Background

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and 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.

UNDP and UN Women jointly implement the Women in Leadership in Samoa (WILS) Project, a three-year project, with funding from the Australian Government in partnership with the Government of Samoa. The WILS project started in April 2018 and is now in its final year of implementation. UNDP and  UN Women are in the process of designing a Phase II for the project for the next four years.

The WILS project works with national and regional partners to address barriers to women’s full political participation. It engages with government, non-governmental organizations, state owned corporations, civil society organizations and communities to help create an institutional and social environment that appreciates and supports women’s participation in leadership and decision making, political participation, increasing the number of women candidates and enhancing their support networks. It seeks to give more emphasis and recognition to women leadership in all forms, not just formal political leadership, but also women’s leadership (current, potential and emerging) in families, villages, communities, businesses, and the government, as well as the private sector.

WILS seeks to build and reinforce progress already made on gender equality and women’s leadership in Samoa. 

 While Samoa has made significant advances in promoting and addressing gender equality in Samoa over the past decade, there remain, enduring systemic, institutional, cultural, attitudinal and financial barriers that continue to prevent women from engaging effectively in public space and decision making roles at the community, village and national parliament levels, and being included in boards of public enterprises. Women’s leadership contribution at all levels of society needs positive social norms change, encouragement, support and acknowledgement. Working with men and youth across different levels to address these barriers is also needed to address gender equality issues.

Within its limited scope, resourcing and timeframe, WILS cannot address all those barriers, most of which are deeply rooted in societal belief systems and practices. Social change takes time and requires sustained leadership, partners’ cooperative commitment and stakeholders’ support. A key lesson from the current Phase of WILS and its predecessor project Increasing the Political Participation of Women in Samoa, (IPPWS) is that the work to increase women’s political representation needs sustained and long-term investment and support. Within a focus on ‘Women in Leadership’, WILS is a stepping stone to building and encouraging such a long term process of looking at addressing some of the key women representation’s issues in Samoa.

WILS has adopted a “Samoanisation” concept where learning from international best practices is valued, but local involvement and partnerships facilitate a participative process for the project to add value. Samoanisation  is about localization – making interventions relevant to local context and seeking locally driven strategies. Specialist and technical expertise are provided when needed, complemented with involvement of partners and local counterparts to provide local insights and contextual knowledge. This Samoanisation hopes to contribute to the sustainability and continuity of initiatives and activities beyond the project’s timeframe.

Sustainability of Project Phase 1 results is key in ensuring the movement for women in leadership, women empowerment and gender equality. Therefore, the WILS Project Phase II will aim to build on existing  lessons learnt and successes, will focus on innovations in progressing women in leadership and will ensure that knowledge management and the development of knowledge products is a key component. Phase II will focus on current and emerging context specific intervention needs and will have a focus on exploring innovative modalities for progress on gender equality and women’s leadership in Samoa initiated under WILS Phase I.

In this regard, the UNDP Samoa MCO seeks to hire a national consultant to;

• Review and finalise the Concept Note for the WILS Project Phase II

Duties and Responsibilities

The main objective of this consultancy is to review and finalize the Draft Concept Note for WILS Project Phase II.

Under the direct supervision of the Joint WILS Project Manager, the consultant will perform the following tasks:

The specific activities are as follows:

1. Review and assess project documents, interview and carry out consultations with project beneficiaries, stakeholders and the WILS Steering Committee.
2. Review and finalize the draft Phase II Concept Note ensuring that the overall objective of addressing the barriers for women to fully participate in political life and leadership is enhanced in the new phase.
3. Coordinate and implement a ½ day workshop on the draft Concept Note.
4. Finalize the Phase II Concept Note and present a Final draft that is inclusive of feedback, is innovative and builds on the successes of Phase I and clearly shows how it will progress those gains in Phase II to the UNDP and UN Women management, and WILS Steering Committee.

The consultant is expected to work and deliver the following results:

1. Desk review of project documents and consultations with key project stakeholders
2. Review and finalize draft WILS Project II Concept Note ensuring that the overall objective of addressing the barriers for women to fully participate in political life and  leadership is enhanced in the new phase.
3. Organize  ½ day workshop on the revised Phase II  draft concept note and prepare workshop report.
4. WILS Project Phase II Final Concept Note inclusive of feedback, is innovative and builds on the successes of Phase I and clearly shows how it will progress those gains in Phase II presented to UNDP and UN Women management and Steering Committee. 

Competencies

1. Demonstrates commitment to UNDP’s & UN Women’s mission, vision and values
2. Highly effective in working with multi-sector teams
3. Ability to function effectively under pressure and tight timelines
4. Self-motivated and able to work independently
5. Excellent oral and written communication
6. Creative thinking and emotional intelligence

Required Skills and Experience

The Consultancy fee in WST (Tala) will be paid after certification by WILS Project Team of satisfactory performance and submission of the expected deliverables and in accordance with the signed contract and as per schedule below.  The consultant is expected to quote a lump sum in WST (Tala) to include all deliverables.

The consultancy will be awarded to the consultant with the highest combined weighted scoring from both the Technical and Financial proposals.The proposal is deemed technically compliant only if it achieves 70% or more of the total technical score.If it is technically responsive, only then will the financial proposal be considered given a full total of 30% (and the financial % calculated as follows).

• Master’s degree in Gender Studies, Governance, Political Science, Community Development or other related fields or a Bachelor’s degree with at least 12 years of experience of relevant work in the field of gender equality, leadership development, community/women’s leadership and Gender programme design. (15 marks)
• At least 10 years of experience of relevant work in the field of gender equality, leadership development, community/women’s leadership and other related capacity development programmes.  (15 marks)
• Proven expertise in gender equality and working on women’s rights and leadership. (10 marks)
• Past experience developing and conducting training programmes on leadership. (10 marks)
• Past experience in conducting monitoring and evaluation of programmes an advantage.  (10 marks)
• Excellent fluency in English. (5 marks)
• Fluency in Samoan would be an added advantage. (5 marks)

IMPORTANT: Download the templates for submission from the UNDP Procurement site link https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=84678, to submit your proposal.  Note that this online application will only allow ONE document to be uploaded when you click Apply.