Background

Over the past years, through the regional project “Promoting Gender Responsive Polices in South-East Europe”, UN Women has provided support to national and local stakeholders in strengthening democratic governance and advancing women’s rights through initiatives aimed at mainstreaming gender in policy planning and budgeting. As result, gender responsive budgeting has increasingly been recognized as important tool for advancing gender equality in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYRoM) and the Republic of Moldova.

In this framework, FYR Macedonia has made important steps towards the institutionalisation of gender responsive budgeting at central level. The Law on Equal opportunities between women and men (2012), Articles 11 and 14 introduced obligation for state authorities to incorporate the principle of equal opportunities of women and men their strategic plans and budgets; to follow the effects and impact of their programs on women and men and report in the framework of their annual reports. Further, the Government adopted a Strategy for the promotion of gender responsive budgeting (2012-2017), while the Ministry of Finance amended the budget circular requiring pilot Ministries to select programs for gender budget analysis and develop gender indicators to improve their gender responsiveness.

As the project entered a second phase, financially supported by the Austrian Development Agency and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the FYR Macedonia component expanded to local level to match the central level intervention achievements. The expanded intervention foresees extensive capacity building activities for selected local self-government units and an engendering of local level programme planning and budgeting processes. The intervention would on the one hand build on the entry points identified within the sectoral programmes of the local self-government units, and on the other hand, on the entry points identified within the decentralisation and budgeting process at local level.   

To this effect, UN Women is seeking to recruit a National finance and public policy expert and a National gender and public policy expert to conduct gender assessment of decentralization and budgeting processes at local level.

Duties and Responsibilities

Working under the supervision of UN Women Regional Project Manager and the Country Project Manager, as a team the National experts will conduct gender assessment of decentralisation and budgetary processes at local level and identify entry points for gender responsive budgeting.

The National finance and public policy expert will more specifically:

•    Revise the existing methodology for conducting gender assessment of the budgetary processes at central level incorporating a new specific component for assessment of the decentralization process;
•    Carry out gender assessment of decentralization and budgeting processes at local level:
    Describe the process of decentralization, annual budget planning and provide detailed analysis of the classification of the budget at local level;
o    Describe the budget cycle (including sources of revenues and distribution of the budget per sectors) and participatory mechanisms related to the budget;
o    Identify entry points and recommendations for gender responsive budgeting in decentralization, programme planning and budgeting processes at local level,
•    Conduct consultations  with LSGU officials and ZELS for their feedback on the preliminary findings and recommendations;
•    Incorporate feedback received from consultations and share findings and recommendations of the assessment with LSGU officials and ZELS for validation.

Deliverables:

The National expert shall provide the following deliverables:
•    Detailed work plan for the consultancy;
•    Methodology for the gender assessment of decentralization and budgeting processes at local level;
•    Draft gender assessment of decentralization and budgeting processes at local level for review;
•    Final assessment incorporating feedback received from UN Women and ZELS;
•    PPT on the entry points for gender responsive budgeting in decentralisation and budgeting processes at local level in Macedonia;
•    Individual report on the assignment with recommendations for future activities of UN Women in the field.

Competencies

Values:
•    Demonstrates integrity and fairness by modeling UN values and ethical standards.
•    Demonstrates professional competence and is conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results.
•    Display cultural, gender, nationality, religion and age sensitivity and adaptability.
•    Demonstrate strong oral and written communication skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Qualifications Education

•    Degree in economics, finance, public administration, public policy, or similar. Masters or PhD would be an advantage.

   Experience

•    More than 5 years demonstrated working experience in the area of public finance, decentralisation, budget preparation and/or monitoring preferably with consideration of gender equality;
•    Knowledge of national budgetary system; public finance and the gender responsive budgeting initiatives in the country;
•    Demonstrated experience in conducting policy assessments and analyisis of similar nature;
•    Willingness and ability to work as part of a team;
•    Previous experience working with international organizations;
•    Excellent knowledge of Macedonian and English language.

  Evaluation of Applicants:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on a cumulative analysis taking into consideration the combination of the applicants’ qualifications and financial proposal. The award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

•    responsive/compliant/acceptable
•    having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

Only the highest ranked candidates who would be found qualified for the job will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Technical criteria – 70% of total evaluation – max 70 points:

Criteria A – Relevant education max points: 15
Criteria B –  Expertise in the area of public finance, decentralisation, budget preparation and/or monitoring preferably max points: 20
Criteria C –  Experience in conducting policy assessments and analyisis of similar nature max points: 20
Criteria D – Knowledge of national budgetary system; public finance and gender responsive budgeting initiatives in the country max points: 15

Only candidates who have passed over the mandatory criteria obtain at least 49% of the points under the technical evaluation will qualify to the next round of financial evaluation.

Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula: S = Fmin / F * 30

S - score received on financial evaluation;
Fmin - the lowest financial offer out of all the submitted offers qualified over the technical evaluation round;
F - financial offer under the consideration.
 
    Duration and remuneration:

The duration of the contract is maximum 10 working days in the period 25th April – 15th July 2014. The payment of fee will be made upon satisfactory completion of all tasks in the assignment, and submission and approval of final report by UN Women.

    Application

Interested candidates are requested to apply online through this site no later than COB 16th April 2014.

The application should contain:

•    Short Letter of interest, including financial proposal, indicating a total lump sum for the delivery of outputs as per above description. The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (consultancy fee per number of anticipated working days, travel and any other possible costs).
•    Completed UN Women Personal History (P11) form, that can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment/

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.