UN Women: Gender Equality Research and Policy Specialist Consultant, Beirut, Lebanon - National Consultant - Office-Based
- Organisation: UN Women
- Location: Beirut, Lebanon
- Deadline: 13 November 2026
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.
Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments to gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action. It provides leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts and builds effective partnerships with government, civil society, women-led and women’s rights organizations, the United Nations system, academia, development partners and other relevant actors.
In Lebanon, timely, credible and policy-relevant evidence is essential to understand how political, economic, social, humanitarian and security developments affect women and girls differently, and to translate that evidence into programming, policy dialogue, advocacy and strategic positioning. UN Women therefore seeks to strengthen its research, data and analytical capacity across its mandate, including women’s political participation and governance; women, peace and security; women’s economic empowerment; prevention of and response to violence against women and girls; humanitarian action, recovery and resilience; social protection and the care economy; legal and policy reform; and the rights and inclusion of women and girls facing intersecting forms of discrimination.
The consultancy will support the generation, quality assurance, synthesis and uptake of gender evidence. Research should be grounded in women’s rights and international normative frameworks, use intersectional and gender-responsive methodologies, and where relevant disaggregate findings by sex, age, disability, nationality or displacement status, geographic area and other contextually relevant characteristics. The consultant will work across programme portfolios to ensure that research responds to UN Women’s strategic priorities and supports evidence-based decision-making.
The consultant will report to the Country Representative and work closely with relevant Programme Managers, technical specialists and monitoring, reporting and communications colleagues. Specific research assignments will be agreed through an approved workplan.
Description of Responsibilities / Scope of Work
UN Women is recruiting a Gender Equality Research and Policy Specialist to lead and support high-quality research, policy analysis and knowledge production relevant to UN Women’s mandate in Lebanon. The consultant will translate data and evidence into concise, actionable analysis that informs programmes, policy engagement, advocacy, partnerships, resource mobilization and UN Women’s contribution to United Nations strategic planning and coordination processes.
1. Support implementation of UN Women Lebanon’s research and analytical agenda
• Support the development, prioritization and implementation of a country-office research calendar aligned with UN Women’s Strategic Note, programme priorities and emerging national developments.
• Identify evidence gaps and formulate research questions that can inform policy, programming, advocacy and strategic positioning across UN Women’s mandate.
• Undertake and/or coordinate quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods research, including desk reviews, secondary data analysis, surveys, key-informant interviews, focus-group discussions and participatory research approaches, as appropriate.
• Lead or support rapid gender analyses and other time-sensitive analytical products during humanitarian, conflict, recovery or other rapidly evolving contexts.
• Ensure that research design and implementation apply gender-responsive, rights-based, intersectional and ethical standards, including appropriate safeguarding, informed consent, confidentiality and do-no-harm considerations.
2. Produce strategic research and policy products across UN Women’s mandate
• Prepare analytical reports, research papers, policy briefs, briefing notes, background papers, evidence summaries and talking points on priority gender equality and women’s rights issues.
• Develop analysis on women’s political participation, representation and leadership, including electoral and governance processes, public institutions and women’s participation in decision-making.
• Develop analysis related to women, peace and security, including women’s participation in peacebuilding and security decision-making, conflict prevention, protection, displacement, recovery and implementation of relevant national commitments.
• Develop research on women’s economic empowerment, including labour-force participation, decent work, informality, entrepreneurship, access to finance and markets, care responsibilities, social protection and the gendered impacts of economic shocks and recovery policies.
• Support research on violence against women and girls, access to protection and justice, discriminatory laws and practices, and legal and policy reforms affecting women’s rights.
• Ensure that research systematically considers women and girls experiencing intersecting inequalities, including women with disabilities, refugees and displaced women, migrant women, older women, young women and other groups facing barriers to rights, services, participation or economic opportunity.
3. Strengthen data quality, methodology and evidence standards
• Design and review research methodologies, sampling approaches, questionnaires, interview guides and other data-collection tools to ensure methodological rigor and gender responsiveness.
• Review, clean, analyse and interpret quantitative and qualitative data and ensure that conclusions are supported by evidence and clearly distinguish findings, limitations and recommendations.
• Support the use of sex-disaggregated and intersectional data and identify critical data gaps relevant to monitoring gender equality and women’s rights in Lebanon.
• Quality-assure research commissioned by UN Women and provide substantive comments on inception reports, methodologies, draft studies and final knowledge products.
• Support the development of accessible data presentations, tables, charts and evidence snapshots for policy and programme audiences.
4. Translate evidence into policy, programming and strategic positioning
• Synthesize research findings into practical recommendations for UN Women programmes, policy dialogue and advocacy, ensuring clear links between evidence, identified gender inequalities and proposed actions.
• Provide substantive evidence and analysis for UN Women’s strategic planning, programme design, monitoring and evaluation, donor engagement and resource-mobilization efforts.
• Contribute gender analysis to United Nations common assessments, cooperation frameworks, humanitarian and recovery planning, joint programmes and other inter-agency processes, as requested.
• Prepare concise evidence packages and briefing materials for high-level engagements with government, donors, United Nations entities, civil society, women-led and women’s rights organizations and other partners.
5. Build research partnerships and strengthen the uptake of evidence
• Engage relevant ministries, national institutions, civil society, women-led and women’s rights organizations, academia, research institutions, United Nations entities and other stakeholders in research design, validation and dissemination, as appropriate.
• Identify opportunities for joint research, data partnerships and knowledge collaboration that strengthen national evidence on gender equality and women’s rights.
• Facilitate consultations, validation sessions, roundtables and technical discussions to test findings, incorporate diverse women’s perspectives and support policy uptake.
• Document and disseminate lessons learned, promising practices and research findings within UN Women and among relevant national, regional and global audiences.
Indicative research area
Research assignments may include, but are not limited to:
• Women’s political participation, representation, leadership and governance;
• Women, peace and security, peacebuilding, conflict prevention, security-sector institutions and recovery;
• Women’s economic empowerment, employment, entrepreneurship, care, social protection and economic recovery;
• Violence against women and girls, access to justice, protection and referral systems;
• Gender-responsive humanitarian action, displacement, return, reconstruction and resilience;
• Legal and policy reform, including discrimination in law and barriers to women’s equal rights;
• Gender norms, unpaid care, social inclusion, disability inclusion and intersecting inequalities;
• Gender data, SDG-related evidence and other indicators relevant to tracking progress on gender equality.
Expected Outputs
• An updated and prioritized research workplan/research calendar, reviewed periodically with the Country Office.
• Research protocols, methodologies and data-collection tools for agreed studies and assessments.
• High-quality analytical reports, research papers, policy briefs, rapid gender analyses and other knowledge products in accordance with the approved workplan.
• Clean analytical datasets, coding frameworks and/or evidence matrices, where relevant and consistent with data-protection requirements.
• Briefing notes, presentations and concise evidence products tailored to policy, programme, donor and inter-agency audiences.
• Quality-assurance comments and technical review of research products commissioned or produced by the Country Office.
• Documentation of consultations, validation processes and recommendations for research uptake and follow-up.
Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel