available to inform national development planning and for international reporting.

Producing gender statistics appropriately is a challenging and, as a cross-cutting issue, it requires staff with competence and knowledge of various areas. In order to respond to this challenge, it was created in 2017, the Gender Statistics Unit (UEG) at INE, and focal points from different sectors of government institutions were nominated to integrate the unit. Supported by the UNFPA Trust Fund for the Census, a short induction course on gender statistics was delivered to INE’s staff and sectoral focal points in October 2018. However, the UEG has not yet been fully operational. There is still a need to properly set up the workflows of the Unit and develop the staff skills to start producing the expected results. FPA has a mandate to support countries to incorporate a gender perspective into data collection and analysis and ensure that gender indicators are included in census and survey data.

The overall goal of this consultancy is to build capacity at the UEG at INE and across sectors in order to develop comprehensive and effective gender statistics for decision-making, as well as strengthening the capacity to report indicators that assess the progress in achieving gender equality.

Designing, coordinating and delivering a two-week training on gender statistics

• Design and develop the structure and contents of the training on gender statistics for the participants from INE and other government institutions, including selected training modules and accompanying background material for the delivery of the training.
• Coordinate and integrate the training modules to be delivered by other two trainers specialized in the different thematic areas of gender statistics.
• Deliver selected modules of the training, including, but not limited to, the introduction to relevant concepts and definitions; importance of a gender perspective in statistics; general issues on how to produce gender statistics; how to make gender visible in statistics and improve the national statistical systems.
• Provide daily leadership and direction to the training and establish specific processes and methodologies for the good progress of training.
• Develop an evaluation of the modules/workshop(s) by the participants so that the workshop/training materials can be improved/finalized according to the participant feedback and to be further used in the related workshops at provincial level.
• Prepare training workshop report with recommendations for further addressing of the gaps of data and required skills for the UEG staff.
• Coordinate and integrate the training modules to be directed by other two trainers specialized in the different thematic areas of the gender statistics training.
• Liaise with other consultants to provide guidelines for the production and use of gender statistics per thematic areas.

Elaboration of guidelines for the operation of the UEG at INE

• Review progress, challenges and emerging needs in UEG and identify good practices currently in place.
• Input recommendations and ideas to the UEG concerning policies and practices appropriate for the betterment of the unit’s functions. This will be further used for drafting the MoU with the relevant sectors.
• Define workflows for the UEG, data compilation periodicity, and the responsibilities of the unit members.

Strengthen national capacity to report on gender equity indicators  

• Liaise with other consultants to provide professional guidance in the development and review of methods of surveying, collecting, processing, presentation and analysis of gender statistical data.
• Provide professional guidance on the adequacy and use of gender statistics and help strengthen the project management capacities within the sectors participating in the UEG.
• Liaise with the UEG from INE and the counterparts from the sectors to assess the available data, gaps and ways forward for the use of Censuses, national household surveys and administrative data.
• Prepare a technical report reviewing the availability and quality of gender indicators for national development planning and for international reporting under the ODS 5, taking also into consideration the critical sectors.

Key expected results for this consultancy include:

• Participants in the training acquire in-depth knowledge on concepts and methods for the production of gender statistics.
• Participants acquire capability to integrate a gender perspective in the collection, analysis and dissemination of administrative data, Census, surveys.
• Government institutions develop strengthened capacity to report on gender indicators.