Background

1. 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, agency and leadership across sectors to advance women’s rights, provide space for women’s meaningful participation, and contribute to tangible differences in their lives. Under the overarching Nepal Country Office’s Strategic Note (SN) for the period 2018-2022, UN Women focuses on two programmatic areas, inclusive governance and women’s economic empowerment.

As part of its ongoing programmatic efforts, UN Women also supports key national stakeholders to mainstream gender in planning and budgeting processes. The Government of Nepal (GoN) introduced Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) in 2001 in collaboration with UNDP and UN Women. Under the leadership of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) a gender budget audit was carried out of the Health, Education and Agriculture Ministries.[1] This gender budget audit was followed by gender assessments of the Ministries of Women, Children and Social Welfare, Federal Affairs and Local Development, Law and Justice, Labour and Transport.  The GoN demonstrated its political will to translate GRB into action by establishing a Gender Responsive Budget Committee (GRBC) at the MoF in 2005 with support from UN Women. The mandate of the GRBC is to design a GRB system that can be applied both at macroeconomic and sectoral levels, scrutinise budget allocations and public expenditures from a gender perspective and finally to assess the impact of development policies on women and men.

In a meeting of the GRB Committee chaired by the Joint Secretary, Ministry of Finance in September 2019, the need to assess strengthen GRB in the federal context was underscores. Further to realize the GoN’s commitment to apply GRB in the new federal structure as outlined in the Approach Paper to the 15th National Development Plan, it is important to understand the specific needs, gaps, challenges and opportunities across the three tiers of government.

In order to enhance its efforts, UN Women Nepal is seeking to engage an International Consultant on a retainer bases to support the Country Office’s programming on GRB. Reporting to Unit Manager, in close collaboration with programme teams, the International Consultant will be responsible for proving high level advisory support to UN Women and its key partners, including the Nepal Administrative Staff College (NASC), Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens, and Ministry of  Finance; and on ongoing programmatic interventions related to SDG financing and the Provincial and Local Governance Support Programme (PLGSP). With the onset of the COVID 19 crisis, the International Consultant is expected to provide COVID related technical oversight and quality assurance, to NCO including the roll out of the Socio-Economic Response framework. UN Women is looking for an international expert with substantial experience in development research, public management including gender responsive planning and budgeting in order to bring in international learnings and good practices to support the programming on GRB.

[1] Gender Budget Audit in Nepal, UNIFEM/UNDP, August 2002

Duties and Responsibilities

2. Duties and Responsibilities

The detailed scope of work and responsibilities of the assignment are as follows:

2-1.      High quality technical inputs and advisory support to UN Women Nepal’s initiatives on GRB

• Contribute to the finalization of relevant strategy documents for UN Women Nepal’s engagement and interventions on GRB in the federal governance context, by providing reviews, technical inputs and strategic advice to drafts. Key strategy documents/guidelines include, but not limited to review of Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, Inter-governmental fiscal transfer.
• Provide policy advisory service, in the form of policy briefs or policy papers, to UN Women and select partners of GRB. Key issues include gender responsive budgeting, social accountability, etc.
• On the basis of policy advisory materials mentioned above, design and deliver capacity development workshops for UN Women and its partner agencies on issues on GRB.
• Collect, analyze and synthesize relevant data and information on the changing governance landscape with federalism in Nepal with a specific focus on planning and budgeting processes at the national and sub-national level. Results of the analyses shall support UN Women Nepal to identify entry points for GRB and social accountability, including potential partners for collaboration.
• Participate in high level policy dialogues convened by UN Women on GRB as and when required.
• Provide technical support, including participation in relevant reference meetings with UN Women’s implementing partners, for the implementation of its programmes on GRB.
• Provide technical support to UN Women’s coordination efforts on GRB. The expected support includes participation in meetings and events with UN Women and other stakeholders to share results lessons learned and findings related to the policy advisory support mentioned above.
• Provide accompaniment support to UN Women programme staff on GRB.
• Contribute to knowledge building of UN Women Nepal on GRB by providing technical reviews and quality assurance of knowledge products and sharing best practices and lessons learned from global and regional experiences. 
• Conduct technical review of progress reports of partners  unit (minimum four) with quality standards received and approved within deadlines.

2-2.        Evidence-based policy advisory and public advocacy support to and capacity development of the Government counterparts, civil society, development partners and other relevant stakeholders

• Design and participate in expert group meetings/workshop on policy debates on relevant issues related to inclusive governance and women’s economic empowerment.
• Design and participate in multi-stakeholder consultations for knowledge building and public advocacy on emerging issues related to financing for gender equality.
• Design and conduct capacity development initiatives (including trainings and workshops) for government officials, civil society partners and/or development partners in Nepal on GRB.

2-3.        Contribution to the strategic partnership and resource mobilization efforts

• Provide technical inputs to draft or develop concept notes or programme documents of UN Women’s interventions on GRB, including related COVID 19socio-economic response framework.
• Develop substantive briefs or concept notes on possible areas of resource mobilization on GRB, including related COVID 19socio-economic response framework.

3. Expected deliverables

Expected deliverables include:

• Evidence of technical reviews and inputs and strategic advice provided for the finalization of research studies/assessments (minimum two) including on medium term expenditure framework, inter-governmental fiscal transfer, SDG coding.
• Minimum two best practices documents on GRB (on medium term expenditure framework, inter-governmental fiscal transfer, SDG coding etc,)
• Minimum one technical paper on GRB.
• Development of ToRs (minimum two) for GRB related studies including scenario based costing, sectoral costing studies, GRB analysis of key sectors.
• Design and delivery of at least two capacity development workshops to UN Women Nepal and select partner agencies.
• Participation in at least two policy dialogues and reference group meetings. Evidence of the participation includes but not limited to presentations, meeting minutes and written summaries of meetings.
• Provision of technical review and quality assurance support to minimum three knowledge products/training manuals to be produced by UN Women Nepal and its partners.
• Provision of technical review of progress reports of select partners (minimum four) with quality standards received and approved within deadlines.
• Provision of technical inputs to minimum of one proposal/programme document for resource mobilization and strategic partnership including COVID 19 related  socio-economic recovery efforts.
• Evidence of accompaniment support to UN Women programme team on GRB.

4. Inputs

• UN Women will provide reference materials and facilitate coordination with key stakeholders.
• The consultant is expected to work remotely. UN Women can give access the UN Women office for printing of relevant documents during the assignment, if required.
• The consultant will be required to provide their own local communications such as SIM cards and mobile phone.
• It is the Consultant’s responsibility to arrange private insurance.
• It is mandatory for the consultant to participate in a UN security briefing and to follow UN security rules and guidance.
• The Consultant will be required to provide a Statement of Good Health, endorsed by a certified Medical Practitioner.

5. Duration of the assignment and duty station   

This is a home-based assignment from October 2020 -30 September 2021, with a possibility of extension. The assignment may also include field missions outside of Kathmandu and participation in meetings and consultations in Kathmandu. UN Women will not be committed to purchasing any minimum quantity of the Services, and purchases will be made only if there is an actual requirement upon the issuance of a Purchase Order based on this retainer contract. UN Women shall not be liable for any cost in the event that no purchases are made under this retainer contract.

5. Schedule of payments

Payment will be made on the basis of quality of the work actually delivered upon certification of satisfactory performance by the supervisor. A work plan for the service delivery will be discussed and reconfirmed upon the signing of a contract. The contractor’s performance will be evaluated against such criteria as: timeliness, responsibility, initiative, communications, accuracy, and quality of the products delivered. Time required for review and approval of the deliverables may vary depending upon the nature of the products delivered. In average, it is expected to take a week to get each deliverable reviewed and approved.

Competencies

6. Competencies

Core Values and Guiding Principles

• Integrity: Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct;
• Professionalism: Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.
• Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity: Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Functional Competencies

• Ethics and Values: Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.
• Organizational Awareness: Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.
• Development and Innovation: Take charge of self-development and take initiative.
• Work in teams: Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multiethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.
• Communicating and Information Sharing: Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication

Required Skills and Experience

7.Qualification and experience

• Master’s degree in Gender and Development Studies, Political Science, Economics, Social Science, or any other related field of studies.
• A minimum of 15 years of professional experience in working on gender equality
• Proven expertise in the area of gender responsive budgeting. 
• Previous experience working with different levels of government, civil society and development partners.  Experience working with the UN system is a considerable asset.  
• Fluency in written and oral English is required
• Ability to handle documents and the information contained therein with strictest confidentiality is a non-negotiable requirement. 

8. Documents to be included when submitting the proposals?

Interested applicants should apply to this announcement through UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:

• Expression of interest explaining why you are interested to this position and what professional skills and experiences make you a strong candidate.
• Completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) of all the team members which can be downloaded:  http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment; and
• A sample of original writing produced within the last three months where the applicant is the lead author.

The financial proposal shall specify a lump sum amount breaking down the professional fee for each deliverable. The financial proposal must be submitted in a separate page using the following template.

• Notes:

The applicant should not include travel in the financial proposal, as the reimbursement for travel will be done separately as per actual expenditure in accordance with UN Women travel guidelines

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 the writing sample will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

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.

9. Evaluation criteria

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

1.The technical proposal is assessed first based on the qualifications listed above.  Those proposals that meet a minimum threshold (scoring at least 70% on the technical assessment) including possible interview, will be considered further, including through assessment of the financial proposal.

Technical evaluation criteria (including minimum qualifications):

• Master’s degree in Gender and Development Studies, Political Science, Social Science, or any other related field of studies. (15 points)
• A minimum of 15 years of professional experience in working on gender equality. (20 points)
• Proven expertise in the area of GRB (20 points)
• Previous experience working with different levels of government, civil society and development partners. Experience working with the UN system is a considerable asset. (20 points)
• Writing sample. (25 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