Background
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is the UN’s Global Development Network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in over 170 countries, employing participatory approaches to developing local solutions to national and global development challenges. UNDPs core vision is to help countries achieve simultaneous eradication of poverty and significant reduction of inequalities and exclusion.
Addressing gender equality and women’s empowerment is a key aspect of UNDPs approach to achieving its core vision. In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and in UNDP’s Strategic Plan, gender equality is both a goal in its own right and an essential catalyst to progress across all development outcomes. UNDP is guided in its work by its Gender Equality Strategy, which details how UNDP works towards gender equality in each of the goals and key results set out in the UNDP Strategic Plan.
The Gender Team of the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) is the institutional anchor of UNDP’s work on gender equality and women’s empowerment. The Gender Team provides policy advice and technical support to all of UNDP’s Bureaus and leadership on how to mainstream gender across all areas of their work. The Gender Team works to implement gender equality as a core objective of UNDP through a two-pronged approach (i) mainstreaming gender in all core practices; and, (ii) dedicated interventions that empower women and promote gender equality. In addition, the Gender Team is responsible for all corporate planning, for supporting corporate programming, reporting on gender and for supporting Senior Management in ensuring accountability for gender mainstreaming. Finally, the Gender Team supports the Administrator and senior management in addressing gender equality and women’s empowerment in their convening and representational functions.
The Communication Specialist will work under the direct supervision of the Director of the Gender Team, providing support in supporting the corporate roll out of the Gender Equality Strategy 2018-2021, developing communication text and materials, in various mediums, for use in promoting UNDP’s work on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Duties and Responsibilities
Support Management of Gender Team, BPPS Directorate, Executive Office and Executive Board (November 2018- April 2019)
- Support Executive Office, BPPS Directorate and Gender Team with preparation of speeches, briefings, op-eds, media outreach;
- Deliver briefing notes, speeches and presentations; edit reports; develop key messages;
- Script and prepare statements for UNDP Administrator and media outreach for commemorative days:, Day of the Girl Child, Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
Support the corporate roll out of the Gender Equality Strategy (GES) 2018-2021
(November 2018- April 2019)
- Develop and implement communications plan for the GES 2018-2021 to promote linkages between SDGs and gender equality, including the incorporation of the social media, infographics, etc.
- Oversee the communication with partners, develop presentations
- Work closely with partners such as Women Deliver, UN Women and others to share communications materials and undertake joint advocacy and communications efforts
Support the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 63) (February-March 2019)
- Develop a Communication Action Plan for the CSW 63.
- Provide quality assurance and editorial support for communication package including text and materials, key messages, Fast Facts for use in promoting UNDP’s work linked to the CSW 63 and liaise with UNDP Communications Office to promote these materials and messages.
Provide communication support for international conferences and high-level events (ongoing)
- 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence
- World Youth Forum (Egypt)
- WebSummit – Technology and Innovation (Portugal)
Develop a compendium of stories/results to promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment, oversee the development and quality control of Gender Team publications (November 2018- April 2019)
- Identify and capture good experiences on promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.
- Translate the results and outcomes of Gender Team programme and projects into stories and share these with the Communications Office.
- Review and edit the Paper on Masculinities and Recovery notes, IELD brochure, and other publications produced by the UNDP Gender Team.
Support organization and management of UNDP Knowledge with regard to gender equality
(November 2018- April 2019)
- Manage the knowledge storing and sharing efforts of the Global Gender Team
- Manage and keep up to date UNDP Gender Equality Strategy 2018-2021 knowledge portal;
- Coordinate the collection and update of the knowledge resources in collaboration with colleagues from relevant business units and country offices
The consultancy is an office-based assignment in New York, USA (UNDP Headquarters).
The work on and acceptance of deliverables will be preceded by agreement with the Director od the Gender Team on the outline of each deliverable. Payment to the consultant will be based on the accepted deliverables and based on actual number of worked days.
The consultant is not expected to travel.
Competencies
Corporate Competencies:
- Demonstrates commitment to the UN’s values and ethical standards;
- Promotes the mission, vision and strategic goals of UNDP;
- Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
- Treats all people fairly and with impartiality.
Functional Competencies:
- Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
- Ability to work under pressure and to meet deadlines;
- Demonstrates excellent oral and written communication skills;
- Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities;
- Self-reliant and able to work as a part of a multi-cultural team in a stressful.
Required Skills and Experience
Education:
- At least Master’s degree in journalism, communication or other related area.
Experience:
- A minimum of 10 years of communications and/or management-related experience at the international level, preferably in a Communications/Media environment is required.
- Strong editing skills desired.
- Proven experience in using communications services and tools is required.
- Broad knowledge of the UN system in general is desired;
- Knowledge of UNDP programmes and policies is desired.
Language Requirements:
Proficiency in English
Application Procedure
The application package containing the following (to be uploaded as one file):
- Online application with brief description of why the Offer considers her/himself the most suitable for the assignment; and
- Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects and specifying the relevant assignment period (from/to), as well as the email and telephone contacts of at least three (3) professional references.
- Writing samples or links to such samples (at least two), that will enable evaluation of writing and editing skills in English.
?Note: THE ABOVE DOCUMENTS NEED TO BE SCANNED IN ONE FILE AND UPLOADED TO THE ONLINE APPLICATION AS ONE DOCUMENT. Applications that do not contain all the aforementioned documents will be directly disqualified.
Shortlisted candidates (ONLY) will be requested to submit a Financial Proposal.
- The financial proposal should specify an all-inclusive daily fee (based on a 7 hour working day - lunch time is not included - and estimated 21.75 days per month).
- The financial proposal must be all-inclusive and take into account various expenses that will be incurred during the contract, including: the daily professional fee; cost of travel from the home base to the duty station and vice versa, where required; living allowances at the duty station; communications, utilities and consumables; life, health and any other insurance; risks and inconveniences related to work under hardship and hazardous conditions (e.g., personal security needs, etc.), when applicable; and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services under the contract.
- In the case of unforeseeable travel requested by UNDP, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed. In general, UNDP should 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.
- If the 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 a 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.
The Financial Proposal is to be emailed as per the instruction in the separate email that will be sent to shortlisted candidates.
Evaluation process
Applicants are reviewed based on Required Skills and Experience stated above and based on the technical evaluation criteria outlined below. Applicants will be evaluated based on cumulative scoring. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:
- Being responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
- Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation where technical criteria weighs 70% and Financial criteria/ Proposal weighs 30%.
Technical evaluation - Total 70% (700 points):
- Knowledge and experience in producing and overseeing substantive inputs to documents; i.e. speeches, briefing notes, tweets, publications, etc. on issues concerning gender and development (Maximum Points: 15).
- Broad knowledge of the UN system in general (Maximum Points: 5).
- Experience of UNDP policies and programmes in the area of gender equality or with sister UN agencies in this field (Maximum Points: 10).
- Highly developed communication and editing skills, including the ability to write concisely and clearly in English (to be evaluated from writing samples) (Maximum Points: 20).
- Interview (Maximum Points: 20)
The top three candidates resulting from the evaluation of the first four criteria will be called for interview. Interviewees who do not obtain at least 50% of the total points to be obtained during the interview will be disqualified.
Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (490 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (70 points) shall be considered for the financial evaluation.
Financial evaluation - Total 30% (300 points)
The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:
p = y (µ/z), where
p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated
y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal
µ = price of the lowest priced proposal
z = price of the proposal being evaluated
Contract Award
Candidate obtaining the highest combined scores in the combined score of Technical and Financial evaluation will be considered technically qualified and will be offered to enter into contract with UNDP.
Institutional arrangement
The consultant will work under the guidance and direct supervision of Director of Gender Team and will be responsible for the fulfilment of the deliverables as specified above.
The Consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own laptop.
Payment modality
- Payment to the Individual Contractor will be made based on the actual number of days worked, deliverables accepted and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the manager.
- The work week will be based on 35 hours, i.e. on a 7 hour working day, with core hours being between 9h00 and 18h00 daily.
Annexes (click on the hyperlink to access the documents):
Annex 1 – UNDP P-11 Form for ICs
Annex 2 – IC Contract Template
Annex 3 – IC General Terms and Conditions
Any request for clarification must be sent by email to cpu.bids@undp.org