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, the UN Women will lead and coordinate United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

A key area of concern for UN Women is women’s economic empowerment as expressed in UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2018-2021 as well as in the targets and indicators of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 for gender equality and women’s empowerment and of several other SDGs relating to inclusive growth, decent work, ending poverty, and reducing inequality, and revitalizing the global partnership for sustainable development. 

A key area of concern for UN Women is women’s economic empowerment (WEE) as expressed in UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2022-2025 as well as in the targets and indicators of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 for gender equality and women’s empowerment and of several other SDGs relating to inclusive growth, decent work, ending poverty, and reducing inequality, and revitalizing the global partnership for sustainable development. Aligned with the global SP (2022-2025), the ROAP SN (2023-2025) will focus on six SP cross-thematic outcomes to drive results across the ROAP’s thematic areas i.e., Inclusive governance, Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG), Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE), Women Peace and Security (WPS), Climate Change, Humanitarian Action (HA) and DRR. It will also seek to enhance key areas of expertise in response to demand from country presences in the areas of economic planning, climate change and Knowledge Management (KM). Further, the ROAP’s thematic and functional activities will be geared towards effective and targeted support for country presences. 

The work of UN Women is based on a triple mandate: A normative mandate to support the formulation of global and regional standards and norms for gender equality; an operational mandate to support UN member states in implementing these standards; and finally, a mandate to coordinate the UN system’s efforts to deliver on its gender equality commitment.

The Women’s Economic Empowerment & Migration at the Regional Office for the Asia Pacific operates with the key overarching objective: Women have income security, decent work, and economic autonomy as articulated in the SN ROAP Women’s Economic Empowerment & Migration: 2023-2025. The WEE portfolio is expanding focusing on the four key strategic priorities:

1. Advancing Gender-Responsive Business Conduct and Creating More Decent Work Opportunities (WEPs)
2. Transforming the Care Economy 
3. Accelerating Gender-Responsive Entrepreneurship for (M)SMEs (i.e. Gender-Responsive Procurement, Women’s entrepreneurship, etc.)
4. Progressing Safe Migration to Decent Employment.

These thematic areas are not operating in isolation and are strongly inter-connected and under-pinned by cross-cutting principles, such as: sector-agnostic work (across the Green & Blue -, care, fintech and digital economy); embracing an intersectional and conscious social norms lens into programming, and nexus to thematic areas such as Climate Change, Ending Violence Against Women, Humanitarian and Women Peace and Security (WPS).

Next to the Regional Office’s key responsibility to provide technical support and strengthen capacity at country office level in Asia and the Pacific, the RO also leads a range of multi-country programmes and initiatives, such as for example but not exclusive to the ‘WE RISE Together’, a project for advancing gender-responsive procurement in the Mekong subregion; the ‘Gender-Inclusive Care Entrepreneurship Project (GICEEP)’ and the upcoming project on advancing Women Entrepreneurs in Climate Tech in ASEAN.

A strategic framework guiding the WEE unit’s private sector engagement across the strategic priority areas is the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a set of seven principles for businesses offering guidance on how to strengthen gender equality in the workplace, in the marketplace and in the community. The WEPs were jointly developed by UN Women and UN Global Compact in 2010 and seek commitments and concrete implementation by private corporations around the globe. In the Asia-Pacific, the WEPs community has grown from just under 600 in 2019 when the WEE unit began implementing the flagship program on WEE, to now more than 2,350 Signatories.

Aiming to showcase the best practices of these companies and mobilize further action, the first-ever Asia-Pacific WEPs Awardswas launched in 2020 by WeEmpowerAsia. As the only regional awards initiative recognizing private sector action for gender equality aligned to the WEPs, the Awards offer a unique opportunity for organizations to showcase their work in a diverse range of areas relevant to women’s empowerment. Over three Awards cycles from 2020-2022, UN Women has recognized the exemplary actions of more than 300 leaders and companies, as well as engaged more than 150 representatives from government, business regulators, academia, and key ecosystem stakeholders as jury members. In November 2023, the WEE team, in collaboration with COs, organized the Asia-Pacific 2023 WEPs Forum, the first-ever in-person convening of WEPs Signatories in the Asia-Pacific. Over two days, more than 150 participants across various sectors joined together for peer learning, capacity building, and knowledge exchange, building increased momentum for WEPs implementation and demand for additional iterations of the WEPs Awards.

Beginning in April 2023, a new 18-month programme called the ‘Gender-inclusive Care Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Programme’ (GICEEP) was launched. GICEEP is a joint initiative of Canada’s International Development Research Centre, VISA Foundation, UN Women Asia and the Pacific, BopInc, and SAFEEM. The program aims to promote women's economic empowerment by fostering a more inclusive care entrepreneurship ecosystem through business training, mentorship, access to networks and finance, and inclusive and gender-responsive business-building practices. The GICEEP's three pillars focus on developing Base of Pyramid solutions, implementing a gender-responsive care accelerator, and facilitating knowledge exchange to scale up entrepreneurship-based care solutions.

The increased importance of Women’s Economic Empowerment across the region and the numerous RO-led WEE initiatives in the area of gender-responsive business conduct (WEPs), gender-responsive entrepreneurship and transforming the care economy has resulted in an increased demand for the Regional Office in Asia Pacific (ROAP) to expand and strengthen its existing programmatic work, ensuring close alignment with UN Women’s normative and coordination mandates and existing WEE results frameworks. To support technical design, implementation, monitoring, partnership development, and reporting of programmes across the key pillars of the RO’s WEE unit, with a particular focus on gender-responsive entrepreneurship, the care economy, and WEPs engagement, the office is seeking an International Consultant on Women’s Economic Empowerment, Entrepreneurship and WEPs Engagement. The Consultant will work closely with the Regional Lead, Women’s Economic Empowerment & Migration and act as an important channel between HQ, regional and country offices, as well as with key strategic partners and donors in the areas of women’s economic empowerment, with a particular focus on entrepreneurship and WEPs engagement.

Duties and Responsibilities

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Under the supervision and guidance of the Regional Lead, Women’s Economic Empowerment & Migration, the consultant will undertake the following tasks:

1) Technical Support for WEE Programming at RO and CO level

• Under the supervision of the Regional Lead, Women’s Economic Empowerment & Migration, provide technical support and expertise for relevant RO WEE-related programming, including:
  • Lead on programme planning and implementation, such as drafting of TORs, briefing notes, concept notes, and talking points, and support to programme coordination between the regional and country levels.
  • Develop and review background documents, communications materials, research reports, briefs and presentations related to WEE;
  • Support WEE Technical Advisor by preparing briefings, joining and/or drafting reports of meetings, events and policy dialogues on issues related to WEE as necessary
  • Support strategic partnerships with key stakeholders and implementing partners, including those from the technology industry, private sector, relevant government departments, business regulators, academia and civil society organizations; UN Agencies, government institutions, regional bodies (including ASEAN), bilateral and multilateral donors, the private sector, civil society and others;
  • Develop and provide technical inputs to programme/project proposals and resource mobilization strategies;
  • Support RO monitoring, evaluation, and reporting, including collection and analysis of data, results monitoring, and drafting of programme reports, as well as supporting partner monitoring.
  • Prepare and support finalization of knowledge resources and background material for internal and external use, including policy briefs and programme documents.
  • Coordinate set up and gender-responsive design of MOGEF Climate Tech Accelerator and provide coordination, and delivery of activities and initiatives in the Gender-responsive Entrepreneurship workstream as agreed with the WEE Unit Technical Advisor 
  • Provide technical support to Country Offices related to WEE programmatic design, implementation and programme management.
  • Lead, as required, the organization of consultations, conferences, meetings, events and trainings for RO and CO WEE-related initiatives.

2) Gender-responsive business conduct and Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) Implementation

• Provide technical inputs and coordination for programme development, implementation, partner outreach and management, reporting, research, and activities under the RO’s workstream on Gender-responsive Business Conduct (WEPs) 
• Lead implementation of the anticipated UN Women 2024 Asia-Pacific WEPs Awards process at Regional level, ensuring oversight and successful delivery at the Country Office level. This activity includes a launch event, application period, recruitment, and oversight of organizing agency, creation of regional and country-level workplans, organization of application shortlisting and judging, and overall organization of the Regional Awards Ceremony in November 2023.
• Act as RO WEPs Focal Point in Global WEPs meetings and ensure coordination and information exchange between the WEPs Secretariat at HQ, RO and CO WEPs Focal Points, also supporting COs to provide timely and quality inputs to global knowledge products and reports. This also includes providing technical oversight and quality assurance of Asia-Pacific WEPs Signatory onboarding process and development of WEPs Case Studies and related impact stories.
• Provide technical expertise and guidance to support UN Women WEPs initiatives in Malaysia (which is managed from the RO office), including strategic direction for WEE engagement, partnership outreach, and relationship management.

3) Technical support to Transforming the Care Economy Workstream

• Provide coordination, technical guidance and support for development, implementation, partner management, and reporting related to programming, research, and activities under the RO’s workstream on Transforming the Care Economy, especially the Asia-Pacific Care Accelerator (APCA).
• Lead development and delivery of select curriculum/capacity building materials, gender advisory for care entrepreneurship mentoring, and monitor progress on gender-responsive business conduct goals for the APCA cohort.
• Coordinate and provide technical inputs for development of trainings for SMEs on decent work in the care economy.
• South Asia Care Forum (Q2 2024): Provide technical inputs to forum design, design session briefs and lead relevant sessions, identify, outreach, and prepare strategic partners (including entrepreneurs) participation.
• Lead drafting and/or provide technical inputs to programme/project proposals and resource mobilization strategies for future work in this workstream, with a particular focus on new partnerships and leveraging existing work and research on care entrepreneurship to develop innovative programming.

EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

Provide monthly progress report on the following activities:

• Technical Support for WEE Programming at RO and CO level
• Gender-responsive business conduct and Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) Implementation
• Technical support to Transforming the Care Economy workstream.

PAYMENT PLAN AND MODALITY

A monthly rate will be paid upon submission of deliverables with an approval of the Regional Lead.

CONTRACT PERIOD AND WORK LOCATION

The consultant will be based in Bangkok, Thailand and working at UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific as required. A Round trip airfare from consultant original country to Bangkok, Thailand will be financially covered by UN Women.

Competencies

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

Functional Competencies:

In-depth knowledge on gender-responsive business conduct in Asia-Pacific in the context of the corporate sector and among SMEs 

• Strong understanding of the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) or comparable frameworks with proven implementation experience of these within the corporate sector and SMEs 
• Strong experience working with business, regulators, including Security Exchange Commission and Stock Exchanges, policymakers) to advance WEPs implementation
• In-depth knowledge on the care economy, care entrepreneurship and employer-supported care 
• Demonstrated experience designing and delivering capacity building materials to advancing gender-responsive entrepreneurship in the context of women’s economic empowerment.
• Demonstrated analytical writing skills and ability to review and analyze large amounts of information on gender equality, women’s rights and/or women’s economic empowerment and turn information into useful knowledge.
• Ability to design and deliver learning modules and trainings including teaching experience.
• Ability to write clearly in excellent written English according to the UN editing guidelines.
• Strong self-management, organizational and time management skills.
• Ability to work flexibly and independently on many tasks at a time.

Required Skills and Experience

REQUIRED QUALIFICATION

Education and certification:

• Master’s degree in gender studies, business management, economics, international affairs, and/or any relevant field directly related to women’s economic empowerment
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of relevant work experience, in the area of gender equality or women’s economic empowerment or international development
• Experience in Asia and the Pacific is a strong asset
• Technical expertise on women’s economic empowerment program design and implementation and mobilizing private sector action (corporates and entrepreneurs alike) for women’s economic empowerment via for example the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) or comparable frameworks in Asia-Pacific region (as demonstrated through writing sample e.g. research, policy briefs, or concept notes as attached with application) is required.
• At least 2 years of experience on issues relating to the care economy and/or gender-responsive entrepreneurship development is required.
• Experience engaging different stakeholders for private sector development and WEE in the Asia-Pacific, including the private sector but especially ASEAN, business regulators, investors and investor’s networks, and policymakers, a major advantage.
• Experience designing and delivering training and capacity building modules for the private sector (corporates and entrepreneurs alike) is an asset.
• Experience organizing regional multi-stakeholder events (including governments, corporates, entrepreneurs, investors, civil society, business regulators, etc.) a distinct advantage. 
• Previous experience with UN Women and other UN agencies an advantage.

Language Requirements:

• Excellent command of written English, other UN languages an asset.
• Excellent writing skills and experience in writing analytic papers and reports (to be assessed through writing sample).

EVALUATION

Applications will be evaluated based on cumulative analysis.

• Technical Qualification (100 points) weight; [100%]

Technical qualification evaluation criteria:

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 will be considered as technically qualified candidates who may be contacted for validation interview.

SUBMISSION OF APPLICATION

Interested candidates are encouraged to submit an electronic application to the UNDP website: https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_jobs.cfm or to hr.bangkok@unwomen.org with cc to dollaporn.intrroong@unwomen.org , not later than 31 December 2023, COB (Bangkok time).

Submission package includes:

• Letter of Interest containing the statement on candidate’s experience in line with the scope of work and requirements.
• P11 including past experience in similar assignments; can be downloaded at https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs.
• Writing sample (Concept Note, Publication, Program Report, etc.) relevant to the assignment (2 pieces in English)

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.)