Background

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 in Georgia supports state and non-state partners towards the achievement of substantive gender equality in Georgia. In line with international and national commitments, UN Women works on the levels of policies and legislation, institutions and grassroots, in order to achieve transformative results for increased gender equality and greater protection of the rights of women and girls.

Since December 2020, UN Women is implementing a project “Fostering economic empowerment of women farmers by supporting homemade dairy production in Georgia through the Farmer Field Schools approach” in partnership with the UN Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO), funded by the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC).

 The overall goal of the project is to Enhance resilience and foster economic empowerment of women dairy producers in Samegrelo and Abkhazia, Georgia. The project aims to deliver on the following outcomes:

Outcome 1: Rural women improve their homemade dairy products, with a focus on food safety, through learning delivered in Farmer Field Schools (implementation led by FAO)

Outcome 2 – Rural women engaged in dairy production acquire and use leadership, economic and social skills to be self-employed and/or expand their income-generation activities, while promoting gender equality (implementation led by UN Women).

The project aims at providing technical assistance through community-led field trainings to rural women active in small-scale dairy production in Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region of Georgia and in Abkhazia, Georgia in particular those who are in charge of cheese production for sale. In Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti, the project aims at supporting smallholder dairy producers in adapting production methods to AA/DCFTA related food safety regulations for homemade production of dairy products for commercial use.

The project will promote the creation and maintenance of 40 Farmer Field Schools focused on women and dairy production as well as support awareness raising about women’s rights and gender equality issues.

The Project aims at adapting to the Georgia context recently developed (in 2015) the Women’s Empowerment in Livestock Index (WELI) or creating a similar index targeted at the local context. WELI has been derived from the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) to assess the empowerment of women involved in the livestock sector. The dimensions of empowerment that WELI includes are as follows: (1) decisions about agricultural production; (2) decisions related to nutrition; (3) access to and control over resources; (4) control and use of income; (5) access to and control of opportunities; and (6) workload and control over own time. 

Through its expertise and well-established partnerships in the area of gender data, UN Women with FAO support,for the purposes of this project, will attempt to establish the baseline of WELI for the first time in Georgia in the first year of the project’s implementation. The project will measure progress against the established baseline through a follow-up study in the last year of the project implementation.

For these purposes UN Women intends to engage an international consultant which will be in charge of adapting WELI to the context of Georgia or developing a similar instrument for measuring women’s empowerment in livestock and supporting UN Women and local research company to conduct quantitative study using WELI or similar instrument.

The funding for the assignment will be covered from the project “Women’s Economic Empowerment in South Caucasus” (WEESC) funded by the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) and Austrian Development Agency (ADA), as WEESC project leads UN Women work around development of WEE data in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Duties and Responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities of the international consultant are:

  • To conduct desk review and if needed meetings with major stakeholders (including FAO, UN Women and selected research company) to learn about local context and project needs
  • To localize the WELI tool or construct a new tool for measuring women’s empowerment in livestock sector
  • To provide analysis tools for survey data
  • To support local company with interpretation and discussion of data 
  • To contribute to preparing and reviewing of the study report

Deliverables:

  • Inception report with detailed study methodology with timeframe developed and submitted to UN Women by April 15, 2021 – 5 working days.
  • Survey questionnaire developed and submitted to UN Women by April 30, 2021 – 5 working days
  • Data analysis conducted and draft study report with relevant study findings developed in collaboration with a local research company and submitted to UN Women by June 15, 2021 – 10 working days
  • Final Study report incorporating UN Women’s and FAO’s feedback submitted to UN Women by June 30, 2021 – 5 working days

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:

  • Strong problem-solving skills
  • Excellent writing, presentation/public speaking skills
  • IT literacy

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

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • University degree (at least Masters) in human rights, statistics, demography, sociology, social sciences, or other relevant area.

Experience:

  • At least 5 years of experience in designing quantitative surveys including the questionnaires 
  • At least 5 years of experience in advanced statistical analysis
  • At least 3 years of experience in conducting research on gender equality issues including in the areas of agriculture and women’s empowerment.
  • Familiarity with WELI would be a strong asset
  • Previous experience in working with UN agencies, UN Women and other international organizations would be a strong asset.

Language:

  • Excellent command of written and spoken English.

Evaluation Procedure:

The candidates will be evaluated in three stages: according to minimum qualification criteria; technical and financial evaluation.

The candidates must possess following minimum qualification criteria to be eligible for further technical evaluation:

  • University degree (at least Masters) in human rights, statistics, demography, sociology, social sciences, or other relevant area;
  • At least 5 years of experience in designing quantitative surveys including the questionnaires 
  • At least 5 years of experience in advanced statistical analysis
  • At least 3 years of experience in conducting research on gender equality issues including in the areas of agriculture and women’s empowerment.
  • Excellent command of written and spoken English;

The candidates will be evaluated in three stages: according to minimum qualification criteria followed by technical and financial evaluation.

Technical evaluation criteria (including minimum qualifications):

  • University degree (at least Masters) in human rights, statistics, demography, sociology, social sciences, or other relevant area (max 50 points)
  • At least 5 years of experience in designing quantitative surveys including the questionnaires  (max 100 points)
  • At least 5 years of experience in advanced statistical analysis (max 60 points)
  • At least 3 years of experience in conducting research on gender equality issues including in the areas of agriculture and women’s empowerment (max 60 points)
  • Familiarity with WELI would be a strong asset (max 30 points)
  • Previous experience in working with UN agencies, UN Women and other international organizations would be a strong asset (max 20 points)
  • Excellent command of written and spoken English (max 30 points)

Maximum total technical score amounts to 350 points. Only candidates who have passed over the minimum qualification criteria and have accumulated at least 245 points out of maximum 350 under technical evaluation will qualify for the next stage i.e. evaluation of their financial proposals.

Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula: S = Fmin / F * 150

S – score received on financial evaluation;

Fmin – the lowest financial offer out of all the submitted offers qualified over the technical evaluation round;

F – financial offer under consideration.

The winning candidate will be the candidate, who has accumulated the highest aggregated score (technical scoring + financial scoring).

Management arrangements:

The contractor will report to and work under direct supervision of UN Women Programme analyst and overall guidance of UN Women Deputy Country Representative.

Financial arrangements:

Payment will be disbursed upon submission and approval of deliverables and certification by UN Women National Programme Officer that the services have been satisfactorily performed as specified below:

  • Deliverable 1,2, ( 10 days)  40 %
  • Deliverable 3,4, ( 15 days)  60 %

Application submission package:

*The applicants are required to submit an aggregated financial offer: “aggregated financial offer” is the total sum of all financial claims of the candidate, including travel costs (ticket, DSA etc.) for accomplishment of all tasks spelled out in this ToR.

How to Submit the Application:

  • Download and complete the UN Women Personal History Form (P11)- https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-p11-personal-history-form.doc?la=en&vs=558
  • Merge your UN Women Personal History Form (P11), CV and the Financial Proposal into a single file. The system does not allow for more than one attachment to be uploaded.
  • Click on the Job Title (job vacancy announcement).
  • Click 'Apply Now' button, fill in necessary information on the first page, and then click 'Submit Application;'
  • Upload your application/single file as indicated above with the merged documents (underlined above).
  • You will receive an automatic response to your email confirming receipt of your application by the system.

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.