Invitation to tender: policy consultant

WRDA tender description for policy consultant

Introduction

Mission and Aims

WRDA’s mission as a regional organisation is to advance women’s equality and participation in society by working to bring about social, political and economic change for women.

WRDA’s Strategic Aims

1. Capacity Building. To develop the capacity of women from disadvantaged communities to tackle inequalities affecting them.
2. Policy and Advocacy. To promote and advocate for women’s equality in policy and decision making.
3. Health Inequalities. To tackle health inequalities affecting women.
4. Leadership. To provide leadership, infrastructural support and advocacy within the Women’s Sector.
5. Organisational Development. To strengthen the capacity of the organisation to carry out its role effectively.

Description of Role

WRDA seeks to commission a Policy Consultant to provide much needed support to assist plans to strengthen and develop the role of WRDA.

1. Developing the policy capacity of WRDA community facilitators. Based on a needs analysis with the 50 Community Facilitators who have formally agreed to be part of the Social Economy Business, we considered that the policy capacity of CF needed to be further developed in order to support the wider engagement and policy capacity of groups and individuals at community level.

To address this need, the regional policy consultant will be required to:

• attend relevant regional and local ‘policy fora’ to network and position the Community Facilitation Service within the wider statutory, voluntary and community organisations
• build policy capacity of community facilitators through a specific and tailored training and development programme as required
• demystify policy documents to enable community facilitators to build their policy understanding and to support effective consultation within the community
• secure policy consultation contracts and support community facilitators to effectively deliver same
• raise specific awareness and understanding of gender equality within the broader policy development agenda.

2. To assist the development of WRDA’s regional policy role in line with business plan objectives.

This will require specific attention to the following:

• participation in relevant policy fora, urban and rural
• oversee gender training partnership (WRDA / OFMDFM / Equality Commission)
• prioritise and produce robust policy consultation responses which specifically impact on women’s equality
• provide ongoing and regular policy support to the community facilitator programme
• policy support to women’s sector government review process.

Consultant Specification

The consultant will be able to demonstrate the following:

• an awareness of the issues impacting on women’s equality
• experience of writing responses to government policies that impact on women
• an awareness of, and experience of working with, group process, training and development
• excellent oral and written communication skills
• the ability to work in a structured manner to tight deadlines
• experience of writing proposals
• full driving licence and car owner or access to transport.

Contract Terms

The consultant is required to work with WRDA for three days per week for six months, will be based at WRDA’s office in Belfast, with travel throughout Northern Ireland as required.

Tendering Process

To apply please send the following:

• contact details
• CV
• a brief outline of how you would undertake the work within the six month time frame
• a statement explaining how you meet the consultant specification
• a budget for the work (please note that WRDA is not obliged to accept the lowest cost proposal)
• the names of two referees for whom you have completed work of a similar nature.