Background
The Gender Equality Seal is a corporate quality assurance mechanism that measures and certifies the achievements and competence of Country Offices, as well as Regional Service Centres and Headquarters Units in advancing women's rights and gender equality.
The certification process of the Gender Equality Seal initiative is also a learning platform that helps Country Offices / Regional Service Centres /HQ units establish a baseline, fine-tune strategies, identify and address gaps and challenges, document innovations and showcase the impacts of interventions for gender equality. The certification process creates a space for building a shared understanding of the definitions, strategies and goals of gender mainstreaming, identifying gaps and possibilities for synergies, and exploring ways to address them.
The Gender Equality Seal has three levels of certification (Gold, Silver, and Bronze) and Country Offices/ Regional Service Centres / Headquarter units are awarded a certain level of certification according to their gender equality accomplishments.
The purpose of this consultancy announcement is to build a pool of assessors for the Gender Equality Seal Certification process who will support the roll out and certification process in Country Offices and support country offices to improve gender mainstreaming.
Duties and Responsibilities
Before starting the support to country offices, the consultant will agree to participate in a virtual training of assessors on the Gender Equality Seal benchmarking matrix and methodology, to ensure quality of the services he/she will provide.
Under the overall supervision of the UNDP Gender Team Director or her designate, the Consultant during a hands-on mission or virtual certification process will:
Online assessment of Country Offices- Review Country Offices/Units results and background documents (evidences) from the online assessment tool of the Gender Equality Seal.
- Provide advisory services to Country offices on gender mainstreaming/ improvement of projects/institutional development as needed through a mission in country of virtually (emails, webinars, trainings etc).
- Develop an Agenda and methodology for the assessment mission and negotiate agenda with the selected Country Offices;
- Conduct a desk review of documents uploaded by Country Offices after the on line assessment and develop recommendations for improvement;
- Carry out the assessment through: Data collection through key informant interviews in the office;Focus group discussions with staff, interviews, workshops (both within and across work teams and functional units); Survey using free online survey tool such as Survey Monkey;
- Develop a report (6/8 pages max.) which should include a final score for each assessment area of the UNDP Seal benchmarking tool; recommendations; and recommended level of certification;
- Organize a meeting with senior management and Gender Focal Team to agree and finalize grading and establish follow up actions;
- Submit the report and recommended level of certification of the Country office/Unit (Gold, Silver, Bronze) to the UNDP Gender Equality Seal Team.
Expected outputs
- Verification and validation of the results of the Country Office as entered in the online assessment tool, through the assessment mission (or the virtual certification process);
- Effective advisory services on gender mainstreaming and institutional development to Country offices provided;
- Final assessment report including scoring of benchmarks and recommendations for the Country Office;
- Summary Report with recommendations (approximately 6/8 pages) developed and submitted to the UNDP Gender Equality Seal Team.
Financial proposal
The payments for the services to the Individual contract will be based on all-inclusive daily professional fee. The financial proposal will specify the daily fee, payments are made to the Individual Consultant based on the number of days worked, and after completion of assignments to be agreed between UNDP and the consultant in advance.
Experts shall be required to travel for specific assessment and UNDP will arrange and cover the cost of the official travels in accordance to UNDP rules and procedures by providing tickets, travel allowances – daily substance allowance and terminal expenses. This may include, but is not limited to, travel to up to 3 countries per region (Africa, Latin America, Europe and CIS, Asia and Pacific and Arab States). Each expert is expected to undertake at least one mission on average and should expect to be hired for a specific region.
The fare will always be “most direct, most economical” and any difference in price with the preferred route will be paid for by the expert.Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:
- Proposal: Explaining why they are the most suitable for the assignment;
- Financial proposal by providing all-inclusive daily professional fee in US dollars;
- Personal CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references (names, titles, email addresses).
Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:
When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:
- Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
- Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.
The following formula has been used to evaluate financial proposal: p = y (μ/z)
- p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated;
- y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal;
- μ = price of the lowest priced proposal;
- z = price of the proposal being evaluated.
Criteria for Technical Evaluation
- Criteria A: Minimum of 7 years of comprehensive knowledge in gender and development, institutional development and gender mainstreaming or related fields; and field experience: 20 points;
- Criteria B: Experience with UNDP and strong understanding of the UNDP, operations and structures, particularly those related to gender equality and women’s empowerment and field experience: 25 points;
- Criteria C: Proven expertise on gender audits, evaluations and capacity assessments for gender mainstreaming: 25 points.
Applicants are required to fill and sign a P11 Form and submit it together with Curriculum Vitae on the online application. The P11 Form can be obtained at http://sas.undp.org/Documents/P11_Personal_history_form.doc.
Successful Applicants will be included by UNDP as one of UNDP’s Cadre of Experts, to be drawn upon as resource persons, as and when needed, for UNDP related activities in the area of gender equality and institutional development.
It is expected that the consultant(s) will sign a Long-Term Agreement (LTA) with UNDP in order to be rostered for a period of 2 years (i.e. for assignments within 2013 and 2014), which will be expected to be signed in September 2013. A LTA is a framework agreement that aims to establish the terms and conditions of future contracts that may arise from the LTA. As such, a LTA does not imply a financial commitment on the part of UNDP and does not guarantee that a succeeding contract will be issued.
When called upon to engage, the individual will have to sign an Individual Contract (IC) or his/her employer, if employed, will have to sign a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), whichever is preference of the individual on LTA. The length and timeline of the IC consultancy or RLA, whichever is applicable, will be based on the specific assignments, which can range from 1-15 business days (reviewing country offices assessments or advisory services and missions in country to support gender mainstreaming work).
When a request for services arises, UNDP shall directly engage the consultant from the roster without the need for further selection process. A specific Terms of Reference (ToR) outlining the outputs and detailed arrangement for each assignment shall be provided and an IC or RLA, whichever is applicable, will be issued to the consultant, detailing the time frame.
As the assignments associated with this LTA are home-based, the consultant(s) are expected to provide their own office space and equipment.
General Conditions of the Services under the Long Term Agreement are provided as Annex 1
Annex 1. General Conditions of the Services under the Long Term Agreement
The LTA does not necessarily mean that a contract with UNDP is guaranteed. This will depend on forthcoming needs as specified in this ToR. Where a request for services arises, UNDP shall directly contract the consultant from the roster without the need for further selection process. A specific Terms of Reference (ToR) outlining the outputs for each assignment shall be provided and an Individual Contract (IC) or Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), whichever is applicable, will be issued to the consultant, detailing the time frame. Conditions of a particular assignment may be negotiable.
UNDP does not warrant that any quantity of services will be purchased during the term of this Agreement.
Applicants hereby confirm that s/he has complied with the minimum break in service required before becoming eligible for an Individual Contract. S/he also fully understands that, if s/he is engaged as an Individual Contractor, s/he has no expectations or entitlements whatsoever to be re-instated or re-employed as a staff member.
UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.
Competencies
- Demonstrated capacity for strategic thinking, and expertise in global gender equality and mainstreaming strategies;
- Proven capacity to produce high quality qualitative research and ability to absorb, analyze and synthesize large amounts of complex information within tight deadlines;
- Demonstrated ability and willingness to work with people of different cultural, ethnic and religious background, different gender, and diverse political views.
Required Skills and Experience
- Masters or PhD in a development related discipline (women’s studies or gender and development),
- Minimum of 7 years of comprehensive knowledge in gender and development, institutional development and gender mainstreaming or related fields; Field experience will be considerate an asset;
- Experience with UNDP and strong understanding of the UNDP, operations and structures, particularly those related to gender equality and women’s empowerment and field experience;
- Proven expertise on gender audits, evaluations and capacity assessments for gender mainstreaming.
- Proficiency in English language for report writing;
- Ability to speak the official language of the country assessed is essential (either Spanish or French or Arabic).