Background

Timor-Leste is one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia with both high rates of poverty and unemployment. Currently, 73.5% of the Timorese population lives in rural areas (United Nations Population Division 2007). The majority of Timorese work in agriculture, 78% of all working males and 77% of all working females work in agriculture (2004 census), and of this, 70% of women work without an income (Initial State CEDAW Report 2008). 
Women account for 42% of the workforce; 51% of self-employed workers are women, 47% of private industry workers are women, and 43% of subsistence agricultural workers are women. With the exception of government employees, where women only account for 23%, women are well-represented in the economy as a whole. However, 70% of the total workforce is involved in subsistence agriculture. Therefore, attention needs to be directed to the development of strategies and mechanisms for the expansion of the economy and the creation of industries. This would promote true economic empowerment for both women and men.
Women are already involved in a combination of subsistence production, trading/street vending (e.g., of agricultural goods), and limited types of home-based production (e.g., traditional and other forms of cloth and craftwork). A number of microfinance and other projects are working with groups of women in many parts of the country.
However, women continue to face very serious barriers to the sustainability and effectiveness of their economic activities, given the problems that arise as a consequence of high illiteracy rates (with only a 40% literacy rate for women, as opposed to an estimated 60% for men) and very limited business skills (e.g., lacking skills for advance planning, bookkeeping, product selection, and often lacking even basic numeracy and literacy skills).
A key problem is that women face significant social constraints to their modes of economic participation, with individuals (as opposed to those organized into groups) generally being in the weakest position. Women’s work is often unpaid, and unless a cash income comes to women through their productive activities, their work and contribution often go unrecognized (in spite of putting in long hours, they are not considered to be doing “work”). If their economic activities are considered to be unimportant, income from those activities may be spent and not put back into the economic activities, making those ventures unsustainable. There may even be opposition from husbands to women engaging in economic activities; for this reason, the ILO in Timor-Leste emphasizes that women’s economic activities are in fact family endeavors (i.e., involving and benefiting the entire family in different ways), rather than viewing them primarily or exclusively as “women’s” undertakings.  Other organizations promote women’s economic activities as been different from and separate from men’s, but also do it in such a way that initial resistance will be overcome as the benefit for all is seen. 
Women also face structural barriers to their work. For example, women involved in homebased production usually require training and extension services that take into account and adapt to the specific needs and circumstances of home-based production; these types of constraints are not usually taken explicitly into consideration when designing training programs and extension services. Similarly, women involved in the trading of goods usually face difficulties with respect to the transportation, storage, and marketing of their goods, among other barriers to their economic participation. Their needs and circumstances are likely to be very different from those of men who are pursuing economic activities that are more public and are perceived as “regular” work; a very different approach is required in order to involve women on an effective and sustainable basis.
In addition, women’s domestic responsibilities often make it difficult to participate in employment and training programs that are not specifically designed for women. Again, economic empowerment will only be possible when women’s specific circumstances (including the particular needs and circumstances of different types of informal employment) are taken clearly and carefully into account when designing and implementing such programs.
Furthermore, the CEDAW Concluding Comments called on the government of Timor to address economic empowerment of women:
  • Ensure that the promotion of gender equality is an explicit component of its national and local development plans and programmes, in particular those aimed at poverty reduction and sustainable development.
  • Pay special attention to the needs of women heads of households, widows and older women ensuring that they participate in decision-making processes and have full access to credit facilities.
  • Take proactive measures to ensure that rural women have access to justice, health services, education, clean water, electricity, land and income-generating projects, and are able to enjoy all other rights fully.
  • Take appropriate measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women with respect to the ownership and inheritance of land.
  • Strengthen its efforts at designing and implementing gender-sensitive rural development strategies and programmes, ensuring the full participation of rural women in their formulation and implementation.

Justification:
The capacity needs assessment of SEPI identified economic empowerment of women as a strategic gap and requires concerted action by SEPI.  In the case of economic empowerment, concerted work addressing women and gender-based economic biases does not come to fore easily. 

At a forum on the subject organized by SEFOPE-ILO on 17 October 2009 at the Mercado Lama, it was apparent that there are many initiatives and schemes that are now being planted on the ground. Some are spontaneous schemes like women putting up revolving funds.  For example, one woman reported in the plenary session that in their village, they contributed 25 USD to a common pot which they used to lend money to their group members to support their livelihood activities. Payback has been good and their funds have now grown. However, they are now at a loss because their adviser is leaving.  This suggests the need for a strategy for ensuring sustainability in economic empowerment programmes.
Majority of women in Timor-Leste live in rural areas and depend on subsistence agriculture and informal employment for their livelihood. In addition, there are vulnerable groups, the unemployed, the youth and a good number of female headed households who need jobs and income. Considering these, and given the fact that Timor is still basically a rural-based economy, the UN Thematic Working Group on Gender found it important to explore how the combined UN capacity can be brought to bear on this strategic development gap identified by SEPI.  The Thematic Group on Gender noted the opportunity presented by SEPI’s new cash transfer programme for women entrepreneurs, which can leverage innovative private sector initiatives in order to promote women’s economic empowerment.
It is also recognized by the UN that working with Timorese women in this area needs to be tackled in a serious and sustainable way.  It is accepted that, based on evidence in other countries, more productive and stable economic activities carried out by women will help strengthen women’s social position by making their contributions more visible and highly valued. Moreover, women’s economic empowerment can help reduce domestic violence, strengthen the family, and contribute to a better household environment.  These economic activities can, for example, strengthen women’s position in the household due to the improvement in household income, thereby also reducing the pressure on men to provide the entire cash income under difficult economic circumstances.  These activities can also give women the crucial economic support they need in cases of very abusive relationships.
For these and other reasons, the economic component is seen as centrally important for improving both the social and economic position of women and the social and economic circumstances of impoverished households in Timor-Leste.
Finally, it is important to recognize that women’s economic activities tend to be of a very different nature than those of men, and an economic empowerment programme will most likely succeed, in the immediate future at least, only if it builds on and helps to augment and improve on the activities that women are already carrying out. It is certainly possible for women to take on new economic activities that have not yet been “typed” as either men’s or women’s work, which allows for a widening range of roles. Moreover, at some stage training in completely non-traditional roles (e.g., those “typed” as or associated with men’s roles) may be possible for women, but this must be done carefully and in a very supportive social and economic context (i.e., not just giving training and then expecting the women to be able to succeed on their own).
 
Objectives:
  • To take stock of the results of UN, development partners and NGOs economic empowerment programmes, particularly how these have benefited women or failed to benefit them
  • To assess the state of these programmes today and identify the factors contributing to their sustainability or success as well as lessons on how these dealt with constraints and challenges in sustaining women’s economic empowerment
  • To provide recommendations addressed to the Government of Timor-Leste, particularly through SEPI, on a strategy for women’s economic empowerment based on the mapping study
  • To outline a UN joint programme for economic empowerment of women in Timor-Leste
Scope of the Consultancy
As noted above, there are already a number of pilot projects and other programmes that involve women in Timor-Leste.  Moreover, information regarding which projects have had an economic component, of what nature, and with what successes (or lack of success), has not been widely shared.
It would be very useful to have a much clearer idea of the needs and economic opportunities potentially available to women in different parts of the country. It is also very important to pool and share information regarding ideas that appear to be sustainable and have important lessons for women – and women’s groups – that were not part of those pilot projects and programs.
The proposed consultancy is to use existing contacts and networks to gather information about economic activities and economic empowerment.  Gender focal points and contacts in different parts of the country have to be contacted in order to obtain a better sense of needs and possibilities, and existing projects and programmes.
In addition, existing women’s networks can be used to gather and spread information regarding economic activities and economic empowerment – e.g., through the Office of the Secretary of State for the Promotion of Equality (SEPI), REDE Timor-Leste Women's Network; a separate network in Timor-Leste of Catholic organizations that deal with women (Progressio, Catholic Relief Service (CRS), CARITAS and others); the NGO Forum; and through other sources of information. Information can also be pooled from the knowledge and experiences of international agencies that work in Timor-Leste (UN-related organizations, ADB, World Bank, EU and others).
In view of this, the consultancy will collect, analyze, discuss with all key stakeholders, and disseminate information regarding the economic needs and opportunities available to women in different parts of Timor-Leste. This will involve a survey of existing projects (including those coming to an end of their funding period) that have an economic component for women, and a detailing of what has “worked” and “not worked as well” in those economic projects.
The consultant can thus help decide which of these activities are working well, which are not working out as anticipated, and why they seem to be working well or are not working as anticipate (along with whether they can be improved, and how this might be done most effectively).
Regarding the information-gathering work noted above, the lists of programs that have been registered with government offices in Timor-Leste can certainly be consulted, but much more detail about the participation of women and the success and failures of the program will need to be gathered and then disseminated. In this, quantitative indicators of success and failures are needed, but they may not give an adequate view of what is happening from a gender and household perspective; for this, qualitative research is needed as well.
For this reason, qualitative as well as quantitative information about the experiences of existing programs will need to be gathered by the consultant from contacts, gender focal points, and others throughout the districts.  Based on this information, it will be possible to develop much more systematic and sustainable approaches to the economic empowerment of women in Timor-Leste. The consultant can use this information to draw up an outline for a joint programme –– that can be implemented with other agencies and organizations
The consultancy will be for a total of 40 – 50 working days to be spread over five months beginning May to October 2010

Duties and Responsibilities

  • Conduct a desk review of various UN, development partners’, government’s and civil society programmes related to economic empowerment particularly designed for women
  • Meet with relevant UN agencies, development partners and civil society
  • In coordination with UNMIT Human Rights and Transitional Justice Section, UNDP, UNIFEM, SEPI and other stakeholders, design a questionnaire for data collection to be carried out by UNMIT Human Rights and Transitional Justice Section Cooperation, if and as needed, with technical inputs to identification of districts and survey beneficiaries.
  • Together with UNDP, UNIFEM, SEPI and other stakeholders assess the responsiveness of these programme to empower women economically
  • Present and validate the programme concept to an audience of stakeholders, first internally with the UN Inter-agency Working Group on Gender and then externally with government ministries, donor agencies, UN agencies, and potential project partners
  • Produce a mapping study report for documentation and publication purposes (editing up to publication will be done by UNDP and UNIFEM outside this contract)
  • Develop an outline of a new UN joint programme on women’s economic empowerment for funding purposes
Expected Products

The inception report, to be presented to UNDP and other stakeholders, is expected after the preliminary literature review. The consultant will proceed further upon approval of the inception report by UNDP.  The inception report should include:
  • Summary of literature review
  • Identification of stakeholders to be involved/targeted for the assessment
  • Methodology for gathering information and data
  • Proposed work plan
Following the finalization of the testing phase of the survey, the consultant is expected to provide a brief mid-term report (max. 10 pages) outlining the activities conducted thus far.  The presentation of the inception and mid-term reports provides an opportunity for UNDP and other stakeholders to redirect the work of the consultant in case there is any ambiguity or misunderstanding of the contents or emphasis of the term of reference.
The first draft of the mapping study report is expected 10 days prior to the stakeholder workshop.  It will be submitted to UNDP and stakeholders involved in the assessment.  Comments collected from UNDP and other stakeholders through the validation workshop will incorporated in the second draft of the mapping study to be shared with UNDP for finalization. 
 
The outline of the mapping study report should be as follows:
  • Executive Summary
  • Narrative of methodology of the assessment
  • Comprehensive narrative and quantitative analyses of evidence, findings and case studies
  • Outline of a new joint programme document on women’s economic empowerment

Competencies

  • Demonstrated excellent written and oral communication skills;
  • Strong negotiating and managerial skills to be able to work both independently and as a member of a team;
  • Excellent networking with a demonstrated ability to build and maintain professional relationships;
    • Cross-cultural management experience and sensitivity;
  • High level planning, organisational and time management skills, including flexibility, attention to detail and the ability to work under pressure to meet changing deadlines
  • Well developed interpersonal skills , including the ability to liaise effectively at senior levels
  • Analytical and problem solving skills of a high order, including the ability to formulate recommendations and policy advice desirable
  • Demonstrated capacity to work both independently and in a team environment

Required Skills and Experience

Education:
  • Masters Degree in development-related field; Post-graduate studies especially in development field an asset.
Experience:
  • At least five (5) years of relevant experience for programming geared to support women’s empowerment and rights;
  • Demonstrated knowledge of programming issues within the field of social protection, employment and livelihood and related training and education service provision;
  • Excellent report writing and presentation skills
  • Knowledge of civil society, government and development partners work in Timor-Leste
  • Ability to work under pressure a multicultural and complex environment.
Language Requirements:
  • Excellent command of written and spoken English is essential.
  • Knowledge of Tetum or Bahasa Indonesia an advantage;
Additional Information:
Please upload your application letter together with: Curriculum vitae, financial proposal with a workplan and P11 form in one single document through this link.
Individual consultants must submit the financial proposal with a workplan. The financial proposal should include all necessary fees and cost related to the assignment, except the travel cost at the beginning and at the end of the assignment which UNDP will pay. UNDP will not cover any other additional expenses outside of the financial proposal. The financial proposal should be reasonable based on the TOR and proposed workplan.