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) under the Women’s Economic Empowerment programme of UN Women. 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.

In this regard, UN Women has been promoting Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs)1 including advocacy support to selected private entities as well as promoting women’s economic empowerment strategies through local authorities. A series of workshops on WEPs were held in Cox’s Bazar, Jashore, Kurigram, Manikganj and Thakurgaon with private enterprises in these districts and a number of enterprises have received capacity development support to implement WEPs in their workplaces, marketplaces and communities. As a way forward, UN Women is looking for a national consultant to conduct follow up on WEPs implementation with the signatory enterprises under WING programme. UN Women is also working on Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting (GRP&B) with the local government institutes, especially with elected representatives of Upazila Parishads and Women Development Forums (WDFs) to enhance participation of women in local development through gender responsive local level development plans and budgets. Therefore, the consultant will also conduct ToT sessions with the members of WDFs to enhance their capacity on developing business plan, learning financial literacy and facilitate networking events to establish market linkage among WDF, entrepreneurs and local business associations to promote women’s economic opportunities for local level.

UN Women plans to hire a national consultant to conduct consultations with WEPs signatories to follow up on the implementation of WEPs, organize and facilitate GRPB and technical skills sessions and for capacity building of WDFs, entrepreneurs and build market linkages at selected geographical locations of the WING programme.

• Prepare an inception report which should include i) desk review of available WEPs resources and training contents, reports, signatory enterprise profiles and mapping of the policies and actions planned by the enterprises- ii) work plan; iii) field visit plan iv)outline of training sessions v)mapping of local business associations in each of five WING locations vi)timeframe and milestone of the assignment; (Within around 15 pages, Font: Calibri, 11)
• Provide technical support to WEPs signatories (under WING) on implementing Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs):
• Conduct one networking and refresher workshop with WEPs signatory enterprises from WING locations and Dhaka.
• Provide technical support to two (2) WEPs signatories to develop tools and action plans on mainstreaming WEPs in their policies and procedures in alignment with the regional WEPs tools by UN Women and UN Global Compact
• Support two (2) WEPs signatory under WING to implement tools and action plan templates for implementation of WEPs through their enterprises in alignment with the regional WEPs tools.
• Review Bangla translations of WEPs training contents and relevant documents and provid language inputs where needed
• Strengthening capacity of local government on women’s economic empowerment:
• Organize and facilitate five training of trainers (ToT) sessions with WDFs on business plan development and financial literacy so they can support and develop business plan for the local women entrepreneurs
• Organize and conduct five ToT sessions on financial literacy with WDFs so they can support local women entrepreneurs to develop financial plans and maintain records
• Organize and facilitate five district level networking events with the WDFs, local entrepreneurs and local business associations such as district level Women Chamber of Commerce Bangladesh, Federation of Women Entrepreneurs (BFWE), Association of Grassroots Women Entrepreneurs Bangladesh (AGWEB), Women Entrepreneurs Association of Bangladesh (WEAB) and such organizations to build linkage with local market. 

Duration of the Assignment:

The assignment will be for 6 months (Up-to 50 days) (commencing on 15 April 2023 and completed on 30 September 2023). Duty station is UN Women Bangladesh Country Office, Dhaka, with travels to the following project area districts: Manikganj, Thakurgaon, Jashore, Cox’s Bazar and Kurigram.

Supervision and Performance Evaluation:

Under overall guidance of UN Women Deputy Country Representative, the selected consultant will report directly to Programme Analyst, WEE, UN Women. The consultant will also closely work in collaboration with WING focal points in UNCDF and UNDP.

Expected Deliverables and Payment Modalities:

Performance Evaluation:

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

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

Education:

Master’s degree or equivalent in Business Administration or Economics or Development Studies or Women and Gender Studies or Public Policy and Governance or Political Science or Sociology or other relevant Social Science or Business discipline.

Technical Competencies:

• At least 7 years of relevant experience in issues related to gender and women’s economic empowerment.
• At least 5 years experience of working with, liaising and networking with private sector development specially women owned or led businesses and associations and local economic development bodies
• Demonstrated skills and experience of advocacy/conducting workshop/ facilitation  with private sector and local government on WEPs, business plan for enterprises

Language

• Demonstrated good oral and written 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 relevant experience in issues related to gender and women’s economic empowerment- Max Point 30
Criteria-03; Number of years of experience of working of working with, liaising and networking with private sector development specially women owned or led businesses and associations and or local economic development bodies. Max Point 30

Criteria-04; Demonstrated skills and experience of advocacy/conducting workshop/ facilitation  with private sector and local government on WEPs, business plan development.  Max Point 20

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 50 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