Background

Equality can be understood as parity in the enjoyment of fundamental rights and freedoms, and equality of opportunities with regards to education and work and the fulfillment of one’s potential. Equity relates to a degree of equality in living conditions of people, especially in terms of income and wealth, that society considers desirable. Reductions of inequalities are then justified by equity considerations.

The 1995 World Social Summit stressed that a people-centered approach to development must be based on the principles of equity and equality, so that all individuals have access to resources and opportunities. In the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action social justice, equity and equality reflect the concept of a just society ensuring the equitable distribution of income and greater access to resources through equity and equality of opportunity for all.

Public policies have to correct market failures and promote equity and social justice. World Social Summit identified several ways Governments can promote equality and social justice:

• Ensuring people are equal before law;
• Carrying out policies with a view to equalization of opportunities;
• Expanding and improving access to basic services;
• Providing equal opportunities in public-sector employment;
• Encouraging formation of cooperatives and community-based institutions;
• Minimize negative effects of structural adjustment programmes;
• Promoting full access to preventive and curative health care;
• Expanding basic education, improving its quality, enhancing access to formal and non-formal learning, ensuring equal   access to education of girls.

The 24th Special session of the United Nations General Assembly reiterated that social development requires reduction in inequality of wealth and a more equitable distribution of the benefits of economic growth within and among nations.

Over the past decades, inequalities in income distribution and access to productive resources, basic social services, opportunities, markets, and information have been on the rise worldwide, often causing and exacerbating poverty. Globalization occurs in the absence of a social agenda, aimed at mitigating the negative impacts of globalization on vulnerable groups of society.

A social perspective on development emphasizes the view that inequality impairs growth and development, including poverty eradication efforts and that equity itself is instrumental for economic growth and development. It aims at providing a better understanding of the effects of economic and social policies on equity in societies and promotes ways of advancing policies contributing to the reduction of inequalities. Policies for both inequality and poverty reduction are mutually reinforcing.

The linkages between poverty and inequality are highlighted in the 2005 Report on the World Social Situation: The Inequality Predicament. The report states that the goal of sustained poverty reduction cannot be achieved unless equality of opportunity and access to basic services is ensured and stresses that the goal of reducing inequality must be explicitly incorporated in policies and programmes aimed at poverty reduction.

Of course inequality is divided mainly in two fields; firstly, economic inequality (also described as the gap between rich and poor, income inequality, wealth disparity, wealth and income differences or wealth gap) is the state of affairs in which assets, wealth or income are distributed unequally among individuals in a group, among groups in a population, or among countries. The issue of economic inequality can implicate notions of equity, equality of outcome, equality of opportunity, and even life - expectancy.  Although the phrase uses the term income, the discussion often includes inequality in wealth or assets, which are different concepts.

Secondly, social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation that engender specific patterns along lines of socially-defined categories of persons. However, social resources other than purely economic resources are also unevenly distributed in most societies and may contribute to social status. Norms of allocation can also affect the distribution of rights and privileges, social power, access to public goods such as education or the judicial system, adequate housing, transportation, credit and finacial services such as banking and other social goods and services.

The aim of this assignment is to develop an inequality study about Jordan to assess the economic and social inequalities during the last decade.

In economic literature, there has been an increasing interest in studying income distribution to justify or evaluate economic performance and policies. To understand what life is like in a country, it is not enough to know its per capita income or the percentage of poor people, because quality of life in a country also depends on how income is distributed. Macroeconomic studies that addressed economic inequality or income distribution in Jordan are few. These studies focused on measures of the overall economic inequality in Jordan and neglected regional economic inequality and factors affecting income distribution. More recent research on Jordanian data has developed ways to identify the most important determinants of income inequality. It was found that demographic and socio-economic factors represented by household size, sex of household head, urban ratio, annual per capita income, and economic dependency rate were the main determinants that, positively, affect the income inequality in Jordan with disproportion of the size of effect. It was found that the overall economic inequality in Jordan in 1997 was roughly typical for Arab countries, with Tunisia, Morocco, and Yemen showing greater inequality than that of Jordan. However, Algeria and Egypt had less inequality levels. Worldwide, India and Poland had lower levels while most Latin American countries had much greater inequalities than those prevailed in Arab countries.

The objectives of this consultancy are to develop a comprehensive report about inequality which covers economic and social aspects in Jordan for the last decade.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objectives and Scope of work

The consultant is expected to:

Review of any available publications and documents that are related to inequality in Jordan. This will require that the consultant should do his own research through the web to find any related inequality publications or documents that was published by any UN agency, universities, and researchers in addition to the publication that will be shared with him/her through UNDP Jordan.

Meet with the related government entities. The consultant is requested to meet with government entities that their work is related to economic and social aspects in Jordan and they could have in-depth information about inequality in Jordan; these entities are Ministry of planning and international cooperation, ministry of education, ministry of health, ministry of social development, ministry of labor, ministry of Municipalities, ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs,  national aid fund, Zakat Fund, National Council for Family Affairs and the higher population council and main NGO partners such as ICCS, Johud.

Meet with other UN agencies. The consultant is requested to meet with other UN agencies such as UNICEF, UNFPA, ILO and any other UN agencies UNDP recommends to meet with. UINCEF is a partner and a shared cost contributor for this consultancy so the consultant would have important comments to be followed and incorporated in the last version of the inequality document; It crucial that the analysis looks at gender and childhood as a contributing factors to inequality and the effect of inequality on women and children.

Draft first inequality report. Based on the review of existing documentation and publications, meetings with related government entities and other UN agencies, the consultant should produce the first draft of the inequality study of Jordan. This includes the first chapter will be a literature review, the second chapter is about measurement of inequality using Gini index, 90/10 ratio, standard deviation of the natural logarithm for per capita income, Lorenz curve, Theil’s T statistic, range, the McLoone Index, etc in addition to spatial inequality. Chapter three is a trend analysis of inequality for the last decade, economic inequality; including macro and micro economic analysis. Chapter four is a social inequality which includes analysis about education, health, quality of life, etc.  All the analysis should have a gender and child focus.

Validate the draft study through sharing it with related governmental and international organizations for validation and feedback.

Finalize the inequality study by integrating comments received from key stakeholders and UN agencies.        

Methodology:

• This assignment will include a desk review of relevant documents, reports, studies and provision of household income and expenditure surveys databases in addition to meetings with the key stakeholders and UN agencies;
• The local consultant will work mainly with the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation – Policies and Strategies Department, Department of Statistics and UNDP – socio economic portfolio;
• This mission falls under the project “Support to Poverty Analysis and Monitoring”;
• The consultant could work with a team of two consultants but he/she should state that in their technical and financial proposal and the exact amount that will be for the other consultant.

Deliverables and Timeline:

• Desk Review and working on HIES databases,within 20 days of signing contract,10 Day (10 days);
• Meetings with government entities, and UN agencies.Within 30 days of signing contract,15 Days (5 days);
• First draft of the inequality study,Within 50 days of signing contract,35 Days (20 days);
• Final draft of the inequality study in Arabic or English,Within 60 days of signing contract,45 Days (10 days).

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

• Ability to work under pressure against strict deadlines;
• Ability to think out-of-the-box;
• Ability to present complex issues persuasively and simply;
• Ability to contextualize global trends in accordance with the dynamics of the operating (working) environment.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• Master's Degree in statistics, economics, social science, or development studies or any other related field.

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years of similar experience in working with statistical offices, producing poverty and inequality indicators, etc.;
• Specialized academic or policy experience in statistics, economics, strategies and policies formulation, and report writing;
• Very strong analytical, communication and advocacy skills;
• Knowledge in poverty and inequality measurements;
• Ability to use statistical software like SPSS, STATA, etc.;
• Strong background and knowledge of the country will be an asset.

Language:

• Fluency in both written and spoken English, Arabic will be an asset.

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. 2-3 page proposal:

• (i) Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work;
• (ii) Provide a brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work (if applicable);
• 2. Lump sum financial proposal based on the deliverables required;
• 3. Personal CV of the Principal Investigator and team members including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references.

Noting that, only applications which include the above, will be considered.