International Consultant For Women´s Economic Empowerment

International Consultant for Women´s Economic Empowerment

Advertised on behalf of :

Location :

Home based

Application Deadline :

28-Aug-23 (Midnight New York, USA)

Time left :

13d 1h 54m

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Post Level :

International Consultant

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

3 months

Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

Through its programmes and projects, UN Women is providing technical assistance to national partners (governmental and non-governmental) in the implementation of existing international and national commitments to women’s rights and gender equality, it facilitates networking and exchange of good practices and advocates for women’s rights and gender equality in all areas of life. According to its mandate, UN Women works in five thematic areas, such as leadership and participation, women’s economic empowerment, ending violence against women, women peace and security and governance and national planning fully reflect accountability for gender equality commitments.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina UN Women works in three key strategic areas – Women’s Economic Empowerment, Ending Violence against Women and Gender Responsive Governance. In Women’s Economic Empowerment UN Women utilizes a two-pronged approach of influencing the major players and implementing targeted interventions aimed at influencing policies, programmes and funds relevant for women’s economic empowerment. As all fields in which UN Women is engaged with relevant institutions, segment of women’s economic empowerment requires a high level of coordination with all levels of government, across the country. UN Women’s key comparative advantage in this area of work is in the production of knowledge, programming and policy recommendations on key areas of women’s economic empowerment as well as piloting targeted support to policy makers, businesses, and key categories of women that need economic activation.

Over the current strategic period 2021 – 2025, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF), UN Women will work to improve policy framework for job creation, including perspectives of care economy and entrepreneurship, and the implementation of existing policies through policy coherence between programmes for gender equality and promotion of women’s access to decent work. At the institutional level, UN Women aims to achieve effective targeting and inclusion of women (especially those most marginalized) in existing labor market measures and programmes based on the action-oriented research of the existing measures and piloting of the new targeted approaches to women’s economic empowerment. Building on previous investments in support of gender responsive policies and budgets, UN Women will support the development and resilience of women owned business and women entrepreneurs and improve the socio-economic position of rural women and their cooperatives, as well as work towards decreasing the burden of unpaid care work on women. UN Women will also continue seeking to ensure ICT/STEM education and job opportunities are available and accessible to girls and women, by promoting the network of women in ICT, mentorship programs and using Women’s Empowerment Principles and other tools to improve gender-equality in male-dominated industries.

Reflective of the above, UN Women is now seeking to recruit an international expert on women’s economic empowerment to provide technical and strategic advice related to women’s economic empowerment in Bosnia and Herzegovina as outlined below.

DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVE

The overall objective of this consultancy is to promote and contribute to an environment in which women benefit from resilient, inclusive and sustainable growth in BiH through strengthened policy development and stakeholders’ capacity to promote women’s economic empowerment.

IMMEDIATE OBJECTIVE

The immediate objective is to provide technical and strategic advice to UN Women BiH in the area of women’s economic empowerment - care economy, entrepreneurship and agriculture and rural economy in particular, and provide further programming recommendations related to our work on economic empowerment of women.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the WEE Programme Coordinator, and the overall supervision of UN Women Programme Specialist, the consultant is expected to deliver the following results:

Provide strategic advice on Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Portfolio including entrepreneurship, care economy, and women in rural and agriculture by:

• Identifying areas of work where UN Women BiH has the comparative advantage in WEE, as well as linkages and synergies across different projects based on available programming in the country (WEE Portfolio team to supplement the knowledge of the available programming by different stakeholders and UN Women’s current programming activities);
• Organizing and facilitating a 3-hours online workshop with WEE team to discuss the comparative advantage and current programming, and the future UN Women’s WEE priorities where UN Women should continue investing to apply multiplier effect to elevate activities to a higher level
• Based on the workshop and materials provided, developing a WEE Portfolio Concept Note for future fundraising
• UN Women will utilize these findings for the Strategic Note Mid-Term Review.

Provide peer expert review to the following programming areas:

• Quality assurance of the deliverables (total of seven) made under the two contracts currently in place for the piloting of two care models (one-stop shop for elderly care and care of people with disabilities and piloting of “gerentodomacice” employment scheme for home care for the elderly).
• Provide successful examples and suggest sets of proposals of investment in rural area development and agri businesses of women, which can be used as a national tourism tool;
• Quality assurance of proposed gender-sensitive funding criteria for the existing public subsidy mechanisms for women in rural and agriculture project and propose additional tools and services which can be introduced under government.

The consultant will set out a weekly plan of proposed activities in line with the deliverables below, and within the indicative timeframe:

All deliverables should be submitted to the UN Women WEE Programme Coordinator and WEE Programme team in English.

Competencies

Core Values/guiding principles:

• Professionalism - Demonstrate professional competence and Consultant knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.
• Cultural sensitivity and respect for diversity - Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Additionally, the individual should have an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.
• Integrity - Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

Core Competencies:

• Teamwork - Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi-ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.
• Organizational Awareness - Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.
• Planning & Organizing – Develops clear goals in line with agreed strategies, identifies priorities, foresees risks and makes allowances accordingly.
• Accountability – Takes ownership of all responsibilities and delivers outputs in accordance with agreed time, cost and quality standards.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment/application-process#_Values

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills
• Development and Operational Effectiveness
• Uses Information Technology effectively as a tool and resource
• Ability to review a variety of data, identify and adjust discrepancies, identify and resolve operational problems
• Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside UN Women
• Ability to perform a variety of standard specialized and non-specialized tasks and work processes that are fully documented, researched, recorded and reported
• Demonstrates excellent written and oral communication skills. Communicates sensitively, effectively and creatively across different constituencies
• Demonstrates very good understanding of and experience in communications and outreach/advocacy
• Shares knowledge and experience

Leadership and Self-Management

• Proven networking skills and ability to generate interest in UN Women’s mandate
• Identifies opportunities and builds strong partnerships with clients and partners
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure
• Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude

Required Skills and Experience

Academic Qualifications:

• PhD degree in gender studies, economics, finance, or any other area relevant to the requirements of the TOR.
• Master’s degree in combination with at least five additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the PhD degree.

Skills and Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of experience in drafting analytical reports, policy and strategic documents;
• Previous experience in working with UN agencies will be considered an advantage;
• Previous experience working in the Europe and Central Asia region a strong asset.
• At least 7 years progressively responsible experience in gender, women´s rights, women´s economic empowerment, feminist economy or socio-economic response, recovery or related area of work;
• Minimum of 5 years of professional experience in working with diverse public and private actors on gender and socio-economic empowerment and response, preferable in the Western Balkan region;

Language requirements:

• Fluence in written and spoken English is required. Candidates to provide certificate of English knowledge or sample of a part of study conducted in English (one to two pages maximum)

EVALUATION OF OFFERS
UN Women applies a fair and transparent selection process that takes into account both the technical qualification of potential consultants as well as the financial proposals submitted in support of consultant applications. Candidate applications will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of applicant qualifications and financial proposal. The contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Having received the highest score out of below defined technical and financial criteria.
• Responsive/compliant/acceptable, and

The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal will be allocated to the lowest price proposal among those candidates. Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for financial evaluation.

Criteria:
Technical Evaluation (70%) - Maximum Obtainable Points 70

Criteria 1: Fluency in written and spoken English. Candidates to provide certificate of English knowledge or sample of a part of study conducted in English (one to two pages maximum) REQUIRED

Criteria 2: PhD degree in gender studies, economics, finance, or any other area relevant to the requirements of the TOR (15 points)

Master’s degree in combination with at least five additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the PhD degree.

Criteria 3: At least 7 years of professional experience in gender, women´s economic empowerment and/or socio-economic recovery (25 points)

Criteria 4: Minimum 5 years of experience in drafting analytical reports, policy and strategic document (10 points)

Criteria 5: Minimum of 5 years of professional experience in working with diverse public and private actors on gender and socio-economic empowerment and response, preferable in the Western Balkan region (10 points)

Criteria 6: Previous experience in working with UN agencies will be considered an advantage (5 points)

Criteria 7: Previous experience working in the Europe and Central Asia region a strong asset (5 points)

Financial Evaluation (30%) – Based on submitted offer - Maximum Obtainable Points 30

The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:

• F - financial offer under the consideration.
• S - score received on financial evaluation;
• Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula: S = Fmin / F * 30
• Fmin - the lowest financial offer out of all the submitted offers qualified over the technical evaluation round;

TOTAL - 100 points

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents:

• Cover letter explaining why you are the most suitable candidate for the advertised position.
• Filled P11 form including experience in similar projects and contact details from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment
• Expression of interest and confirmation of immediate availability
• Candidates to provide certificate of English knowledge or sample of a part of study conducted in English (one to two pages maximum)
• Financial Proposal*- specifying a total lump sum amount in USD for the tasks specifies in this announcement. The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (number of anticipated working days, travel, per diems and any other possible costs).

Applications that are not complete will not be considered.

For any additional information, please contact [email protected]

How to Submit the Application: To submit your application online, please follow the steps below:

• Click on the Job Title (job vacancy announcement);
• Upload your application/single file as indicated above with the merged documents (underlined above);
• Click 'Apply Now' button, fill in necessary information on the first page, and then click 'Submit Application;'
• Merge your UN Women Personal History Form (P11), the Financial Proposal, Expression of Interest into a single file. The system does not allow for more than one attachment to be uploaded;
• Download and complete the UN Women Personal History Form (P11)- http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment

You will receive an automatic response to your email confirming receipt of your application by the system.

Qualified women and men and members of minorities are encouraged to apply. UN Women applies fair and transparent selection process that would take into account the competencies/skills of the applicants as well as their financial proposals.

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)

Due to large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.