The United Nations has been supporting the efforts of Malawian electoral stakeholders in strengthening the transparency and inclusiveness of their electoral processes since the country adopted a multi-party system in 1993. UN electoral support, in close partnership with national stakeholders and international partners, has included support to the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) in developing its institutional and operational capacity, assisting civil society organizations (CSOs), providing support to electoral reform initiatives, promoting women’s participation, and the mitigation of election related violence. The current electoral assistance project, MECS (2017 -2019) is structured around four outputs, (i) support to the MEC to administer and manage elections in accordance with regional and international standards; (ii)the strengthening of women’s political empowerment throughout the electoral cycle; (iii) the improved ability of political parties to contribute to orderly and inclusive elections;(iv) and effective and efficient management of the project. A UNDP managed basket fund has been opened for the project and a partnership between UNDP and UN women has been established to ensure the strengthening of women’s empowerment throughout the electoral cycle. UNW leads on output two that aims at strengthening women political empowerment throughout the elections cycle. However, the project also contains women empowerment initiatives in outputs one and three led by UNDP. The purpose of these Terms of Reference will be to hire the International gender specialist, who will support the planning and implementation of gender-based activities under the MECS project. The gender specialist will report to the Chief Technical Advisor and liaise closely with UNWOMEN | 
