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. Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. UN Women provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.
UN Women in Bangladesh supports the government to implement commitments to international normative standards on gender equality and women’s human rights. The new UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for 2022-2026 was launched in 2021 and the corresponding UN Women Bangladesh Strategy Note (2022-2026), defining UN Women’s strategic engagement in Bangladesh, has also been finalized. The country strategy focuses on strengthening the national structures and mechanisms for gender mainstreaming in policies, plans and budgets; supporting efforts to prevent and eliminate violence against women; promoting women’s access to decent and safe work; promoting policies and government investment in women’s empowerment and resilience building in the context of climate change, humanitarian crisis as well as other threats to peace and security. UN Women works with a range of stakeholders in Bangladesh including the government, civil society and women’s organisations, youth, UN agencies and donors, to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), and UN Women, in collaboration with Government of Netherlands, are implementing a Joint Programme entitled Women’s Empowerment for Inclusive Growth (WING). WING is fostering skills that create dignified and formal participation of women as employees and entrepreneurs in local economies, breaking entrenched discriminatory attitudes, norms and stereotypes that created the current inequities in the social, political and economic spheres. WING supports women’s participation in the local economy as employees and entrepreneurs by developing their skills, facilitating access to financing and breaking entrenched discriminatory attitudes, norms and stereotypes that work against women’s participation in the social, political and economic spheres. It was launched in November 2020 and will close in October 2023.
WING aims to strategically contribute to the SDGs and contributes to “Strategic Priority 1: Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Development” of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2022-2026 of Bangladesh. It aligns with the Government of Bangladesh’s (GOB) efforts to attain equality and women’s economic empowerment, which is identified as a cross cutting theme in achieving long-term national development aspirations, as articulated in Eighth Five Year Plan 2021-2025, National Women Development Policy 2011, policies, strategies, and frameworks including Vision 2021, and the National Development Plan.
with the programme works on gender-sensitization and promotion of Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting (GRP&B) with the local government institutes, especially with elected representatives of Upazila Parishads and Women Development Forums (WDFs) for creating an enabling environment for women’s economic empowerment. In this regard, there have been constraints observed and there is scope for strengthening local level development plans and budgets of the local government for implementation of women’s economic empowerment interventions.
Transformative financing is needed through significantly increased, prioritized, and sustained investments in gender equality commitments at both the local and national level. The government has been increasing GRB allocation for sectoral ministries and divisions, with 33.84% GRB allocation at the national level in 2022-23 Fiscal Year. Moreover, the Eighth five-year plan is projected to increase GRB allocation to 35% by 2026.
A draft guideline on GRP&B has been developed by the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs (MoWCA) and UN Women for representatives of Local Government Institutes (LGIs), with focus at the Union Parishad level. In December 2022, stakeholder consultations were sought for validation of this guideline from representatives of LGIs at Kurigram Sadar by MoWCA in collaboration with the National Institute of Local Government (NILG), and UN Women Bangladesh. Moreover, a monitoring tool and mechanism for tracking progress of (GRP&B) by LGIs developed under WING programme led by UNDP, leveraging on a WDF-led participatory process.
As a way forward, UN Women is looking for a national consultant to conduct a series of consultations on this draft guideline for validation at a selected sample of LGIs from geographic coverage areas of WING and other geographic coverage areas of UN Women Bangladesh programmes. Practical piloting of the guideline will also need to be conducted by the consultant at selected locations of LGIs.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objective and Scopes of Work of the Consultant:

Purpose: To validate and pilot the GRP&B guideline for local government institutions developed by MoWCA at selected locations.
Key guiding questions for the assignment will be:
- How this guideline is connected with SDG and climate budgeting at the local level and what are the financing needs of climate vulnerable people from local level?
- How can existing platforms and mandates of LGIs be leveraged to facilitate implementation and monitoring of GRP&B (such as via leveraging roles of WDFs and relevant standing committees, participatory and open budgeting mandates of LGIs, Ward Shovas, etc.)?
- How the use of the guideline could help inform GRP&B efforts at the national level?

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Prepare an inception report which includes i) desk review of relevant documents (as mentioned below) ii) work plan iii) field visit plan iv) list of stakeholders to consult at the national and local level for validation of the guideline, v) timeframe and milestones for this assignment (to be prepared in consultations with MoWCA, NILG and UN Women) within around 15 Pages, Font: Calibri, 11 
• Conduct desk review of relevant documents including but not limited to WING project documents, research documents of relevant organizations, national and local plans and policies (including plans and policies relevant to the Local Government Division, MoWCA local development plans, Upazila Parishad Act, Upazila Parishad Plans, other local government acts and plans (such as Union Parishad Act, Paurashava Act, Union Parishad Plans, Paurashava Plans) as well as government circulars on GRP&B and Women Development Forums (WDFs) and best practices on GRP&B for local government regionally in the Asia Pacific and developing country context similar to Bangladesh
• Conduct a number of (minimum 06) stakeholder consultations, 05 validation and piloting workshops of the draft guideline by MoWCA with LGI representatives, WDF members and officials from the Union Parishad and Upazila Parishad level at 5 sample Upazilas of WING and/or other geographic coverage areas of UN Women Bangladesh programmes.
• Support to finalize the GRP&B guideline for Union Parishad and support to launch the document.
• As a final deliverable, develop a report on the findings of the validation consultations, state of implementation of the pilots and best practices at selected locations, SWOT analyses of the guideline, and actionable recommendations for implementation. Within around 20 Pages, Font: Calibri, 11
• Conduct a National Knowledge Sharing Seminar/Workshop and two sub-national seminars based on the key findings of the report.

Duration of the Assignment:
The duration of the assignment will be from 1 April 2023 to 30 September 2023 (Maximum 55 working days) in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with field visits expected to selected geographic areas of WING project and other locations such as at Thakurgaon, Kurigram, Manikganj, Jashore and Cox’s Bazar districts.

Supervision and Performance Evaluation:

Under overall guidance of UN Women Deputy Country Representative, the selected consultant will work under the supervision of Programme Analyst – Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE), and technical guidance from Programme Analyst, Gender Responsive Governance (GRG), UN Women Bangladesh.

Travel, Logistics and DSA:
Travel arrangements for the consultant for outside Dhaka will be organized by UN Women upon prior agreement/approval from UN Women such travel expenses shall be borne by UN Women. The Consultant/SSA shall receive per-diem or DSA and terminals not to exceed United Nations daily subsistence allowance rate in such other location(s) and actual travel cost.
The consultant is expected to use his/her own computer, IT and other internet and telecommunications facilities.

Expected Deliverables and Payment Modalities:

Performance Evaluation:

The consultant will work closely with MoWCA and UN Women and will report to the Programme Analyst, WEE, UN Women Bangladesh, who will also carry out a performance evaluation of the consultant at the end of the assignment under overall guidance of UN Women Deputy Country Representative in Bangladesh.

Competencies

Core Competencies:

• Ethics and Values: Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity
• Work in Teams: Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi-ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.
• Communicating and Information Sharing: Facilitate and encourage open communications and strive for effective communication
• Self-management and Emotional Intelligence: Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others
• Conflict Management: Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.
• Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing: Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge
• Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making: Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master’s degree or equivalent in Public Policy and Governance/ Women’s and Gender Studies/Development Studies/Law/Economics/Political Science/Anthropology or other relevant Social Science discipline.
Technical Competencies:

• Minimum 7 years of practical experience working on gender equality and women’s empowerment related policy/strategy development at national and local level
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience on Participatory Budgeting at local government level, gender responsive budgeting, Local Government mechanism in Bangladesh, and local government policies
• Demonstrated skills and experience of training facilitation/advocacy/conducting workshop with the local government institutions

Language:
• Excellent communication skills in Bangla and English.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

Consultant must send a financial proposal based on Lump Sum Amount. The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all
costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, only  and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the SSA in completing the assignment.
The contract price will be fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done upon
completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages

Evaluation Method and Criteria:
Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology.

Cumulative analysis-

The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant up on Cumulative Analysis/evaluation and determined as:
1. Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
2. Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the
solicitation;

Only candidates obtaining a 70 mark in technical evaluation will be considered eligible for financial evaluation.
Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 49 points out of 70)

Criteria-01; Academic Qualification  - Max Point 10

Criteria-02; Number of years of practical experience working on gender equality and women’s empowerment related policy/strategy development at national and local level - Max Point 20
Criteria-03; Demonstrated knowledge and experience on participatory budgeting at local government level, gender responsive budgeting, Local Government mechanism in Bangladesh, and local government policies. Max Point 30

Criteria-04; Demonstrated skills and experience of training facilitation/advocacy/conducting workshop with the local government institutions. Max Point 30

Criteria-05; Language proficiency in Bangla and English. Max Point 10

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 (70) will be considered as technically-qualified candidate.

Interested candidates will submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications.

To be included as part of the proposal: Only applications including all items mentioned above will be considered.

To be included as part of the proposal:

• A brief expression of interest: a brief narrative presenting your suitability for this assignment ·
  • UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from: http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment
  • A writing sample with a list/links of publications
  • Financial proposal: Propose per day lump sum professional fees in BDT for 55 days and indicative per day/professional fees.

NOTE: Documents required before contract signing:

UN Personal History Form;
Full medical examination and Statement of Fitness to work and travel for consultants with travel involved. (This is not a requirement for RLA contracts);

Security Certificate BSAFE: EN: https://agora.unicef.org/course/info.php?id=17891
Individual subscribers over 65 years of age are required to undergo a full medical examination including x-rays at their own cost and obtaining medical clearance from the UN Medical Director prior to taking up their assignment;
Release letter in case the selected consultant is government official.

Only applications will all items mentioned above will be considered

Note: The individual consultant who does not meet the above eligibility criteria shall not be considered for further evaluation. Necessary documentation must be submitted to substantiate the above eligibility criteria