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.

In Nepal, UN Women focuses on strengthening women’s voice, choice, agency and security across sectors to advance women’s rights, provide space for women’s meaningful participation and to demonstrate tangible differences in their lives. It is guided by Nepal’s stated priorities and its commitments to relevant normative frameworks, the country’s United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2018-2022, the CEDAW Concluding Observations (2018) and UN Women’s Corporate Strategic Plan 2018-2021. The programme promotes national ownership, capacity development and institutionalization, inclusiveness, coordination and partnerships, and knowledge generation and management, and seeks to prioritize engagement with and support to key duty bearers who are responsible for advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE). The goal of the programme is to “achieve gender equality and social inclusion and empower women and girls in Nepal to realise their human rights.”

The key strategies to achieve the goal include: (a) normative support for the development, reform and repeal or amendment of discriminatory laws using a CEDAW lens; (b) providing technical support and integrated policy advice to stakeholders to implement gender equality policies and action plans; (c) building institutional capacities at federal and local levels to promote gender-responsive governance, rule of law, prevention of violence and delivery of minimum essential services through innovations, long-term trainings, peer learning and focused workshops; and (d) advocacy and social mobilisation with excluded and vulnerable groups to build alliances and mobilise political will to drive public support for GEWE.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of the Work

A professional, accurate and fast translation and interpretation services from English to Nepali and vice versa such that the meaning and understanding of each principles and analysis presented in the documents and interpretation reflect their true sense.

Main Tasks and Responsibilities of Translator/Interpreter:

• Review the knowledge products, including audio/video formats, to be translated.
• Translate and Edit knowledge products from Nepali to English and vice-versa.
• Transcribe and translate on a need basis.
• Simultaneous and consecutive translation/ Interpretation at UN Women events and workshops according to our needs.
• Ensures accuracy in language, structure, and rhetoric expressions.
• As part of translation, word choice, style, sentence structure, comprehension, and terminologies are checked intensively and the content is fine-tuned to achieve native English and Nepali expression.

Outputs

• A document (preferably) in Microsoft Word format as a clean copy, a copy with changes track marked, and a copy with comments of translated text in a clear and jargon free language content ensuring no language errors, structure is improved, and such that the meaning and understanding of each principles and analysis presented in the documents reflect their true sense..

Note: After checking with UN Women office personnel, if any comments or made any final changes, make a final read through of the document at no extra cost.

• Simultaneous and consecutive translation/ Interpretation at UN Women events and workshops according to our needs

Type of Documents:

• The documents consist of verbatim reports including press releases/statements, speech, newspaper and magazine articles, features, audio/video interview clippings and policy, guidelines etc. Such document contains either in normal or legislative words.

• The volume of each document to be translated may vary from 500 to more than 100,000 words, based on the word-count tool in Microsoft Word.

• The document/report to be translated shall be transmitted to the contractor, by email, preferably in editable electronic form (Microsoft Word), except for audio visual products; similarly, translations must be returned to UN Women in electronic editable form (.docx). Format specifications (including templates) shall be communicated to the Contractor, together with the document to be translated. Non-compliance with format specifications shall cause the returning back of the translation to the Contractor for compliance.

Duration and Payment Condition

The consultancy will be on retainer basis for one-year period and renewable for next two years on performance basis. Payment will be based on the negotiated rate and made based on the submission/completion of quantity deliverables and upon certification of satisfactory performance by the supervisor. UN Women does not warrant any order prior during the term of Agreement. The consultant can only be engaged through issuance of ATLAS Purchase Order, based on agreed contract, every time the UN Women wishes to procure the service.

Reporting

 The consultant will be accountable for his/her deliverables to the UN Women Nepal Communications Focal Person.

Delivery Terms and Conditions

• Delivery terms and conditions shall be agreed upon by the Contractor and UN Women, taking into account the volume of the document and the adoption date of the document/report.

Quality Standard

• All translations by the Contractor must be rendered publication-ready, commensurate with what an experienced professional translator can offer. The term “publication-ready” shall mean that the translation respects the formatting conventions specified by UN Women and is devoid of typographical, spelling and grammatical mistakes. The translations must also be written in clear, correct and readable language. The content and meaning of the original must be accurately rendered in the target language, and a high level of terminological and style consistency must be achieved.

Confidentiality and Copyrights

• All documents compiled by or received by the Contractor in connection with the LTA shall be property of UN Women, shall be treated as confidential and shall be delivered only to duly authorized UN Women officials on completion of the work or services under the contract.

• In no event shall the contents of such documents or any information known or made known to the Contractor by reason of its association with UN Women be made known by the Contractor to any unauthorized person without the written approval of UN Women.

• The Contractor shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that its agents, employees, subcontractors and independent contractors comply with the provisions of this Article.

• The obligations in this Article shall not lapse upon termination of the contract.

Recourse

UN Women reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if work/outputs is incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines.

Competencies

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication

Required Skills and Experience

Experience and Qualifications

• Master’s degree or equivalent from reputable institution in Social Science, Literature, Linguistics, Law or any related field.
• Professional experience in translation and transcription including interpretation Service.
• Experience on issues relevant to UN Women’s work preferred.
• Excellent command of written and oral English and Nepali.
• Proven hands on computer skills (MS Office) and internet tools.
• Past work with UN/UN Women will be an advantage.
• Respect for confidentiality.

Inputs:

• UN Women will cover the travel costs as per standard UN rate for authorized official travels.

• The consultant can access the UN Women office for printing of relevant documents during the assignment.

• The consultant will be required to provide their own local communications such as SIM cards and mobile phone.

• It is mandatory for the consultant to participate in a UN security briefing and to follow UN security rules and guidance.

• It is the Consultant’s responsibility to arrange private insurance.

• The Consultant will be required to provide a Statement of Good Health, endorsed by a certified Medical Practitioner.

How to apply?

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications: All documents should be submitted in one PDF file. Interested candidates are requested to apply to this announcement through UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org by the deadline.

• Expression of interest explaining why you are interested to this position and what professional skills and experiences you have to support your interest is strong.
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded: http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment
• A separate page of detailed financial proposal in the format below

Financial Proposal Format:

Evaluation of applicants:

A two-stage procedure is applied in evaluating the proposals. 

1. The technical proposal (CV and expression of interest) is assessed first based on the qualifications listed above.Those proposals that meet a minimum threshold (scoring at least 70% on the technical assessment/interview) will be considered further, including through assessment of the financial proposal. The points given on the technical assessment will count as 70% of total points

Technical evaluation criteria (including minimum qualifications):

• Qualification (Max 20 points);

• Professional experience in translation and transcription including interpretation Service (Max 30 points);

• Experience on issues relevant to UN Women’s work (Max 10 points);

• Past work with UN/UN Women (Max 10 points);

2. The financial proposal of candidates who meet the technical assessment threshold will be evaluated. The financial assessment will count as 30% of the total points. In this methodology, the maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal. All other price proposals receive points in inverse proportion.

A formula is as follows:

p = y (µ/z)

Where:

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated

y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal

µ = price of the lowest priced proposal

z = price of the proposal being evaluated

Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment, please combine your all documents into one single PDF document. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form and financial proposal will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

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 committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individual especially women are highly encouraged to apply’.