Background

UN Women, the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women has been created to accelerate up the process of meeting the needs of women and girls across the world. UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programs and services needed to ensure that the standards are effectively implemented and truly benefit women and girls worldwide. UN Women is at the forefront of the global drive to remove gender barriers and end discrimination, because we believe in a world of justice and human rights for everyone.

About 85% of Tajik labor migrants are male and 20% migrate with their wives. In 2016, 50% of households in Tajikistan were female headed, with 87% of children remained behind with a single parent. Many Tajik men working abroad gradually cease contact with their families and stop sending remittances, opting to build a new life in Russia. This has led to the existence of an extremely vulnerable and marginalized group in Tajik society, the so-called ‘abandoned families’ or ‘families left behind’ of migrant workers. Women and children left behind suffer from poor wellbeing, including mental health, compounded by limited services and support. The current CFP targets families left behind by migrant workers (with women - left behind in focus) and communities where they reside prioritizing the most vulnerable families, including those with a member facing disability.

Families left behind or affected by migration often struggle to access rights and protections, incl. limited access to legal remedies and discrimination in the application of law. Women often unable to divorce their absent husbands or obtain court ordered alimony and child support. There are no functioning systems to identify and register families left behind and a limited awareness among them of available services. Rural women left behind lack equal access to property, land, and credit making them dependent on the other family members and increasing their vulnerability to poverty. This leads to economic and other forms of violence against the women left behind. Traditionally, they live with their in-laws, therefore legally claiming a domicile after divorce or abandonment is difficult. Women have limited access to justice due to the lack of money for documents and lawyers or lack of information about legal protections. Practically, no or few initiatives target ‘families left behind’.

With the purpose to build economic resilience of women left behind the project plans to conduct a number of trainings, which include capacity building and advocacy works on financial management/education. The experience of UN Women shows that many migrants and their family members do not have financial skills for keeping track of their expenses and income while running of their businesses. Mostly, financial knowledge is lower among women than men. It is also lower in villages and small towns, among those with children at home, those on a low income and those who do not have an education beyond secondary school. The findings of OECD survey on financial literacy and financial inclusion in CIS countries (2018) also revealed that financial literacy is low in Tajikistan, especially among women than men. For improving of financial literacy among women from migrant families, it is necessary to conduct capacity building not only women but also for NGO representatives or partners  to cascade their knowledge among project beneficiaries.

Over the last five years, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Tajikistan has focused on supporting national social protection and safety nets, nutrition, climate change adaptation, resilience-building and disasters risk reduction, whilst aligning to national priorities and in synergy with the action of other partners in an inclusive manner that leaves no one behind.

According to the United Nations common country analysis (CCA), institutional mechanisms for gender equality remain weak and underfunded. Women are faced with pervasive gender stereotypes resulting in low participation in the non-agricultural labour force (27 percent), low secondary and tertiary education enrolment rates (31 percent) and high rates of gender-based violence (26 percent).Tajikistan scored 314 on the United Nations Development Programme Gender Inequality Index.

Considering that Gender Equality is at the core of its humanitarian and development work, WFP and UN Women in Tajikistan will mobilize professional expertise and resources to promote better gender transformative practices, enhance the role of women and girls in recourse management, application of participatory gender-and nutrition Social and Behavior Change Communication (CBCC) methodologies.

UN Women in Tajikistan intends to hire a National Consultant to develop and/or adapt training module on financial management and conduct trainings in targeted areas.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the UN Women Project Manager, the consultant will perform the following tasks, that include but are not limited to the following: 

1. Develop & provide consultancy plan on implementing process to UN Women coordinator.
2. Adapt/develop training materials: Conduct a desk review and develop or identify existing materials and adapt a training module/handout on financial literacy.
3. Conduct two batches of a 1-day basic training on financial management/education for 20 groups of women (approximately 400 women) in 11 target areas of 3 Districts (Khatlon, Rasht, GBAO) of Tajikistan with regard to improve the financial skills of women on family budget\finance, ability to manage household funds, determine family income expenses, and income while running of their businesses.
4. Pre- and post- training evaluation has to be done and submitted to the UN Women coordinator.
5. Present the results to UN Women and WFP and, provide detailed narrative report.

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration

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

Functional Competencies:

• Good knowledge of technical area;
• Good organizational skills and ability to pay close attention to detail;
• Analytical and research skills and training skills;
• Experience in report writing.

Technical competencies:

• Experience working under minimum supervision and tight deadlines;
• Computer literate (being able to use MS Windows, office applications, Internet search);
• Proven track record and experience in gender-related work.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Undergraduate (Bachelors) University degree in economy or related field, education, gender or social development, human rights, law, humanitarian sciences, social studies, etc.

Working Experience:

• A minimum of 3 years of experience as a trainer on financial management, economic, marketing and policy research analyses with focus on gender equality, migration, political science, social sciences, or related field;
• At least 3 years of experience in developing educational/training tools, modules, training methodology and/or provision of interactive training to women audience. Examples of previously provided training(s) should be listed in the P11.
• Prior experience in the work environment of an international agency, NGOs, UN, or international institutions.

Knowledge of languages & additional requirements:

• Proficient knowledge of Tajik and/or Russian languages, English language is an asset.