International Consultant – Design & Development of a Gender Election Watch Africa (GEWA), a Pan-African Feminist Digital Electoral Platform

Responsibilities

• Design and develop the GEWA platform prototype: Develop a secure, accessible and user-centred digital platform prototype that demonstrates the core functionality of GEWA as a Pan-African feminist electoral information platform.
• Create, at minimum, interactive country dashboards, candidate profile pages, an election calendar, a gender alert tracker on violence against women in politics, thematic analysis hubs, and a searchable legal and policy database.
• Humanise and contextualise electoral data: Ensure candidate profile pages include relevant manifestos, testimonies and personal leadership stories, subject to informed consent and safeguarding protocols, to make the data meaningful and accessible to users.
• Develop a user-friendly content management system: Design a content management backend that enables trained UN Women and partner staff to update dashboards, candidate profiles, alerts, briefs and other platform content without continuous developer support.
• Strengthen partner capacity and platform sustainability: Provide technical leadership, mentoring and advisory support to equip the partner institution to manage platform administration, content management, data governance, safeguarding protocols and future platform expansion.

Scope of Work

• The consultant will report to the UN Women Regional Policy Specialist and work closely with the designated partner institutions to co-create GEWA through a participatory and capacity-strengthening process.
• The consultant will be responsible for the tasks outlined above.

Expected Deliverables

• Inception report, technical design brief, user journey map, wireframes, data architecture, workplan and risk mitigation plan - 10 September 2026
• Co-designed Beta version of GEWA including homepage, country dashboard template, candidate profile template, election calendar, VAWP tracker structure and CMS backend - 25 September 2026
• Functional dashboards and searchable database populated with initial data for 10 priority election countries, including gender-disaggregated indicators, legal frameworks and quota provisions - 10 October 2026
• VAWP data verification workflow, safeguarding protocol, administrator guide, user guide and training session for designated partners and staff - 20 October 2026
• Final publicly accessible GEWA platform, quality assurance report, stakeholder feedback incorporated, full handover package, source files/access credentials and maintenance recommendations - 20 November 2026

Safeguarding, Data Protection and Ethical Standards

• The consultant shall ensure that the design and functionality of GEWA are guided by safeguarding, digital safety, informed consent and do-no-harm principles.

Intellectual Property, Access and Handover

• All intellectual property, source code, documentation and platform assets developed under this assignment shall be jointly governed in accordance with agreements between UN Women and the implementing partner.
• The consultant shall ensure full transfer of knowledge, documentation and technical assets to the designated partner institution.
• Ownership, hosting and long-term management arrangements shall be determined by UN Women and the partner institution through a separate governance agreement.
• The consultant shall provide full administrative access, source files, platform documentation, login credentials, content management guidance and maintenance recommendations before final payment.