NATIONAL CONSULTANT: To Develop a Rights-Based SRHR Monitoring Tool and Checklist for the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Nepal

Nepal has made significant strides in enshrining sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) within its legal and policy architecture. The Constitution of Nepal (2015) guarantees reproductive rights as fundamental rights, and the Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act (2018) provides a legislative foundation for ensuring access to reproductive health services. Nepal is also a State party to key international human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and participates actively in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, both of which generate recommendations relevant to SRHR accountability.

The National Human Rights Commission of Nepal (NHRC) holds a constitutional and statutory mandate to protect, promote, and monitor human rights across the country. The Commission has demonstrated progressive leadership on SRHR accountability through monitoring of gender-based violence (GBV), engagement with harmful practices such as child marriage and chhaupadi, gender-sensitive law reform advocacy, and systematic engagement with international human rights mechanisms. The NHRC has also made formal regional commitments through the Amman Declaration (2011) of the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions (APF), which calls on NHRIs to advance gender equality and reproductive rights as part of their core mandate.

UNFPA Nepal has maintained a long-standing partnership with the NHRC to strengthen its capacity on SRHR, GBV, and gender equality. This collaboration has included support for treaty body engagement, gender-sensitive monitoring methodologies, and a flagship national inquiry on child marriage. Alongside this, UNFPA has supported the NHRC in capacity development on international human rights standards as they relate to reproductive rights and health system accountability.

Despite this progress, the NHRC currently lacks a standardized, institutionalized monitoring framework specifically designed to facilitate systematic human rights monitoring and reporting on SRHR-related cases and violations. This gap limits the Commission's ability to conduct consistent, rights-based assessments of SRHR violations; to measure State compliance with Nepal's legal obligations and international commitments; to produce evidence-based findings for its annual national human rights report; and to coordinate effectively with other national bodies, including the National Women's Commission (NWC), on GBV monitoring and survivor-centered response.

To address this gap, UNFPA in partnership with the NHRC seek to engage a qualified national consultant to develop a comprehensive, rights-based SRHR monitoring tool tailored to Nepal's legal, institutional, and policy context. This initiative is grounded in the human rights vision of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and directly supports the NHRC's mandate and regional commitments on SRHR.

The primary objective of this consultancy is to provide technical support to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to develop and institutionalize a standardized, rights-based SRHR monitoring checklist aligned with Nepal’s constitutional and legal framework and international human rights commitments. The tool will strengthen NHRC’s capacity to systematically monitor, document, and report on SRHR and GBV-related human rights violations.

Specifically, the consultancy aims to produce a tool that is grounded in Nepal's constitutional and legislative framework on SRHR, including the Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act; aligned with international human rights instruments to which Nepal is a party, including CEDAW, the ICPD Programme of Action, and UPR recommendations relevant to SRHR; aligned with the Asia Pacific Forum's standards and the Amman Declaration commitments; and practical and operational for use by NHRC investigators, monitoring officers, and field staff.

UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled.  UNFPA’s strategic plan (2022-2025), reaffirms the relevance of the current strategic direction of UNFPA and focuses on three transformative results: to end preventable maternal deaths; end unmet need for family planning; and end gender-based violence and harmful practices. These results capture our strategic commitments on accelerating progress towards realizing the ICPD and SDGs in the Decade of Action leading up to 2030. Our strategic plan calls upon UN Member States, organizations and individuals to “build forward better”, while addressing the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on women’s and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, recover lost gains and realize our goals.

In a world where fundamental human rights are at risk, we need principled and ethical staff, who embody these international norms and standards, and who will defend them courageously and with full conviction.

UNFPA is seeking candidates that transform, inspire and deliver high impact and sustained results; we need staff who are transparent, exceptional in how they manage the resources entrusted to them and who commit to deliver excellence in programme results.

Under the overall supervision of Gender Equality and Human Rights Specialist and in close coordination with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the consultant will undertake the following tasks:

Ensure application of ethical standards in handling sensitive information related to SRHR and GBV, including confidentiality, survivor-centered approaches, and do-no-harm principle.
 

UNFPA provides a work environment that reflects the values of gender equality, diversity, integrity and healthy work-life balance. We are committed to ensuring gender parity in the organization and therefore encourage women to apply. Individuals from the LGBTQIA+ community, minority ethnic groups, indigenous populations, persons with disabilities, and other underrepresented groups are highly encouraged to apply. Reasonable accommodation may be provided to applicants with disabilities upon request, to support their participation in the recruitment process. UNFPA promotes equal opportunities in terms of appointment, training, compensation and selection for all regardless of personal characteristics and dimensions of diversity. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is at the heart of UNFPA's workforce - click here [link removed] to learn more.

Selection and appointment may be subject to background and reference checks, medical clearance, visa issuance and other administrative requirements. 

UNFPA does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process and does not concern itself with information on applicants' bank accounts. 

Applicants for positions in the international Professional and higher categories, who hold permanent resident status in a country other than their country of nationality, may be required to renounce such status upon their appointment.