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 2015, on 25 September, the United Nations General Assembly adopted unanimously the Resolution 70/1 Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Gender equality and women’s empowerment is at the heart of the agenda, as numerous goals and targets address structural barriers to achieve equal rights and opportunities between women and men, girls and boys.

One of the key areas of concern is the economic empowerment of women. It is expressed in targets and indicators of SDG 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls) and SDG 8 (Promote inclusive and sustainable development, decent work and employment for all). Progress toward it depends not only on the adoption of a set of public policies by governments, but also on the existence of an enabling environment and active engagement of the corporate sector. This is also relevant to the achievement of SDG 1 (Poverty Reduction), SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities) and SDG 17 (Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development).

About 90 per cent of jobs in the world are in the private sector. This represents a huge potential to implement transformative actions in the world of work and social responsibility in favour of women, benefiting the whole society. There is an increasing consciousness, interest and commitment of private and public sector companies on the value and benefits of gender equality and the economic empowerment of women and its role to achieve it.

UN Women - in partnership with the European Commission is working together on a regional programme “Promoting Economic Empowerment of Women at Work in Asia – WeEmpower Asia” to contribute to the economic empowerment of women, recognizing them as beneficiaries and partners of growth and development, by increasing commitment of private companies to gender equality and women´s empowerment and strengthening companies’ capacities to implement these commitments.

The programme will ultimately contribute to the achievement of gender equality through enabling women’s labour force participation, entrepreneurship, economic empowerment and thus their full and equal participation in society.

The guiding platform will be the Women’s Empowerment Principles. The WEPs are a set of Principles for business offering guidance on how to empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community. Coordinated by UN Women and the UN Global Compact, the Principles emphasize the business case for corporate action to promote gender equality and women's empowerment and are informed by real-life business practices and inputs gathered from across the globe.

Targeting women led enterprises and networks, multi-national companies, and relevant stakeholders in selected Asia countries, the project will promote business opportunities for women entrepreneurs and women-owned enterprises in Asia and their business relations with Europe, while supporting inter-regional dialogue and exchange of good practices to increase the capacity of the private sector more broadly in the implementation of gender-sensitive business culture and practices. The programme will cover seven countries: India, Indonesia, China, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Viet Nam. It will also have a regional component under the responsibility of UN Women Region Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP).

In the Philippines, given dynamic engagements and commitment of various women’s organizations, pro-active national machinery on women’s empowerment and gender equality and key government agencies - women’s economic empowerment is a new thematic and programmatic area for the UN Women particularly in the space of private sector and business community engagement. Through the WeEmpowerAsia programme - it will enable meaningful interaction, active participation, and harness contributions from key stakeholders to put forward women’s empowerment, gender equality and ensure their full participation in society towards an inclusive and sustainable economic development.

1. Objective

The overall objective of the WeEmpower Asia programme is that more women lead, participate and have access to enhanced business opportunities and leadership within the private sector to advance sustainable and inclusive growth. The programme will achieve this through three complementary areas to be implemented in seven selected middle-income countries in Asia:

• Women’s networks, public institutions, and the private sector will collaborate and share expertise and knowledge to build an enabling business environment for women’s economic empowerment in the workplace and in the marketplace
• The capacity of women-owned businesses and women entrepreneurs will be developed to enable them to engage with government and private sector corporations in policy development and dialogues for advancing women’s economic empowerment, and
• The private sector will be supported to implement gender-sensitive practices and culture within their businesses through the take-up of the Women Empowerment Principles (the WEPs – a set of guiding principles to achieve gender equality within companies).

Duties and Responsibilities

In line with promoting women’s leadership, participation and enhancing access to work and business opportunities that enable women’s access to decent work, well-being and economic empowerment, UN Women needs a service provider with technical expertise and experience in policy advocacy and technical support in preparing position papers, draft recommendations and engage with policy makers to articulate, assert and implement the Women’s Empowerment Principles and promote women’s economic empowerment.

These would include:

1. Review of key policies and drafting of position papers/recommendations to key agencies and policy makers to ensure that Women’s Empowerment Principles and Women’s rights are enshrined in key policies and programmes
2. Participate and attend various committee, executive agency and strategic network meetings
3. Organize training and capacity building for the promotion of WEPs in Business and Human Rights as well as gender indicator reporting in sustainability reports
4. Active engagement in key government, non-government groups, networks, and associations, to promote and raise awareness about the WEPs.

The service provider is expected to leverage on existing networks aside from the networks and groups already identified and actively working with the UN Women, and further expand the pool of companies to ensure sustained and meaningful engagement, uptake/adaption and implementation of WEPs.

Overall Objectives:

To promote and advocate for gender inclusive and responsive policies in key government agencies, networks and stakeholders, that articulates and facilitate and enabling environment for women’s economic empowerment through Women’s Empowerment Principles adaption, incorporation and implementation through institutional policies and other instrumentalities.

Specifically, the service provider will undertake the following: 

• Review of key policies and programmes promoting women’s economic empowerment
• Drafting position papers and recommendations
• Participation and attendance in various committees, agencies and strategic network meetings to articulate position
• Organize and coordinate training and capacity building promoting WEPs in Business and Human Rights as well as gender indicator reporting in sustainability reports
• Active engagement in key government, non-government groups, networks, and associations, to promote and raise awareness about the WEPs.

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the United Nations' values and ethical standards.
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of the UN and UN Women.
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.
• Ability and willingness to work as part of a team to meet tight deadlines and produce high quality work.

Required Skills and Experience

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) in International Development Studies, Social Sciences, Politics, Law, Human Rights, Gender, Women Studies, Economics or related field.
• Minimum of 3 years relevant experience in advocacy campaigns work, networking, training and facilitation.
• Knowledge of the issue on women economic empowerment is desirable
• Experience working with UN or other international development organizations and donor agencies would be an advantage
• Excellent command of English writing, technical report/documentation is a must
• Facilitation skills is a must, site relevant works experience

Timeline and Location:

The total duration of the engagement is for a period of 12 months from 1 March 2021 – 31 March 2022.

Location:  Metro Manila, Philippines

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PARTIES 

UN Women will provide technical guidance where possible. The Supplier is required to bear all the related costs e.g. meeting venue, meals, travel related costs, logistics and administrative costs incurred for each workshop, activities, etc. and work independently to successfully achieve the end results.

COMMUNICATION AND REPORTING OBLIGATIONS

The supplier will work under the direct supervision of the Philippines Programme Manager, UN Women WeEmpower Asia Programme who will be responsible for the quality assurance of the deliverables. 

SUBMISSION OF QUOTATION

Interested legally constituted organization is encouraged to submit their quotation to jean.ricohermoso@unwomen.org on or before 29 January 2021.

Submission package includes:

• Application Letter
• CV, P11
• Financial proposal which shall specify a total lump sum amount based on deliverables
• Submit sample written work

Evaluation

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 utilised in evaluating the applications, with evaluation of the technical

application being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. Only the price proposal of the candidates who passed the minimum technical score of 70% of the obtainable score of 100 points in the technical qualification evaluation will be evaluated.

Technical qualification evaluation criteria

The total number of points allocated for the technical qualification component is 100. The technical qualification of the individual is evaluated based on the following technical qualification evaluation criteria:

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 technically 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.

Please be noted that the system only allows 1 attachment per application so please combined all files into one.  In case that is not possible, you can submit the application again with different attachments.

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.