Antecedentes

UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, operational since January 1 2011, works towards accelerating the United Nations’ goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women. UN Women supports innovative and catalytic programmes, advocacy, and technical assistance related to women’s human rights in countries throughout the world as part of the overall UN development cooperation system.

The purpose of these terms of reference is to recruit a policy expert to develop action based policy briefs that serve as evidence based informative tools on women’s most pressing issues for policy and decision makers. The briefs are expected to include key facts about the problem and propose specific courses of action to address those issues.  The developed policy briefs are expected to be used by various stakeholders besides its wide dissemination among policy and decision makers.  The scope of this activity is part of a wider programme entitled “Social, Economic, and Legal Empowerment of Women.”

The joint United Nations Programme on women’s social, economic and legal empowerment addresses specific hurdles faced by women in order to encourage women’s equal participation in society based on citizenship rights. With the aim of establishing effective strong coalitions, the project’s objective is to influence policy makers’ approach to women rights and gender equality. The consultant is expected to develop action oriented policy briefs that should serve as advocacy tools for coalitions which will guide the formation of strategic alliances and coalitions in Egypt for women’s advancement and gender equality.

The consultant will work closely in close coordination with the project manager.  

Deberes y responsabilidades

Summary of Key Functions:

  • Identify Egypt’s most pressing policy challenges related to violence against women, women political and economic empowerment and social protection that need to receive the attention of policy makers, based on existing narrative and baseline research on the topics;
  • Conduct focus groups and liaise with experts and relevant stakeholders to produce short (3-4 pagers) policy briefs that convey urgent policy problems and outline courses of action to address them;
  • Engage with civil society organizations and different stakeholders in the process of preparing, writing, reviewing the policy documents;
  • Ensure that the policy briefs are providing informative analyses on the identified topics and providing concrete courses of actions required;
  • Facilitate a workshop to present the final briefs to coalitions and social movements working on women’s human rights issues.

Deliverables:

  • The Policy expert will be responsible for delivering 4 action based oriented policy briefs targeting policy makers (in Arabic language). The briefs  will be developed around the following thematic areas: a) violence against women; b) women political empowerment; c) women Economic Empowerment; d) women’s social protection;
  • The policy expert will be expected to facilitate a workshop organized by UN Women to present the four policy briefs to coalitions and social movements.

Competencias

Corporate Competencies:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
  • Advocates and promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
  • Treats all people fairly without favoritism.

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge and Expertise in Women’s Rights and Gender Equality

  • Strong skills in drafting, writing, and editing;
  • In-depth knowledge of women’s rights issues;
  • Communicates sensitively and effectively across different constituencies.

 Management and Leadership

  • Demonstrates excellent judgment, particularly with regard to being able to prioritize according to importance and urgency;
  • Highly organized, with particular ability in devising systems to ensure follow up;
  • Enjoys multi-tasking and managing several projects at one time.

Focuses on impact and result

  • Ability to work as a positive and valued member of task teams and demonstrates conflict resolution skills;
  • Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
  • Builds strong relationships with clients and external actors;
  • Responds positively to critical feedback and differing points of view;
  • Displays High level of discretion.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Education:

  • An advanced university degree in a development or social sciences related areas – Political Science, Economics, Law, Public Policy, Development Management, International Relations etc.

Experience:

  • A minimum of 10 years, professional experience in women’s Rights and gender Equality.

Language Requirements:

  • Fluency (written and verbal) in Arabic and English is required;
  • Knowledge of other UN language is an asset.

Evaluation:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology: cumulative analysis (highest combined score for the technical evaluation and financial offer).  Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70 out of 100 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Evaluation Criteria:

Criteria Weight:

  • Technical: 70%

  • Financial: Lowest financial proposal: 30%

Technical criteria:

  • Relevant education in development or social sciences, additional background in statistics is preferable (20 points);        
  • At least ten years of work experience in the field of development and human rights (20 points);
  • Evidence of previous work conducted  and knowledge generated for informing policies on human rights issues (25 points);
  • Sound knowledge of gender and women’s human rights issues (25 points);
  • Excellent written and spoken Arabic (10 points).

Financial proposal:

  • Proposed daily fee

All documents should be merged in one stand alone file which includes all the above mentioned documents, since the online application submission does only permit to upload one file per application. Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification.

Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combines 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 candidates scoring at least 70 points in technical evaluation.