| Overview : Gender inequalities are prominent in Serbia and impact all spheres of social participation, access to important resources, and interpersonal relationships. Despite positive developments, including higher overall political participation of women during recent years, and the existence of gender equality strategies and mechanisms, key policy debates and political discourses do not focus on, nor properly integrate gender equality issues. Serbia faces an "implementation gap" when it comes to progress on gender equality – gender-related national strategies and laws exist on paper, but do not translate adequately into the programs and budgets of government institutions, nor do they lead to gains for the benefit of women and girls. Although there are evidence that gender equality and the upholding of women’s rights are pre-condition to achieving equitable and sustainable development, gender mainstreaming is still not a systematic in programming and implementation of resources. Therefore, there is a strong call for the Government to be held accountable for the allocation of resources to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. EU funding, used for activities to increase women’s employment rate and promote quality employment; to improve reconciliation policies for both women and men; to strengthen national gender equality infrastructures; and to tackle gender based discrimination, are indispensable for reaching the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy for Gender Equality. However, delivering on the EU’s Treaty Commitment on Equality between Women and Men as a Fundamental Right goes beyond the Europe 2020 framework. To meet these important objectives, EU funding is required for combating violence against women; for promoting equality in decision-making; for improving women’s health; for empowering women’s rights organisations; and for strengthening capacity for gender mainstreaming (the process of assessing the implications of planned actions and a strategy from the perspective of women, men, girls and boys in order to assure that females’ and males’ concerns and experiences are an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programmes) and gender budgeting in Europe.1 1 http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/files/opinion_mff_en.pdf In 2014, UN Women initiated cooperation with the Serbia European Integration Office, the Government institution mandated for the coordination of programming and the implementation of the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA), and with the Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit, with the goal of including gender equality considerations into the planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting processes under the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA). Cooperation is focused on enhancing the capacities of IPA programming and implementation units within line ministries in order to integrate a gender perspective in the sector planning documents through systematic gender mainstreaming. It has been noted that in order to ensure gender sensitive Page 2 of 4 programming and the implementation of IPA funds, there is a need to introduce continual and systematic learning on gender equality and gender mainstreaming for ministries and government institutions, aiming to enhance the understanding of civil servants on the importance of gender equality as well as the processes and strategies for achieving equitable outcomes for women and men in Serbia. In order to further strengthen the capacity and integration of gender into the design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation elements of sector documents, UN Women is seeking an expert with international experience in gender mainstreaming within the context of EU funding to deliver training that will be organized in cooperation with the Serbia European Integration Office and Social Inclusion and Poverty reduction Unit on how to include gender considerations in formulating programme objectives, activities and indicators to representatives of the Serbian European Integration Office and IPA units in line ministries and for proposing methodology for mainstreaming gender in IPA and ESI funds. For more detailed information please refer to the attached Terms of Reference. Qualified and interested candidates are asked submitted their applications via UNDP Web site (www.undp.org.rs) through section “Jobs” no later than no later than 30 June 2015. | 
