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, 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. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.
UN Women plays an innovative and catalytic role in the State of Palestine since its inception in 1997 as UNIFEM. UN Women focuses its activities on one overarching goal, namely to empower Palestinian women and girls and to allow them to enjoy their human rights. In support of this goal and thoroughly taking into consideration the specificities of the context in Palestine, UN Women concentrates its efforts and interventions toward the realization of three strategic goals: Engendering humanitarian action and increasing the effective leadership and participation of women in peace and security; supporting women's income security, decent work and economic autonomy; and promoting a life free of violence for women and girls in Palestine. For this, UN Women in collaboration with its partners aim to contribute to a legislative and policy framework that prevent violence and empower those affected by violence to recover; address structural barriers preventing women from economic participation and provide women entrepreneurs with the needed skills, financial resources and partnership to access a more equal share of the market; and ensure that policy makers have the capacity to effectively implement, monitor and track women’s peace and security commitments and place women’s rights at the center of humanitarian action in Palestine.
UN Women contributes to empowering women in the economy and closing gender gaps at work, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (leaving no one behind) particularly goals 5 (Gender Equality) and 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discriminations Against Women (CEDAW), United Nations Security Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, the new Palestinian National Policy Agenda 2017-2022, the Cross Sectoral National Gender Strategy 2017-2022, specifically the Fourth Strategic Objective “Enhancing participation of women in the Economic Sector”, and the Palestine UNDAF priorities, specifically the Strategic Priority 3 “Supporting sustainable and inclusive economic development”.
With a seed funding from the UN Development Operations Coordination Office (UN DOCO) under the from the Delivering Together for Sustainable Development Facility (DTF), UN Women together with UNDP, UNICEF, UNODC, ILO, UN Habitat, UNFPA, UNESCO, and UNSCO/RCO in Palestine are implementing the “Men promote positive and non-violent behaviour in Palestine” project. Throughout the project, the involved UN agencies together with local partner organizations are actively engaged in identifying positive deviant (PD) men that promote gender and other forms of equality in various social and rights domains; and will be learning and sharing the stories and practices of the identified PDs to replicate the PD approach.
To achieve this goal, UN Women Palestine Office wishes to contract an international consultant to facilitate the application and testing of Positive Deviance (PD) approach within the projects of UN agencies that were identified under the above-mentioned project.
Duties and Responsibilities
Under general guidance of the Special Representative, direct supervision of the “Men promote positive and non-violent behaviour in Palestine” Project Coordinator in UN Women Palestine Office, the selected consultant will undertake the following duties and responsibilities related to the assignment:
Provide three in-country support to the UN Innovation Lab implementing UN agencies and partners with focus on application of PD, and functioning of the Innovation Lab:
- Deliver at least one in-person facilitated workshop on PD with a focus on practically applying the PD methodology in selected projects;
- Provide resource materials on the topic;
- Create agenda and presentation for the workshops; and
- Provide in-country guidance, feedback, and support to UN agencies and partners ensuing the implementation of project in line with the PD approach.
Provide three in-country support to the UN Innovation Lab implementing UN agencies and partners with focus on Monitoring and Evaluation, and communication on PDs:
- Deliver at least one in-person facilitated workshop on Monitoring and Evaluation, and communication on PDs contribution to change;
- Provide resource materials on the topic;
- Create agenda and presentation for the workshops;
- Develop together with each UN agency and its partner relevant indicators to document the work with PDs and document the PDs results and agree on interview methodologies (or another tool), and data collection including timing and how to structure information gathered from observations (and/ or another tool); and
- Provide in-country guidance, feedback, and support to UN agencies and partners on using different tools for M&E on PDs results and monitoring progress, and communications; and on data analysis.
- Provide five distance/on-line support to each agency (6 agencies) that is actively engaging in the application of PD, and mainstreaming innovation into Monitoring and Evaluation and Communications:
- Provide 30 online support to the UN agencies and partners on applying PD approach to selected Programmes/ projects; and on M&E and Communication on PDs results based on the needs of the UN agencies and their partners; and
- Provide remote support for a sustainability workshop – enabling UN agencies and the partners staff to integrate PD approaches in ongoing and future projects/ programmes.
Deliverables:
- A detailed action plan;
- A summary report on each in-country mission to support the UN Innovation Lab on applying the PD approach;
- A summary report on each in-country mission to support the UN Innovation Lab on Monitoring and Evaluation, and communication on PDs;
- At least two blogs (with the inputs from the UN agencies) on the application and testing of PD per the requirements of silo-fighters and based on the in-country missions; and
- One final report on the assignment covering the reflections and engagement of the UN agencies with the PD approach implementation, challenges encountered during implementation, overview documentation of the distance support provided; and recommendations for UN Women, and other UN agencies on how to incorporate the use of the approach into programming and further development.
Measurement of success of the initiative:
- Number of UN agencies apply and test PD process in the selected projects;
- Number UN agencies document their experience and share within their organization; and
- Number of UN agencies that adopt innovative approaches, specifically behavior aspects in their M&E and communications.
Timeline:
- September – December, 2018.
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.
Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf
Functional Competencies:
- Excellent writing and communication skills. Communicates sensitively, effectively and creatively.
- Excellent facilitation and coordination skills.
- Demonstrated ability to create content that caters to adults and youth, weaving together visual, audio, and both traditional and social media.
- Experience in areas related to gender issues.
- Knowledge of the development, humanitarian, women’s rights and human rights context in the Arab States region or/and Palestine is highly desirable.
- Knowledge of the UN system is an asset.
- Proven networking skills, and ability to generate interest in UN Women’s mandate.
- Strong initiative-taker.
- Very effective at multi-tasking.
- Ability to handle a large volume of work under time constraints.
- Communication literacy in media channels including social media and software used for communication purposes.
- Familiarity with gender issues, and preferable on engaging youth, both girl and boys, and men for gender equality.
- Familiarity with UN Women and UN system is an asset.
- Familiarity with the Middle East is an asset.
Required Skills and Experience
Education:
- Master’s degree in International Development, Gender Studies, law, Human Rights, Applied Anthropology, Business Administration or in other related Social Sciences.
Experience:
- At least 10 years of experience in practical facilitation of workshop, in training stakeholders and partners, and in provision of distance support / coaching to organizations;
- At least 10 years of experience on applying Positive Deviance approach in programming;
- Extensive experience in developing monitoring structures based on real time measuring and development evaluation methodologies, e.g. training in tools and techniques, development of indicators etc
- Familiarity with gender issues, and preferable in Palestine; and
- Experience with the UN is an asset.
Language:
- Fluency in oral and written English.
- Knowledge of Arabic is an asset.
Application procedure:
This SSA modality is governed by UN Women General Terms and Conditions. UN Women will only be able to respond to applicants who meet the minimum requirements.
Candidates should clearly indicate how they meet the above-mentioned criteria in their applications.
Submission of application:
Interested candidates are requested to submit the following documents:
- CV or P11 including a cover letter on how they meet the above-mentioned qualifications (uploaded at once in the system)
Candidates should have the ability to quickly submit degree certificates, three writing samples of reports for a similar assignment (PDs and M&E of PDs change) led by the candidate in the field of gender equality and with a UN and/or International Organizations, and medical certification (of good health), should they be long-listed in consideration of this consultancy.
Short-listed candidate will be requested to provide a financial proposal as lump sum including fees and travel expenses.
Evaluation of applicants:
Candidates will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of the applicants’ qualifications mentioned above; and financial proposal. A contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer receives the highest score out of below defined technical and financial criteria. Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 50/70 points in the technical evaluation will be considered for financial evaluation.
Technical Evaluation Criteria Obtainable Score (70%) – max. 70 points:
- Master’s degree in International Development, Gender Studies, law, Human Rights, Applied Anthropology, Business Administration or in other related Social Sciences (5 points).
- At least 10 years of experience in practical facilitation of workshop and provision of distance support / coaching to organizations (10 points).
- At least 10 years of experience on applying Positive Deviance approach in programming (25 points).
- Extensive experience in developing monitoring structures and development evaluation methodologies (10 points).
- Experience with the UN is an asset (5 points).
- Familiarity with gender issues, and the context in Palestine (10 points).
- Submission of a work sample (5 points).
Financial/Price Proposal evaluation: (30 Points)
- The total number of points allocated for the price component is 30.
- The maximum number of points will be allotted to the lowest price proposal that is opened/ evaluated and compared among those technical qualified candidates who have attained a minimum of 50-point score in the technical evaluation. All other price proposals will receive points in inverse proportion to the lowest price.
- The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:
(Lowest Bid Offered*)/(Bid of the Consultant) x 30 *"Lowest Bid Offered" refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 50 points in technical evaluation.