Background

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) 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. Through its programmes and projects, UN Women is providing technical assistance to national partners (governmental and non-governmental) in the implementation of existing international and national commitments to women’s rights and gender equality, facilitates networking and exchange of good practices, and advocates for women’s rights and gender equality in all areas of life. Because of its importance to achieving gender equality, SDG 5 calls for recognition and value of unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies, and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate (indicator5.4.1)[1]. Beyond this, care is a cross-cutting issue along all of the SDGs.

Women’s economic empowerment is key for achieving gender equality, poverty eradication, inclusive economic growth, and sustainable development. Despite some progress in increasing the presence of women in public life, their participation in the labor market is still low, and globally the gender

participation gap is 31 %.[1] One of the important causes for the low participation of women in the labor market is their unequal share in the unpaid care work and the failure by member states to recognize, reduce and redistribute the domestic and care work.[2] Globally, women continue to do 2.6 times the unpaid care and domestic work men do.

As of 2020, the World Bank data revealed that females represented 49.2 percent of the total labor force in Kenya. This share has slowly increased in the previous years with a steady increase noted from 2016 to 2020. In addition, the recent assessment of the causes for low participation in the labor market in the country, gender-based discrimination, and unpaid care work appeared as one of the main barriers to increasing women’s employability and empowerment. In Kenya, the COVID-19 Gender Assessment (2020)[3] indicated that while the burden of unpaid care and domestic work has always fallen on more women and girls than men and boys, the pandemic containment measures that resulted in school closure, working from home, loss of jobs and everyone pitching at home has aggravated the burden of care and domestic work on women and girls. For instance, before the onset of the pandemic, 56% of women compared to 44% of men reported having cared for children (feeding/cleaning). However, during the pandemic, there was an increase of 41% for women compared to 39% for men.

Additionally, the burden of instructing/ teaching/training children was at 64% for women and 36% for men before the pandemic. During the pandemic, there was a 53% increase for women compared to a 15% increase for men. Addressing existing care deficits and inequalities will be critical in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic recovery efforts.

The aforementioned affirms that addressing existing care deficits and inequalities will be critical in responding to the COVID-10 pandemic and economic recovery efforts. Recognizing, reducing, and redistributing the drudgery of unpaid care and domestic work is central to the progress in gender quality, poverty eradication, and economic growth. Gender equality is an important priority for all governments and so is the elimination of the barriers that hamper its achievement. Central to devising national policies that would enable women’s empowerment and their equal engagement in the national economy is the recognition, reduction, and redistribution of unpaid care work.

As the first step in this direction is a National Care Needs Assessment that will map the current size of the sector, the range of providers, working conditions, accessibility, affordability quality, and projected economic benefits of investments in care services. 

Given the global recognition of the importance of investing in social care infrastructure, UN Women is engaging an international expert (supported by a National consultant), to assess the sector on this basis and draft a National Care Policy Roadmap with evidence-based policy recommendations on how much work can be supported, building on the ILO’s 5R Framework and policy tools developed by the UN Women/ILO Joint Programme Promoting Decent Work Through Inclusive Growth Policies and Investment in Care.[4]

In 2021, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) conducted a Time Use Survey in collaboration with the State Department for Gender (SDfG), the Council of Governors (COG), and development partners to fill in the critical gender data gaps to inform decision-making at both National and County levels.

Consequently, Kenya will also utilize the time use data to construct a household satellite account. The estimation of unpaid productive work in Kenya has been a key consideration of the policymakers and numerous efforts have been made to address this with limited success. This is attributed to the fact that these activities fall outside the central framework for the compilation of national accounts as well as the lack of the necessary data. As a result, the System of National Accounts (SNA) has ignored the need to value unpaid productive work, which is much needed by policymakers for development planning. Failure to attach value to this work and by extension restricting productive work to economic activities only is sometimes mistakenly construed to mean that those that engage in these activities are not contributing to the generation of the country’s wealth and nation-building.

To measure the value of this work and take into consideration Kenya’s circumstances, the process will borrow frameworks from other countries that have successfully developed household satellite accounts for unpaid productive work. The State Department for Gender Affairs will complement the efforts of KNBS based on their mandate by undertaking advocacy and capacity development interventions on unpaid care and domestic work at the National and County levels. They will also work on ensuring that policy intervention on unpaid care and domestic work are integrated in the Medium-Term Plan IV (2023-2027) of Vision 2030. This is also in line with the recently published Women Economic Empowerment Strategy (2020 – 2025) by the State Department for Gender. The strategy has 6 key result areas one of which is to facilitate women’s transition from care economy to productive work and develop an integrated and comprehensive reproductive health system for quality health care for women. These will ensure that there is constant performance tracking and accountability towards the achievement of the MTP IV and SDG development indicators.

The international expert will have overall supervision of the national consultant in drafting a National Care Policy Roadmap with evidence-based policy recommendations in the sector, as well as the fiscal revenue effects that these investments would produce. The team of experts will work under the supervision of the Deputy Country Director and in close consultation with Programme Specialist – Gender Statistics at UN Women Kenya.

Scope of work:

The main objective of the assignment is to support the government in devising policies that will redress gender inequalities by providing data and evidence on the costs and benefits of the institutionalization of care in the country.

In order to do so, UN Women, through the work of the team of consultants, will support the process of undertaking a national care assessment which will guide in the development of a National Care Policy Roadmap with evidence-based policy recommendations in the sector.

For this purpose, the international expert will be responsible for leading the assessment and will rely on the national consultant for the collection of the relevant national data and the finalization of the Assessment report.

[1] Indicator 5.4.1: Proportion of time spent on unpaid domestic and care work, by sex, age, and location

[2] Turning promises into actions, Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2018/sdg-report-gender-equality-in-the-2030-agenda-for-sustainable-development-2018-en.pdf?la=en&vs=5653.

[3] Ibidem

[4] https://data.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/documents/Publications/COVID-19%20Gender%20Assessment%20-PopularVersion.pdf

[5] https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/documents/publication/wcms_767029.pdf

Duties and Responsibilities

Tasks and responsibilities:

Working in close coordination with the national expert and with the UN Women Kenya Women Count team the international consultant will have the following tasks and responsibilities:

1. Prepare a methodological proposal to guide the country-level work.
2. Draft an assessment report of the finding and validate it with national stakeholders. A report should be drafted that will elaborate on the methodology used, the consultations carried out, the estimates for the country as well as some reflections on the methodological and data challenges of arriving at such estimates.
3. Draft a national care policy roadmap with policy-based recommendations
4. Submit the final version of the report with inputs, feedback from UN Women, and stakeholders from the consultation and validation meetings incorporated.
5. Submit joint final report to UN Women for the assignment.

Key deliverables, activities, and timeframe

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

Functional Competencies:
Knowledge Management and Learning

• Shares knowledge and experience
• Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside UN Women
•  Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas, acts on learning plan, and applies newly acquired skills
• Development and Operational Effectiveness
• Demonstrates excellent written and oral communication skills. Communicates sensitively, effectively, and creatively across different constituencies
• Demonstrates very good understanding of and experience in communications and outreach/advocacy
• Ability to perform a variety of standard specialized and non-specialized tasks and work processes that are fully documented, researched, recorded, and reported
• Ability to review a variety of data, identify and adjust discrepancies, identify and resolve operational problems
• Uses Information Technology effectively as a tool and resource

Leadership and Self-Management

•     Focuses on results for the client and responds positively to feedback
•     Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
•     Remains calm, in control, and good-humored even under pressure
•     Proven networking skills and ability to generate interest in UN Women’s mandate
•     Identifies opportunities and builds strong partnerships with clients and partners

Required Skills and Experience

Academic Qualifications

At least a master’s degree in, economics, development studies, and/or gender studies.  A Ph.D. is considered an asset.

Experience

• A minimum of 7 years of demonstrated professional experience in economic research
• Previous experience in conducting similar costing studies on services.
• Experience in conducting gender analysis in different areas and preferably in the area of women’s economic empowerment and unpaid care work.
• Excellent technical/quantitative skills, including the use of data simulations and econometrics software.
• Experience in designing policy recommendations in the areas of public investment, employment, fiscal policy, etc.
• Experience in job/s requiring ability to absorb, analyze and systematize a large amount of complex information within tight deadlines;
• Previous experience working with international organizations;

 Language

Fluency in English is required.

Duration: 

The duration of the contract is 40 working days the period from 14th April 2022 until 30th July 2022 UN Women will process the payment of consultancy fee upon satisfactory completion of all tasks in the assignment, submission, and approval of the final report by UN Women.

The selected candidate will be paid in two installments as the following:

1. 40% upon submission and clearance of first draft report; and
2. 60% upon submission and clearance of the final report.

Application:

• All applications must include (as an attachment) a completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment.
• Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment and candidates are required to include in the P-11 form links for their previously published reports and articles completed within the last two years. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.