Background
Project 1. Improving Staff Capacity of the Azerbaijan Service and Assessment Network.
In a quest to improve public service delivery Azerbaijan established the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations. The agency delivers multiple services through one-stop-shops dubbed ‘ASAN Service’ center.
Over the past three years, numbers of ‘ASAN Service’ centers have increased. Half of ‘ASAN Service’ center clients are women who may face gender-based discrimination in everyday life that generates specific challenges and needs to be addressed by public offices. Women are more likely to carry combine work and household responsibilities that limit their time and resources, and lack knowledge or confidence required to navigate bureaucratic system.
‘ASAN Service’ center is a recognized best model for service delivery as evidenced by its winning 2015 UN Public Service Award, and there is an increased interest on the part of developing countries to learn ASAN’s experience.
The project proposes an alternative, more systemic and sustainable approach to staff capacity building that will maximize use of in-house capacity to enable continuity and multiplier effect of the learning at a reduced cost. For this purpose, the project will support establishment of a pool of Master Trainers who will be deployed at the existing and future ‘ASAN Service’ centers and tasked with building staff capacities in the following focus areas:
Focus on values:underlining and explaining the general values of the public service, with an emphasis on integrity, accountability, human rights
Focus on ethics: what is ethical behaviour of the public servant and how to behave and act ethically, also in the complicated situations, including emphasis on corruption risk reduction
Focus on skills and competences: developing necessary skills and competences of the public servants
Focus on team spirit: how we can perform better as team, assisting an supporting each other
Focus on motivation: how to keep the staff motivated (competitive salaries, supportive working conditions, and development and career opportunities) and support them to build up long-term career in the public service.
ASAN’s senior managers will also be mobilized as participants of the TOT trainings to ensure high-level support to the initiative, emphasize the key messages on the importance of the focus areas identified above, and to contribute to the organizational transformation.
In the mid-term perspective, Master Trainers will be made available to train foreign professionals from other countries for sharing the experience of ‘ASAN Service’ center as part of South-South/triangular cooperation.
In parallel, the project will strengthen gender sensitivity of service delivery through the following steps:
Gender sensitive organizational analysis will examine the structure and procedures of service delivery provided by ‘ASAN Service’ center.
The Analysis will generate recommendations for strengthening gender sensitivity of the current service delivery.
Gender sensitive service delivery training for ‘ASAN Service’ centre’s staff
On-line course on gender equality and gender-sensitive public service custom-designed for the ‘ASAN Service’ centers staff. The course will be self-administered and user friendly and can be used for years after the completion of the project.
Project 2: Gender Assessment: Analysing Barriers to Economic and Social Participation of Women and Girls and Producing Action Oriented Recommendations.
BACKGROUND AND PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Issued in March of 2015, the Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women noted that Azerbaijan exhibits “continued horizontal and vertical segregation in the labour market, whereby women are concentrated in low-paid and informal jobs; the wide gender wage gap”. The Committee has called Azerbaijan to “increase its efforts to encourage and support women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship, especially among rural women, including by providing access to credit, land and other resources and training in microenterprise development and management, and monitor the impact of those initiatives on women.” The CEDAW Committee noted that rural women and displaced women represent vulnerable groups in need of special attention within the state-led efforts to achieve gender equality.
Accessing financial services is considerably harder for women. In the course of UNDP’s research in Sabirabad, female respondents related that getting a credit from banks is harder for women, due to cultural constraints, economic illiteracy, limited mobility in the public space and shortage of time free from work and home duties. Focus group discussions conducted among female entrepreneurs and prospective entrepreneurs as well as the workshop with local bank sector representatives revealed that banking sector has no products developed to meet the needs of local women entrepreneurs, no outreach programs targeting female customers and no specific arrangements to overcome cultural and time barriers faced by local women. The gap in access to financial services presents an obstacle for women seeking to strengthen their economic status.
To address these challenges and CEDAW recommendations UNDP will commence the Gender Assessment of Baku and six regions of Azerbaijan to analyze the reasons, preventing women and girls from accessing economic and employment opportunities in the private sector both in rural and urban areas.
Data collection and analysis will result in the report, presenting main findings of the study, including a comparative analysis of situation in the selected regions and identifying the trends common for all regions examined by the research. The report will also focus on highlighting common regional trends and country-specific developments. The report will include action-oriented recommendations based on the research findings. The report will be published and presented to the Government, civil society, IFI’s and particularly private sector in a format of a workshop or conference. The report will be designed in a way that a larger development project could be easily developed on its basis.
The project will be implemented by UNDP and the State Committee for Family, Women and Children’s Affairs (SCFWCA). The project will be funded by Swiss Cooperation Office (SCO), UNDP, UNFPA and Office of the UN Resident Coordinator.
Duties and Responsibilities
Project 1.
Improving Staff Capacity of the Azerbaijan Service and Assessment Network.
In the scope of this project, UNDP will contract services of an International Gender Consultant who will work under the direct supervision of UNDP’s Programme Advisor. The Consultant will also directly liaise with the Project Assistant, the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations and ‘ASAN Service’ centers.
The Scope of Work of the Consultant includes:
Gender sensitive organizational analysis will examine the structure and procedures of service delivery provided by ASAN.
In order to accomplish the task, International Consultant will:
Conduct a desk research of ASAN’s strategic documents, internal protocols and procedures, external regulations and legislative framework, organizational charts (both for the Agency and the service centers), current training and educational materials used by the organization, organizational analysis reports, and statistical data relevant for the assessment.
Conduct a participant observation in several ASAN service centers and a mobile center.
Conduct semi-structured in-depth interviews with: a) ASAN agency staff involved in management of the service delivery and capacity building; b) ASAN Service Centers’ staff
International Consultant with then combine, triangulate and analyse the data and prepare an assessment report highlighting the gaps and needs pertinent for gender-sensitive delivery by ASAN as well as the organization’s strengths in the gender-sensitive approach.
The Analysis will generate recommendations for strengthening gender sensitivity of the current service delivery.
In order to accomplish the task, International Consultant will:
Provide recommendations for a) improvements in service delivery process (strategy, regulations, procedures and protocols) to make it more gender-sensitive b) measures to address gaps between written procedures and real practices c) measures aimed to improve the organization’s ability to maintain and develop collective knowledge and skills necessary for gender-sensitive service delivery.
Develop and conduct the Gender sensitive service delivery training for trainers (TOT). Target participants: staff members of ‘ASAN Service’ centers.
In order to accomplish the task, International Consultant will:
Design a TOT Manual on Gender sensitive service delivery custom-made for the staff of ASAN centers. The Manual will a) sensitize trainees’ to the importance of gender awareness; b) teach them skills necessary for gender-sensitive service delivery; c) analyse case studies representing major gender inequality issues affecting prospective customers and d) prepare future trainers who will disseminating knowledge and skills necessary for gender-sensitive service.
Deliver the training on Gender sensitive service delivery to a group of ASAN employees.
On-line course on gender equality and gender-sensitive public service custom-designed for the ‘ASAN Service’ centers staff.
In order to accomplish the task, International Consultant will:
Develop a user-friendly interactive on-line course on gender equality and gender-sensitive public service. The course will be custom-made to address the needs and priorities of ASAN. The course will draw on the knowledge obtained through the organizational analysis, incorporate the points raised in the recommendations and include the feedback provided by ASAN staff during the training.
Present the on-line course to ASAN staff.
Project 2: Gender Assessment: Analysing Barriers to Economic and Social Participation of Women and Girls and Producing Action Oriented Recommendations.
In the scope of this assignment, International Gender Consultant will work under the direct supervision of UNDP’s Programme Advisor. The Consultant will also liaise with the SCFWCA, SCO, UNFPA, RC Office and Local Gender Experts involved.
The Consultant will play the lead expert role in conducting the Gender Assessment and expected to:
Elaborate the assessment methodology and key approaches including stages of the study, data collection and analysis methodology.
Develop guidelines and conduct training for field staff.
Participate the collection of data in 1 Baku city (testing the model) jointly with Local Consultants.
The Consultant will be responsible for the processing and analysing the data collected in 7 regions and synchronizing findings.
Based on the findings of the Assessment, the Consultant will present the study outcomes and submit the final narrative report with action-oriented recommendations.
Competencies
In depth knowledge of qualitative research methods;
Outstanding time-management, organizational and interpersonal skills;
Strong communication skills;
Ability to work in a complex environment with different national and international experts
Required Skills and Experience
University Degree (PhD) in social sciences, preferably with specialization in gender studies (10 points);
Minimum 5 years of experience working in the field of gender equality and women’s empowerment (20 points);
Working experience with UN agencies and other international organizations, and familiarity with (prior working experience in) the CIS region (20 points);
In depth knowledge of qualitative research methods (15 points);
Experience in delivering trainings and producing learning resources on gender equality and women empowerment (15 points);
Evidence of outstanding time-management, organizational and interpersonal skills, and strong communication and advocacy skills (10 points);
Fluency in written and spoken English language is mandatory; knowledge of Azerbaijani language will be an asset (10 points).