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.

As the G20 President for 2023, India has prioritised the growth narrative from ‘development of women’ to ‘women-led development’ (WLD), recognising women’s substantial and active contribution to global growth as well as enhancing the scope for their participation, leadership and decision-making. UN Women, in support of the Government of India’s framework of Women-led Development, is ‘profiling stories of Women’s Leadership’ in the country that has led to sustainable and transformative change. For this, UN Women is curating 75 Stories of Women’s Leadership this year and plans to disseminate networks to inspire and strengthen the voices of women-led development across platforms. India’s presidency of G20 is also an opportunity to collect and amplify voices of women’s leadership; the global summit and its connected events will serve as a platform to highlight these stories. 

With this context, UN Women is looking to hire 3 (Three) Consultants - Writers - Human Interest Stories for Profiling Women’s Leadership. The writers will work under the guidance and direct supervision of the UN Women Communications team to scout for and document inspiring stories of women’s leadership. The stories will include representation of women from across geographies, socio-economic groups and most importantly - fields of work - Education, STEM, agriculture, entrepreneurship, entertainment, tech, climate action, wildlife, armed forces etc. With support of the UN Women communications team, the documentation group of 2writers + 9 photographer/videographer professionals will ideate, plan and travel to document 75 stories of women’s leadership to be curated in the form of a Coffee Table Book, photo stories and a video film.

The Consultant Writer - Human Interest Stories Profiling Women’s Leadership will maintain a working relationship with the UN Women India communications team. The writer will be an integral part of the planning, curating, documenting and the making of the final assets.

The objective of this role is to support UN Women India CO in planning and documenting written stories of women’s leadership from across the country.

• Participate in ideation and planning for the documentation;
• Scout for and suggest stories to be documented;
• Establish contact with protagonists and travel to cover their stories;
• Ideate with the bigger group to come up with a unified theme of documentation.

Other:

• Adapt written stories to short form content;
• Provide support on special web/digital/media projects undertaken by the UN Women India MCO.

Expected Outputs

• Attend a creative lab to understand the requirements, agree on the creative treatment, process and timelines – 10% of the total contract amount.
• Work with the photographers to convert these stories into storyboards.
• Each writer to write/edit 30-35 (300-word) empowering stories in simple and fluid English – 50% of the total contract amount.
• Create shorter adapts of 150 words for the written stories – 20% of the total contract amount.
• Titles, captions, blurbs, and photo captions for all the stories + all approved material handover – 20% of the total contract amount.

Core Values / Guiding Principles:

Integrity:

• Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

Professionalism:

• Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity:

• Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies:

Ethics and Values:

• Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.

Organizational Awareness:

• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

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 communication 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 behaviour 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.

Functional Competencies:

• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Demonstrates good oral and written communication skills;
• Focuses on impact and result for the partners and responds positively to feedback;
• Sound understanding of development issues and gender;
• Adheres to deadlines and follows up on time-bound issues;
• Maintains diplomacy, tact and strict confidentiality with internal and external partners and clients.

Education:

• Master’s degree (or equivalent) in Mass Communications, English, Literature, Journalism or any other related field.
• Bachelor’s degree with 5-8 additional years of relevant work experience will be accepted.

Experience:

• At least 7 years of story documentation, human interest story curation or journalism.
• Experience in the field, interviewing and initiating conversations to document stories.
• Experience in planning for field travel.
• Knowledge of gender and human rights issues desirable.
• Experience working in gender equality and women’s rights at the international level is an asset.
• Ability to effectively grasp and incorporate inputs/feedback from multiple contributors.
• Previous UNICEF, UN and/or INGO experience in a similar role is desirable.

Languages:

• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of Hindi is an asset.

Submission of work –

• Weekly stories to be filed, mapped with photographs and submitted to the UNW comms team
• Shorter adapts to follow the next week

Application:

Interested applicants should apply to this announcement through UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:

• All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs
• Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment, please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document. Please add relevant writing samples to your application. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment;
• Applications received after the close date will not be accepted;
• Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Evaluation and Selection Criteria

The evaluation process for selection of the candidate will be based on the following assessment:

• Portfolio/work samples – 60 Points
• Interview- 40 Points

Please Note:

• For an assignment requiring travel, consultants of 65 years or more require full medical examination and statement of fitness to work to engage in the consultancy.
• UN Women will take care of flight/train/bus tickets for travel but accommodation and day to day expenses will need to taken care of by the photographer and reimbursed after the final submission.
• Due to large number of potential applicants, only competitively selected candidates will be contacted for remaining steps of the service procurement process.
• This is a full-time assignment. The consultant is expected to disclose any outside activity and shall not be permitted to take up any outside work during this assignment.
• Please note that during the course of this assignment, the Terms of Reference may be amended by UN Women. 

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.