UN WOMEN Jobs - 84085- National Consultant / Expert to support private se

National Consultant / Expert to support private sector companies to implement Women’s Empowerment Principles: Equality Means Business

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Tbilisi, GEORGIA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

10-Apr-2019

Application Deadline :

26-Mar-19 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

105 working days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

105 working days in the period of 10 April 2019 – 31 January 2020

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

While there have been significant efforts to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment, progress has been much slower than anticipated globally as well as locally. Advancing and empowering women is too big an assignment for any single sector, be it government, international organizations or civil society. In this regard it is becoming increasingly important to provide a partnership platform and engage the private sector in this endeavor as it is the engine for jobs, innovation, capital creation and investment.

To fill this need, in 2010, UN Women and the United Nations Global Compact launched the Women's Empowerment Principles: Equality Means Business (WEPs), the set of seven Principles for business offering guidance on how to empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community. The WEPs provide a road map for gender mainstreaming for businesses. Further, the Principles help companies explore the gender dimension of other areas of corporate sustainability, for example environmental sustainability and supply-chain sustainability.

To date, over 2,200 business leaders globally have committed to implement the seven WEPs:

Establish high-level corporate leadership for gender equality;
Treat all women and men fairly at work – respect and support human rights and nondiscrimination;
Ensure the health, safety and well-being of all women and men workers;
Promote education, training and professional development for women;
Implement enterprise development, supply chain and marketing practices that empower women;
Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy;
Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality.

To learn more about the WEPs, and its tools and resources, see http://weprinciples.org/ and https://weps-gapanalysis.org/

In Georgia, The Law on Gender Equality stipulates that “free choice of occupation or profession, career promotion, vocational training” is guaranteed without discrimination (Gender Equality Law of Georgia, Article, Art. 4/2/”f”). Despite this, economic empowerment of women is still a challenge, including access to paid work, and remuneration. According to the latest official data, the economic activity rate for women is 58% (as compared to 75% for men). Please refer to GEOSTAT, Women and Men in Georgia, 2018 (available on-line at: http://www.GEOSTAT.ge/cms/site_images/_files/english/health/W&M%20ENG-2018.pdf). In 2017, the average nominal monthly salary of women in all fields of the economy and all sectors was 770 GEL for women while it was 1,197 GEL for men (GEOSTAT, Women and Men in Georgia, 2018). There is continued horizontal and vertical gender segregation in the labour market, where women are concentrated in low-paid jobs and sectors (GEOSTAT, Women and Men in Georgia, 2018).

To mobilize the Georgian private sector to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the economy, UN Women launched the Women’s Empowerment Principles in the country in 2014. To accelerate and support implementation of the WEPs, UN Women has been partnering with different types of organizations, and for example, implemented trainings for private sector actors on the WEPs.

To further expand the work, in December 2017, UN Women, with the support of the Norwegian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, launched the project “A Joint Action for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Georgia” (JAWE). With the overall goal that women, particularly the poorest and most excluded, are economically empowered and benefit from development in Georgia, the project seeks to further strengthen the private sector’s engagement in women’s economic empowerment. The key tool utilized in the work is the WEPs.

The project’s key activities with the private sector include:

To support corporations to conduct gender audits of their corporate policies and practices including both internal policies and external corporate sourcing policies;
To conduct trainings for employers/employees on gender equality and diversity in the workplace;
To provide technical assistance to companies to implement the WEPs through the development of strategies and plans, internal and external policy revision, monitoring and reporting mechanisms and improved data collection and analysis;
To develop working groups and dialogue mechanisms for WEPs signatories and other companies to share lessons learned and best practices in WEPs implementation;
To hold a series of events to recognize best practices among companies in Georgia that successfully implement the WEPs and promote gender equality and human rights;
To support companies to create internship and mentorship programmes and provide grants and scholarships targeting vulnerable groups of women and women transitioning from education, particularly in traditionally male dominated fields; and
To provide technical assistance to private companies to develop transitional job placement programmes for vulnerable groups of women, particularly women survivors of violence, as a pathway to employment.

The expected output of the activities is that “Private businesses have increased understanding of the gender dimension of corporate sustainability and strengthened capacities to implement the Women’s Empowerment Principles”.

Through the implementation of various trainings, meeting and outreach activities, in 2018, the number of companies committed to the WEPs increased from 8 to 26 in Georgia. In 2019-2020, the focus will be on supporting the already-committed companies to implement WEPs actions and further expanding the number of companies committed to the WEPs. To expand the number of new WEPs companies, UN Women will partner with at least 1-2 business associations that will support UN Women with the WEPs outreach. After building their own capacity on the WEPs, they will support their member companies to implement the WEPs.

To implement the above-mentioned work in close cooperation with the business associations, UN Women is looking to hire a National Consultant.

The National Consultant will need to coordinate the work with at least two other National Consultants and two business associations. One of the consultants will support companies to develop and implement sexual harassment complaints’ mechanisms, and the other will focus on supporting companies to revise their internal policy documents with gender lenses.

Duties and Responsibilities

The objectives of the assignment are:

1. To increase the understanding of WEPs signatory company representatives in Georgia on the gender dimension of corporate social responsibility and WEPs through trainings;

2. To provide technical support to selected WEPs signatory companies and business association representatives in conducting company-level gender gaps analysis, designing WEPS Action Plans and implementing them; and

3. To increase the availability of evidence-based information on the implementation of the WEPs in Georgia through gathering and analyzing data and producing a booklet on promising practices.

UN Women intends to further strengthen the capacity of the selected consultant through a 2-3 day training on the WEPs and WEPs Action Plan development in Tbilisi in April 2019. The training will be free of cost for the Consultant.

The Consultant will be responsible for informing regularly UN Women on the progress, and for submitting the required deliverables.

The duties and responsibilities of the Consultant are:

To support companies to conduct gender gaps analysis and develop WEPs Action Plans in a participatory manner;
To follow up with the WEPs signees on the implementation of the WEPs Action Plans in close coordination and collaboration with business associations, and provide technical advice, as relevant;
To support WEPs companies to implement selected WEPs actions such as trainings or placement programmes for women in the marketplace and community through, for example, linking WEPs companies to relevant women’s groups, identifying women beneficiaries through relevant channels, and developing and conducting training needs assessments and post-support assessments in collaboration with the WEPs companies;
To coordinate and communicate with other consultants hired by UN Women on the support provided to WEPs companies, closely analysing and identifying new opportunities and bottle-necks for the companies’ progress;
To coach and in close collaboration with UN Women, follow up with and provide technical advice to business associations on WEPs Action Plan development and their overall work on the WEPs;
To organize at least three, informal 1-3h experience sharing meetings among WEPs companies (UN Women will cover the venue costs);
To design and implement at least two 1-day introductory trainings on gender diversity and corporate social responsibility and reporting for companies (UN Women will cover venue and other costs related to the meetings);
To collect and draft WEPs practices and stories (with for example, interviews) for the annual WEPs publication in Georgia;
To support UN Women to design and implement the WEPs annual conference in Tbilisi with at least 100 private sector participants (UN Women will cover the conference costs);
To collect and consolidate data and information from companies on the WEPs implementation for UN Women’s donor reporting through development and implementation of surveys and other data collection, and analysis of the collected data;
To attend UN Women’s coordination and other partner meetings to update UN Women and partners on the progress being made with companies and support identification of synergies among the project components; and
To identify and outreach to potential new WEPs companies in Georgia in close collaboration with UN Women staff.

Deliverables:

Based on desk review of the available documents, initial work plan with key activities and timeline for the finalization of each deliverable submitted (2 working days) – by April 19, 2019;
At least five gender gaps’ analyses conducted and five WEPs Action Plans developed jointly with WEPs companies (15 working days) – by May 30, 2019;
1st progress report on the outreach to and support provided to at least 10 WEPs companies and business associations and at least one 1-3 h informal experience sharing meeting among WEPs companies organized (15 working days) – by June 28, 2019;
At least six more gender gaps’ analyses conducted and six WEPs Action Plans developed jointly with WEPs companies and business associations (18 working days) – by September 30, 2019;
2nd progress report on the outreach to and support provided to at least 10 WEPs companies, and at least one 1-3 h informal experience sharing meeting among WEPs companies organized (15 working days) – by September 30, 2019;
At least two days’ worth of trainings/workshops held on the WEPs based on the already existing WEPs materials, and post-training results assessed (5 working days) - by October 31, 2019;
Compilation of 10-20 promising 2019 practices from WEPs companies in Georgia produced in English for the annual WEPs booklet in Georgia (10 working days) - by November 8, 2019;
3rd progress report on the outreach to and support provided to at least 10 WEPs companies, and at least one 1-3 h informal experience sharing meeting among WEPs companies organized (15 working days) – by December 20, 2019;
3-4h WEPs conference 2019 organized with at least 100 private sector participants in Tbilisi (4 working days) – by December 20, 2019;
Final report on the accomplished tasks and quantitative and qualitative analysis (with evidence) of the implementation of the WEPs by all WEPs companies in Georgia in 2019 (6 working days) - by January 20, 2019.

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

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: http://www.unwomen.org//media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced University degree (Masters) in law, gender equality or other relevant field.

Experience:

At least five years of relevant professional experience in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility, human rights or gender equality in Georgia;
Demonstrated knowledge of labour rights and women’s economic empowerment issues;
Demonstrated ability to analyse data and write reports or other knowledge products; and
Experience in providing advisory services to private sector companies is an asset.

Language:

Fluency in Georgian and English.

Evaluation procedure:

The candidates will be evaluated against the following technical and financial criteria:

Advanced University degree (Masters) in law, gender equality or other relevant field (max 30 points);
At least five years of relevant professional experience in the field of human rights and gender equality in Georgia (max 90 points);
Demonstrated knowledge of labour rights and women’s economic empowerment issues (max 80 points);
Demonstrated ability to analyse data and write reports or other knowledge products (max 80 points);
Experience in working providing advisory services to private sector companies is an asset (max 40 points);
Fluency in Georgian and 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 Specialist and overall guidance of UN Women Georgia Country/Deputy Country Representative.

Financial arrangements:

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

Deliverables 1, 2 and 3 (32 working days) – 30 %;
Deliverables 4, 5, 6 and 7 (48 working days) – 46 %;
Deliverables 8, 9 and 10 (25 working days) – 24 %.

Application submission package:

CV;
Duly filled Personal History Form PHF11 that can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment
Two samples of analytical documents on gender equality or other topics relevant to the assignment submitted in English
Financial Proposal - lump sum proposal/offer* in GEL (including breakdown of this lump sum amount, indicating all necessary costs to complete this assignment).

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

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.