Background

BACKGROUND

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.

UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP) migration and women’s economic empowerment programme works to protect and promote the rights of women in the region’s economies and labour markets, including through safe migration, decent work and sustainable development for all women workers, including women migrant workers.

Domestic and care work is essential to people’s life. It is a cornerstone of economic growth considering it is the work that is done before any other work can be done. Domestic and care work includes both paid and unpaid labour involving cleaning, cooking, washing and ironing, taking care of family members, including children, the elderly, those who are ill or have disabilities, as well as household pets, gardening, guarding the house and driving for the family.  With increasing aging populations, the care work sector is expected grow. Domestic and care work disproportionately falls on women, especially migrant workers for cheap wages and heavy workload. However, despite their essential contribution to drive the society, domestic and care workers are undervalued and underregulated. This results in limited or zero protection for them. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the high dependence of many economies on domestic and care workers. The pandemic has brought a new sense of urgency to ensure provision of social protection, employment benefits and other support for workers in this economic sector. This also requires specific policies, programming and legislation and importantly coordinated efforts among stakeholders.

The supply and demand gap in the domestic and care work market is opening spaces for new players to step in to provide solutions. Work done by UN-Women as part of the WeEmpowerAsia programme and UN Women Care Accelerator programme to address the burden of unpaid care work has found that market-based solutions through care entrepreneurship are emerging to address the lack of accessible, affordable, and quality domestic and care services in the region. This requires partnerships with different entities to increase knowledge, capacity and resource to address the issues domestic and care workers face in order to transform the care economy towards gender equality and inclusive and sustainable development and the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) & Migration unit is looking to expand leadership in this area.

In UN Women’s drafted Strategic Note for Asia and the Pacific (2023 -2026) transforming the Care Economy has been identified as a key priority and multiple partnerships, programmes and future opportunities have been established to advance this work. This includes:

• UN Women’s participation in the Global Action Research Programme: Transforming the Care Economy through Impact businesses and Investment (TCEII), which aims to help transform the care economy through impact investing. The programme is co-funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Soros Economic Development Fund. As part of TCEII’s implementation in Asia, UN Women and Value for Women are conducting research to for example understand the challenges and opportunities of digital labor platforms in the care economy.
• New programming to scale up the UN Women Care Accelerator:  A programme which aims to  Women Care Accelerator aims to identify and promote women-led and/or women impacting enterprises to build innovative solutions aiming to turn the unequal care burden put on women into opportunities that benefit women, families, and communities. The program supports entrepreneurs who try to transform caregiving challenges into employment and business opportunities, provide products, services, or tech solutions that can make care more accessible and affordable, and improve the overall quality of care services on and offline.
   
• Vitalizing the  Global Alliance of Care   (GAC) in Asia and the Pacific. The GAC is convened by the Government of Mexico through the National Institute of Women (INMUJERES) and UN Women, GAC is one of the collective commitments emanating from the Generation Equality Forum that seeks to mobilize global action towards the Care Economy Action Area of the Action Coalition on Economic Justice and Rights. The Alliance was announced in March 2021 at the Generation Equality Forum in Mexico City and launched in Paris in July 2021. It is a space where stakeholders from different sectors such as national and subnational governments; private and philanthropic sector; international organizations; civil society–including grassroots women's organizations, care workers organizations, trade unions and youth organizations –collectively commit to take concrete, ambitious and immediate action between 2021-2026 to promote the recognition, reduction and redistribution of care work among co-responsible actors and the representation and remuneration of care workers.

Through collective action and multi-stakeholder engagement, the Alliance aims to contribute decisively towards achieving women's economic empowerment, fostering the creation of comprehensive systems of care, promoting the transformation of gender roles and accelerating economic recovery from the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic by advancing towards equality.
 

To date the GAC has limited members from the Asia and the Pacific Region. As part of the implementation of GAC the consultant will work on advocacy strategies for political change on the care economy including linkages with labor migration and women’s economic empowerment
 

In addition, the WEE & Migration team has prioritized to strengthen its work on the intersection of care & migration and seeking to advance and mobilize resources to implement a more comprehensive approach to labour migration, including governance, WEE and protection.

UN-Women is therefore seeking an International Consultant - Care Economy and Migration to work under the WEE - Migration team reporting to the WEE and Migration Programme Lead to providing policy and trend analysis and briefings to advance UN Women’s agenda in creating equitable and just policies on the areas relevant to care economy, social protection, decent work, and labour migration. This is to enhance UN Women in Asia and the Pacific to build strong and effective coalitions with stakeholders, namely government, development partners, the private and civil society organizations particularly in South and Southeast Asia, for transformative change in the care economy. The International Consultant ensures effective programme development and management in line with UN Women rules and regulations and in coordination with its partners. She/he works in close collaboration with the ROAP programme and operations team, UN Women country offices (COs) and programme presences, government officials, multi and bi-lateral donors, civil society and the private sector.

CONTRACT PERIOD AND WORK LOCATION

The period of this consultancy is for 12 months from 15th December 2022 – 14th December 2023; the consultant is home based with mission travel as required. The assignment will also require to coordinate with different stakeholders based outside of Asia and the Pacific, including UN Women HQ (New York) and the GAC Secretariat (based in Mexico)   

Duties and Responsibilities

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

A. Producing policy intelligence and advocacy work for areas relevant to inclusive economic
     development focusing on the care economy and the intersection with labour migration

• Conduct a rapid regional mapping, assessment of care related policies, programmes and opportunities for UN Women engagement in Asia and the Pacific (in selected countries)
• Analyze and monitor relevant legislation, policies, measures, projects and studies relevant to the care economy and labor migration (in Asian and the Pacific as well as looking into best practices and approaches from other advanced regions, especially GAC committed countries)
• Lead on the development and implementation of ROAP advocacy strategies for political change on the care economy with its linkages with labor migration in relation to migrant workers employed in domestic and care work.
• Lead, manage, and supervise research to generate new and valuable inputs for improving policies and programming in the relevant thematic areas

B. Support the implementation of the Global Alliance for Care (GAC) in Asia Pacific

• Lead, manage the roll-out of the Global Alliance for Care (GAC) to selected countries in APAC and provide technical assistance to country offices to strengthen their care policy and programming under the umbrella of the GAC.
• Coordinate with the GAC global secretariat and develop an Asia-Pacific outreach, engagement, and action plan to bring the GAC alive in APAC, implement, organize together with other stakeholders’ events and activities to drive engagement, knowledge exchange to catalyze action in the Care Economy
• Develop capacity building materials/presentations for governments and policy makers on how to develop and implement holistic care economy measures and provide technical trainings to the UN Women country focal points to advance GAC commitments

C. Building strategic partnerships, coordination, and communication efforts

• Attend external meetings, collecting intelligence, establish rapport and build relationships with relevant to the different policy areas related to the care economy and migration
• Lead development communications/advocacy plan for care economy (strongly aligned with GAC)
• Support UN Women in meetings/events, speaking engagements to disseminate UN Women’s policy positions in different settings, as required.
• Draft position papers/articles/op-eds/letters/reports to strengthen ROAP’s WEE and migration advocacy efforts, ensuring they are built around solid policy analysis (linked to the above GAC/Care Economy & Migration)
• Support the exchange of information and capacity building internally and externally to strengthen awareness and knowledge on the Care Economy & Migration

D. Developing programme, resource mobilization strategies in the areas of care economy and labor migration under the scope of women’s economic empowerment

• Support, manage inception, conceptualization of new care programming and research
• Design and formulate programme/project proposals and initiatives, including with a view to project expansion, in consultation with relevant internal and external stakeholders
• Draft inputs to strategy documents, briefs, policy dialogue, knowledge products and other documents related to the targeted thematic areas

EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

The consultant will work under the direct supervision of Regional WEE Program Lead, UN Women ROAP, to achieve the following deliverables clustered and aligned to the 4 Key Areas pointed out above (A-D):

Competencies

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

• Strong overall knowledge of on women’s economic empowerment
• Strong knowledge on care economy, social protection policies and programming
• Good knowledge on gender-responsive migration
• Strong ability to conduct capacity building and engage with government officials and other stakeholders including for example private sector
• Strong programme formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation skills
• Strong knowledge of Results Based Management
• Ability to synthesize program performance data and produce analytical reports to inform management and strategic decision-making
• Strong analytical skills
• Ability to identify and analyze trends, opportunities and threats to fundraising and develop strategies

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf

Required Skills and Experience

REQUIREMENTS AND QUALIFICATIONS

Education and certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in law, public policy and governance, gender/women's studies, international development, or a related field is required;
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree;
• A project/programme management certification would be an added advantage.

Experience:

• Must have worked minimum 5 years in South or South-East Asia in the space of women’s economic empowerment including areas of paid and unpaid care policies
• At least 5 years of progressively responsible work experience at the national or international level in design, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development projects and/or policies
• Experience in conducting analysis of social, economic, and public policy trends is a must
• Experience working in the space of migration is a strong asset
• Specific experience on entrepreneurship and/or private sector engagement is an asset
• Experience coordinating and liaising with government agencies and/or donors is an asset
• Experience working in the UN System is an asset.

Language Requirements:

• Excellent command of written in English
• Fluency in English required
• Fluency in another ASEAN spoken language is an asset

SUBMISSION OF APPLICATION

Interest candidates are encouraged to submit electronic application to UNDP website: https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_jobs.cfm  or UN

Women website: https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs or to hr.bangkok@unwomen.org with dollaporn.intrroong@unwomen.org in copy, no later than 2nd  December 2022, COB.

• Letter of Interest containing the statement on candidate’s experience in line with the scope of work and requirements.
• P11 including past experience in similar assignments; can be downloaded at https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs.
• Writing sample concept note, policy brief, publication in the area of women’s economic empowerment (1 piece in English).
• Financial proposal: the financial proposal shall specify a lump sum total amount breaking down the daily professional fee, proposed number of working days and travel-related cost in USD. Please see the financial proposal template below:

EVALUATION

Applications will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis.

• Technical Qualification (100 points) weight; [70%]
• Financial Proposal (100 points) weight; [30%]

A two-stage procedure is utilised in evaluating the applications, with evaluation of the technical application being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. Only the price proposal of the candidates who passed the minimum technical score of 70% of the obtainable score of 100 points in the technical qualification evaluation will be evaluated.

Technical qualification evaluation criteria:

The total number of points allocated for the technical qualification component is 100. The technical qualification of the individual is evaluated based on following technical qualification evaluation criteria:

Only the candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% of total points will be considered as technically qualified candidates who may be contacted for validation interview.

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)