Background

The global development challenges have become increasingly interrelated, requiring us to take interdisciplinary approaches and seek non-linear solutions. Important development trends like urbanization, climate change, and inequality pose significant challenges on our path to achieve the 2030 agenda of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UNDP positions itself as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) integrator who connects all relevant knowledge and partners to support countries to achieve the SDGs in an inclusive and integrated manner.  UNDP Bangkok Reginal Hub (BRH), along with the Pacific Office in Suva, supports the 24 UNDP Country Offices in Asia and the Pacific to achieve the SDGs by providing efficient access to knowledge through high quality integrated advisory services and technical support based on applied research and lessons learnt from UNDP’s experience globally.  BRH also provides regional thought leadership, builds partnerships and promotes regional capacity building, which allow UNDP, governments and other development partners to identify, create and share knowledge relevant to solving urgent development challenges.  This mission is part supported by UNDP’s provision of policy advice and tools to fight exclusion and marginalization in areas such as social protection strategies, job creation and livelihoods, and sustainable urbanization.

UNDP’s Strategic Plan (2018-2021) includes among its 6 Signature Solutions gender equality and empowerment of women, squarely placing these issues at the core of UNDP’s development mandates and strategy.  The SDGs, including SDG5 on gender equality, and all other gender-related targets and indicators, also provide the concrete framework for the work of UNDP as a global development organization.  For UNDP, gender equality is primarily a matter of human rights.  It also recognizes the role of gender equality and women’s empowerment as an integral and indispensable accelerator for sustainable development.  Accordingly, gender equality and women’s empowerment are integrated into UNDP’s offers of solutions to the region’s complex development challenges.

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 the SDGs, i.e., ‘Leave No One Behind’, UNDP places an emphasis on eliminating gender-based inequalities faced by women, girls, men and boys in the region.

To advance UNDP’s role as the SDGs integrator, UNDP BRH has been strengthening its engagement with old and new partners in the United Nations family, Government institutions, women’s rights advocacy organisations, Private Sector, social enterprises, think-tanks and academia to localize the global development agenda.  Leveraging these partnerships to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the framework of the 2030 Agenda is one critical and integrated aspect of such engagement.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objectives:

New technology, artificial intelligence, automation and the gig economy are changing the dynamics of work and the skills required.  Harnessing these technologies presents both opportunities for achieving the SDGs, as well as important challenges.  Women in particular stand to gain or lose from the future of work due to persistent gender inequality.  Based on initial research and work in the region, UNDP BRH has identified three main challenges that limit the potential of women I the future of work, as well as limit the potential of the economies.

One of the main challenges women face is the responsibility for unpaid domestic and care work, and this disproportionate burden prevents them from fully and equally participating in economic opportunities.  The second challenge faced by women in many Asia-Pacific countries is the discriminatory social norms and behaviours that define what women and men can and should do and their role within the household.  These hold women back from the labour force or traditionally male-dominated professions.  Lastly, unequal workplace culture and inequality continues to affect the hiring, retention and promotion of women in the workplace.  The same norms and values which discourage women from participating in the labour force, limit their ability to rise to leadership roles, and discriminate against them by not being paid an equal wage for equal work, also play a role in influencing individual and collective behaviour around issues of sexual harassment and violence, sexism, or other forms of discrimination based on gender.

Considering these issues, and aligning with the regional thinking on the future of work, the BRH Gender Team launched in 2019 a reginal initiative “Transforming the Future of Work for Gender Equality (TFoW4GE)”.  Through innovative research methods, evidence-based policy advocacy, solution-based approach to problem-solving, partnership building, co-creation, application of behavioural insights, and integrated service offers,  TFoW4GE intends to address the following three development challenges: 1) Disproportionate burden of unpaid work on women; 2) Social norms and behaviour that perpetuate gender inequality; and 3) workplace gender inequality.

In 2019, TFoW4GE launched six Country Solution Prototypes, and through a community of practitioners, explored ways to address social norms and practices as a barrier to women’s engagement in the economy and in the future of work.  TFoW4GE also support the development of a policy guidance note to help map out combinations of policy options to reduce women’s unpaid work burden.  As part of UNDP BRH’s collective efforts to engage Private Sector partners in achieving the SDGs, TFoW4GE promotes tools to transform policies, procedures, and culture of workplaces to be aligned with the SDGs, human right principles, and most significantly, gender equality.  TFoW4GE also developed a policy guidance note to articulate practical policy options to reduce women’s unpaid work burden, to be validated through country pilots.  Acknowledging that transformative change in workplace or policy environments will not be realized or sustained without the changes in social norms and practices in support of gender equality, TFoW4GE has embarked on designing policy interventions and nudges to transform discriminatory social norms and practices.

TFoW4GE continues to evolve in 2020, leveraging UNDP’s diverse range of reginal initiatives and platforms, building on UNDP Country Offices’ results and ongoing efforts, and capitalizing on emerging opportunities to enhance UNDP’s contributions in Asia and the Pacific for the transformation of the Future of Work for gender equality.

Scope of work:

Under the overall guidance of Asia-Pacific Regional Gender Equality Team Leader and in close collaboration with different programming teams at BRH as well as in close consultation with relevant UNDP Country Offices in Asia and the Pacific, the consultant will undertake the following:

• Coordinate and monitor the implementation of the TFoW4GE 2020 workplan;
• Document and report detailed progress and lessons learned for collective learning;
• Organize webinars and maximize learning opportunities;
• Provide administrative support to consultants working under the initiative;
• Support the finalization of the Country Solution Prototypes guidance note;
• Support the finalization of the policy guidance note on reducing women’s unpaid work burden.
• Liaise with various regional teams and initiatives (such as FAB, Business & Human Rights, Youth Co:Lab, Private Sector partnership building, Innovation, the Future of Work) and Country Offices and their Accelerator Labs, on the three pillars of the initiative.
• Provide communications support to various streams of work under the TFoW4GE initiative, including developing brochures, power point presentations and other products as needed.
• Support the organization of key events that are part of this initiative, including drafting invitation, curating speakers and agendas, providing logistics support, and implementing follow-up actions.
• Develop new partnerships to explore and experiment the use of behavioural insights to facilitate behavioural change
• Support resource mobilization for activities under the TFoW4GE initiative.
• Seek and act on opportunities to expand the scope of the TFoW4GE initiative.
• Enhance the initiative through exploring new partnerships with new and old partners, including UN agencies.

The Consultant will work under the supervision of the Gender Equality Team Leader at the Bangkok Regional Hub to whom s/he will provide weekly updates with tracking of individual results.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

The Consultant will work under supervision of the Gender Equality Team Leader. The consultant will be responsible to deliver:

1. Regular monitoring and reporting of the implementation of the TFoW4GE initiative.
2. Mobilization of UNDP Country Office engagement in the TFoW4GE initiative
3. Support to the learning from the TFoW4GE initiative for the Asia-Pacific Gender Equality Community of Practice through the organisation of face-to-face and online learning events
4. Support to the follow-up work with the Gender-equal Leadership Regional Dialogue in August 2019 in partnership with the BRH FAB Team
5. Support to the finalization of the Country Solution Prototypes guidance note
6. Support to the fiinalization of the policy guidance note on reducing women’s unpaid work burden
7. Support to the design and roll-out of BRH’s assessment and capacity support tools and programmes to engage Private Sector partners for the transformation of workplace and business practices for gender equality
8. Design and implementation of behavioural insights pilots for gender equality
9. Coordination of the consultancy work relating to the TFoW4GE initiative
10. Support to resource mobilization efforts for the TFoW4GE initiative
11. Communication materials for the TFoW4GE initiative
12. Integration of the TFoW4GE in BRH’s overall work on the private sector engagement
13. Strengthened in-house and external partnerships for the expansion of the TFoW4GE initiative
14. Concept Note for the continuation of the TFoW4GE beyond 2020

Institutional Arrangement:

Direct supervision will be provided by Regional Gender Equality Team Leader.  Regular progress monitoring and quality assurance, as well as for ensuring the timely delivery of the specified deliverables, will be provided by Regional Gender Equality Team Leader.

Duration of the Assignment:

Up to a maximum of 230 working days over a period of maximum 12 months.  The expected starting date is 15 January 2020, and the expected ending date is 31 December 2020.

Duty Station:

Duty station is Bangkok, Thailand.

Mission travel is expected to countries in Asia and the Pacific, and will be based on actual costs.  Arrangements will be made to facilitate the consultant’s travel by UNDP.

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

Essential

• Master’s degree or equivalent in relevant areas such as Gender Studies, Development Studies, Human Rights, Public Policy or Political Science.
• Minimum 12 months of work experience in project design and implementation addressing gender equality related issues in the areas of social or economic development, community development, or international development.
• Minimum 3 months of work experience in regional level UNDP/UN programming and project implementation on gender equality challenges in Asia and the Pacific.
• Minimum 6 months of work experience in resource mobilization.

Desirable

• Knowledge on design thinking and behavioural insights.
• Experience in working on donor relations.

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 with a wide range of partners persuasively and collaboratively.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team seamlessly using a range of modern means of communication as required.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payment :

In accordance with the requirements above, the duration of this assignment is maximum 230 days. The candidate shall quote an all-inclusive Daily Fee in USD for the contract period. The term “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, the cost of travel from the home base to the duty station and vice versa, living allowances needed at the duty station, communications, utilities and consumables, life, health and any other insurances, etc.) that could be incurred by the consultant in completing the assignment are already factored into the daily fee submitted in the proposal. If applicable, travel or daily allowance cost should be identified separately.

Payments shall be done on a monthly basis based on actual days worked, upon verification of completion of deliverables and approval by the IC’s supervisor of a Time Sheet indicating the days worked in the period.

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 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 Living Allowance rates.

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.

• Relevant academic background (10%)
• Minimum 12 months of work experience in project design and implementation addressing gender equality related issues in the areas of social or economic development, community development, or international development (20%)
• Work experience in regional level UNDP/UN programming and project implementation on gender equality challenges in Asia and the Pacific. (20%)
• Work experience in resource mobilization. (10%)
• Fluency in written and spoken English (10%)

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:

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document 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, 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.

e) Link to the most recent online communication materials or copy of the most recent communication materials designed by Consultant relating to workplace gender equality challenges in Asia and the Pacific.

Incomplete proposals may not be considered. The short-listed candidates may be contacted and the successful candidate will be notified

ANNEXES

Annex I - General Condition of Contract

Annex II- TOR_ Gender Equality and Women s Empowerment Consultant

Annex III - Offerors Letter to UNDP Confirming Interest and Availability and Financial Proposal

All documents can be downloaded at :http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=61640