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 Georgia Country Office aims to support the government and civil society partners to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment through sustainable and holistic interventions on policy, institutions, and grassroots’ levels; thematic areas covered include: governance and participation in public life (G&PPL), women’s economic empowerment (WEE), ending violence against women and girls (EVAWG), and women, peace and security (WPS).

The State Concept on Gender Equality, a framework document spelling out the country’s priority policy directions, was adopted in December 2022. The Concept identifies the strategic vision and key priority areas for the work of the Government in line with Georgia’s international and national commitments. It prioritizes the achievement of substantive equality (as stipulated by Article 11 of the Constitution of Georgia), gender mainstreaming in the policymaking process in general and among others, in education sector in particular. UN Women has long record of productive collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) in this regard. In the frameworks of the Memorandum of Understanding, signed between UN Women and MoES in April 2022, a platform to promote dialogue on gender mainstreaming in the education system was established. The platform, in the form of a working group is composed of the relevant state agencies and development partners. Further in 2022, UN Women supported MoES in developing and adopting its internal prevention and response mechanism on sexual harassment.

With UN Women support, the training modules on gender mainstreaming focusing on VAW/DV case reporting, have been accredited by the Teacher Professional Development Center (TPDC) and the Office of Resource Officers of Educational Institutions of Georgia (OROEI), continue to be used for trainings of the relevant school personnel, and have been offered to 1,968 professionals (1,831 women and 137 men) only in 2022. In 2023, UN Women completed Participatory Gender Audit of the MoES that provides a detailed analysis of gender mainstreaming status quo as well as needs and entry points for further work in this direction that UN Women intends to follow-up to in close collaboration with the MoES.

Gender equality and social inclusion, in and through education and training, are of the utmost importance when it comes to laying foundations for the development of more prosperous and more cohesive societies. Georgia is facing challenges in ensuring equal access, quality and effective governance within all levels of education system, from early childhood education (ECE) and compulsory schooling /secondary education through to vocational education and training (VET), higher education, and adult learning. UN Women strives to support the Government of Georgia through collaborating with the MoES to advance policy and practical level development in education and training and to make the education system of Georgia more equitable and inclusive.  

UN Women Georgia is seeking to recruit National Consultant/s with the two-fold goal: 1) to continue with supporting coordination platform that enables systematic approach to domestic violence and violence against women and girls (DV/EVAWG) prevention and response-related interventions and reporting as it relates to the stakeholders of educational and social services systems and 2) to engage with relevant state (mostly MoES) and non-state and international stakeholders (such as the World Bank and others) to support gender mainstreaming considerations into the World-Bank funded Innovation, Inclusion and Quality (Georgia I2Q) Program (expanding access to preschool education, improving the quality of education and creating conducive learning environments), through contributing to the work of the I2Q Project’s Supervisory Groups.

Duties and Responsibilities

More specifically, the national consultant will be responsible for the following tasks and deliverables:

·To ensure close cooperation with the MoES and its relevant structural entities around the platform that enables a more systematic approach to DV/VAWG-related interventions and reporting as it relates to the stakeholders of general educational institutions and social services as well as external relations with law enforcement.

·To coordinate with the MoES and relevant state and non-state agencies provision of technical support to capacity development of ECE and Preschool Education Institutions caregivers and caregiver-pedagogues, school teachers, principals and other personnel covering all relevant aspects of violence against women and children, domestic violence and pertinent reporting obligations.

  • To develop a training toolkit for ECE and Preschool Education Institutions caregivers and caregiver-pedagogues, GE institution teachers and learners to help fight gender stereotypes from the very early stage of child’s development and create a learning environment free of stereotypes allowing children to grow up freely and develop their unique interests and talents.
  • To provide technical support to the MoES to successfully mainstream gender in the relevant teaching standards, pre-service teacher training curricula and teaching materials.
  • To participate in working meetings and discussions of the Steering Committees established under the Georgia I2Q Project (MoES and WB) for the Early Childhood, General as well as Higher Education components, for revision of the reports / documents and other deliverables developed and submitted by the consulting companies contracted under I2Q program, and provide quality assurance from gender mainstreaming obligation purposes of the deliverables submitted by I2Q programme implementing entities.
  • To carefully review the reports / documents and other deliverables developed and submitted by the consulting companies contracted under I2Q Project’s Early Childhood, General as well as Higher Education components and in accordance with the competence provide feedback and recommendations for improvement from gender mainstreaming viewpoint.
  • To engage in meetings and discussions organized by the MoES and/or other development partners (donor coordination work) related to education sector reform.
  • Provide other technical support to UN Women Georgia country program as necessary.

Deliverables:

Deliverables should be supported by a timesheet and progress report.

  • Progress Report 1 – covering duties, responsibilities, work products and indicating number of working days pre-agreed with the UN Women, developed and submitted to UN Women by 30 August 2023.
  • Progress Report 2 – covering duties, responsibilities work products and indicating number of working days pre-agreed with the UN Women, developed submitted to UN Women by 30 November 2023.
  • Progress Report 3 – covering duties, responsibilities, work products and indicating number of working days pre-agreed with the UN Women, developed and submitted to UN Women by 30 February 2024.
  • Progress Report 4 – covering duties, responsibilities work products and indicating number of working days pre-agreed with the UN Women, developed and submitted to UN Women by 15 June 2024.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

  • Excellent writing, presentation/public speaking skills
  • Demonstrated organizational and communicational skills
  • IT literacy

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

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

Education

  • Advanced University degree (Masters) in Gender Studies, Education, or related field.

Knowledge and Experience

  • At least 3 years of experience in working in the area of gender equality, violence against women and domestic violence in Georgia.
  • At least 3 years of experience in gender mainstreaming in formal or informal education systems.
  • At least 3 years of experience in working with the education system in Georgia, work experience with the education institutions will be an asset.

Language Requirements

  • Proficiency in Georgian and English

Evaluation Procedure:

The candidates will be evaluated in three stages: according to minimum qualification criteria; technical and financial evaluation. The candidates must possess minimum qualification criteria to be eligible for further technical evaluation.

The candidate must possess the following minimum qualification criteria to be eligible for further technical evaluation:

  • Advanced University degree (Masters) in Gender Studies, Education, or related field
  • At least 3 years of experience in working with the education system in Georgia, work experience with the education institutions will be an asset.

Technical evaluation criteria (including minimum qualifications):

  • Advanced University degree (Masters) in Gender Studies, Education, or related field (max 80 points)
  • At least 3 years of experience in working in the area of gender equality, violence against women and domestic violence in Georgia (max 90 points)
  • At least 3 years of experience in gender mainstreaming in formal or informal education systems (max 80 points)
  • At least 3 years of experience in working with the education system in Georgia, work experience with the education institutions will be an asset (max 80 points)
  • Proficiency in Georgian and English (20 points)

Maximum total technical score amounts to 350 points. Only candidates who have passed over the minimum qualification criteria and have accumulated at least 245 points out of maximum 350 under technical evaluation will qualify for the next stage i.e. evaluation of their financial proposals.

Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula: S = Fmin / F * 150

S – score received on financial evaluation;

Fmin – the lowest financial offer out of all the submitted offers qualified over the technical evaluation round;

F – financial offer under consideration.

The winning candidate will be the candidate, who has accumulated the highest aggregated score (technical scoring + financial scoring).

Management arrangements:  

The contractor/s will report to and work under direct supervision of the UN Women Governance and Participation in Public Life Programme Analyst and UN Women Ending Violence against Women Programme Analyst and overall guidance of UN Women Georgia Deputy Country Representative.

Financial arrangements:

Payment will be disbursed upon submission and approval of deliverables and certification by UN Women relevant staff that the services have been satisfactorily performed. The payment per deliverable shall be calculated per number of working days captured in the progress reports/deliverables.

Application submission package:

  • CV; and
  • Financial Proposal - lump sum proposal/offer* in GEL (including breakdown of this lump sum amount, indicating all necessary costs to complete this assignment).

*The applicants are required to submit an aggregated financial offer: “aggregated financial offer” is the total sum of all financial claims of the candidate for accomplishment of all tasks spelled out in this ToR. Travel costs (ticket, DSA etc.)  should not be included and will be paid for separately by UN Women.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

How to Submit the Application:

  • Merge your UN Women Personal History Form (P11), the Financial Proposal and Cover Letter into a single file. The system does not allow for more than one attachment to be uploaded.
  • Click on the Job Title (job vacancy announcement).
  • Click 'Apply Now' button, fill in necessary information on the first page, and then click 'Submit Application;'
  • Upload your application/single file as indicated above with the merged documents (underlined above).
  • You will receive an automatic response to your email confirming receipt of your application by the system.

Notes:

  • UN Women retains the right to contact references directly. Due to the large numbers of applications, we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.
  • Applications without the financial offer will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.
  • The individual consultants should take the mandatory learning security course prior to commencement of assignment– details will follow before the issuance of contract.

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.).