Background

Thirty years into the epidemic, evidence points to gender inequality as a key and persistent factor that fuels the transmission and spread of HIV. There are clear links between increasing rates of HIV infection and issues of gender inequality, including violence against women, feminized poverty, adverse cultural practices and limited inclusion in decision-making processes. Coupled with unequal power relations and economic dependency, women face many barriers in negotiating safe sex and preventing sexual violence. This also adversely impacts women’s access to prevention, treatment and care and support. Although they bear a disproportionate share of the impact of the HIV epidemic, the concerns of women has for the most part been overlooked and under-estimated in HIV response.  Often, women’s vulnerability is defined exclusively in relation to their role as mothers (hence the focus on preventing mother-to-child transmission) or as sex workers (as part of the most-at-risk populations). This limited definition of women’s vulnerability obscures the complexity of men’s and women’s lives and the choices they make.
 
Globally, women represent 50% of all people living with HIV and the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age is HIV and AIDS (WHO, 2009). HIV prevalence among women has been on the rise in many regions including Asia, where the proportion of women living with HIV compared to men increased from 20% in 1990 to 35% in 2011--of the estimated 4.9 million people living with HIV in Asia, around 1.7 million are women. Although the proportion of women among all HIV-positive people in the region has stabilized at about 35 percent in the last decade,in countries such as Thailand, which is one of the few countries in the world to have reversed the trend of the epidemic, the proportion of women among all reported AIDS cases has increased from 14% in 1990 to 39% in 2008.
 
Furthermore, there are particular challenges in addressing the needs of women and girls in concentrated HIV epidemics, as is the case for most of Asia Pacific. Research in the region shows high prevalence rates amongst the otherwise considered low risk group, namely women in intimate partner relationships who contracted HIV from their partners. The Commission on AIDS in Asia estimated that 50 million women in Asia are at risk of acquiring HIV from their male intimate partners who engage in high risk behaviours, including paid sex, injecting drug use and unsafe male to male sex. Due to the difficulty of identifying and reaching such female intimate partners at higher risk of HIV transmission, not enough has been done to meet their needs.
 
Meanwhile, it should also be pointed out that for a gender-transformative, effective HIV response in concentrated epidemics, it is crucial to protect and promote the rights of women and girls in all their diversity, with a particular focus on key populations. This includes linking HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights, ensuring equitable access to services, free of violence, coercion, stigma and discrimination, and having access to justice and human rights.
               
Policy Commitment to HIV and AIDS
 
Despite the growing awareness and political commitment to gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, the Secretary General’s first report on HIV to the UN General Assembly since the 2011 High Level Meeting on AIDS, found that the gap between commitments and reality remains considerable. Efforts to accelerate progress towards this goal continue to be undermined by inadequate resources for initiatives to address the epidemic’s gender dimensions as well as the persistence of gender-based violence. Less than half of countries worldwide have dedicated budgets for programmatic activities to address the gender dimensions of HIV and AIDS.  
 
While countries recognize the importance of integrating women and girls’ programmes in the national HIV responses, this commitment is not yet reflected in budgeting. A majority of countries now include women-focused initiatives in their national AIDS strategies, however country reports show varied understanding of what it means to “include women” in national AIDS responses, suggesting that current approaches may be only partial, inadequately rights-based and inadequately focused on the meaningful involvement of women and girls. One of the key gaps in this regard, therefore pertains to inadequate funding to address the epidemic’s gender dimensions. As per a 2010 global UNAIDS survey, which collected data from 81 countries on HIV programming and interventions found that:
  • One third (27 of 81) of national strategic plans have dedicated budgets for developing the capacity of women’s organizations and networks of women living with HIV;
  • One fifth (17 of 81) of the countries indicated that ministries responsible for women, girls and gender equality have no plans for HIV. In fact, about one third (29 of 81) of the countries indicated that the concerned ministry had included HIV in its plans and budgets. Further, even when a dedicated HIV budget is available, it is often inadequate;
  • Only 35% (28 of 81) of the countries reported that social protection mechanisms, such as cash transfers and social assistance, were accessible for women living with HIV through national programmes.
Applying Gender-Responsive Budgeting to the HIV Response
The evidence supporting the need for increased investment in the HIV response has never been clearer or more compelling. The application of gender responsive budgeting (GRB) can promote adequate budget allocations for programmes that deliver quality services to women and achieve equitable outcomes. In addition, capacity development of HIV-positive women and support to their networks is recommended as a way to ensure their equal participation and representation in the planning and decision making processes.

Applying GRB tools to HIV and AIDS entails taking measures to analyze budget allocations for HIV and AIDS from a gender perspective to ensure the following: 
  • Priorities of women – regardless of their age, race, marital status etc.- are funded to ensure equal access to Prevention, treatment, care, and support services are being resourced within the national operation plans for AIDS;
  • Initiatives that contribute to the 'transformation' of the unequal gender dynamics in the AIDS context are funded through the response;
  • The latter is extremely important since a serious response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic cannot ignore the underlying “structural drivers” of the epidemic which include the physical, social, cultural, organizational, community, economic, legal and policy features of the environment that affect HIV risk behaviours and vulnerability.
Data generated through GRB initiatives i.e. gender budget analysis, costing exercises and benefit incidence analysis, budget tracking and monitoring can bring to the fore such issues and provide an evidence-base for advocacy efforts. The data generated can also help in ensuring that resources are targeted where they can have the greatest impact (UNIFEM 2009 unpublished).
 
UN Women’s Approach
UN Women brings principles of gender equality and a rights-based approach to achieve the goal of halting and reversing the spread of HIV in the region. UN Women advocates for the inclusion of women living with HIV in policy and decision-making activities to address HIV prevention, care and support, and a more broad-based leadership in national networks of positive women where they exist. It also advocates for increased knowledge building on gender and HIV. The inadequacy of informed and evidence-based research means that we don’t know enough about how HIV affects women in the region, which in turn leads to less-effective responses.
 
UN Women seeks to develop a Strategy Paper to highlight approaches and strategies for examining financing for gender equality in the HIV response using GRB approaches in the Asia Pacific region. It will build on the work undertaken in various countries of the region to identify opportunities and good practices. This paper is primarily aimed at national AIDS coordinating bodies and UN system partners.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work/Activies
The Strategy Paper will be researched, drafted and finalized by a consultant.  S/he will work closely with and under the guidance of UN Women’s GRB Specialist. 
 
The Strategy Paper will:
  • Outline the financing landscape for HIV in the Asia Pacific Region;
  • Define what constitutes a gender-aware HIV response; including essential action areas;  
  • Identify approaches/methodologies that can support analysis of allocations and expenditures that can contribute to better outcomes for women and girls with respect to universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support;
  • Identify strategic entry points and strategies in national HIV planning, programming and budgeting to support programming that takes into account the differential needs of women and men within the HIV responses;
  • Reflect on the key data or evidence needed for undertaking GRB in the context of HIV and AIDS; and, 
  • Draw out good case examples of the application of GRB tools and approaches within the HIV context.
Expected Deliverables
  • Detailed Annotated Outline (15 working days); 
  • First Draft (50 working days); 
  • Final Draft with UN Women comments incorporated (25 working days).
Project Location
The research will focus on Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. The consultant is recommended to work with the UNAIDS Joint Team on AIDS in the three countries and seek their inputs during the data collection and review processes.

Competencies

Professionalism:
  • Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.
Functional Competencies:
  • Technical expertise in gender and GRB;
  • Excellent conceptual, analytical, and writing skills, with a strong ability to convey/communicate complex processes in a simple and understandable manner.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

  • A post-graduate degree in the social sciences; i.e. international development or related field of study; with a minimum of ten years of relevant experience.

Experience

  • Minimum 7 years of experience in and familiarity with HIV planning, programming, and budgeting processes an asset. 
Language
  • Fluent in English.

How to apply:
Interested applicants are requested to submit the following to hr.bangkok@unwomen.org by 31 October 2013:

  • Brief cover letter of no more than one page;
  • Updated CV;
  • Proposal;
  • Proposed daily consultancy fee;
  • Number of working days required (maximum 90 days);
  • Earliest available date.

Guidelines for submission of proposals

Given the Terms of Reference, the proposal should contain, at the minimum, the following:

  • Situation analysis;
  • Research methodology;
  • Possible data sources;
  • Work plan;
  • Draft outline of the paper.

Evaluation and selection of proposals

Proposals will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis:

  • Technical qualification (100 points) weight – 80%;
  • Financial/ price proposal (100 points) weight – 20%.

The technical assessment will review the following:

  • Clarity of the situation analysis (15%);
  • Soundness of the proposed research methodology, data sources and work plan in relation to the TOR and the situation analysis (60%);
  • Expected comprehensiveness of the content based on the draft outline (25%).

A two-stage procedure is utilised in evaluating the proposals, with evaluation of the technical proposal being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. Only the price proposals of the candidates who pass the minimum technical score of 70% of the obtainable score of 100 points in the technical evaluation will be evaluated. The maximum number of points will then be allotted to the lowest price proposal. All other price proposals will receive points in inverse proportion to the lowest price; [Lowest Price x 100 / Other Price under Consideration] = Points for Other Candidate's Price Component.

The contract will be awarded to the candidate whose proposal receives the highest total score (Total Score = Technical Score x 0.8 + Financial Score x 0.2).