UN WOMEN Jobs - 61842- Consultant to Support the Drafting of the Social D

Consultant to Support the Drafting of the Social Development Sector Plan for Uganda’s Ministry of Gender Labour & Social Development

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Kampala, UGANDA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

05-Dec-2015

Application Deadline :

30-Nov-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

25 Days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

25 Days

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. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

UN Women (UNW), 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. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, the UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality are translated into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts while building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. It is within this context that UN Women is supporting the Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development (MGLSD) in seeking the services of both National and International consultants that will provide technical support in the drafting, gender and equity prioritization as part of the development of the Social Development Sector Strategic Investment Pan (SDIP).

The Social Development Sector was established in the year 2001 as part of the overall Government of Uganda sector Wide approach (SWAP) to planning and programming. The sector is coordinated by the MGLSD under three key Directorates: Gender and Community Development; Labour, Employment, Occupational Safety and Health; and Social Protection. It also includes within its purview four National Councils: of Youth, Women, Children, and Disability; National Cultural Centre; National Library; Equal Opportunities Commission; Industrial Court and Uganda Foundation for the Blind. Four Ministers of State hold portfolios for these Directorates under the leadership of one Cabinet Minister of MGLSD. The scope and coverage of MGLSD is thus broad and diverse. The gender mandate of the MGLSD is one part of the mandate of an institution with a multi-sectoral expanse.

The Ministry has delivered on the above mandate through two previous SDIPs. SDIP I was implemented from July 2003-June 2008 and the second SDIP was designed and implemented from 2011 and is due to end in 2015.

The Government of Uganda has now designed its second National Development Plan (NDP II 2015-2020 under the theme, “Strengthening Uganda’s Competitiveness for Sustainable Wealth Creation, Employment and Inclusive Growth.” In line with this, all sectors are required to develop sector specific development plans that will deliver NDP II objectives. For this reason, the MGLSD with support from UN women is seeking the services of a consultant to support the development of SDIP III. The SDSIP will among other things capture priority gender and equity issues, harmonize and align with the NDP II and respond to the localization of SDGs.

Rationale For The Consultancy:

The SDIP in addition to mainstreaming gender, will provide a framework for ensuring the needs of all vulnerable groups are met across key sectors in the development arena. The MGLSD is mandated to play five key roles outlined as:

Technical Support: Provide technical assistance on gender mainstreaming to sectors, institutions, local governments,civil society organizations and the private sector;
Standard Setting: Provide guidelines, set standards and disseminate and monitor their effectiveness;
Institutional Support: Provide support to Gender Focal points (GFPs), Sector Gender Working Groups and Local Governments with a view to improving their effectiveness;
Monitoring and Evaluation: Coordinate the monitoring and evaluation of gender responsive development in transforming the lives of women and girls in Uganda.

The MGLSD will therefore, lead the process of identifying core principles and designing a comprehensive SDIP III (SDIP2015-2020) which will be achieved through a high-level strategic engagement led by the Permanent Secretary in the MGLSD. The Ministry has designed a road map which will be the basis for consultations and consensus-building with the Gender and Rights Sector Working Group (GRSWG), as a coordination platform for pooling technical expertise from within and outside MGLSD around the drafting of thematic areas from which priorities for gender, labour, social protection, youth, culture, children affairs, equal opportunities commission and other actors in the social development sector will be set.

The fact that development of the SDIP is a highly technical process, the exercise will require highly qualified and experienced persons to support the Technical Working Teams in its drafting. The task requires a full time technical expert with skills, experience and expertise to accomplish the task at hand. Thus, the two selected consultants will provide support to GRSWG to design an engendered SDIPSDIP. The role of the International and national technical experts will be to provide technical support and work with the GRSWG for operational efficiency in building consensus and drafting a SDIP that is of acceptable quality, in line with the Sector Planning Guidelines provided by National Planning Authority.

UN Women will use its coordination role to facilitate engagement and seek support and inputs from various planning and gender equality advocates inside and outside of the government structures including the Civil Society Organizations, private sector, Gender Development Partners’ Group, and UN partners. The ultimate result is to have a Social Development Sector Investment Plan (2015-2020) with gender and equity priorities and projects that can attract support from key decision-makers in the public sector, private sector and the international community. With a comprehensive and well-resourced SDIP that is aligned to NDP II and is visionary in line to the new SDGs, Uganda will be in a better position to coherently respond to Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as its compliance to global norms, policies and standards on social inclusion, gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Duties and Responsibilities

The purpose of the assignment is to support the MGLSD in drafting as well as synthesizing a gender responsive Plan for the Social Development Sector in line with the NDP II. The sector development plan shall be used as a framework for action at the national level. It will also be translated into District Development Plans for concrete activities at the Local Government level. The sector development plan shall further serve as a basis for action to promote the involvement and participation of vulnerable groups in the development process with a view to improve their well–being. In order to develop the draft SDIP, the ministry will seek the services of two consultants, one international and one national for purposes of complementing each other and expediting the delivery.

Overall Objectives:

To produce a comprehensive and gender responsive SDIP 2016-2020 that will enhance the capacity of the MGLSD on gender and equity mainstreaming and provide leadership, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of gender and equity initiatives across all development sectors in Uganda.

Specific Objective:

To assess the comprehensiveness of the existing Social Development Sector Plan, the extent it address the social and economic issues of various vulnerable groups and the implementation process;
To assess the gaps and strengths of the current plan to be carried forward in the new plan and identify lessons and good practices to be replicated in the next sectordevelopment plan;
Facilitate formulation of a Development Plan (2015/16–2020) for the Social Development Sector for the next 5 years that aligns with the NDP and SDGs, and incorporates gender and equity issues that can inform policies, legislations and programmes.

Approach:

The consultants will work closely with the MGLSD Technical Working Team, the Thematic Sub–Committees and the Drafting Team to steer the SDIP development process and ensure due consensus on all key aspects of the process of developing the sector plan. The SDIP will among others highlight:

The need for a functional mechanism to effectively mainstream gender in development processes;
The responsibility of the MGLSD in holding each key sector accountable on their planning, performance management and evaluation in providing services andtransforming the lives ofthe different target groups;
Financial planning, allocations and accountability, operations system and procedures that demonstrate government commitment;
Inter- organizational linkages, network, partnership, electronic linkage.

Methodology:

The methodology used will include:

Literature review of key documents informing the plan;
Establish the level of implementation of the existing plan, emerging issues in the sector, priorities to be advanced and challenges to be addressed by the envisaged development plan;
Interview key government ministries involved in the country’s socio economic development process;
Facilitate meetings for relevant stakeholders and brain–storming sessions to agree on the sector’s vision, mission, objectives, priority interventions and key strategies to achieve desired objectives;
Undertake costing of the plan;
Lead national and sub–national level consultations to develop consensus on sector priorities and to document lessons learnt and best practices in implementing the current sector strategic investment plan;
Drafting of the costed sector development plan.

Tasks of the Consultants:

Undertake a situation analysis through desk review of relevant documents to familiarize with sector issues and service delivery mechanisms; mainly Vision 2040 NDP II, current social development sector investment plan and their linkages with SDGS. This step will document the findings and will identify linkages and indicate where synergies can be strengthened;
Analysis of social inclusion and equity related activities being undertaken by different key ministries, departments and agencies and other stakeholders including documenting lessons and good practices. This step will document the findings that can lead into a process of problem analysis;
Take lead in the development of guidelines for stakeholder consultations and development of Issues Papers by the Thematic Sub committees;
Lead the process of the sector review including conducting local government consultations and writing the final synthesized sector review report;
Assist the Thematic Sub – Committees in the production of thematic Issues Papers that will constitute inputs in the development of the draft Sector Development Plan;
Based on all information gathered, analysis made and inputs received during all steps, support the Drafting Team and key stakeholders to draft and finalize the Sector Development Plan;
Lead and support the Technical Working and Drafting Teams in conducting national and sub–national level consultations on the draft Sector Development Plan.

Deliverables:

An inception report with Interpretation of the terms of reference and a detailed work plan with timeline. The inception report should also propose a table of contents for the SDIP;
Thematic Issues papers to inform the development of the draft sector development plan;
A reportfrom the national and sub national with the debriefing session facilitated by the team of consultants;
The final product is a detailed and well costed Social Development Sector Strategic Investment Plan presented to both the Top Policy and Senior Management.

Team:

This assignment will be done by a team of two people: one international consultant and one national consultant.

Competencies

Core:

Demonstrating/safeguarding ethics and integrity;
Cultural, gender, religion and age sensitivity and adaptability;
A good knowledge of social analysis and gender mainstreaming in institutions and policies and programmes.

Functional:

An excellent ability to analyze and synthesize information from relevant sectors;
Excellent communication skills both verbal and written; Strong report writing skills;
Innovativeness and initiative;
Strong analytical skills and ability to think out-of-the-box;
Ability to present complex issues in a simple and clear manner;
Ability to work under pressure and deliver high quality results on time;
Self-motivated and independent;
Excellent ability to work in a team.
Interpersonal skills and ability to work with multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural team of experts; analytical, planning,writing and communication skills;
Proficiency in word processing, spread sheets and presentation software;
Ability to coordinatemulti-task, and meet deadlines;
Ability to organize, implement and support consultative meetings at various levels.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced degree in Development Studies, Social Sciences or related fields;

Experience:

At least ten (10) years of tracked experience in leading national planning processes and gender mainstreaming in both government and private sector institutions and policies and programmes; and progressively responsible professional experience at national level in managing and implementing social development and related programmes;
Proven experience in similar work (developing national plans and M&E plans);
Ability to engage and work with vulnerable groups ;
Solid knowledge of the structure and functioning of government institutions;
Knowledge of Uganda political and social culture, policies/laws and programmes;
Good understanding of the issues related to community empowerment, labour productivity and employment, GBV, HIV/AIDS, child protection, social protection, gender equality;
Knowledge and skills in Programme Development and Management and M&E skills;
Experience in costing strategic and investment plans;
Experience of working in Uganda;
Proficiency in the usage of computers and office software packages, experience in handling of web based management systems
Should have undertaken at least one (1) similar assignment in the last two years.

Language:

English Language knowledge is a must;
Knowledge of any other local language is an asset.

Evaluation:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation

Technical Criteria – Maximum 70 points:

Criteria A: Relevance of Education – 15 points;
Criteria B: Special skill (excellent communications, professionalism) Language, etc. - 5 Points;
Criteria C: Relevance of experience in conducting similar assignment – 20 points;
Criteria D: Description of Approach/ Methodology to complete the assignment– 30 points

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals:

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:

Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and availability using the template provided by UN Women (Annex II); http://www.ug.undp.org/content/uganda/en/home/operations/procurement.html
Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and, telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references.

Technical proposal:

Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment;
A methodology and work plan on how they will approach and complete the assignment, as well as comments on the ToRs.

Financial Proposal:
indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per the deliverables expected to meet the objectives of the assignment. The link to template is; http://www.ug.undp.org/content/uganda/en/home/operations/procurement.html.