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. Placing women’s rights at the Centre of all its efforts, UN Women lead and coordinate United Nations System efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It has been providing strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

 UN Women Bangladesh focuses its interventions on women’s economic empowerment, addresses women’s economic empowerment, an issue which is central to priorities of Government of Bangladesh (GoB) and has been highlighted by the civil society platform on SDGs as one of the issues where progress is essential to a wider social transformation.  There are a number of initiatives at every level that aim to improve women’s income (or the income of households through involving women).  There is much less focus on how economic engagement can be empowering for women socially as well as economically.   UN Women BCO strives to contribute in the impact area on women’s economic empowerment through removing structural barriers, including violence against women in the public and domestic sphere, with emphasis on marginalized groups of women. UN Women Bangladesh Country Office has also been working on empowering and promoting the rights of women migrant workers especially low skilled migrant workers who make up 90% of women migrant workers from Bangladesh. The key programmatic focus for Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme team are (i) a pilot project on “Empowerment of Women and Girls in Clothing Industry” in order to identifying an innovative and effective approach for Empowering Women RMG workers in Bangladesh in collaboration with Fast Retailing (FR) Company Limited in Japan  (ii) A Joint Programme (JP) entitled “Enhancing social protection for female tea garden workers and their families in Sylhet Division, Bangladesh” supported by Joint Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Fund. The implementation period is January 2020 to January 2022. The Participating UN Organizations (PUNOs) of the JP are International Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women). Further two interventions are being developed in this programme area.

Within the UN Women Bangladesh Country Office under the direct supervision of the Programme Analyst, Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme and overall guidance of Programme Management Specialist, the incumbent will respond to the BCO programmatic needs for the economic empowerment of marginalized women including tea gardens workers, RMG workers, migrant women and other excluded groups of women.

Under the overall guidance of the supervisor, the consultant will work closely with the programme unit team, UN Women BCO staff, key Government including MoLE, MOEWOE, BMET, and MoCWA, private sectors focusing on the BTA, BGMEA and BAIRA, UN agencies involved in the project (ILO, UNFPA, UNICEF, and RCO) and civil society to ensure the technical direction and implementing of the programme and projects are maintained and key outputs are achieved in a cost effective and timely manner.

Against this background, UN Women Bangladesh is seeking to recruit a National Consultant to provide the required programme support to Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme team in the development and implementation of the programme in line with UN Women rules and regulations. Further details of the expected roles and responsibilities for the consultant are found below

Duties and Responsibilities

The Consultant will work under the direct supervision of Programme Analyst – WEE, UN Women Bangladesh, in close consultation with the Programme team:

1. Provide knowledge management support to the WEE team particularly “Enhancing social protection for female tea garden workers and their families in Sylhet Division, Bangladesh
2. Support in drafting and editing briefs, letters, reports and briefing papers for WEE focusing on the projects on women Tea gardens workers, RMG workers and migrant workers.
3. Coordinate events and national campaigns through organization of media and events;
4. Work closely with the communications analyst to enhance the visibility of BCO’s efforts on WEE through social media platforms;
5. Support for the development and implementation of the knowledge products;
6. Translate and/or review translation of required key programme-related documents, and knowledge products from English to Bangla, and from Bangla to English
7. Maintain database of projects-related documentation on the shared platforms
8. Participate at the internal and external meetings as required and prepare minutes, including preparation of background documents for the meetings;
9. Support WEE team in the organization and coordination of key advocacy/awareness raising events, in close cooperation with the programme staff.
10. Provide input to various tasks such as workshops, research, analyses and publications;
11. Perform other duties as may be directed by the supervisor and other team members as and when required.

Deliverables

Payment Schedule linked with deliverables:

Payment will be processed at the end of each month for the number of days worked based on submission of progress report on tasks (deliverable 1) completed during the month with deliverables produced.

Duration of Assignment and Duty Station

The consultant is expected to be based in UN Women Bangladesh in Dhaka for 125 working days from 15 March 2020 – 15 September 2020. The consultant may be required to travel on mission as assigned by hiring unit.

Supervision and performance evaluation 

The consultant will be in direct contact with Programme Analyst–WEE, UN Women Bangladesh.

INPUTS

UNWOMEN will provide office space, internet connection and laptop.

Travel:

No DSA will be paid at the duty station. If unforeseen travel outside the duty station is requested by UNWOMEN, and upon prior agreement/approval, such travel shall be UNWOMEN expenses and the individual contractor/SSA shall receive a per-diem not to exceed United Nations daily subsistence allowance rate in such other location(s).

In the case of unforeseen travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, and living expenses will be covered by UN Women travel policy.

Competencies

Core Values and Competencies

In addition to aforementioned requirements and qualifications, it is important that the consultant shares the core values and core competencies of the organization.

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
• Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Functional Competencies:

• Ability to pragmatically apply in-depth knowledge and experience of issues and practices in the fields of gender equality in Bangladesh;
• Strong communications skills, and experience in presenting evidence and ideas for policy and programme;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities.

Required Skills and Experience

Required Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Social science, Economics or Public Administration or related field.
• Minimum 3years of relevant work experience in Programme and knowledge management support (mid-level experience);

Additional Capacity

• Experience in working for UN Women, and/or other UN Agencies is desirable;
• Experience in research, drafting briefing notes, supporting project development;
• Experience in assisting in WEE projects is an advantage;
• Excellent command of English and Bangla (oral and written), other UN languages is an asset;
• Knowledge of gender issues is an asset.