Civil Society Advisory Group to guide UN Women’s work in Bangladesh

UN Women is re-establishing a Civil Society Advisory Group (CSAG), which was previously set up in 2012. As Beijing+25 approaches and Bangladesh nationally stands at a cross-road in terms of growing inequality and intensifying human rights and gender challenges, while aspiring to graduate from Least Development Country and become a developed country by 2041, UN Women has decided to relaunch a CSAG in order to systematically seek advice from CSO representatives on its work.

The UN Women CSAG offers the opportunity for UN Women to strengthen its alliance with civil society and coordinate efforts to accelerate advocacy and action to achieve gender equality by 2030.Through the CSAGs, the expertise and knowledge of the women’s movement informs UN Women’s strategies and strengthens its capacity to exercise leadership at national level. As an institutional mechanism, the CSAGs is an opportunity for civil society to influence and steer the global gender equality discourse and to use UN Women’s convening role to bring in diverse stakeholders on contentious and emerging issues as well as strengthen new partnerships.

Selection Criteria

The CSAG members will be selected from among gender equality leaders who are strong, progressive and hail from the following categories: women’s rights leaders; male gender equality advocates; youth leaders with a track record of work on gender equality; advocates and leaders of minority groups (e.g. indigenous, LGBTI, , people with disabilities, religious minority, etc.); labor/Trade Union leaders; feminist media leaders and advocates; progressive and feminist faith based organization leaders.

In order to preserve the integrity and autonomy of the CSAG as a civil society group of eminent women’s rights advocates and gender equality leaders, Private Sector representatives and members of government or political parties or government bodies cannot be part of a CSAG or part of any CSAG selection process.

A member can be an individual expert or from a registered civil society organization (CSO); however, the member will not represent the CSO she/he works/volunteers for in the CSAG. While the CSO representative will bring the strength of their organization and constituency to the CSAG, within the CSAG they will operate in their individual capacity as a gender equality leader.

Criteria for selection are the following:

• Track record and performance of the individual as a leader on gender equality and women’s rights; human rights and the rights of minorities;
• Strong analytical capacity, knowledge and understanding of women’s issues;
• Worked on, or associated with national commitments and programme, sectoral policies and programmes with gender integration;
• Worked on, or associated with international commitments - Beijing Platform of Action, CEDAW Report, CEDAW Shadow Report, Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Convention against Torture (CAT), Universal Period Review (UPR) and other Human Rights Treaties;
• Outreach to grassroot and rural women and diversity of organization;
• Actively engaged in the contemporary feminist issues to address and take strong and visible position to support them;
• Strong contributor in the transformative work through her/his work (writing, research, film, etc.)

Selection Process:

• A selection committee will be established by UN Women to review and finalize nominations.
• A review grid will be used capturing the selection criteria and each nomination/CV will be marked/ reviewed against it by each selection committee member.
• Nominations using the nomination form will be open between the 1st of October, 2020 and 15th of October , 2020 and can be sent electronically to [ Click to reveal ] or by post to UN Women Bangladesh, Road 43, House 39, Gulshan 2, Dhaka 1212.
• Selected members will be announced by the end of December 2020