Background

UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub, along with the Pacific Office in Suva, provide regional thought leadership, build partnerships and promote regional capacity building, which allow UNDP, governments and other development partners to identify, create and share knowledge relevant to solving urgent development challenges.

Gender equality and the empowerment of women are at the heart of UNDP’s development mandate.  For UNDP, gender equality is primarily a matter of human rights.  It also recognizes the role of gender equality and women’s empowerment as a driver for sustainable development.  UNDP believes that unless women and men are able to fully realize their rights in all spheres of life, human development will not be advanced.  Gender equality and women’s empowerment are integrated into every aspect of UNDP’s work in supporting countries through a range of programmes and projects.

Gender inequalities remain a development challenge throughout the Asia-Pacific region. This persistence is particularly troubling when considering the enormous economic progress the region has made. This continuing discrimination and neglect threaten the security and well-being of women as well as their families and communities throughout Asia and the Pacific.  In accordance with the principle of SDGs, i.e., “Leave No One Behind”, UNDP places an emphasis on eliminating the inequalities experienced by women and girls in the region.

Taking lessons from the progress achieved under the framework of the Millennium Development Goals that concretely demonstrated the role of gender equality in sustainable development outcome, the international community is increasingly investing to leverage on the potential of gender equality in the acceleration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) achievements.

One area of barriers to gender equality that demand urgent attention is unpaid care and domestic work.  For many women and girls across the world, unpaid care and domestic work has been considered their ‘natural’ responsibility. Women and girls spend disproportionately longer hours than men and boys on unpaid care and domestic work, making them ‘time-poor’, and diminishing their economic, social and political opportunity to enhance their human capital. A substantial volume of work in the recent years have already alerted the need to recognize the economic and social benefits of addressing the disproportionate responsibility placed upon women and girls to take on unpaid care and domestic work, and its role in perpetuating gender inequality.  Extensive analysis has been made available, and evidence-based economic and social cases have been presented in various forms to urge the policy-making that takes into account the uneven distribution of unpaid care and domestic work.  Yet, little action has been taken concretely in the policy formulation arena to transform the care and domestic work agenda.

Further work in bridging the statistical / economic evidence and economic policy-making is urgently called for in order to meet the SDGs time-frame.  Policy recommendations that demonstrate the economic and social benefits of addressing women’s unpaid care and domestic work responsibility should also be made into practical advocacy tools that can provide winning arguments for policy makers who are in the positions of political power.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of work:

Under the overall guidance of the Regional Gender Team Leader at the UNDP Asia Pacific Regional Hub, the consultant will undertake the development of policy advocacy materials targeted at policy makers, in particular Members of the Parliament in Asia and the Pacific to support their efforts to transform the care and domestic work agenda.  Desk review of the available research work and publications analyzing unpaid care and domestic work from economic and social benefits perspectives, as well as data and statistics pertinent to countries in Asia and the Pacific, will be carried out to substantiate the policy advocacy materials.  The materials should also include the visualization of data from the region.

The consultant will have three deliverables in increments:

• Review of available research work and publication analyzing unpaid care and domestic work from economic and social benefits, and presenting evidence for economic and social cases.
• Analysis of relevant data and statistics relevant to countries in Asia and the Pacific including visualization of data (eg., graphs, pie charts, etc).
• Policy advocacy tools targeted at policy-makers in Asia and the Pacific.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

The deliverables expected under this assignment are as follows:

Institutional Arrangement

Under the overall of the Regional Gender Team Leader at the UNDP Asia Pacific Regional Hub, the consultant will work closely with members of the Bangkok Regional Hub as required, including but not limited to members of the Regional Programme and Policy Support Team and members of the Bangkok Regional Hub Gender Focal Team.

Weekly meetings with the Regional Gender Team Leader will be organized to monitor the progress and to ensure the timely delivery of the final product.  Additional meetings will be arranged as required.

Duration of Assignment:

Up to a maximum of 30 working days over a period of maximum 3 months.

28 August – 27 November 2017.

 Duty Station and Expected Places of Travel:

Duty station will be Bangkok.  No travel will be required.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism.

Technical Competencies:

• Analytic capacity and demonstrated ability to process, analyse and synthesise complex, technical information;
• Proven ability to support the development of high quality knowledge and training materials, and to train technical teams;
• Proven experience in the developing country context and working in different cultural settings.

Communication:

• Communicate effectively in writing to a varied and broad audience in a simple and concise manner.

Professionalism:

• Capable of working in a high pressure environment with sharp and frequent deadlines, managing many tasks simultaneously;
• Excellent analytical and organizational skills.

Teamwork:

• Projects a positive image and is ready to take on a wide range of tasks;
• Focuses on results for the client;
• Welcomes constructive feedback.

Required Skills and Experience

Requirements for Experience and Qualification:

Essential

• Master’s degree or equivalent in relevant area such as Economics, Finance, Public Policy, Gender Studies, Development Studies, or equivalent;
• Minimum 7 years of relevant professional experience in the areas of gender and economics, gender-responsive budgeting, gender analysis of economic policy planning, inclusive access to finance, and gender and public finance management, with governments in Asia and the Pacific.
• Professional knowledge of economic development in Asia and the Pacific;
• Experience with data collection, qualitative and analytical research in the areas of gender economics, including time use surveys;
• Experience with extensive online research.

Desirable

• Knowledge of decision-making processes in public policy, public service delivery, and capacity building of policy institutions in Asia and the Pacific would be desirable;
• Previous professional experience with UNDP or the broader UN System would be a strong asset.

Competencies

• Strong command of English;
• Ability to perform tasks in timely manner and under pressure, to tight deadlines;
• Ability to communicate verbally and in writing and ability to work collaboratively online and via email;
• Able to work independently and as part of a team seamlessly using a range of modern means of communication as required.

Payment terms for the contract.

Lumpsum

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payment :

Consultant must send a financial proposal based on Lumpsum

The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, travel costs, living allowance (if any work is to be done outside the IC´s duty station) and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment. The contract price will be fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done upon completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages:

• Deliverable 1 Review report of available research work and publication: 30% of total contract amount
• Deliverable 2 Data and statistics analysis (Asia-Pacific): 30% of total contract amount
• Deliverable 3 Contents of policy advocacy tools: 40% of total contract amount

In general, UNDP shall not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources

 In the event of unforeseeable travel not anticipated in this TOR, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and the Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Travel costs shall be reimbursed at actual but not exceeding the quotation from UNDP approved travel agent.  The provided living allowance will not be exceeding UNDP DSA rates. Repatriation travel cost from home to duty station in Bangkok and return shall not be covered by UNDP.

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

Cumulative analysis:

The award of the contract shall be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as a) responsive/compliant/acceptable; and b) having received the highest score out of set of weighted technical criteria (70%). and financial criteria (30%). Financial score shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced proposal received by UNDP for the assignment

Technical Evaluation Criteria (maximum 100 points):

• Professional experience in evidence-based policy advocacy in the areas of gender and economics in Asia and the Pacific (20%)
• Professional policy research experience in the areas of gender and economics in the development context in Asia and the Pacific (20%)
• Professional experience in collection and analysis of data and statistics related to gender and economics in Asia and the Pacific (20%).  Working knowledge of time use surveys is an asset.
• Professional knowledge of national and local government institutions with particular reference to economic development as well as gender equality in Asia and the Pacific (15%)
• Relevant academic background (15%)
• Fluency in written English (10%)
• Professional experience with UNDP or other UN entities and agencies is an asset.

 Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% of the total technical points would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Documents to be Included When Submitting the Proposals:

Candidates wishing to be considered for this assignment are required to submit the following documents to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document/ or one ZIP File as the application only allows to upload maximum one document:

a) Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;

b) Personal CV or P11, indicating all relevant and similar previous experiences, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Applicant and at least three (3) professional references;

c) Brief description of why the applicant considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, relating how he/she proposes to conduct the assignment to their previous experience;

d) Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided.  If an Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.

Incomplete proposals may not be considered.

Annexes

Annex I – TOR_Developing Policy Advocacy Materials on Gender Equality & Unpaid Care and Domestic Work

Annex II – Individual IC General Terms and Conditions

Annex III – Offeror’s Letter to UNDP Confirming Interest and Availability for the Individual IC, including Financial Proposal Template

All documents can be downloaded at :http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=39650