Background

Many international commitments support women's economic empowerment, including the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and a series of International Labour Organization conventions on gender equality. UN Women supports women's economic empowerment in line with these, and with the growing body of evidence that shows gender equality significantly contributes to advancing overall economies and sustainable development in communities and countries.

UN Women’s global strategic work plan has established four key outcome areas for women’s economic empowerment including: policies adopted and implemented to strengthen women’s economic empowerment; companies (private and public) promote women’s economic empowerment; gender-responsive services (transport, utilities, markets, water, energy, etc.) to enhance women’s livelihoods; and strengthened coordination of the UN system to the adoption of a common strategy on women’s economic empowerment.

The Work of UN Women Multi-Country Office – Caribbean 2012-2014

The portfolio of support on Economic Empowerment in the UN Women Multi-Country Office for the Caribbean has traditionally focused primarily on child and gender-responsive social protection and advancing decent work for domestic workers. In 2012, the UN Women Multi-Country Office sought to diversify its work in this area and further strengthen its portfolio of work on gender and sustainable development by issuing a regional

Call for project proposals focusing on gender-sensitive food security and sustainable development initiatives in the Caribbean that:

• Supported rural women, small farmers and women entrepreneurs, including agri-business actors, in the context of land rights, agricultural production, food security, livelihoods, natural resource conservation, and climate change;
• Supported the integration of a gendered approach to food security policy and action plans;
• Promoted access to green economy opportunities by women, particularly rural and agricultural women producers and women in fisheries; and
• Increased the capacity of women to establish or undertake economic enterprises, including green economy initiatives.

UN Women intends to strengthen strong partnerships for gender equality and women’s empowerment with mass media, national and local government, civil society and other development partners by developing user-friendly tools that simplify sometimes complex concepts around women’s economic empowerment. In support of this, the UN Women Multi-Country Office Caribbean seeks to contract a Graphic Designer and Communications consultant to help the office meet its growing need for quality design services. The successful consultant will provide technical support to the programme and communication teams in development and improvement of the design, branding and layout of concise, clear and educational advocacy materials produced by UN Women. These materials should be produced to allow for online use, upload to websites as well as for printing.

Duties and Responsibilities

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.

Under the overall supervision of the UN Women’s Programme Specialist- Economic Empowerment and the direct supervision of the Communications Analyst, the consultant will be contracted to support UN Women’s work by completing the following activities.

Specific activities and deliverables

Design, layout and provide finished artwork for three (3) edited documents on social protection (with reference to UN Women publication templates and branding guidelines) - 15 days total.

First drafts due by 29 July, 2015

Final output – 28 August, 2015 

Competencies

Values / Guiding Principles:

Integrity and Fairness:

• Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

Professionalism:

• Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work;
• Conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results.

Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity:

• Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organisation and the diversity of its staff;
• Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies:

Work in teams:

• Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

Communicating and Information Sharing:

• Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication.

Self-management and Emotional Intelligence:

• Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behaviour towards others.

Conflict management:

• Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making:

• Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Post-graduate studies in communications, publishing, gender and development, international relations and/or graphic design.

Experience:

• A minimum of five years of progressively responsible and relevant experience in the field of editing, publication development, layout and design;
• Strong theoretical and practical background in graphic design, including the use of design software such as Adobe Design Premium, In-Design, CorelDraw, web design tools such as Dreamweaver and Flash, etc.;
• Show a clear and mature style of design, demonstrating an understanding of the communication requirements of a UN agency;
• Proven experience of graphic production from start to published/printed product with knowledge of printing processes (offset and digital) and colour management;
• Good understanding of new and evolving technologies and digital platforms;
• Knowledge of standard software packages, including MS Office– MS Access–MS Visio –Adobe Acrobat; and
• Gender and Development experience in the areas of economic empowerment considered a strong asset;
• Working experience in communications for development or behavioural change is desirable.

Language:

• Excellent command of written and spoken English.

The consultant contracted will be required to sign a statement of confidentiality and freedom from any conflict of interest with potential future contractors with respect to the TORs and work that they will be delivering.

Timeframes and Institutional Arrangements

The consultant will be engaged for a maximum of 15 working days from 15 June 2015 – 15 September 2015. The consultancy will be home-based, and is open to CARICOM Nationals only.

Hardware, software, and communication

The consultant must be equipped with a portable computer (laptop). The consultant must be reasonably accessible by email and telephone (preferably mobile). The use of reliable, internet-based communication (Skype or equivalent) is required.

Payment

The fee will be negotiated before contracting. Each payment will be based on a predefined and formal agreement between UN Women and the consultant and will be disbursed based on satisfactory completion of agreed deliverables.

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

• The completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment.
• Detailed curriculum vitae including a description of main achievements;
• Portfolio with at least 3 examples of previous work;
• A financial proposal quoted in United States dollars (US$) indicating daily rates and preferred fee structure based on deliverables.

Applications should be submitted by email to the attention of Sharon Carter-Burke, UN Women (sharon.carter-burke@unwomen.org) by 03 June 2015.