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 COVID-19 pandemic is not only putting an unprecedented and significant strain on the global economy and public health systems, but is also highlighting, and magnifying inequalities and the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination faced by women and girls. The pandemic has moved beyond a global health crisis and has morphed into a labor market, social and economic crisis, posing a serious threat to women’s employment and livelihoods, especially in precarious informal and non-essential sectors. This is particularly consequential for the Arab States, where gender gaps are among the widest compared to the rest of the world.

Globally, the pandemic will likely push 47 million more women and girls below the poverty line. The Arab region’s economy is expected to contract by at least 5.7% and the ranks of the poor are estimated to rise by 14.3 million people, swelling to more than 115 million. That is one quarter of the total Arab population. 

In a region where 14.3 million people were already unemployed, the ILO estimated losses in the equivalent of 17 million full-time jobs in the second quarter of 2020. With the largest gender gap in human development in the world, women in the Arab region suffer significant consequences of the pandemic. Women earn on average 78.9% percent less than men on a per capita basis and they stand to lose 700,000 jobs particularly in the informal sector where they constitute 61.8?per?cent of workers and lack social protection nets. Other estimates from June 2020 anticipated that women would bear 41% of job losses in the Arab world, even though they constitute no more than around 19% of the workforce.

In the current context, it is vital to adopt short and longer-term solutions to mitigate economic losses and the adverse impact on women’s livelihoods during the pandemic to position them for economic recovery during and in the aftermath of the pandemic. In the short term, it is critical to stabilize economic losses of women during the pandemic, protect their employment where possible and reconcile their work obligations with the increased burden of care work at home due to closed schools and caring for the sick and elderly. It is also vital to recognize the role of women in the immediate response as part of the economic solutions.

For the longer term, it is essential to establish and strengthen macroeconomic policies and accelerating gender-inclusive decision-making that channel resources to those most impacted by the crisis and provide social and economic recovery support and other productive resources in the economy in order to benefit women and girls. In policy-making during such crises, the opportunity to eliminate discriminatory norms and laws on women’s equal participation should be seized, so that both men and women reinvigorate the economy.

Unpaid care and domestic work sustain families and communities on a day-to-day basis and from one generation to the next and make a significant contribution to economic development across generations. Yet, it remains invisible, undervalued, and neglected in economic and social policymaking, and its distribution is grossly imbalanced: Globally, women do three times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men, while in the Arab States region the ratio is on average 4.7 times – the highest female-to-male ratio anywhere in the world, according to UN Women’s new flagship report, “Progress of Women in the Arab States 2020: The role of the care economy in promoting gender equality”. https://arabstates.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/12/the-role-of-the-care-economy-in-promoting-gender-equality

While the COVID-19 crisis has drawn significant attention to women’s role as paid workers in formal health-care systems, a large share of the work that goes into maintaining the health and well-being of children, older persons, and other family members is provided on an unpaid basis, even in normal times. When crises put stress on household livelihoods and public services, women often make up for goods that their families can no longer afford to buy in the market and for public services that are no longer available by increasing time spent on unpaid care and domestic work.

In response, UN Women and ILO are implementing a four-year joint programme “Promoting Productive Employment and Decent Work for Women in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). Among the components of the programme is to engage the community, government, and corporate levels to promote the value of women's work and equal and collective sharing of unpaid care and household work. https://arabstates.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/economic-empowerment/work-for-women-joint-programme

While working with the national institutions at the macro level on the gaps, costs, and gains from investing in the care economy, the joint programme is enquiring about potential approaches at the family and community level that would help mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the status of women’s employment due to care responsibilities. Such activities would include promoting redistribution of care within the household, reduction of time spent on unpaid care through establishing community-based care initiatives as part of an integrated territorial approach to employment, automation, and use of technology, etc.

This means that opportunities will be identified for addressing the issue of availability of care services in the short to medium term so that women are able to retain their jobs. Implementation of such care service provision initiatives in the community would translate into jobs for women care providers, those in the business of providing transport for children/elderly, cooking/distribution of home-cooked meals, etc. Good practices from within the region and globally will be identified and practical models will be proposed for implementation in the countries participating in the joint programme. Importantly, the successful models will have the potential to be replicated and scaled up throughout the region. 

Duties and Responsibilities

Reporting to the UN Women Programme Management Specialist and working in close cooperation with the UN Women ROAS Women Economic Empowerment team, UN Women & ILO country offices, and other partners as needed, the consultant will:

• Undertake a mapping of initiatives of community-based care provision in the Arab region and globally. The elements of the 5R framework for decent care work (recognizing, reducing, and redistributing unpaid care work; rewarding paid care work, by promoting more and decent work for care workers; and guaranteeing care workers’ representation, social dialogue, and collective bargaining) should be used as a framework for the analysis. The mapping should apply a variety of data sourcing, including web research, desk review of relevant documents, discussions with key stakeholders in the region, etc.;
• Synthesize good practices and lessons learned;
• Identify promising and scalable innovative, community-based care provision initiatives that have the potential for addressing gaps in the paid care service provision, challenge dynamics in unpaid care provision, as well as stimulate income generation and decent employment for women. Associate estimated costs for such initiatives where possible, and identify key aspects and steps of rolling out such initiatives in selected areas.

All the aforementioned findings should be presented in a study of 30-40 pages, subsequently discussed with key partners. 

Competencies

Core Values

• 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:https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf?la=en&vs=637

Functional Competencies

• Excellent knowledge of women´s economic empowerment;
• Ability to synthesize research and draw a conclusion on the related subjects;
• Commitment to accomplish work;
• Ability to meet deadlines and responds positively to critical feedback;
• Strong knowledge of the region;
• Excellent networking skills;
• Ability to perform qualitative and quantitative policy research;
• Excellent analytical skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• Master’s degree or equivalent in economics, social sciences, gender studies, or other relevant fields.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• At least 7 years of demonstrated work experience in gender-responsive economic development, local economic development, and/or women’s economic empowerment is required;
• Subject-matter knowledge of specifics and trends in paid and unpaid care economy is required;
• Experience working with the UN is an asset;
• Experience working in the Arab region is an asset.

Language Requirements:

• Knowledge of fluent spoken and written English is required;
• Working knowledge of the Arabic language is considered an asset.

Evaluation Criteria

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology: Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for the financial evaluation.

Criteria Weight

Technical: 70% (70 points)

• Criteria 1: Master’s degree or equivalent in economics, social sciences, gender studies, or other relevant fields. (10 points)
• Criteria 2: At least 7 years of demonstrated work experience in gender-responsive economic development, local economic development, and/or women’s economic empowerment is required. (25 points)
• Criteria 3: Subject-matter knowledge of specifics and trends in paid and unpaid care economy is required. (20 points)
• Criteria 4: Experience working with the UN is an asset. (5 points)
• Criteria 5: Experience working in the Arab region is an asset. (5 points)
• Criteria 6: Knowledge of fluent spoken and written English is required. Working knowledge of the Arabic language is considered an asset. (5 points)

Financial: Lowest Financial Proposal: 30% (30 points)

The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:

• Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical);
• The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula: (Lowest Bid Offered*)/ (Bid of the Consultant) x 30;
• 'Lowest Bid Offered' refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 49 points in the technical evaluation.

Application

Interested Individual Consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• A cover letter with a brief presentation of your consultancy explaining your suitability for the work or link to the portfolio of work;
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment;
• Personal CV; and Financial proposal; Proposed all-inclusive cost per each deliverable outlined in this TOR.

The above-mentioned documents should be merged in a standalone file including all of them since the online application submission does only permits uploading one file per application. Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification.

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW, and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.