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. 

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), and UN Women in collaboration with Government of Netherlands has launched a new Joint Programme entitled Women’s Empowerment for Inclusive Growth (WING). The WING seeks to foster skills that create dignified and formal participation of women as employees and entrepreneurs in local economies, breaking entrenched discriminatory attitudes, norms and stereotypes that created the current inequities in the social, political and economic spheres. WING will support women’s participation in the local economy as employees and entrepreneurs by developing their skills, facilitating access to financing and breaking entrenched discriminatory attitudes, norms and stereotypes that work against women’s participation in the social, political and economic spheres. It will be implemented by a joint country team of the three UN agencies, between 2020 and 2023. 

WING aims to strategically contribute to the SDGs and is aligned with the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF 2017-2021) for Bangladesh. It aligns with the Government of Bangladesh’s (GOB) efforts to attain gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, which is identified as a cross cutting theme in achieving long-term national development aspirations, as articulated in National Perspective Plan 2011, policies, strategies and frameworks including Vision 2021, and the National Development Plan. 

In this regards, UN Women is looking for an suitable consultant to promote Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs)  including advocacy support to selected private entities as well as promote women’s economic empowerment strategies through local authorities and private sector.
  
The Consultant will also maintain liaison with the regional WeEmpower Asia  programme, which has a knowledge base and tools on WEPs at the regional and global level.

The Women’s Economic Empowerment consultant, to be based at Bangladesh Country Office, UN Women, will provide day to day technical and coordination support to the Programme Coordinator, WING mostly in terms of promoting Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) at the private sector and promoting women’s economic empowerment strategies with local authorities and private sector.

Duties and Responsibilities

The key objective of this consultancy is to support the WING team to implement and promote the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEP)s and women’s economic empowerment strategies in the programme. 

IV. Duties and Responsibilities:

a. Capacity development of private sector on Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs):

• Conduct resource mapping and capacity assessment of women business associations, networks in Bangladesh in relation to their capacity to implement interventions of the WING programme for promoting WEPs

• Establish and maintain liaison with women-based business associations and seek partnerships and facilitate their onboarding for collaboration with WING. 

• Develop capacity of and provide technical support to women-based business associations and other relevant associations on rolling out of implementation of Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) at the private sector. 

• Establish and maintain liaison with private sector enterprises and seek partnerships and facilitate their onboarding for collaboration with WING in regard to Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEP)s.

• Conduct selection and onboarding of private sector enterprises and conduct (10) orientation and technical sessions for private sector and financial institutions to promote commitment to Women’s Empowerment Principles (including gender-responsive procurement policies that promote supplier diversity and collect gender-disaggregated supply chain data), as well as HeForShe action toolkit in male led institutions

• Develop workshop or training materials for private sector enterprises and business associations on WEPs.

• Develop tools and action plan templates for implementation of WEPs at the private sector enterprises in alignment with the regional WEP tools by UN Women’s WeEmpower Asia programme.

• Provide technical support to two private sector/financial institutions to mainstream the Women’s Empowerment Principles in their policies and procedures.

• Follow up on implementation of WEPs with private sector enterprises and business associations.

b. Capacity development of local government on women’s economic empowerment:

• Establish and maintain liaison with National Institute of Local Government, Upazila Parishads, especially Women Development Forums (WDFs) and seek partnerships as well as facilitate their onboarding for collaboration with WING with regard to their women’s economic empowerment strategies. 

• Develop capacity of and provide technical support to local government institutes for their women’s economic empowerment strategies, especially to WDFs.

• Follow up on implementation of women’s economic empowerment strategies with local government institutions and private sector. 

c. Development of studies for advocacy on women’s economic empowerment (WEE)

• Develop resource mobilization strategy on WING in collaboration with partner UN agencies. 

• Conduct analysis/study to identify national level and local strategies to address private sector bottlenecks, barriers (such as limitations in financial inclusion and women’s market access) and digital supply side management to women’s economic empowerment

• Develop (one national level) guideline on engendering local development plans and (5) WEE strategies (to be adopted locally for each geographical areas) and advocate with local government institutes (LGI)s and WDFs that expand women's market access, facilitate financial inclusion for women-led enterprises and accommodate the needs of women entrepreneurs based on the gaps identified. 

V. Inputs: 

• WING team will support to undertake field visits

• The consultant will be provided with a workstation, including a computer for his / her tasks

VI. Duration of the Assignment: 

The assignment will be for 242 working days or 11 months (commencing on 01 July 2021 and completed on 31 May 2022).  Duty station is UN Women Bangladesh Country Office, Dhaka, with travels to the following project area districts: Manikganj, Thakurgaon, Jashore, Cox’s Bazar and Kurigram.  

Consultant will also need to follow COVID 19 protocols of UN Women in availing duty station and during field visit and be able to independently work-from-home when needed in discussion with Programme Coordinator.  

VII. Supervision and Performance Evaluation:

Under overall guidance of UN Women Country Representative, the selected consultant will report directly to Programme Coordinator - WING, UN Women. The consultant will closely work in collaboration with WING focal points in UNCDF and UNDP. 

VIII. Expected Deliverables and Payment Modalities 

Performance Evaluation:
The consultant will work closely with the WING Project team under UN Women and will report to the Programme Coordinator, WING who will also carry out a performance evaluation at the end of the assignment under overall guidance of UN Women Country Representative.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

• Demonstrated development/programming skills particularly those that are pertinent to UN Women strategic priorities on gender issues and women’s rights

• Ability for implementation, monitoring and evaluation of gender and women’s economic empowerment interventions

• Ability to develop strategies and analytical papers and tools

• Good knowledge of results-based management principles and approaches 

• Good report writing skills

• Ability to establish and maintain broad strategic networks and partnerships with public and private sectors 

• Demonstrated good oral and written communication skills

Core Competencies:

• Ethics and Values: Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity

• Work in Teams: Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi-ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds. 

• Communicating and Information Sharing: Facilitate and encourage open communications 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

• Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making: Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master’s degree or equivalent in Business Administration or Economics or Development Studies or Women and Gender Studies or Public Policy and Governance or Political Science or other relevant Social Science or Business discipline.

Technical Competencies:

• At least 7 years of relevant experience in issues related to gender and women’s economic empowerment.
• Proven credible experience of working with private sector development or local economic development.
• At least 5 years of experience of working with strategy development or policy development and advocacy.
• Solid work experiences in liaising and networking with private sector enterprises and / or business associations is an asset.
• Additional experience working with local government institutes is an asset.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

Consultant must send a financial proposal based on Lump Sum Amount. The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all
costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, only  and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the SSA in completing the assignment.
The contract price will be fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done upon
completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages

Evaluation Method and Criteria:
Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology.

Cumulative analysis-

The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant up on Cumulative Analysis/evaluation and determined as:
1. Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
2. Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the
solicitation;
Only candidates obtaining a minimum 70 mark in technical evaluation will be considered eligible for financial evaluation.
Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 70 points out of 100)

Criteria-01; Academic Qualification- Max Point 10
Criteria-02; Number of experience in the field of gender and women’s economic empowerment- Max Point 30
Criteria-03; Proven credible experience of working with private sector development or local economic development - Max Point 30

Criteria-04; Number of experience working with strategy development or policy development and advocacy- Max Point 30

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

Only the candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% of total points (70) will be considered as technically-qualified candidate.

Interested candidates will submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications.
 

To be included as part of the proposal:

• A brief expression of interest: a brief narrative presenting your suitability for this assignment ·
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from: http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/ employment
• Sample work
• Financial proposal: Propose per day rate in BDT inclusive all for 242 working days. 

Only applications including all items mentioned above will be considered.

NOTE: Documents required before contract signing:

UN Personal History Form;
Full medical examination and Statement of Fitness to work and travel for consultants with travel involved. (This is not a requirement for RLA contracts);
Security Certificate BSAFE: EN: https://agora.unicef.org/course/info.php?id=17891
Individual subscribers over 65 years of age are required to undergo a full medical examination including x-rays at their own cost and obtaining medical clearance from the UN Medical Director prior to taking up their assignment;
Release letter in case the selected consultant is government official.
Only applications will all items mentioned above will be considered

Note: The individual consultant who does not meet the above eligibility criteria shall not be considered for further evaluation. Necessary documentation must be submitted to substantiate the above eligibility criteria