Background
The Gender Team is at the forefront of UNDP's commitment to gender equality and women's empowerment. The Gender Team is part of the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) which provides policy advice and technical support to all of UNDP’s operations. The Gender Team works to implement gender equality as a core objective of UNDP through a two-pronged approach (i) mainstreaming gender in all core practices; and, (ii) dedicated interventions that empower women and promote gender equality. In order to advance UNDP’s mandate in this area, the Gender Team created the UNDP Corporate Gender Equality Strategy 2014-17 which outlines in detail how UNDP will work towards gender equality in each of the goals and key results set out in the UNDP Strategic Plan 2014-2017. In addition to addressing the gender dimensions of each focus area, the Strategy sets out institutional arrangements which are aimed at ensuring that there are adequate human and financial resources as well as effective senior management oversight to achieve the expected gender equality results. To this end, several initiatives have been launched, such as the gender equality seal, the gender marker, which help strengthening accountability for gender equality results in the organization.
The Gender Equality Seal is a corporate quality assurance mechanism that measures and certifies the achievements and competence of UNDP Country Offices in advancing women's rights and gender equality. UNDP introduced the Gender Equality Seal as a voluntary corporate quality assurance initiative which assesses and acknowledges good performance in delivering transformational development results for gender equality. The Gender Equality Seal has three levels of certification (Gold, Silver, and Bronze) and Country Offices are awarded a certain level of certification according to their gender equality accomplishments. Performance is measured according to a set of minimum acceptable quality standards based on international and corporate mandates. Every 2 years each certification round applies this rigorous process in selected offices for a period of 18 months. During this period, country offices receive continuous technical and advisory support through webinars, individualized guidance, provision of tools and reference documents according to need as well as a community of practice for knowledge sharing and collective thinking.
Additionally, the Gender Team has received expression of interest from partners such as other UN entities, International NGO-s (INGO), bilateral partners, and others, to support them in developing gender equality certification programmes.
The Gender Team is looking for a consultant to support key interventions of the Gender Equality Seal initiative during 2016.
Duties and Responsibilities
As part of the Gender Equality Seal team the consultant must:
Participate on the final assessment of the Gender Equality Seal round 2015-2106;
Support development of new initiatives and partnerships with diverse stakeholders to develop gender equality certification programmes; and
Support the external assessment of the UNDP Gender Equality Seal.
Expected Deliverables/Outputs (Mid October-December 2016)
For the Final Gender Equality Seal Assessment, the consultant shall act as focal point for 6/7 applicant offices (3.5 days per country office, October –December) and must finalize the following deliverables:
Reviewed 5/6 Country Offices online Seal assessments (uploaded documents/evidences), scored all benchmarks based on evidences uploaded and completed 5/6 scoring matrix for each of country office.
Delivered final Benchmarking matrix, certification report and scorecard for 5/6 offices based on templates provided by the Gender Seal team.
Drafted emails to communicate results to each country office.
Communicated with Country offices to clarify doubts regarding the evidences provided and reached consensus on the final scoring.
Participating in Gender Equality Seal coordination meetings.
Supported the external assessment of the UNDP Gender Equality Seal.
- Supported new partners including other UN entities, INGO and other potential applicant partners.
Competencies
Functional Competencies
Demonstrated capacity for strategic thinking, and expertise in global gender equality and mainstreaming strategies;
Demonstrated ability and willingness to work with people of different cultural, ethnic and religious background, different gender, and diverse political views;
Good interpersonal and diplomacy skills; Openness to change and ability to manage complexities;
Ability to use critical thinking, conceptualize ideas, and articulate relevant subject matter in a clear and concise way;
Excellent oral and written communication and reporting skills in English, strong capacity in communications and/or reporting fields;
Outstanding networking, team-building, organizational and communication skills; and
Ability to work under pressure and meet strict deadlines.
Corporate Competencies:
Demonstrated integrity by upholding the United Nations' values and ethical standards; Treats all people fairly;
Appreciate differences in values and learning from cultural diversities
Promotes UNDP vision, mission and strategic goals;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age-based sensitivity and adaptability; and
- Demonstrating consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UNDP in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.
Required Skills and Experience
Education:
Master's degree in gender issues, or women’s studies and/or related discipline.
Experience:
Minimum of 7 years of work experience and knowledge in gender and development issues, including project management is required.
Experience in developing standards and indicators to measure/track gender mainstreaming for UN or development organizations is required (i.e.: capacity building/accountability/enabling environment/etc.).
Experience in gender audit, assessments and/or evaluations is required. .
Experience with UN Agencies and/or strong understanding of UN system modus operandi, frameworks and structures, particularly those related to gender equality and women’s empowerment and field experience will be an asset;
Language:
Proficiency in English language for report writing.
Application Procedure
The application package containing the following (to be uploaded as one file):
Online application with brief description of why the Offer considers her/himself the most suitable for the assignment; and
Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects and specifying the relevant assignment period (from/to), as well as the email and telephone contacts of at least three (3) professional references.
Note: The above documents need to be scanned in one file and uploaded to the online application as one document.
Shortlisted candidates (ONLY) will be requested to submit a Financial Proposal.
The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around the specific and measurable deliverables of the TOR. Payments are based upon outputs, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR, and deliverables accepted and certified by the technical manager.
The financial proposal must be all-inclusive and take into account various expenses that will be incurred during the contract, including: the daily professional fee; cost of travel from the home base to the duty station and vice versa, where required; living allowances at the duty station; communications, utilities and consumables; life, health and any other insurance; risks and inconveniences related to work under hardship and hazardous conditions (e.g., personal security needs, etc.), when applicable; and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services under the contract.
In the case of unforeseeable travel requested by UNDP, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.
If the Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.
The Financial Proposal is to be emailed as per the instruction in the separate email that will be sent to shortlisted candidates.
Evaluation process
Applicants are reviewed based on Required Skills and Experience stated above, all skills and experience that mentions the word required shall be considered mandatory and based on the technical evaluation criteria outlined below. Applicants will be evaluated based on cumulative scoring. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:
Being responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation where technical criteria weighs 70% and Financial criteria/ Proposal weighs 30%.
Technical evaluation - Total 70% (700 points):
Criteria 1. Minimum of 7 years of work experience and knowledge in gender and development issues, including project management. Weight = 20%; Maximum Points: 200;
Criteria 2. Experience in developing standards and indicators for certification programmes to measure/track gender mainstreaming for UN or development organizations (i.e.: capacity building/accountability/enabling environment/etc.) for the UN Weight = 30 %; Maximum Points: 300; and
Criteria 3. Experience in gender audit, assessments and evaluations Weight = 20 %; Maximum Points: 200.
Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (490 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (700 points) shall be considered for the financial evaluation.
Financial evaluation - Total 30% (300 points)
The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:
p = y (µ/z), where
p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated
y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal
µ = price of the lowest priced proposal
z = price of the proposal being evaluated
Contract Award
Candidate obtaining the highest combined scores in the combined score of Technical and Financial evaluation will be considered technically qualified and will be offered to enter into contract with UNDP.
Institutional arrangement
The consultant will work under the guidance and direct supervision of the Policy Advisor on Gender Mainstreaming of the UNDP Gender Team in New York and will be responsible for the fulfilment of the deliverables as specified above.
Progress will be follow through coordination meetings.
The organization will provide desk and equipment facilities.
The Consultant will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment.
No travel is expected for this assignment.
Payment modality
Payments will be based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified above and deliverables accepted and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the manager. There will be one payment at the presentation of all the outputs at the end of the consultancy.
Annexes
Annex 1 - UNDP P-11 Form for ICs
Annex 2 - IC Contract Template
Annex 3 – IC General Terms and Conditions
Annex 4 – RLA Template
The above templates and forms can be accessed from the following link: Procurement Notice 33253
Any request for clarification must be sent by email to cpu.bids@undp.org
The UNDP Central Procurement Unit will respond by email and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all applicants.