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.

UN Women will advance its efforts in Nepal in accordance with its unique role and triple mandate (normative, operational and coordination) and lessons learned to achieve gender equality and empower women and girls in Nepal to realize their human rights. UN Women Nepal’s Strategic Note (SN) for the period 2018-2022 lays out the agency’s unique role and comparative advantage in supporting national stakeholders in advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women in line with internationally agreed normative standards. The SN is aligned with and contributes to Nepal’s national priorities as described in Nepal’s Fourteenth Three-year Periodic Plan, its gender equality commitments, the needs of women’s organizations, and the UNDAF 2018-2022 with a commitment of leaving no one behind. The two main components of the country programme will contribute to UN Women Global SP results. The Governance and Leadership component will contribute mainly to Outcome 2 – women lead, participate in and benefit equally from governance systems. The Women’s Economic Empowerment component is related to Outcome 3 – women have income security, better jobs and economic autonomy. Moreover, the Country Office explicitly pursues the objective of transforming discriminatory social norms and harmful practices. The high prevalence of such norms and practices constrains the lives of Nepali women and girls by limiting their access to opportunities, resources and power. UN Women is adopting Communications for Development (C4D) as its approach to mobilizing awareness and action on challenging discriminatory social norms and practices which underlie gender inequality in Nepal. The Country The office will increase its expertise in C4D methodologies to enable deeper engagement with communities where multi-directional and inter-generational dialogues will enhance sharing, listening and understanding as the basis for action and change. Community members will identify problems, propose solutions and act on them, all the while receiving support from UN Women and its partners at the local level.

Under the overall supervision and guidance of Communications for Development Officer and in close consultation with the relevant programme officers, the Consultant will be responsible for providing professional English editing services of office documents and reports. The scope of work requires substantive experience and an in-depth understanding of gender equality and empowerment of women, results-based management (RBM), and excellent writing and analytical skills. The detailed scope of work and responsibilities of the assignment are as follows:

• Substantive/language editing, to ensure internal coherence and robustness of the document.  In this connection, the Consultant will: (a) ensure that content ambiguities, vagueness, redundancy, deficiencies, and inconsistencies are resolved, (b) language errors are eliminated, (c) overall structure of the document is strengthened, and (d) the general readability and appeal of the manuscript/documents are enhanced.
• The responsibilities include thorough proofreading in conformity with the UN Editorial guidelines.
• Copyediting to ensure accuracy in language, structure, and rhetoric expressions.
• As part of copyediting, ensure (a) precision in word choice; (b) conformity of style with UN standard; (c) correctness of sentence structure; (d) clarity and comprehensibility of messages; (e) correctness of terminologies; and (f) fine-tuning of articulations to achieve high-quality native English expression.
• Provide technical expertise and advisory services on effective communication of results.
• Compile words used to enhance the readability of the document, provide them with corresponding meaning/s and share them with the staff to expand their vocabulary in English writing/reporting.

Expected deliverables.

• A professional, accurate, and deadline-compliant proofreading and editing service of English documents and reports by ensuring accuracy in language, structure, and rhetoric expressions in accordance with the above-mentioned scope of work and responsibilities.
• Documents delivered (preferably) in Microsoft Word in three versions:  clean copies, copies with changes track marked, and third versions with comments of edited English text. The edited documents ensure content ambiguity is resolved, language errors are eliminated, the structure is improved, and the overall comprehension of the manuscript is enhanced. 
• The Consultant is also required to reflect in her/his comments and corrections the principles upon which such corrections were done. This is consistent with the continuous learning approach that underlines the capacity building efforts of the UN Women Nepal Country Office.

Duration of the assignment and duty station   

The duty station is Kathmandu, Nepal. However, the consultants are not expected to work in the office, but rather work from their residence. The duration of the assignment is one year on a retainer basis (as and when required).

Schedule of payments

Payment will be made on the basis of the quantity of the work actually delivered and upon certification of satisfactory performance by the supervisor.

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; and
• 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 differences 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.
• Self-management and Emotional Intelligence: Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others.
• Conflict Management: Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.
• Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing: Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge; and
• Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making: Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making

• Master’s degree in Gender and Development Studies, Journalism, Communications, English, or any other related field of studies.
• A minimum of three years of professional experience in English editing, proofreading, and report writing. Familiarity with the UN reporting system will be a strong advantage.
• Proven expertise in the area of gender equality and the empowerment of women. 
• Previous experience in working with government, donors, civil society organizations (CSOs), or the UN is an asset.
• The ability to handle documents and the information contained therein with the strictest confidentiality is a non-negotiable requirement.

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications: All documents should be submitted in one PDF file.

• Expression of interest explaining why you are interested in this position and what professional skills and experiences you have to support your interest are strong.
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded: http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment
• A separate page of the financial proposal including the fee of the consultancy per page and/or per day. Please also mention the additional percentage of the rush fee if requested service for less than one day.
• A sample of original writing produced within the last three months where the applicant is the lead author.

Interested candidates are requested to apply to this announcement through the UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org within the deadline.

Evaluation criteria

Technical evaluation criteria (including minimum qualifications):

A two-stage procedure is applied in evaluating the proposals, with technical evaluation through the desk review prior to any price proposal being compared. Only the financial proposal of candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% (49 points) in the technical evaluation will be considered and evaluated. In this methodology, the maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest-priced proposal. All other price proposals receive points in inverse proportion.

The 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

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.