Background

The activity of women in small and medium business (SME) has increased significantly over the past 5 years. From the number of registered active entrepreneurs in the amount of 536.3 thousand as of January 1, 2019, the share of women entrepreneurs is 43.2%. Moreover, in such regions as Kostanay and Karaganda regions, the share of small and medium-sized businesses headed by women reaches 48%.

When registering a business, most women prefer to be individual entrepreneurs. 79.4% of Kazakhstani individual entrepreneurs are women (47.7% in 2014). At the same time, in 12 regions and in the cities of Nur-Sultan (Astana) and Almaty, the number of women entrepreneurs prevails over men.

Subjects of small and medium business, headed by women in 2013-2017.

However, gender gaps in business still persist. So, for the period from 2014 to 2018 the share of businesses headed by women acting as a legal entity increased slightly, from 29.2% to 30%. At the same time, the representation of women in large business remains low. In 2018, women headed only 17.9% of large enterprises, 30% of small and 34.7% of medium-sized enterprises in Kazakhstan.

Share of enterprises headed by women in 2014-2018

Moreover, women's business specializes to a greater extent in industries with low added value. Thus, over half of SMEs associated with education, real estate operations, hospitality and food services, wholesale and retail trade, health care, and social services are headed by women. Female SMEs are less represented in such areas as transport and warehousing (16%), construction (19%).

About 67% of all SMEs headed by women are concentrated in the wholesale and retail trade (their share is 47.2% of the total number of such enterprises), agriculture (9.9%), real estate transactions (9.6%).

The task of enhancing women's entrepreneurship was reflected in the “Action Plan for the Implementation of the Strategy for Gender Equality in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2006-2016”. The adoption of the Concept of Family and Gender Policy in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030 stimulated the expansion of financing for women's entrepreneurship through the involvement of the corporate, quasi-state sectors and business communities.

In order to achieve the objectives of women's involvement in entrepreneurship, an Employment Program - 2020 (later, the Program for the Development of Productive Employment and Mass Entrepreneurship) and a Business Road Map - 2020 were developed, which took into account gender aspects.

As part of the implementation of the Business Roadmap - 2020, support is being provided for new business projects of entrepreneurs, including women. Since the beginning of the implementation of the state program to support business development, more than 12 thousand projects have been subsidized since 2010, of which about 4 thousand projects were submitted by women. In 2018, out of 1,432 projects, 451 are implemented by women (31%).

According to the state program for the development of productive employment and mass entrepreneurship for 2017–2021, from 2017, microcredits were received by 1,532 people in the amount of 16.3 billion tenge, of which women’s projects - 432 (or 35.2%) in the amount of about 4.8 billion tenge

Within the framework of the programs of JSC “ Damu” on conditional placement of funds, financial support was provided to 32,235 private entrepreneurs, of which 20,794 (65%) were provided to women - individual entrepreneurs.

Since 2011 JSC “Damu” has been implementing programs for financing small and medium-sized businesses through a loan from the Asian Development Bank, which provides financial support for women entrepreneurs. Under this program, 2,128 borrowers were financed in the amount of 238,440.1 million tenge, of which 723 are subjects of female entrepreneurship (34%).

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) under the Women in Business program has opened credit lines for female entrepreneurs through second-tier banks. At the same time, almost half of the credit rate is subsidized by JSC “Damu”. The terms of the “Women in Business” program imply the use of at least 60% of all funds in the regions of Kazakhstan, outside of Almaty and Astana.

However, irrespectively of all efforts, women entrepreneurs are still underrepresented in large business, and are mostly engaged in the sphere with low revenues. As is seen from the above data, when women start businesses, they do it on a smaller scale than men and in a limited range of sectors. In addition, self-employed women experience severe gender gaps and may earn 30%-40% less than their male counterparts.[1]

Despite a major difficulty in examining and measuring entrepreneurship due to the blurred boundaries separating it from self-employment, the literature shows that women still face a great number of difficulties and obstacles in establishing and running businesses. These include:

-          Access to finance;

-          Unfavorable business regulations;

-          Cultural barriers;

-          Choice of business types and sectors;

-          Information and training gaps;

-          Lack of contacts and access to social support and networking;

-          Educational and occupational segregation;

-          Competing demands on time (double burden of home and work responsibilities).

Gender inequalities in entrepreneurship include the following:

-          Access to credit, finance and capital;

-          Networking opportunities for women entrepreneurs;

-          Horizontal gender segregation;

-          Reconciling work and family life;

-          Prejudices and stereotypes about women in business.

UN Women with the support of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population of Kazakhstan and the National Statistics Committee of Kazakhstan would like to commission a study on Gender in Entrepreneurship in Kazakhstan. The study aims to address existing data gaps and more importantly to come forward with findings and recommendations that will allow for policy and programmatic interventions for enhancement of women’s entrepreneurship and economic opportunities in the country.

For this consultancy UN Women, intends to procure services of an international consultant that will provide methodological and expert support to local research organization.

[1] OECD, Closing the gender gap: act now, 2012 (http://www.oecd.org/gender/closingthegap.htm)

Duties and Responsibilities

The International Consultant will provide methodological and expert support to local research organization and is expected to undertake the following specific tasks:

1)      Based on the review of the resource materials and official statistics on female entrepreneurship globally and in Kazakhstan to review methodology developed by local research organization to collect data and produce annual policy and research updates on women’s enterprise across the country’s regions, increasing access to gender-disaggregated data across government departments and agencies in Kazakhstan.

When developing the methodology, it is necessary to use the methodological approaches of the World Bank's Enterprise Survey (https://www.enterprisesurveys.org/methodology ), the UNECE Guide on Statistical Business Registers (2015, https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/stats/publications/2015/ECE_CES_39_WEB.pdf ), UNECE Draft Guidelines on the statistical infrastructure required to support the production of business demography and entrepreneurship statistics (2017, https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/stats/documents/ece/ces/ge.42/2017/combined_final.pdf). It is recommended to use OECD Policy Brief on Women’s Entrepreneurship (https://www.oecd.org/cfe/smes/Policy-Brief-on-Women-s-Entrepreneurship.pdf) and Case Studies from the Asian Development Bank and The Asia Foundations   (https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/459551/women-entrepreneurship-lessons-asia-pacific.pdf) for conducting analysis and developing final recommendations, which should be indicated as part of the research methodology.  

The methodology should include identifying challenges in quantifying women’s enterprise in the country, which is currently lacking such data, both quantitative and qualitative[1]; assessment of the allocation of resources and collection of disaggregated data from a gender perspective that would support policy makers in assessing the true impact on female entrepreneurship[2]. Data collection should be conducted by desk review, enterprise survey, in-depth interviews, and focus groups.

2)      To discuss the methodology with UN Women, local research organization and national partners (National Statistics Committee of Kazakhstan).

3)      To provide online consultations for local research organization for application of the methodology, data collection and analysis and to ensure further advisory support for their tasks performance.

4)      The local research organization will prepare a comparative table with identified barriers at institutional and policy levels to increasing female entrepreneurship in the high-revenue sectors. Based on the prepared table and preliminary results of the study, to conduct Kazakhstan benchmarking against global trends, as well as insert specific examples of international experience in eliminating the identified barriers.

5)      Review and contribute to recommendations on removal of national barriers to female entrepreneurship development prepared by local research organization.

The consultant is expected to work home based and conduct online consultations with UN Women and local research organization.
All deliverables are submitted to and approved by UN Women.

UN Women will provide the following support to the Consultant:

-          Assistance in organizing online consultations with local research organization;  

-          Contracting the local research organization whom international consultant will support in conducting the study and analyzing international best practices;

-          Translation of the methodology and other necessary documents.

[1] Business registers and many sources of government statistics (including VAT registration) are not gender-disaggregated. Similarly, gender information is not readily available from banks or business support organizations.

[2] Gender mainstreaming policies, including legislation, do not include a focus on ensuring an analysis of the allocation of resources or funds by gender. To deliver transparency, accountability and due diligence in terms of proof of genuine gender equality compliance such analysis needs to be provided.

Competencies

Core Values:

·         Respect for Diversity

·         Integrity

·         Professionalism

Core Competencies:

·         Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues

·         Accountability

·         Effective Communication

·         Inclusive Collaboration

To learn more about UN Women values and competencies, please follow the link http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf?la=en&vs=2838

Required Skills and Experience

The selection process of consultant will be by following criteria:

Education:

- Advanced degree in Economics

Experience:

- Minimum 7 years of experience in developing methodologies and conducting studies of gender and economics, and writing reports (supporting materials or link to the site where the document is available to learn about the candidate’s experience);

- Minimum of 5 years of experience in gender equality/women empowerment and gender mainstreaming into policies, legal regulations and programs (supporting materials or link to the site where the document is available to learn about the candidate’s experience);

- Minimum of 2 years of experience and knowledge on budget planning and gender analysis, conducting research in the field of gender costing/budgeting and gender perspective social policy issues (please provide a link to the resource to access the study);

-       Minimum 5 years of experience with UN agencies and other international organizations, as well as with government agencies for promoting gender equality and women economic empowerment.

Languages:

- Excellent writing and speaking skills in English. Working knowledge of Russian.

Application Process:

All documents should be sent including:

• CV/ UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment);
• Technical proposal describing how the expected assignment will be performed. The technical proposal should also include:

-- supporting materials or link to the site where the document is available to learn about the candidate’s experience in gender equality/women empowerment and gender mainstreaming into policies, legal regulations and programs;

-- a link to the resources developed by the candidate on budget planning and gender analysis, research in the field of gender costing/budgeting and gender perspective social policy issues

• Financial proposal, including total amount needed for the fulfillment of all tasks within the framework of ToRs.

Only candidates who have passed the preliminary selection will be informed.

Kindly note, that the system will only allow one attachment, hence all supporting document

e.g. P11, CV must be scanned as one attachment. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

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

Detailed information on DELIVERABLES, TIMELINES AND APPLICATION PROCESS could be found in the TOR