Historique

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.

Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women will lead and coordinate United Nations System efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women presence in the Republic of Moldova has evolved from being a project-based office in 2007 to a Country Office with fully delegated authority as of 2015. The work of UN Women in Moldova is guided by its Country Strategic Note for 2018-2022, aligned with the Republic of Moldova–United Nations Partnership Framework for Sustainable Development 2018–2022, the Global Strategic Plan of UN Women for 2018-2021, the National Strategy on Gender Equality for 2017-2021 (NSGE), and aims to contribute to the gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

UN Women Strategy for Moldova 2018-2022 focuses on three main areas: 1) strengthening women’s participation in politics and decision making, 2) economic empowerment of women and 3) ending violence against women and girls. To achieve progress under these areas, UN Women works with a variety of national and international partners and as part of different national and regional initiatives.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) works in nearly 170 countries and territories, including the Republic of Moldova, helping to achieve the eradication of poverty, and the reduction of inequalities and exclusion by supporting countries to develop policies, leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities and build resilience to sustain development results.

UNDP in Moldova is guided by its Country Programme Document, and the UN-Moldova Development Assistance for 2018-2022, which is in line with the priorities of the Government of Moldova.

In a rapidly changing global environment, the work of UNDP and the broader UN family aligns with the new national development vision and sector strategies. UNDP Moldova’s country programme for 2018–2022 has three major focus areas (Inclusive growth, Effective governance, Climate change, environment and energy) and three cross-cutting areas (Gender equality, Crisis response, Development impact).

UN Women and UNDP work closely with other UN agencies in Moldova, under the leadership of the UN Resident Coordinator, to support efforts by the Government, Parliament, civil society, media, and communities to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. Relying and complying with key global norms and standards, such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the agencies seek to eliminate and prevent intersectional discrimination affecting women with disabilities.

As part of the ongoing efforts to combat gender-based violence, to increase the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals and to advance the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Women have launched a global initiative to respond to the growing intersectional inequalities faced by women and girls with disabilities, entitled ”Addressing stigma and discrimination for empowering women and girls with disabilities and protecting them from violence” in four countries: Moldova, Palestine, Pakistan and Samoa.

Considering the growing intersectional inequalities and barriers women and girls with disabilities face, the project aims at supporting rights holders and duty bearers to identify the drivers of inequality and impact of stigma and discrimination against women and girls with disabilities. This will be ensured by contextualizing and piloting in Moldova a global diagnostic tool to inform evidence-based decision making, as well as designing and piloting of behavioural insights-informed interventions seeking to changing behaviours rooted in stigma and discrimination against women and girls with disabilities. This project is implemented with the support of the UN Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNPRPD) through UNDP’s Global Programme on Strengthening the Rule of Law and Human Rights for Sustaining Peace and Fostering Development and UN-Women’s Global Portfolio on Disability Inclusion and Intersectionality.

The project is based on a victim-centred and evidence-based approach, that fully considers the voices and experiences of women and girls with disabilities victims and survivors of stigma, violence, and discrimination. The project’s strategy will ensure a participatory approach, by effectively engaging stakeholders in the planning, designing, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the project.  A critical component in the programme is developing tools to detect and assess stigma and discrimination against women with disabilities by applying innovative tools and have final users'/right holders’ perspective integrated into the response.

Devoirs et responsabilités

Rationale

Persons with disabilities (PWDs) in general experience stigma and discrimination driven by various attitudinal, environmental, and institutional barriers, prejudice, and stereotypes, that are amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Persons with disabilities face discrimination and other barriers in accessing livelihood and income support, participating in online forms of education, and seeking protection from violence. Women and girls with disabilities experience double discrimination, which places them at higher risk of gender-based violence, sexual abuse, neglect, maltreatment, and exploitation. Women and girls with disabilities are far more likely to be victims of violence, and particularly of domestic and sexual exploitation, and estimates show that women with disabilities are 1.5 to 10 times more likely to be abused than non-disabled women.[1]

Tools to identify and quantify stigma and discrimination, its causes, manifestations, and impacts, are critical to ensure targeted and evidence-based approaches to addressing stigma and discrimination.  Such tools have been well developed and standardized by the UN in other sectors such as HIV/AIDS. In relation to persons with disabilities there is scope for consolidating the lessons learned from these and for developing global tools which can be used by Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) and others to advocate for more effective policies and interventions to address stigma and discrimination.

PWDs in Moldova[2] face multiple challenges in exercising their rights and experience difficulties in accessing essential services. Disability is largely perceived in Moldova as a health condition. Thus, the current system for disability assessment and referral does not contribute to the empowerment of PWDs to advance the enjoyment of rights, access to services and prevention of all forms of discrimination. The perceptions and stereotypes regarding disability vary greatly depending on whether a person interacts with people with disabilities in everyday life. PWDs are accepted by the community as ‘a neighbour’ (persons with mental or intellectual disabilities) or as ‘a friend’ (person with a physical disability). The social distance index (0 to 6, the lower, the better), measured based on the Bogardus social distance scale, places the people with mental and intellectual disabilities (2.6) above the average social distance (2.4), while people with physical disabilities (1.7) are below the average.  At the same time, 16% of respondents-people with disabilities associate the disability with ‘discrimination’.[3] As per the Equality Council practice, gender and disability accounts for circa 39% of discrimination complaints solved in 2019. 54% of disability related discrimination cases refers to the access to public goods and services.[4]  In the Republic of Moldova as in other countries, key drivers of stigma and discrimination against persons with disabilities (PWD) include environmental and attitudinal barriers. Stigma and discriminatory practices have a substantial impact on the lives of PWD – whose number has tended to increase overtime, as they are faced with important difficulties in accessing services – including education – and employment. This is only compounded by environmental obstacles brought about by the protracted humanitarian and occupation context, which tend to disproportionately affect women.

According to the data of sociological study conducted by CSOs on the impact of the pandemic on the rights of persons with disabilities, more than 50% of households with persons with disabilities were economically and socially affected. Reductions of already low incomes and higher spending caused by the pandemic, led to greater impoverishment of persons with disabilities, especially women with disabilities, due to the pre-existing gender inequalities.

In this context, UN Women intends to engage a team of two international consultants to support the customization and piloting phase of the diagnostic tool and conduct capacity building for reducing prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behaviour towards women and girls with disabilities in pilot communities in the light of the launch of the diagnostic tool At the country level in Moldova, the joint initiative will be closely implemented with the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and CSOs invested on this front.

Scope of work

Under the supervision of the UN Women Moldova Programme Analyst on EVAW, the international consultants will be responsible to provide technical and expertise support to country programme team and to relevant stakeholders and CSO’s involved in the process, in particular duty bearers and right holders, to enhance the knowledge and skills to apply social innovative tools in the light of the launch of the diagnostic tool. The activity of the group of international consultants will consist of providing transformative capacity building activities/workshops to up to 50 representatives (duty bearers and right holders) on applying innovative tools such as: design thinking, user journey etc. on accessing VAW services and based on the developed diagnostic tool.

More specifically, the team of international consultants will be responsible for the following tasks:

• Analyse all relevant information on the project and on the global diagnostic tool;
• Develop the methodology, work plan and training materials for training programme and capacity building activities (including pre-post questionaries for knowledge assessment, evaluation forms) with applying innovation;
• Provide support to national consultants and stakeholders in identification of key gaps and challenges in accessing VAW essential services by women with disabilities;
• Provide design thinking workshops/ capacity building activities/workshops to up to 50 representatives (duty bearers and right holders) on applying innovative tools, such as design thinking, user journey on accessing VAW services;
• Together with national consultants selected under the programme, conduct capacity building sessions for at least 20 women with disabilities to enhance their knowledge and skills in accessing VAW Essential Services in the light of the launch of the diagnostic tool submitted;
• Organize a training session of up to 2 hours for UN Women staff on application of innovative tools in the area of development and human rights;
• Ensure collection of feedback and assessment of participants increase in knowledge;
• Provide where necessary support to country project team, consultants, stakeholders in the customization and piloting phase of the tool (through share of experience, expertise, revision of documents, etc);
• Participate at relevant meetings and activities related to the project with national, global team and stakeholders;
• Draft the final report based on collected feedback, lessons learned.

Deliverables and timeframe

During the implementation of this assignment, the team of international consultants shall be responsible for the delivery of the following outputs, within the set deadline:

All deliverables should be coordinated and approved with UN Women and be provided electronically in English.

Duration

The total duration of this assignment is tentatively planned for up to 50 days, within a 8-month period, starting from May 2022 with all tasks being accomplished by the end of December 2022 in conformity with the timeframe described under “Deliverables and Time frame” section.

Management Arrangements

The team of two international consultants will be working under the supervision of the UN Women Programme Analyst and in coordination with UNDP Programme Analyst. UN Women and UNDP will provide all the necessary materials for a better understanding of the context and for the successful fulfilment of the engagement. The Consultants will not be in the premises of UN Women or UNDP and will have to work remotely. However, the consultants are expected to have coordination meetings with the Programme Analysts and participate in relevant UN Women, UNDP thematic meetings. Separate contracts will be signed with each consultant, members of the team, and UN Women. The cost of the consultancy will be under UN Women accountability.

Travel

UN Women will provide an airline ticket for the mission in Moldova, or if not, the consultant will be entitled to reimbursement of airfare for Un Women authorized travel, upon presentation of used airline stubs in an amount not to exceed the economy class fare or excursion fare, if applicable. For UN Women authorized travel, the consultant will receive a daily subsistence allowance at United Nations authorized rates when traveling.

Throughout the assignment, the International Consultants are expected to have 2 missions to Moldova up to 5 working days.

Performance Evaluation

Consultants’ performance will be evaluated against such criteria as: timeliness, responsibility, initiative, communication, accuracy, and quality of the products delivered.

Financial Arrangements

Payment will be disbursed in 4 instalments, upon successful submission and approval of the reports on deliverables  and certification by UN Women that the services have been satisfactorily performed.

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[1] Human Rights Watch: Human Rights for Women and Children with Disabilities (2012)

[2] About 176K persons with disabilities (or circa 6.6% of the population) live in Moldova. Women and girls with disabilities represent circa 49%. https://statistica.gov.md/newsview.php?l=ro&idc=168&id=6516

[3] Equality Council, Study on perceptions and attitudes towards equality (2018), http://egalitate.md/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Studiu-privind-percep--iile.pdf

[4] http://egalitate.md/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Raport_CPEDAE_2019_-English-1.pdf

Compétences

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.

Qualifications et expériences requises

Education:

1. Master's degree in human rights, sociology, gender studies, public relations, development studies, public health and/or other social science related areas relevant for the assignment;
2. Additional trainings in one of the areas relevant for the assignment would be an asset;

Work experience:

1. At least three (3) years of proven work experience in gender equality and/or any other field related to this assignment: eliminating violence against women and girls, human rights and development etc;
2. At least three (3) years of proven work experience in initiatives/projects in the field of disability would be considered an asset;
3. At least two (2) similar experiences in raising awareness, designing, and delivering trainings and capacity building for various groups, in EVAW field;
4. At least one (1) proven experience in applying innovative tools such as Design Thinking and Social Innovation on enhancing the approach in accessing essential services by women.
5. Previous successful collaboration with international organizations, especially UN agencies, would be considered as an asset. 

Language Requirements:

1. Fluency in written and oral English is required.

Application Procedures

Interested candidates are invited to submit their application on the following link - https://sc.undp.md/jobapplication2/2545/ 

 The applicaiton should contain the following documents:

• Duly filled Personal History Form PHF11/CV (downloadable from http://www.unwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/P_11_form_UNwomen.doc) ;
• Letter of Intent to include a brief overview about which of your previous experiences makes you the most suitable candidate for the advertised position.
• Financial proposal – specifying a total lump sum amount for the task specified in Terms of References. The Financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (daily rate). Please see ANNEX I and ANNEX II.