Background

The project’s goal is to reduce GHG emissions by creating a favorable legal, regulatory, and market environment and building institutional, administrative, and technical capacities to promote the implementation of energy efficiency measures in public buildings, utilizing the ESCO model through EPC contracts model and by supporting improved energy management for public buildings. The baseline problem that this project seeks to address is that the investment required to promote and stimulate large investment in energy savings projects in public buildings in Ukraine is in the billions of dollars.

The objective of this project is to assist the Government of Ukraine, as outlined in the “Energy Strategy of Ukraine to 2035”, to “address and provide for the growing importance of energy efficiency” within “the context of a world of rising oil and gas prices, where there is a greater emphasis on security of supply and on the need to reduce emissions of GHGs”. The project will accomplish this by supporting the Government of Ukraine in:

• Creating attractive and competitive business terms and conditions for investors/ESCOs, such as initial support in the preparation of feasibility studies and in terms of an investment grant for 10 pilot projects, which will give developers long-term stability and provide for sufficient investment return;
• Establishing an Innovative Financing Mechanism to make it easier for ESCOs to obtain commercial financing in order to implement EPC contracts;
• Developing financial incentives to be provided to ESCOs to invest in Energy Efficiency in public buildings such as income tax holiday for a specific period of time, duty and tax exemptions on equipment and services;
• Providing capacity development is to ESCOs to promote investment in support of Energy Efficiency in public buildings;
• Supporting improved energy management in public buildings in Ukraine, through more metering and energy management information systems, as tools to encourage and promote additional investments in energy efficiency.

The project is committed to mainstream gender equality into its strategy and activities, to achieve gender equality through the empowerment of women to fully participate in all project activities and specifically those related to capacity development under the various components. To this end, the project will engage a gender consultant to perform gender analysis of the sector of energy efficiency of public building, suggest actionable recommendations on gender mainstreaming and facilitate their pilot implementation. The incumbent will promote UNDP’s mandate as a gender-responsive organization with zero tolerance to any kind of discriminatory and abusive behavior, including sexual harassment, sexual exploitation and abuse.

Duties and Responsibilities

2. Description of Responsibilities

Within the framework of this assignment, the project will hire gender consultant to analyze, review and develop technical and policy-relevant materials, including methodologies and tools to integrate gender equality considerations into the project strategy and activities. Gender consultant will carry out the following tasks:

1) Gender analysis:

• Conduct gender analysis of the EEPB sector, analyze the project document, including RRF, AWP/PIP, to identify avenues for gender mainstreaming in the project;
• Analyze international and national experience of integrating gender equality concerns to the EE field;
• Contribute to conducting interviews with experts and practitioners in the sector of EE of public buildings to develop hypotheses for primary data collection of gender considerations of EE of public buildings (approx. 15 interviews in total);
• Contribute to conducting focus groups with relevant stakeholders in three (out of 10) pilot public buildings in which EE measures will be implemented (three pilot public buildings to be selected by the project, up to 15 stakeholders in each pilot location);
• Respect differences and accord equal spaces and dignity regardless of interviewees’ gender, race, sexual preference, ethnicity, ability, or other markers of identity;
• Analyze gender equality considerations of EE within the context of decentralization reform and amalgamation of communities;
• Contribute to developing a concept note and a questionnaire for a sociological survey to learn experience and perceptions of Ukrainians on EE of public buildings (e.g., are there mostly men or women to make decisions on EE in public buildings; are there mostly men or women to take care of EE of public buildings; what are the arguments for men or women to favor EE initiatives of public buildings; how men and women experts in this field are perceived by the community, etc.);
• Analyze the findings of the survey to identify common patterns and gender differences in EE;
• Analyze differentiated experiences, needs, knowledge and perceptions of men and women as well as with a specific emphasis and respect to sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, (dis)ability, language, geographical origin;
• Take part in the presentation of a summary of analysis at the expert workshop to prove/validate findings and solicit feedback from various stakeholders, including the national gender machinery, line ministries/institutions, civil society actors, especially women’s groups and networks;
• Leverage presence in policy spaces to bring gender perspectives and concerns into policy discussions on EEPB; speak out for gender equality in the EEPB sector on public platforms; set up and participate only in gender balanced panels;
• Produce an analytical report on gender equality considerations of EE of public buildings (in English, up to 20 MS Word pages in total, Calibri, font 11) in line with UNDP principles of gender-responsive communications;

2) Recommendations on gender mainstreaming:

• Frame the outputs/expected results of gender mainstreaming in the project (gender action plan); ensure project activities are informed by gender analysis and developed in line with corporate gender equality goals and priorities;
• Contribute to strategic actions implemented to increase gender capacities among project’s personnel and partners;
• Suggest practical ways to ensure balanced (at least 40/60) participation of and equitable benefits for women and men from diverse groups in project activities;
• Suggest actionable recommendations to increase women representation among experts and decision-makers in the sector of EE of public buildings;
• Mainstream gender equality into the monitoring and evaluation framework of the project – develop gender-specific indicators to measure project performance, provide recommendations on sex-disaggregation of project data;
• Provide specific recommendations on reflecting gender equality perspectives in the strategy and interventions on EE of public buildings; identify strategies for partnership building to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment;
• Contribute to piloting three specific recommendations jointly identified with the project team by providing specific guidance and step-by-step instructions to the stakeholders, developing checklists, toolkits and methodologies as might be relevant. The recommendations can be piloted in three or more pilot buildings selected by the project team;
• Contribute to the presentation of recommendations in pilot locations of the project, deliver other awareness raising events to sensitize the stakeholders to gender equality aspects of EE of public buildings (to be identified with the project team).

3. Deliverables

Competencies

Corporate competencies: 

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP; 
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability; 
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism; 
• Fulfills all obligations to gender mainstreaming and zero tolerance for sexual misconduct. 

Functional competencies:

• Ability to analyze policy documents and make constructive policy suggestions, including knowledge of gender analysis;
• Strong interpersonal skills, communication and diplomatic skills, ability to work in a team;
• Capacity development skills and flexibility depending on the public;
• Demonstration of commitment to the Project’s mission, vision and values;
• Good writing and reporting skills;
• Good presentation skills;
• Knowledge of the principles of gender-responsive communications;
• Ability to work under pressure and stressful situations, and to meet tight deadlines.

Required Skills and Experience

5. Qualifications

Education:

• University degree in gender studies, gender and development, environment, sustainable development or closely related area.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of practical working experience in gender mainstreaming, women’s empowerment and sustainable development;
• At least 3 years of experience carrying out participatory gender analysis, collecting and formulating gender-responsive indicators and sex-disaggregated data, and developing gender action plans;
• Experience in conducting gender equality training or stakeholder meetings would be an asset;
• Experience working with the UN agencies and/or GEF is desired.

Languages:

• Excellent writing and oral communication skills in Ukrainian, good command of English.

Payment will be made only upon confirmation of UNDP on delivering on the all contract obligations in a satisfactory manner.

Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director. Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under dss.un.org

General Terms and conditions as well as other related documents can be found under: http://on.undp.org/t7fJs.

6.Documents to be included when submitting the proposals

6.1.        Applicants shall submit the following documents:

•             Letter of interest/proposal;

•             CV/P-11 including information about experience in similar projects / assignments and contact details for referees;

•             Financial proposal

•             Examples of analysis/studies related to gender analysis, preferably in the sphere of energy efficiency and environment (minimum 2 reports/studies/publications).

6.2.        Financial Proposal

Lump-Sum based on Delivery of Outputs

The financial proposal shall specify a lump sum amount. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this daily fee-based amount and number of anticipated working days.

7.            Evaluation of applicants

7.1.        Evaluation criteria

The following criteria will be rated as indicated below:

•             University degree in gender studies, gender and development, environment, sustainable development or closely related area (22 points max): PhD – 22 points, Masters/Specialist – 17 points;

•             Experience in conducting gender equality training or stakeholder meetings (3 points max): yes – 3 points; no – 0 points;

•             At least 3 years of experience carrying out participatory gender analysis, collecting and formulating gender-responsive indicators and sex-disaggregated data, and developing gender action plans (37points max): at least 3 years - 29 points, 4-5 years – 32 points, more than 5 years - 37 points;

•             Experience working with the UN agencies and/or GEF (5 points max): yes – 5 points; no – 0 points;

•             Excellent writing and oral communication skills in Ukrainian, good command of English (3 points max): Good command of English – 3 points.

Maximum available technical score - 70 points.

7.2.        Evaluation method

Cumulative analysis

Contract award shall be made to the incumbent whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

A) responsive/compliant/acceptable, and

B) having received the cumulative highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

* Technical Criteria weight: 70%

* Financial Criteria weight: 30%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum 70% from the maximum available technical score would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal and will equal to 30. All other price proposals will be evaluated and assigned points, as per below formula:

30 points [max points available for financial part] x [lowest of all evaluated offered prices among responsive offers] / [evaluated price].

The proposal obtaining the overall cumulatively highest score after adding the score of the technical proposal and the financial proposal will be considered as the most compliant offer and will be awarded a contract.