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. UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes, and services needed to ensure that the standards are effectively implemented and truly benefit women and girls worldwide. It works globally to make the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals a reality for women and girls and stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life. The Regional Office for the Arab States (ROAS) covers 18 Arab countries, including 4 country offices, 1 multi-country office, and several programme and project presences. One of the key areas of work in the region is women’s economic empowerment aiming at women having income security, decent work, and economic autonomy.

The International Labour Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It is the only tripartite UN agency – bringing together government, employer and worker representatives to elaborate labour standards and policies and promote decent work. Decent work sums up the aspirations of people in their working lives: their aspirations for opportunity and income; rights, voice, and recognition; family stability and personal development; fairness and gender equality. The ILO Regional Office for Arab States covers 12 countries in the region with focus on supporting decent employment, building adequate social protection systems strengthening International Labour Standards and workers’ rights, enhancing social dialogue and tripartism and promoting sustainable enterprises for job creation and retention.

UN Women ROAS is partnering with ILO ROAS and jointly developed a Programme on Promoting Productive Employment and Decent Work for women in Egypt, Palestine, and Jordan. Strategies of the joint initiative include promoting equitable labour market-related laws and policies; engaging public, private and community actors with attention to involving men; and reducing the unequal burden of unpaid care work. The programme will work at three levels, macro, meso and micro, reflected in the three outcomes:

1. Gender-responsive labour laws and related policies in place and effective.
2. A gender-responsive private sector that attracts, retains and promotes women is supported.
3. Gender stereotypes about women and men’s responsibilities concerning unpaid care and household work are challenged.

UN Women as the lead agency of this joint programme is hiring a Consultant based in UN Women´s Regional Office in Cairo, Egypt with possible travel in Jordan and Palestine. Under the supervision of the Regional Programme Specialist on Women’s Economic Empowerment, the Consultant is responsible to conduct the inception phase of the Joint Programme, which foresees facilitation of the national consultation process, validation of the project document and drafting of the inception phase report for the Joint UN Women and ILO Programme on Promoting Productive Employment and Decent Work in Egypt, Palestine and Jordan. Details on the scope of work are elaborated below.

Objective of the Assignment

The objective of the assignment is to conduct and document the inception phase of the joint programme on promoting productive employment and decent work in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine. The purpose of conducting the inception phase is to validate the proposal in terms of relevance and efficiency, obtain consensus of national stakeholders on priority areas of action, refine and agree country-level priorities and develop country-level results frameworks, monitoring framework, and annual work plans.

Duties and Responsibilities

In agreement with and under the direct supervision of the Regional Programme Specialist on Women’s Economic Empowerment, the consultant is expected to:

1. Conduct a desk review of the project document and its annexes, relevant studies, and reports, referenced national policies, and strategies.

2. Review the UNDG guidelines on implementing UN Joint Programmes, adapt the templates to fit the context and purpose (results-framework, monitoring framework, work-plan, narrative and financial reporting, risk-log etc) in consultation with UN Women and ILO.

3. Undertake field mission(s) to Jordan and Palestine to meet with joint programme teams, key national stakeholders, development partners, donors etc.

4. Support organising Joint Programme Management Committee meetings (representatives of the two agencies, government institutions, private sector, and civil society) and facilitate the consultation process at national level. Other relevant parties, i.e. relevant development partners may be included in the national consultation process. The objective of the national consultation is to:

1. Assess the overall programme in terms of relevance, the project structure, the proposed approach and activities in view of achieving the project objective given the challenges on the ground, the existing strategies and capacities in place, methodologies, organizational structure and arrangements, roles and responsibilities, quality assurance measures, resources and procedures, and make recommendations as necessary.
2. Facilitate the discussion with national stakeholders in view of developing country specific results framework, monitoring framework, and JP workplan.
3. In coordination with UN Women and ILO teams, based on the input gathered by national counterparts, draft the country specific guiding documents in response to the country context, the priorities within the financing gap.
4. Present the country specific documents and seek consensus among national stakeholders.

5. Draft inception phase report along with related annexes based on an agreed outline.

6. Present the inception phase findings and recommendations to the Regional Joint Steering Committee; facilitate discussion and seek stakeholder consensus regarding the proposed programme.

7. Based on input and comments received finalize the inception report.

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 presentation facilitation skills;
• Ability to synthesise research and draw conclusion on the related subjects;
• Ability to pay attention to details;
• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing;
• Good organisational skills;
• Commitment to accomplish work;
• Ability to meet deadlines and responds positively to critical feedback;
• Results and task-oriented;
• Excellent communication skills;
• Ability to complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities;
• Ability to manage and maintain relationships with different levels of stakeholders effectively and strategically;
• Ability to diplomatically handle sensitive situations with target audiences and cultivate productive relationships.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• Master’s degree or equivalent in economics, labour economics, gender studies, social sciences or other relevant fields. Bachelor’s degree in combination with 7 years of experience will be considered equivalent;

Experience

• At least 5 years (or 7 years in the case of BA graduates) of demonstrated work experience in the area of women’s empowerment, economic development, advocacy and gender equality or women’s rights is required;
• Proven experience in utilizing results-based management approach in project development and implementation is required;
• Knowledge of specifics and trends on women’s economic empowerment in the Arab States region is an asset.
• Previous work experience in facilitating multi-stakeholder meetings, preferably on women’s economic empowerment is an asset;
• Experience of working with a wide range of partners including international and national civil society organisations, government counterparts, UN organisations and private sector on women’s economic empowerment.

Language

• Fluency in spoken and written English language is required;
• Working knowledge of Arabic language is considered an asset.

Evaluation Criteria

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology: Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for the financial evaluation.

Criteria Weight Technical: 70%

• Criterion 1: Master’s degree or equivalent in economics, labour economics, gender studies, social sciences or other relevant fields. Bachelor’s degree in combination with 7 years of experience will be considered equivalent; (15 points)
• Criterion 2: At least 5 years (or 7 years in the case of BA graduates) of demonstrated work experience in the area of women’s empowerment, economic development, advocacy, and gender equality or women’s rights; (20 points)
• Criterion 3: Proven experience in utilizing results-based management approach in project development and implementation; (10 points)
• Criterion 4: Knowledge of specifics and trends on women’s economic empowerment in the Arab States region; (10 points)
• Criterion 5: Previous work experience in facilitating multi-stakeholder meetings, preferably on women’s economic empowerment; (5 points)
• Criterion 6: Experience of working with a wide range of partners including international and national civil society organisations, government counterparts, UN organisations and private sector on women’s economic empowerment; (5 points)
• Criterion 7: Fluency in spoken and written English language, and working knowledge of Arabic language. (5 points)

Financial: Lowest Financial Proposal: 30%:

• Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical);
• 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 49 points in the technical evaluation.

Application:

Interested Individual Consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• A cover letter with a brief presentation of your consultancy explaining your suitability for the work and link to a portfolio of work;
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment; applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment. Make sure that you provide a valid email address for future communications.
• Financial proposal; Proposed inclusive daily rate.

The above-mentioned documents should be merged in a standalone file including all them since the online application submission does only permit to upload one file per application. Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification.

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW, and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.

UN Women is applying a fair and transparent selection process that would take into account both the technical qualification of Consultants as well as their price proposals. The contract will be awarded to the candidate obtaining the highest combined technical and financial scores.