UN WOMEN Jobs - 89232- To contract the services of a Gender and Social Pr

To contract the services of a Gender and Social Protection Consultant

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Bridgetown, BARBADOS

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

01-Apr-2020

Application Deadline :

18-Jan-20 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

maximum of 100 working days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

maximum of 100 working 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, 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.

The UN Sub-Regional Team for the OECS and Barbados will be implementing the project “Enhancing Resilience and Acceleration of the SDGs in the Eastern Caribbean: Universal adaptive social protection modelled at the community, national and sub-regional levels” from January 2020 to January 2022. The project, which is funded by the SDG Fund for Social Protection, is co-led by UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP), with ILO, UNDP and UN Women as the other UN agencies to jointly implement the project.

The Joint Programme will contribute to creating an enabling environment for poor and vulnerable people to have predictable access to universal and adaptive social protection. This will support the ultimate goal of reducing structural inequality, reducing poverty and building resilience. Predictable access to universal and adaptive social protection will be promoted through an approach that spans and connects national, community and regional levels. At the national level, the Joint Programme’s interventions will focus on two countries (Barbados and St. Lucia) and will contribute to strengthening national social protection systems to support integrated service delivery by improving institutional capacities and through evidence-based, gender-responsive social and disaster risk management policies and legislation. It will also strengthen these systems through improved management and operational tools. The Joint Programme will support the introduction of innovative financing strategies to ensure fiscal sustainability and expanded coverage of the social protection system. At the community level, the Joint Programme will support the design of innovative community-based adaptive and shock responsive services within existing national programmes to generate evidence for social protection reform and strengthen the targeted communities’ ability to anticipate, absorb and recover from major shocks. At the regional level, legal and policy coherence will be supported by strengthening regional capacities, inter-institutional engagement and South-South cooperation in the Eastern Caribbean.

Through a multi-country approach, the Joint Programme is expected to enable partner governments to accelerate progress towards the implementation of SDGs in support of national commitments and reflective of the significant vulnerabilities of SIDS to external shocks, including climate-related events and impacts. Three key targets will be addressed through Joint Programme interventions to increase the adaptability of social protection to prepare for and respond to shocks and stresses by strengthening its linkages to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation. Specifically, the Joint Programme is expected to contribute to strengthening institutional capacities to expand coverage and adequate social protection through vulnerability analysis and identification of at-risk people on this basis, promoting a national social protection floor and sustainable and risk-informed financing (1.3); promoting and monitoring equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sex (5.1) and increasing regional capacity to recognize unpaid care work (5.4); as well as improving service delivery to boost people’s resilience and risk-management capacities (13.1) through evidence-generation and regional cooperation and knowledge sharing.? At the end of the Joint Programme, the universal adaptive social protection model should be scalable to become an accepted framework for implementation in most, if not all 11 OECS countries and territories. Working with IFIs will be key not only to ensure sustainable results in Saint Lucia and Barbados but also in replicating the model to other countries.??

UN Women’s role in the project is to support OECS Member States with working towards further strengthening national capacity to monitor commitments to global gender equality norms and commitments specified in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the SDGs. UN Women will deploy its technical expertise to address the structural inequalities that exist, and which undermine resilience to economic and climate-related shocks from a gender perspective; as well as the relationships between gender, unpaid care work and resilience to climate-related and economic shocks. The Joint Programme will leverage the strategic partnership in place between UN Women and the CARICOM Secretariat on Gender Statistics for measuring unpaid care and domestic work. UN Women will also deploy its global technical expertise on gender-responsive budgeting to assess fiscal space for physical and service delivery infrastructure for the reduction of unpaid care work in Barbados and St. Lucia.

UN Women will rely on the results of past and recent analytical work on gender and social protection in CARICOM. This includes the conduct of a Gender Aware Beneficiary Analysis of the St. Lucia Public Assistance Programme, the results of which led to recommendations for reform at the policy, operational, institutional and services dimensions. With regard to the latter, recommendations included the following:

The need to establish Early Childhood and Day Care services/centres in areas without access;
Adult education: For those persons, particularly women who may have dropped out of school, work with relevant agencies to provide access to study support to obtain their CXC and/or CAPE/community college certification;
The need to establish a rental subsidy programme for women with children/dependents;
Provision of skills training, certification and job attachments in areas with income earning potential. Women with children should be on a priority list to participate in active labour market programmes, along with unemployed youth.

UN Women’s interventions in the Joint Programme will be guided by the abovementioned recommendations. Given the agency’s focus on recognising and reducing unpaid care work in the Joint Programme, pilot approaches for optimizing social protection service delivery to connect the most vulnerable families with high care burdens - the majority of which are headed by women - to services and support to reduce unpaid care work will be prioritised.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objective of the assignment

Under the overall supervision of the UN Women MCO - Caribbean Representative, the Gender and Social Protection Consultant will spearhead the conduct of the following initiatives:

Strengthening gender-responsiveness of national social protection legislation, with specific emphasis on the following:
- UNICEF and ILO are co-leading the provision of technical assistance to the Government of St. Lucia with developing of this legislation. The UN Women consultant will join UNICEF, the ILO and their consultancy team in cooperation with the Ministry of Equity, and will lead the development of a Costed Gender Mainstreaming Strategy and Action Plan for the legislation;
- Organise and facilitate consultations (implemented with UNICEF support) with gender equality advocates and women’s/gender equality CSOs in St. Lucia to solicit input on the social protection legislation;
- The outcome of these consultations will be the drafting of the document "Key Asks and Demands on Gender Equality” to inform the development of the social protection legislation.
Strengthening gender-responsiveness of social services through the single window service:
- UNICEF will be leading the support to the Government of St. Lucia with strengthening the coordination of social services and programmes in the social protection sector through the establishment of a single window service/one-stop shop service. This will involve mapping (of processes of all social transfers and resources allocated) and developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) across sectors; integrating a graduation strategy (with a focus on the Public Assistance Programme) with Ministry of Labour; and improving access for people with disabilities. The UN Women consultant will join the team and will (1) review documentation on the mapping exercise; the SOPs; PAP Graduation Strategy and strategy for improving access for people with disabilities and provide substantive written feedback to address gender equality gaps; and (2) draft a gender mainstreaming strategy for the single window service/one-stop shop service.
Provide technical and inter-ministerial coordination support to the Government of St. Lucia with a pilot initiative on priority access by the country’s Public Assistance Programme (PAP) and Child Disability Grant beneficiaries (a cohort of single women-headed households with children) to housing, day care, health care including family planning, school feeding programme(s), transportation and other social transfers. The UN Women consultant will lead this effort and will:
- Draft a timebound methodology and approach for the pilot initiative, that will include a strategy for the selection of cohorts of beneficiaries; and a results-driven workplan/roadmap;
- Track and monitor access by beneficiaries to housing, day care, health care including family planning, school feeding programme(s), transportation and other social transfers for a defined period to be determined in consultation with the Government of St. Lucia;
- Draft a report on the results of the pilot initiative with recommendations for policy, programme and institutional reforms and promoting gender equality including the reduction of unpaid care work;
- Presentation of the results of the pilot initiative at a national dissemination meeting;
- Presentation of the results of the pilot initiative to the Cabinet of Ministers of St. Lucia.

Scope of Work and Deliverables

The Gender and Social Protection Consultant is expected to be in St. Lucia for the full duration of the consultancy; and will be expected to deliver the following results:

Strengthening gender-responsiveness of national Social Protection legislation (Timeframe April 2020 - May 2020):

Deliverable 1: Convening of national consultations with gender equality advocates and women’s/gender equality CSOs in St. Lucia on the development of the social protection legislation.

Deliverable 2: Drafting of the document “Key Asks and Demands for Gender Equality in the National Social Protection Legislation”.

Deliverable 3: Costed Gender Mainstreaming Strategy and Action Plan for the implementation of the national social protection legislation in St. Lucia.

2. Strengthening gender-responsiveness of social services through the single window service/one-stop shop service (timeframe April 2020 – July 2020):

Deliverable 4: Review of the following with a view to identifying gender gaps and providing written feedback to address these gaps and promote gender-responsiveness: mapping exercise of processes of all social transfers and resources allocated; Standard Operating Procedures; Public Assistance Programme Graduation Strategy and strategy for improving access? for people with disabilities;

Deliverable 5: Drafting of a Gender-Mainstreaming Strategy for the Single Window Service/One-Stop Shop Service. ?

3. Provide technical and inter-ministerial coordination support to the Government of St. Lucia with a pilot initiative on priority access by the country’s Public Assistance Programme (PAP) and Child Disability Grant beneficiaries (a cohort of single women-headed households with children) to Housing, Day Care, Health Care including family planning, School Feeding Programme, Transportation and other social transfers (timeframe April 2020 – April 2021):

Deliverable 6: A timebound methodology and approach for the pilot initiative, that will include a strategy for the selection of cohorts of beneficiaries;

Deliverable 7: A results-driven workplan/roadmap for the pilot initiative for consideration and to complement the Social Protection Policy;

Deliverable 8: Three (3) monitoring reports (inception, mid-term and final) progress report on the status of the pilot initiative;

Deliverable 8: Report on the results of the pilot initiative with recommendations for policy, programme and institutional reforms and promoting gender equality including the reduction of unpaid care work;

Deliverable 9: Preparation and delivery of power point presentation of the results of the pilot initiative at the following two events:
- A national dissemination meeting;
- A presentation to the Cabinet of Ministers of St. Lucia.

Reporting Requirements

The consultant will work under the overall supervision of the UN Women MCO-Caribbean Representative, with direct reporting to UN Women Programme Specialist for Economic Empowerment and Statistics.

Competencies

Core Values / Guiding Principles:

Respect for Diversity;
Integrity;
Professionalism.

Core Competencies:

Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
Accountability;
Creative Problem Solving;
Effective Communication;
Inclusive Collaboration;
Stakeholder Engagement;
Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies:

http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf.

Functional Competencies:

Strong gender analysis and social research and analytical skills;
Excellent written and oral communications skills including the conveying complex concepts and recommendations, in a clear and persuasive style tailored to match different audiences;
Ability to interact independently as part of a team;
Ability to multi-task and operate effectively in stressful situations.

Required Skills and Experience

The Gender and Social Protection Consultant should meet the following criteria:

Required skills and experience:

Education:

The Gender and Social Protection Consultant should herself/himself meet the following criteria:

Minimum of a Master’s Degree in any of the following areas Social Policy, Sociology, Economics, Public Policy, Gender and Development.

Experience:

At least ten years’ experience conducting socioeconomic research and analysis in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is required;
At least five years’ gender analysis experience, including the social protection sector in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), is required.

Languages:

Fluency in oral and written English is required.

References:

Minimum of three client references that include the name of the contact person, title and contact information.

Remuneration:

The consultancy 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.

Hardware, Software and Communication:

The consultant must be equipped with a fully-functional laptop, which must run at least Windows 7. The consultant must be reasonably accessible by email and telephone (preferably mobile). The use of reliable, internet-based telecommunications application software (Skype or equivalent) is required.

Location and Duration:

The consultancy will be based in St. Lucia (no travel is required);
The consultant will be engaged for a maximum of 100 working days during the 1 April 2020 – 30 April 2021.

Other:

Interviews will be conducted with the shortlisted applicants;
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;
The consultant should submit, along with his/her application, the curriculum vitae of team members.

Note:

Submissions to UNDP Jobs are limited to a maximum of 10 MB, virus-free or corrupted contents to avoid rejection, and no more than 1 email transmission.?? As such, all application materials must be scanned into one document and submitted.

All applications must be submitted through UNDP jobs.? Please do not send applications to UN Women staff as they will not be accepted.