Due to the continued conflict situation, the national gender machineries – the three ministries tasked with gender equality or women’s welfare – in the three zones of Somalia have not only been marginalized in whatever very little institutional development initiatives have been undertaken but are also missing from processes of democracy-building and the larger state building actions.

The recognition of this gap by the UN agencies and the need for action to address gender inequality and women’s rights based needs forms the basis for this Request for Proposal (RFP) to carry out Gender Situation and Needs Analysis, CSO Scoping and Development of a Joint Assignment on Institutional Development of Gender machineries in Somalia.

The Outputs of this consultancy are aimed to help improve interactions on and abilities of the gender/women’s ministries to engage on gender equality and women’s empowerment needs in the macro-structural context. It is aimed that the Outputs will help determine direction and actions of the interested UN agencies such as UNDP and UNIFEM (but not limited to only these two) that are aimed to address gender inequalities within the social, economic and political governance institutions.