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 leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

Over the past years, UN Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina has provided support to national and local stakeholders in strengthening democratic governance and advancing women’s rights through initiatives aimed at mainstreaming gender in policy planning and budgeting. Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) has been identified as an important tool for advancing gender equality in key national documents, in accordance with the existing BiH national policy documents on social inclusion and gender equality. In accordance with government priorities stated in the national and local plans and strategies, UN Women has been supporting government efforts in using GRB as a tool to advance gender equality and ensure that women’s needs are incorporated in policies and related budgets. The expected long-term result of these initiatives is the incorporation of gender equality principles, perspectives and priorities not only in policy making, but also in budgeting at the national and local levels, leading to greater accountability and transparency of public finances.

In order to strengthen the work hitherto done and ensure sustainability of the interventions on GRB, UN Women has initiated a regional programme with participation of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Serbia and North Macedonia on  “Transformative Financing for Gender Equality towards more Transparent, Inclusive and Accountable Governance in the Western Balkans” (2020-2024) funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation. The main programme approach will be transformative financing as an enabler factor for policy and financing actions to accelerate implementation of existing national and international commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The program is highly relevant for Bosnia and Herzegovina particularly during current and post COVID-19 Pandemic, a time when it is crucial for governments in BiH to receive technical support while reviewing public budgets to ensure space and financial allocations for the new measures. The Covid-19 pandemic has had great impact in BiH socio-economic life and particularly more on vulnerable women. COVID-19 has been disproportionately affecting women compared to men, and risks to deepen gender inequalities . The governments in BiH have taken immediate actions to combat and respond to Covid-19. UN Women will cooperate with the governments in BiH while drafting such socio-economic reforms to ensure that foreseen interventions take into account, the different needs of women and men, girls and boys, while handling the emergency situation. UN Women in BiH will work with relevant institutions in guiding  and supporting them to apply gender responsive budgeting in the new planning cycle and consider carefully measures needed for excluded women and girls and ensure that  women and men, girls and boys in BiH benefit equally from all social, health, financial and non-financial support schemes, and No One is left behind from the support provided at all levels in facing the actual emergency situation, as well as in long-term plans for recovering from this pandemic.

In this context, UN Women seeks to recruit two national consultant to provide direct support to relevant institutions in initially conducting gender analyses of the impact of COVID-19 on women and girls, incorporate gender analytical data and gender-responsive plans in  emergency response in BiH and draft protocols that are gender sensitive and that respond to the needs of women and girls which can be modelled and used in the future outbreaks and emergency responses in the country.

DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVE

The overall objective of this consultancy is to contribute to development of a systematic integration of gender analytical data in budgeting procesesses and development of gender-responsive plans in emergency response in BiH.

IMMEDIATE OBJECTIVE

The immediate objective of this consultancy to provide direct support to relevant institutions in initially conducting gender analyses of the impact of COVID-19 on women and girls and incorporating gender analytical data in budgeting procesess and gender-responsive plans in emergency response in BiH and development of protocols that are gender sensitive and that respond to the needs of women and girls which can be modelled and used in the future outbreaks and emergency responses in the country.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the UN Women GRB Coordinator and overall supervision of UN Women Programme Specialist, the consultant is expected to deliver the following results:

• Support MoFs and line ministries to map programme budgets that have been mostly affected by the crisis, including information available from previously made assessments;
• Assess and identify possible impact of budget cuts to the delivery/implementation of GE policies/startegies and actions with focus on women and girls;
• Support MoFs and line ministries with gender technical expertise during  any further budget cuts and  reprioritization of expenditures and  public budget reallocations and propose  how to accommodate the space for additional budget requirements without having negative impact on gender equality;
• Support MoFs and line ministries during formulation of priorities and allocations in the new budget cycle, including drafting of gender budget statements;
• Support MoFs and line ministries with specific gender equality analyses of the sectors which have been impacted most from the budget cuts and draft simple checklists and guidelines while deciding sector specific emergency responses, in identified 2 sectors;
• Based on completed analyses and assessments, provide recommendations which are gender sensitive  and usable for contingency provisions in the future;
• Compile one report with the main findings and the checklists prepared by other countries in the Western Balkans, that are going throught the same exercise.
• Provide monthly reports (in English) to UN Women on the implementation of activities as it will be specified in the monthly consultancy Work-plan.
• Provide report on budget cuts done during the emergency including recommendations for the reprioritization of expenditures and public budget reallocations with gender lenses;
• Provide recommendations which are gender sensitive and usable for contingency provisions in the future; 
• Provide technical inputs and on-demand reports on specific initiatives related to above mentioned tasks, when requested.

DELIVERABLES AND TIMEFRAME

The Consultant will be expected to complete the tasks within the indicative timeframe:

REPORTING

All deliverables, should be submitted to the UN Women BiH GRB Coordinator. The deliverables shall be delivered in English and/or B/H/S.

Competencies

CORE VALUES:

• Respect for Diversity;
• Integrity;
• Professionalism.

CORE COMPETENCIES:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example;

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Shares knowledge and experience;
• Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside UN Women;
•  Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills;
• Development and Operational Effectiveness;
• Demonstrates excellent written and oral communication skills. Communicates sensitively, effectively and creatively across different constituencies;
• Demonstrates very good understanding of and experience in communications and outreach/advocacy;
• Ability to perform a variety of standard specialized and non-specialized tasks and work processes that are fully documented, researched, recorded and reported;
• Ability to review a variety of data, identify and adjust discrepancies, identify and resolve operational problems;
• Uses Information Technology effectively as a tool and resource.

Leadership and Self-Management

• Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure;
• Proven networking skills and ability to generate interest in UN Women’s mandate;
• Identifies opportunities and builds strong partnerships with clients and partners.

Required Skills and Experience

Academic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree degree in finance, economics or related areas;
• Masters degree would be considered as an asset.

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience with public finance management;
• Specific expertise related government public finance policies and processes - including budgetary process and gender responsive budgeting methodologies and approaches; familiarity with program based budgeting and with budget laws;
• Demonstrated interest and/or experience in gender work;
• Working/consulting experience with government institutions and international organizations/projects.

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents:

1. Expression of interest
2. Detailed financial proposal (which includes consultancy fees, travel, accommodation, subsistence etc in a form of a lump-sum)
3. UN Women Personal History (P11) form http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment

Please note that incomplete applications will not be considered (all documents indicated above need to be uploaded).

For any additional information, please contact unwomen.bih@unwomen.org . 

How to Submit the Application: To submit your application online, please follow the steps below:

• Download and complete the UN Women Personal History Form (P11)- http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment
• Merge your UN Women Personal History Form (P11), the Financial Proposal, and Expression of Interest into a single file. The system does not allow for more than one attachment to be uploaded;
• Click on the Job Title (job vacancy announcement);
• Click 'Apply Now' button, fill in necessary information on the first page, and then click 'Submit Application;'
• Upload your application/single file as indicated above with the merged documents (underlined above);
• You will receive an automatic response to your email confirming receipt of your application by the system.

Please note that travel and accommodation costs should be covered by the consultant.

EVALUATION OF OFFERS

UN Women applies a fair and transparent selection process that takes into account both the technical qualification of potential consultants as well as the financial proposals submitted in support of consultant applications. Candidate applications will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of applicant experience, qualifications and a financial proposal. The contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• responsive/compliant/acceptable, and

having received the highest score out of technical and financial criteria defined below.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 50 points in the technical evaluation will be considered for an interview. Top 3 candidates (with highest number of points in the technical evaluation) will be interviewed. The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal will be allocated to the lowest price proposal among those candidates who have reached at least 5 points in the interview. All other price proposals receive points in inverse proportion.

Criteria:

Technical Evaluation – documents based (70%)

Out of which:

• Bachelor’s degree degree in finance, economics or related areas – 10 percentage points
• A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience with public finance management – 20  percentage points
• Specific expertise related government public finance policies and processes - including budgetary process and gender responsive budgeting methodologies and approaches; familiarity with program based budgeting and with budget laws – 20 percentage points
• Demonstrated interest and/or experience in gender work – 10 percentage points
• Working/consulting experience with government institutions and international organizations/projects – 10 percentage points

Financial Evaluation (30%)

Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula: S = Fmin / F * 20

• S - score received on financial evaluation;
• Fmin - the lowest financial offer out of all the submitted offers qualified over the technical evaluation round;
• F - financial offer under the consideration.

Qualified women and members of minorities are encouraged to apply. UN Women applies fair and transparent selection process that would consider the competencies/skills of the applicants as well as their financial proposals.

Due to large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.