Job Description
Roles & Responsibilities
I. GENERAL SCOPE The rapid adoption and expansion of information and communications technologies (ICTs) across public and private institutions have fundamentally transformed the way governments, businesses, and individuals interact. This ongoing digital transformation offers significant opportunities for economic growth, innovation, and improved service delivery, while simultaneously giving rise to complex legal, regulatory, and security challenges. In this context, the development, modernization, and effective implementation of e-transactions legislation have become a critical priority for governments worldwide to ensure legal certainty, trust, and security in digital environments. Across the Arab region, several countries have made notable progress in establishing legal frameworks governing e-transactions, trust services, data protection, cybersecurity, and related areas. Nevertheless, the continuous emergence of new digital applications such as cloud computing, mobile platforms, digital identity systems, and artificial intelligence (AI) has requested countries to continuously upgrade those laws to align with the best international practices and the evolving requirements of the digital age. At the global level, the UN continues to promote the responsible, inclusive, and trustworthy use of emerging technologies in support of sustainable development. In September 2024, during the Summit of the Future, world leaders adopted the Pact for the Future, together with its annexes the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and the Declaration on Future Generations. The GDC underscores the importance of digital trust, secure and interoperable digital systems, and effective digital governance. These objectives depend fundamentally on robust e-transactions legislation that provides legal recognition to e-communications, signatures, trust services, and contracts mechanisms, thereby enabling safe participation in the digital economy. The UN ESCWA has a long-standing engagement in supporting its member States in the field of cyber legislation. In 2007, UN ESCWA published the study Models for Cyber Legislation in UN ESCWA Member Countries , which reviewed regional and international legal developments and introduced practical templates for assessing and reforming national cyber laws. The objective of those templates is to support Arab countries in drafting and harmonizing national cyber laws. Through its technical cooperation program, UN ESCWA remains committed to assisting member States in strengthening legal and institutional capacities related to the digital and emerging technologies. Recently, the Ministry of Telecom and Information Tech (MTIT) in Yemen requested UN ESCWA s advisory services to develop e-transactions and trust services law aligned with international standards and regional best practices. In response, UN ESCWA is engaging a qualified legal consultant to provide specialized expertise in the area of e-transactions and trust services, with a particular focus on the Yemeni legal and institutional context. The consultant shall use as primary reference frameworks the ESCWA Cyber legislation directives, UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce (1996), the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Signatures (2001), and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (2017), supplementing these with the EU eIDAS Regulation and relevant Arab country implementations. For the purposes of this consultancy, 'trust services' include: qualified electronic signatures and seals, electronic timestamps, electronic registered delivery services, website authentication certificates, and preservation services for electronic signatures, consistent with the eIDAS framework or its functional equivalent. This consultancy is part of a coordinated package of three inter-related legal instruments being developed simultaneously for Yemen: Access to Information Law, Personal Data Protection Law, and an e-Transactions and Trust Services Law. The consultant shall be aware of this broader legislative package and shall flag, in the drafting notes annex, any provisions in the assigned law that intersect with or depend upon the other instruments, to ensure coherence across the three laws. The provision of this advisory service, including the scope of work and expected outputs, is outlined in these Terms of Reference III. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES The consultant shall propose to the designated ESCWA focal point a detailed version of the report on e-transaction law. To produce the draft report, the consultant is requested to conduct, among others, the main following tasks: 1. Benchmarking and Best Practices Review current national laws related to digital and emerging technologies in Yemen; Review best regional and international practices in e-Transaction and trust services law (at least 2 selected regional and 2 international cases) and justification for case selection provided in the report; 2. Stakeholder Engagement Identify main national stakeholders, hold, in coordination with MTIT, interviews and meetings with the main national stakeholders and preparing minutes of each meeting/interview summarizing the discussed points, their remarks, observations and proposals; Contribute to sectoral workshops to discuss needs and priorities, if needed; Discuss priorities and needs with MTIT and ESCWA; Document findings, priorities, and challenges. 3. Situational analysis Analyze existing legislation, and regulatory frameworks; Conduct a comprehensive gap analysis; 4. Law Development Draft a suggested law based on national needs, gap analysis, international/ regional best practices, and ESCWA template for cyber legislations.