Gender & Media Consultancy: Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ)

Deadline: 16 July 2021

About WCoZ

Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ), is a network of women’s rights activists and women’s rights organizations in Zimbabwe with national structures established in 1999. WCoZ brings women from diverse backgrounds to advocate for the attainment and enjoyment of their socio-economic and political rights, and ensure that the women and girls empowerment agenda remains central to the national agenda.

Background to the consultancy

• Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ) with the support from the United Nations Democracy Fund is working on a 2-year intervention that seeks to enhance women’s participation in electoral processes and coordinate collective advocacy initiatives to address the numerous obstacles that women election workers face in carrying out election work.
• As such, the project seeks to strengthen amongst other issues the increased support by the media for a safe, conducive space for female election workers and women in their generality.
• A major barrier is the portrayal of women in the media during elections and subsequently the impact of violence against women in elections (VAWIE) in the media.
• In the case of electoral processes, women voters, candidates, activists, elected representatives, and electoral management officials have faced online harassment, threats and other abusing and degrading behaviours. VAWIE online and offline is an especially damaging violation of internet freedom because it is intended to silence women’s voices and prevent them from exercising their civic and political rights.
• VAWIE is a threat to the integrity of the electoral process and to the quality of democracy because it coercively excludes women from having a voice in the political life and governance of their country.
• VAWIE is also a violation of political and human rights and frequently also a criminal or civil code violation that harms voters, candidates, election officials, activists and security and political professionals worldwide, occurring both online and offline.
• Growth in internet penetration provides a mechanism for widespread information dissemination that can bolster the use of more traditional platforms such as radio and print news. Therefore, it is important for the media to shape a positive image that promotes women participation in elections and encourages women to undertake election work.

Tasks under this consultancy

It is against this background, WCoZ is looking for a consultant to: Develop a gender-sensitive reporting handbook which will be widely circulated to media practitioners as a source to refer for guidance in their future and; Conduct a one day training of 20 media practitioners on gender sensitive reporting in elections, and promoting women’s participation in elections, not only through contesting in elections but also carrying out election work.

Deliverables

• The key deliverables shall be Gender-sensitive reporting handbook; Conduct one day training of 20 media practitioners on gender-sensitive reporting in elections; A consolidated report of the training.

Duration

• Specific guidelines will be discussed with the successful candidate.
• Expected qualifications, the experience of the consultant
• The Consultant should have a Masters’ Degree in Media, Law, Gender Studies, Social Science, Development Studies or any relevant fields; Minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience in gender, media and elections work.