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.

Working in China since 1998, UN Women provides technical and financial assistance to innovative programmes and strategies for gender equality and women's empowerment. UN Women’s China Office supports and carries out work on (i) enhancing women's economic empowerment; (ii) providing support for advancing normative agenda on gender equality and women’s empowerment, particularly to address gender based violence and discrimination; and (iii) ) innovative partnerships to address gender issues in China and bring good practices from China to other countries globally. In addition to the above, UN Women also actively participates and contributes to various UN inter-agency processes and collaborates with UN organizations around specific programme areas.

Investing in women’s economic empowerment sets a direct path towards gender equality. As one of the thematic area and priorities of UN Women China office, since WEE-related projects started implementation in 2015, WEE team has grown significantly. To date a portfolio of different scale of standalone projects form part of our WEE’s work.

There is demand to upscale and expend the projects to a larger scale and unified WEE programme building on the pre and existing work, hence it is important to develop a comprehensive and effective strategy to clearly identify the directions and potentials, the synergies among the existing projects, the emerging opportunities of programme development and resources mobilization, and a practical roadmap and outreach plan to deliver the strategy which also strike the right balance between its programmatic, normative, advocacy and coordination roles of WEE area, with the premise that WEE programme is in line with UN Women’s global Strategy 2018-2021, UN Women China office’s strategic note (under development), the national development priorities of China including plans and policies and  United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2021-2025 which has been endorsed by the Government of China already.

A portfolio of ongoing projects funded by various donors under the umbrella of WEE work are listed below: 

• Access to equal employment and women’s leadership in China (2017-2020, this project will be operational closed at the end of December 2020)

This project advise policy-makers and leaders in business who want to integrate gender lens into policies and to create a more enabling environment for women in the workplace. It also provided capacity building on gender equality and digital transformation and networking opportunities for individual women entrepreneurs from both big companies and startups. 700 women entrepreneurs benefitted from the project and the online digital courses developed in the project outreached four million audience.

• QWIFS (2018-2021)

The “Strengthening Qinghai Women Farmers’ Income Security and Resilience in a Changing Climate” project, short for QWFIS, is implemented in seven counties in Qinghai Province, China. UN Women China is implementing the project in partnership with the Qinghai Poverty and Development Bureau and the Qinghai Women’s Federation, and through its ‘responsible party’, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. UN Women China is collaborating closely with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) China as it implements a poverty reduction project in the same province, to build synergies and complementarity among UN agencies.

• WeEmpowerAsia (2019-2022)

Implementing in seven countries including China, this is a collaborative effort between the Regional Office of UN Women for Asia and the Pacific and the European Union.  The programme contributes to the achievement of gender equality through enabling women’s increased participation in the labour force and in the marketplace, improved opportunities for women entrepreneurship and business start-ups, and through strengthening of corporate sector’s commitment and action to ensure gender equality in business culture and practices. 

• Supporting Women to Recover from Socio-economic Impacts of COVID-19 (2020-2022)

Launched in May 2020, the project aims to strengthen the institutional capacities of women-owned small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs) in preparedness and contingency planning for future emergencies, support women-owned smes and women workers to be engaged in the development and access to economic recovery solutions for income loss and promote the role of women and their leadership in the COVID-19 response and recovery.

Among the above projects which target at private sector companies, the guiding platform is the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a set of seven principles for businesses offering guidance on how to strengthen gender equality in the workplace, in the market place and in the community. The WEPs are jointly developed by UN Women and UN Global Compact and seeking the commitments and concrete implementation by private corporations around the globe. 95 companies in China committed and signed WEPs and two industry organizations are integrating gender equality into their CSR guidance.

UN Women China believes that there is great potential for WEE portfolio to achieve a higher impact and better support more women in China especially the more vulnerable and marginalized group.

The UN Women China office will now hire an international consultant who will be responsible for developing a comprehensive strategy for the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) programme. The consultant will work in close collaboration with the UN Women China office especially WEE team and other partners as necessary to develop a comprehensive programme strategy including both programme development and resource mobilization.

Objectives of the consultation

For the purpose mentioned above, UN Women China Office is looking for a short-term international consultant. Under the overall guidance of the Head of UN Women China Office and direct supervision of the WEE programme manager of UN Women China, the consultant is expected to develop a comprehensive WEE strategy (2021-2024), which include: 1) a WEE programme strategy including its strategic direction, recommended results and partnership framework and a road-map for implementation; and 2) a resource mobilization strategy  including an action plan to outreach to potential donors.

The WEE strategy should be aligned to overall corporate and national priorities of UN Women, the country context and priorities set in national policies and plans, the new UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework and contribute towards achievement of the SDGs. 

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work

Under the overall guidance of the Head of UN Women China Office and direct guidance of the WEE Programme Manager of UN Women China, the consultant is expected to undertake the following services:

• Diagnostic: Conduct desk review to get familiar with the existing projects of WEE, national priorities with respect to economic development and poverty alleviation, women’s rights and empowerment as well as UN Women’s corporate priorities and the UN in China’s developed priorities in the new Cooperation Framework; Have meeting with WEE staff members, partners and different stakeholders and review of relevant documents to understand the current status, challenges, synergies and opportunities for women’s economic empowerment and UN Women’s role/niche;
• Strategy Development: Draft the programme strategy and resources mobilization strategy including desk research and mapping on potential donors;
• Draft the programme strategy and resources mobilization strategy;
• Strategy Validation: Facilitate WEE strategy workshop, to be held in Beijing and use this opportunity to discuss and collect feedback from internal and external stakeholders.
• Based on theabove inputs from internal and external stakeholders, the consultant will develop and finalise WEE programme strategy 2021-2025 (aligned to UN Women China office SN and CF), which should articulate the overall goal, objectives, result areas of WEE,  its strategic pillars and plan for five year’s period, partnership framework, road-map for implementation and a resource mobilization strategy with donor fundraising pitch deck and an outreach plan with potential donors.

Deliverables and Timeline

Lists of documents to be review during the first phase:

1. UN Women strategic plan 2018-2021
2. Pro-Docs of existing and pipeline projects
3. Donor reports and other project documents relevant to the strategic development
4. The new United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF).
5. Women Empowerment Principles
6. Relevant plans and policies of government and other literature review

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

Functional Competencies:

• Knowledge of the subject of women’s economic empowerment;
• Excellent organizational skills;
• Ability to work with different actors, including through remote contact;
• Able to work independently and under strict deadlines is necessary
• Ability to gather, distill, analyze and present complex information in concise and reader-friendly style is a requirement for this assignment. 

Required Skills and Experience

Required Skills and Qualifications

• A Master’s degree in the field of international development, gender studies or related area with at least 10 years of experience in strategic development, resource mobilization, consulting or related experiences. Or Bachelor's degree in those fields with 12 years of the above-mentioned work experience.
• Demonstrated abilities and track record in writing high quality English-language strategic documents and formulation of a new programme strategy.
• Knowledge and experience working in China will be an asset
• Understanding of international development, resource mobilization, and the UN context is desirable.
• Must be capable of effectively using MS Word and Excel.
• Candidates based in Beijing is preferred due to COVID-19 related travel restrictions

Selection Criteria

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 utilized in evaluating the applications, with evaluation of the technical application being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. The total number of points allocated for the technical qualification component is 100.  Only the candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% of total points will be considered as technically qualified candidates who may be contacted for validation interview.

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.

All interested candidates are required to submit two relevant writing samples they have authored or co-authored, preferably in the area of (gender programme) review reports, programme strategy development, etc.

How to apply

Interested candidates are requested to submit updated CV, short summary of your expertise and your experience, P11, Financial proposal for each deliverable breaking down into the daily consultancy rate, living allowance and round-trip ticket between Beijing, China and home country, and two samples of the strategy developed, resource mobilization plan or reports before to unwomen.china@unwomen.org and copy hr.bangkok@unwomen.org with a subject line as “Application for WEE strategy International Consultant” no later than 11:30 pm Beijing time, 30 October 2020.

The Submission package includes:

• CV
• Personal History Form (P11 which can be downloaded from https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-p11-personal-history-form.doc?la=en&vs=558. 
• Two samples of previous writing done by the candidate with clear reference to the authorship
• Financial proposal: the financial proposal shall specify a lump sum amount breaking down the professional fee for each deliverable, and all related costs (if any) Please see the financial proposal template as below: