1.Background:

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), is 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.

The UN Women Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECA RO) was established in Istanbul, Turkey in early 2014 and provides support and oversight to Country Offices in Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans and Turkey, and Central Asia. 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 are translated into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts while building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. To support member states in implementing the 2030 Agenda, UN Women’s Flagship Programme Initiative “Making Every Woman and Girl Count” (MEWGC) aims to affect a radical shift in the availability, accessibility and use of data and statistics on key aspects of gender equality and women’s empowerment. The Programme envisions a multi-year and multi-country programme of work, supported by global and regional activities linking normative and technical work on gender statistics at the global level to the regional and national levels through three interlinked areas of work:

• Building a supportive policy and institutional environment for the localization and effective monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
• Increasing the quality, comparability and regularity of gender statistics to address national data gaps and meet reporting commitments under the SDGs; and
• Ensuring that gender statistics are accessible to users in governments, among civil society, academia, and the private sector to strengthen adequate demand for their production.

Gender statistics (GS) are not limited to data disaggregated by sex; they are statistics that reflect gender issues and that are based on concepts, definitions and methods that adequately reflect the differences between women and men and capture different aspects of their lives. The production of GS concerns the entire National Statistical System (NSS) and covers data from different sources and statistical fields; hence, GS should not be misunderstood as being limited to the compilation of sex-disaggregated statistics. Obtaining reliable GS that adequately reflect differences and inequalities in the situation of women and men in all areas of life requires a strategy of gender integration in the different stages of statistical processes. This means that gender should be mainstream into all statistical activities, rather than dealt with as an “add-on”. To integrate gender into NSS, a number of actions are taken. Among them, the coverage of gender issues by official statistical systems and the adequacy of such systems is reviewed, concepts and methods are analyzed to check gender sensitivity, and the institutional and organizational setting is considered to make sure they are enabling the strategy of gender integration.

In this context, UN Women is seeking to engage an International consultant  to conduct the assessment on the mainstreaming of gender in the national statistical system of Armenia which will examine the gender responsiveness of the legal framework and practices, identify gaps and issue recommendations to improve data availability to monitor and report on progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment policies and programs production of gender statistics  in a regular manner.

Since 2018 UN Women has been partnering with the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21) to strengthen statistical systems to produce gender statistics aligned with national priorities and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As part of its, PARIS21 developed a comprehensive framework to assess data and capacity gaps linked to gender statistics. The framework, aimed at national statistical offices, proposes methods, activities and tools for conducting assessments related to gender statistics to support the mainstreaming of gender statistics in national statistical systems (NSS). This framework will be used and followed in preparation of a comprehensive assessment for the Armenian NSS in this detailed consultancy assignment.

2. Goal and Objectives of the Consultancy:

Since 2019, UN Women has been supporting the National Statistical Committee (NSC) of Armenia to improve gender data availability related to women’s economic empowerment and intends to broaden its assistance by supporting a Gender Assessment of the National Statistics System, which will serve as a basis for integration of gender into strategic planning and governance of official statistics in Armenia. To this end, UN Women ECA Regional Office and UN Women Country Office of Georgia will be providing joint financial and technical support by hiring an International Consultant to lead and conduct the Gender Assessment of National Statistical System in Armenia.  

The objective of this consultancy is to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the gender statistics in the Republic of Armenia in relation to the functioning of the national statistical system, which will serve as a basis for the strategy aiming at the integration of a gender perspective in the annual strategic planning cycle, including the mid-term review of NSDS.  Related to this, the Consultant shall conduct an assessment of the GS gaps in the national statistical system, both from an institutional perspective and a data-oriented point of view, making sure to take in due considerations existing and recent assessments on statistics provided by the national and international stakeholders. To fulfill the gender assessment, the Consultant will be assisted by national consultant who has been supporting the NSC to improve gender statistics as part of official statistics.

3. Duties and Responsibilities:

The Consultant, in coordination with UN Women and the National Statistical Service of the Republic of Armenia (ARMSTAT) will cover the following tasks to fulfill the assignment:

A. Conduct a comprehensive assessment on the current state of gender statistics and the NSS’s capacity to govern, produce, and communicate gender data that meets user needs. This will entail the following tasks:

• Desk review/research of relevant documentation to establish the current state of gender statistics planning, production, and dissemination, including reports and assessments conducted by national, regional and international organisations and of other relevant material provided by ARMSTAT.
• Facilitate an Inception Workshop to discuss initial Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis – and to have an overview of the current status of gender statistics in Armenia.
• In partnership with ARMSTAT, collect information on the status of data production and needs from different stakeholders (ministries, agencies, media, CSOs, etc.) ideally using a questionnaire template developed by PARIS21.
• Analyse and summarise responses/information provided by stakeholders based on a filled in version of the above-mentioned questionnaire.
• Review available reports, information materials, press releases and webpages on gender statistics maintained by ARMSTAT, and other relevant ministries.

B. Analysis of gender statistics gaps and national capacities to produce indicators in compliance with international recommendations, such as SDG gender-specific indicators, UN minimum set of gender indicators, UNECE Gender equality indicators, and national needs for data driven policies. The analysis will be based on the ADAPT Gender Module and other available assessments tools (to be decided jointly with ARMSTAT).

C. Validation of Gender Assessment of NSS and development of a Gender Statistics Roadmap/Action Plan. This would entail:

• Preparation of the Gender Assessment Report and validation of findings with ARMSTAT and main stakeholders involved in planning, production and use of gender statistics during a national workshop to be organised in partnership with UN Women and ARMSTAT.
• Serving as a resource person and a facilitator for the GS assessment validation part of workshop.
• Development of Gender Statistics Roadmap/Action Plans based on findings and recommendations of GA of NSS Armenia.

Furthermore, provide comments, feedback, and recommendations to improve the UN Women/PARIS21 analytical framework and the assessment process to ensure fitness for country implementation and for mainstreaming gender concerns in the overall statistics strategy (NSDS) for the statistical system.

4. Expected deliverables:

5. 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 

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf?la=en&vs=637 

6.Qualifications

Education:

• Advanced degree (Masters, or PhD) or equivalent in demography, statistics, economics, gender, sociology, or other fields of study of social sciences – that is relevant to the requirements of the ToR.

Experience:

• At least 8 years of experience in the area of data and statistics, with an emphasis on gender statistics.
• Proven experience in conducting needs assessment and/or capacity assessment to produce data and statistics as part of official statistics.
• Strong knowledge on gender mainstreaming, gender analysis, gender responsive planning and budgeting.
• Strong knowledge of international standards and recommendations on designing statistical capacity and data production for gender analysis.
• Previous professional experience with data and statistics for SDGs is an asset.

Languages and other skills: 

• Proficient in written and oral English. Russian is desirable.
• Computer literacy and ability to effectively use computers, including advance Excel skills.
• Excellent communication, writing skills, and analytical skills.

7.Application Process 

The application should include:

• Personal History Form (P-11) - including past experience in similar assignments; can be downloaded at http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment, a signed copy should be submitted;
• Financial Proposal: Specify a total lump sum amount for the tasks specified in this Terms of Reference. The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (per deliverable, per day and along with any other possible costs). Can be merged with P11.
• Candidates should have the ability to quickly produce degree certificates and medical certification (of good health) should they be short-listed in consideration of the consultancy post.

8. Management and financial arrangements

The contractor will report to and work under direct supervision of UN Women Europe and Central Asia Regional Gender Statistics Specialist and under the guidance of UNWomen Economic Empowerment Programme Specialist in Georgia.

Payment will be disbursed in three instalments upon submission and approval of deliverables and certification by UN Women ECARO that the services have been satisfactorily performed as specified

• Deliverable 1-2: 30% of contract amount
• Deliverable 3-4: 50% of contract amount
• Deliverable 5-6: 20% of contract amount

9.. Evaluation process

Consultants will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of qualifications and financial proposal. Contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

a)  Responsive/compliant/acceptable, and

b)  Having received the highest score out of below defined technical and financial criteria.

The candidates must possess the following minimum qualification criteria to be eligible for further technical evaluation. Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for financial evaluation.

• University degree (Masters, or PhD) in a relevant field to the requirements of the TOR, stated above
• At least 7-10 years’ experience in development of data and statistics, with an emphasis on gender statistics.

Financial Evaluation (30%) – max. 30 points:

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.

Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula: p = 30 (µ/z)

Using the following values:

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated

µ = price of the lowest priced proposal

z = price of the proposal being evaluated

Notes

• UN Women retains the right to contact references directly. Due to the large numbers of applications, we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.
• Applications without the financial offer will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.
• The individual consultants should take the mandatory learning security course prior to commencement of assignment– details will follow before the issuance of contract.
• The results and products, both intermediate and final, of the Work carried out in performance of this contract, including all intellectual property rights arising there from, belong exclusively to UN Women. The Consultant undertakes not to disclose or use the Work and results thereof for any purpose whatsoever, other than that specified in the present Contract, without the prior written authorisation of UN Women.