Antecedentes

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. 

In 2015, on 25 September, the United Nations General Assembly adopted unanimously the Resolution 70/1 Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Gender equality and women’s empowerment is at the heart of the agenda, as numerous goals and targets address structural barriers to achieve equal rights and opportunities between women and men, girls and boys.  

One of the key areas of concern is the economic empowerment of women. It is expressed in targets and indicators of SDG 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls) and SDG 8 (Promote inclusive and sustainable development, decent work and employment for all). Progress toward it depends not only on the adoption of a set of public policies by governments, but also on the existence of an enabling environment and active engagement of the corporate sector. This is also relevant to the achievement of SDG 1 (Poverty Reduction), SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities) and SDG 17 (Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development).  

II. Justification

The care economy refers to the diverse range of paid and unpaid work that supports caregiving in all its forms. Care work provides the direct and indirect care necessary for the physical, psychological, and social well-being of primarily care-dependent groups such as children, the elderly, the disabled, the ill, and prime-age working adults  Women and girls bear the brunt of care work. Across the world, women and girls are performing more than three-quarters of the total amount of unpaid care work and two thirds of care workers are women . This unequal gender-based distribution of care work adversely influences women’s paid employment patterns. The causal chain negatively impacts the type of paid job opportunities available to most women and the conditions and quality of their employment, as well as leads to the over-representation of women in unregulated and informal sector jobs.  

ILO estimates show that unpaid care and domestic work is worth around USD 11 trillion annually . According to a the Time-Use Survey conducted by BBS, supported by UN Women, women carry out over 7 times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men . However, care work, remains largely invisible in public policies, national budgets and in the system of national accounts (SNA) – the internationally agreed standard to compile measures of economic activity. So, Tackling the issue of care work requires structural shifts as well as norm shifts so that both paid and unpaid workloads are more gender equal, and services are affordable, accessible to all communities and groups.  Generating decent work environment in the care economy is one way to increase demand for women’s labour, raise incomes for families and elevate Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, this would need to be developed in tandem with measures to alleviate the current burden of unpaid work that women primarily carry, constraining their participation in the labour force.     

In this context, UN Women Bangladesh Country Office (BCO) is seeking the services of  a national consultant to support initiatives under the care programme, to achieve overall goals for UN Women, and under joint programming initiatives.  

Deberes y responsabilidades

Duties and responsibilities

The national consultant will be responsible for the following tasks:  

1. Coordination and Communication:

• Support the Coordination and Partnerships Analyst in the day-to-day implementation and coordination  of programmatic activities.

• Maintain coordination between the regional office, donors, UN agencies, private sector and other stakeholders.

• Maintain communication and liaison with Ministry of Women and Children Affairs (MoWCA), Ministry of Social Welfare (MoSW) and other ministries to ensure strategic engagement to achieve the objective of promoting care work within the women’s economic empowerment discussions.

• Maintain communication and liaison with women’s rights organizations, academic and research institutes, unions.

• Provide logistic support to organize events, meetings, training, workshops, strategic consultations, and dialogue in collaboration as required.

• Provide coordination and logistics support for the Asia-Pacific Regional Care Forum 

• Support in designing advocacy materials, briefs, messaging on care work.

• Development of a communications strategy on care work for the UN Women Bangladesh office, in close collaboration with UN Women’s Communication’s Analyst 

• Provide regular updates and support development of UN Women social media post, website contents on care work. 

2. Technical assistance and capacity development initiatives

• Provide technical support to designing and implementing UN Women programmatic interventions on care work.  

• Co-facilitate and monitor capacity building sessions, meetings, roundtables organized on care work.

• Support to draft terms of reference, conditions, objectives, scope of work and responsibilities, Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), call for proposals on care work.

• Provide technical assistance in developing, and finalizing concept notes, presentations and key briefing materials on care work.

• Provide support to translate the key materials, contents in Bangla from original English texts in keeping with UN Women’s quality assurance guidelines.  

3. Research and knowledge management

• Provide technical inputs to  international or national research conducted by UN Women BCO, Regional Office and HQ on care work, including substantive reviews and quality assurance support

• Provide technical support to develop different knowledge products, stories of change, project and advocacy briefs and assessment reports on care work.

• Organize online and off-line learning and knowledge sharing event for in-country, regional and global practitioners.  

4. Documentation and reporting

• Prepare result-based reports following UN Women internal and donor reporting compliances.

5. Expected deliverables and payment schedule

Duration of Assignment and Duty Station

The consultant is expected to be based in Dhaka to work for 180 days (15 days per month) over a period of 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025. The consultant may be required to travel on mission as assigned by hiring unit and may need to come in to the UN Women office for meetings/workshops, etc. In this regard UN Women travel policy will be followed. 

Travel and DSA

No DSA will be paid at the duty station. If unforeseen travel outside the duty station is required for this assignment, upon prior agreement/approval from UN Women such travel expenses shall be borne by UN Women following UN Women travel policy and the individual contractor/SSA shall receive a per-diem not to exceed the United Nations daily subsistence allowance (DSA) rate in such other location(s) and actual travel cost.

INPUTS:

 This position will be home based. However the consultant maybe requested o come to office for coordination meetings and workshops. UN Women will provide technical support and guidance to accomplish day to day administrative works and perform the deliverables.

Supervision

The consultant will be supervised by Coordination and Partnerships Analyst of UN Women BCO.  

Competencias

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

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

?Education:

Master’s degree in Gender and Development, Development Studies, International Relations, Political Science, Peace and conflict studies, Human Rights, Law or any other related disciplines or related field. 

Experience:

• Minimum 05 years of relevant work experience in implementation projects and initiatives related to gender equality and women’s empowerment
• Atleast 02 years of experience to work with high officials of government departments, donors, or civil society organizations 
• Atleast 02 years of experience in developing, designing programmes related to the care economy or decent work opportunities
• Atleast 02 years of experience in developing knowledge products on policy agendas/policy brief
• Experience of working nationally and/or with the UN system, on issues related to gender equality, women rights, violence against women and girls and gender-responsive policing is desirable; 
• Experience in report writing with analytical skills. 

Language requirement:

? Excellent command of both Bangla and English (oral and written), other UN languages is an asset.

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 the following technical qualification evaluation criteria:

Evaluation criteria:

The total number of points allocated for the technical qualification component is 70. The technical qualification of the individual is evaluated based on the following technical qualification evaluation criteria:

Criteria-01; Academic Qualification  - Max Point 10

Criteria-02; Years of relevant work experience in implementation projects and initiatives related to gender equality and women’s empowerment.  Max Point 20

Criteria-03; years of experience to work with high officials of government departments, donors, or civil society organizations and experience in developing, designing programmes related to the care economy or decent work opportunities. Max Point 20

Criteria-04; years of experience in developing knowledge products on policy agendas/policy brief. Max Point 10

Criteria-05; Experience of working nationally and/or with the UN system, on issues related to gender equality, women rights, violence against women and girls and gender-responsive policing is desirable; Experience in report writing with analytical skills. Max Point 10

Interested Individual Consultants will submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications.

To be included as part of the proposal:

• Cover letter outlining relevant work experience and updated CV
• UN Women Personal History Form(P11);
• Example of related previous work, such as developing training contents and knowledge product. 

NB: 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 based on 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.