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.

Building on over fifteen years of experience in the area of women, peace and security (WPS), including conflict prevention and resolution, peacebuilding, security sector reform and access to justice, UN Women Asia and the Pacific Regional Office has been working to ensure a gender sensitive approach to understanding and preventing violent extremism (PVE) at the regional level.  In April 2017, with the generous report of Japan UN Women launched the project “Prevention of radicalization and violent extremism through empowered women’s influence in building resilient communities in Muslim-majority Asian countries” with a specific focus on Indonesia and Bangladesh. The programme is known in the region as “Empowered Women, Peaceful Communities”. The overall goal is to ensure that women are empowered to build resilient, cohesive and peaceful communities to prevent radicalization and violent extremism.

One of the areas of intervention has been linked to research aimed at enhancing the evidence base and social understanding of violent extremism, with particular focus on identifying the gender social norms underpinning choices to join violent extremist groups as well as the role women play or can potentially play in influencing individual decision-making, including prevention of violent extremism.

In this context, UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific seeks to hire an International Consultant Report Writer and Editor (English) to work on existing research commissioned by UN Women and translate them into publishable briefs.

Duties and Responsibilities

The International Consultant Report Writer and Editor (English) will work under the supervision of the Regional Adviser a.i. for Governance Peace and Security of UN Women Asia Pacific Regional Office to develop two publishable knowledges product based on the papers   “Building a Stronger Evidence Base: A Gender Sensitive Approach to Empowering Women for Peaceful Communities” and “Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Youth in Promoting Peace and Social Cohesion in Bangladesh”. This will require the following tasks:

• “Building a Stronger Evidence Base: A Gender Sensitive Approach to Empowering Women for Peaceful Communities”: Review the paper to create a 20-page brief in the style of previous UN Women briefs on research papers. The research should be presented in a way that is accessible to a non-technical audience and that captures the main findings and analysis of the research.
• “Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Youth in Promoting Peace and Social Cohesion in Bangladesh”: Review the research paper to develop a 10-15 page publishable brief. The editor should highlight the most relevant findings, ensure all findings are supported by the evidence, remove any editorializing and author opinions in presentation of the findings and re-write, as needed, to ensure a coherent document in line with UN standards of impartiality. This may require additional desk-based research, as needed, to ensure a high-quality knowledge product.

Competencies

Required Skills and Experience

• A Masters or higher-level degree in International Development or a similar field related to political and economic development, etc.
• A minimum of 7 years’ relevant experience in the field of international development, gender equality and women’s and human rights.
• Experience in writing/editing documents or knowledge products of UN Entities, especially with regards to data analysis and presenting data for non-technical audiences in publication (please submit two samples, either as attachments or links).
• Excellent command of written English

Evaluation

Applications will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis.

• Technical Qualification (100 points) weight; [70%]
• Financial Proposal (100 points) weight; [30%]

A two-stage procedure is utilised in evaluating the applications, with evaluation of the technical application being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. Only the price proposal of the candidates who passed the minimum technical score of 70% of the obtainable score of 100 points in the technical qualification evaluation will be evaluated.

Technical qualification evaluation criteria:

The total number of points allocated for the technical qualification component is 100. The technical qualification of the individual is evaluated based on following technical qualification evaluation criteria:

Financial/Price Proposal evaluation:

• Only the financial proposal of candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation will be considered and evaluated.
• The total number of points allocated for the price component is 100.
• 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 70% score in the technical evaluation. All other price proposals will receive points in inverse proportion to the lowest price.

Submission of application

Interest candidates are encouraged to submit electronic application to hr.bangkok@unwomen.org  with cc to Nichapa.athipan@unwomen.org, not later than 19 December 2019, 23:59 Bangkok time.

Submission package includes:

• Personal History Form (P11).
• Two writing samples (either as attachments or links).
• Financial proposal: the financial proposal shall specify a lumpsum total amount breaking down the daily professional fee, proposed number of working days and related cost. Please see the financial proposal template as below:

Payments

Payments for this consultancy will be based on the achievement of each deliverable and certification that each has been satisfactorily completed. Payments will not be based on the number of days worked but on the completion of each stated deliverable within the indicated timeframes.