Background

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) was established by the General Assembly Resolution 64/289 of 2 July 2010 with the mandate to assist countries and the United Nations system to progress more effectively and efficiently towards the goal of achieving gender equality, women’s empowerment and rights of women. The Strategic Plan, developed pursuant to Paragraph 77 of Resolution 64/2892 is the first plan created by UN Women to guide its work in the field.

The proposal of the Secretary-General details UN Women’s mission as “Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the composite entity will work 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. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, the composite entity will lead and coordinate United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.”

The Strategic Note (SN) 2018-2021 is the chief programme document for the UN Women India Office and was approved by the Deputy Executive Director and Officer in Charge in December 2013. The India SN is a forward-looking programme document that adapts the corporate UN Women Strategic Plan 2018-2021 to the regional level and contextualizes it to national priorities, including the UNDAF/’One Programme’, for all the four countries. The SN outlines the overall strategy and Plan of Action for the MCO including the Development Results Framework (DRF) and the Organizational Effectiveness and Efficiency Framework (OEEF) detailing expected results and targets/ indicators/ baselines.

The consultancy will be divided into two different and complementary exercises: the Strategic Note Mid-Term Review (SN-MTR) and the revision of the Strategic Note (SN-R). As per UN Women’s policies and procedures on programme management, a Mid-term review (MTR) is recommended for programmes of at least three years duration. The MTR is not an evaluation exercise but assessment to see if the plan is designed to respond to UN Women’s triple mandate, national priories and context and corporate priorities. It is regarded as the most important monitoring event during the year and engagement of all UN Women staff in the mid-term review process is essential and mandatory.

In the case of UN Women India SN, the MTR will be considered as the first step to assess the relevance of the current SN in the context of evolving national contexts and priorities, partnerships, recommendations from evaluations, programmatic and operations results and lessons and propose any necessary revisions to the SN.

Objectives of the Assignment:

The scope of work will include the:

• Review of the current Strategic Note and Annual Work Plan, within the context of
  • UN Women’s mandate, to assess its programmatic, operational and normative interventions and partnerships and communications portfolio in context of its strategic fit and relevance with the national context and priorities.
  • The global and national commitments on gender equality including those in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the corporately proposed Flagship Programmes Initiative
  • 25-years of Beijing Platform for Action and Generation Equality: Realizing women’s rights for an equal future” campaign.
  • COVID 19 scenario and how programmes and thematic areas need to respond and identify any new intervention that UN Women can focus on. Also, mention the competitive advantage for UN Women. existing areas and new areas.
• Analyse and reflect on the programme and the validity of UN Women’s strategy in India, across the areas of Frontier Issues, Ending Violence against Women, Women’s Economic Empowerment, and Gender Responsive Governance, especially in line with the programmatic, operation and normative mandate; and in compliance with the recommendations from the recently concluded global evaluations in this regard.
• Also, reflect on emerging frontier areas like technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data etc. that the India office can look at integrating in the existing focus areas as well as the competitive advantage of UN Women to implement these.
• Review UN Women’s current partnership portfolio in the context of the changing donor landscape to suggest key achievable and realistic ways to further strengthen resource mobilization and partnership efforts. 

Duties and Responsibilities

The Consultant is responsible for ensuring the following:      

• Ensure that the guidance on MTR process is thoroughly followed;
• Ensuring close coordination with the UN Women Senior Management Team to agree on approach, meeting schedule, and priorities, and keep in close dialogue on issues and way forward;
• Meeting with key government institutions (including Ministry of Women and Child Development, MHA, NSDC, MCA (indicative – to be finalized in consultation with UN Women ), civil society partners (CSAG, UNTF grantees, MAKAAM, Implementing partners) private sector partners (BSAC, FICCI, GCNI), relevant UN agencies, the UN Resident Coordinator and, the Gender and Youth Group, to understand and document their views of UN Women India strategic engagement going forward, and discuss ways to best strengthen this proposed process;
• Meet with UN Women India staff to discuss the mid-term review and discuss their views on how best to address UN Women India priorities, through practical engagements, given evolving national contexts and priorities;
• Review all relevant UN Women guiding documents including but not limited to CEDAW, Beijing+25, Resolution 1325, SDG including the six subsequent additions, and provide specific, realistic and relevant suggestions for reflecting better on these mandates in the UN Women India MCO engagement within the next 26 months. This will lay the base in determining the key building blocks for an increasingly coherent and strategic UN Women India Strategic Note 2022-2026.

Conduct desk review of key knowledge products established by the office such as: 2018-2021 SN and AWP’s and Annual Reports as well as select recent studies related to Gender Equality and Women’s’ Empowerment in India:

• To provide office with a point of reflection and strategic analysis, distinct from the normal everyday process of programme and project and operations management;
• To provide a context for engagement with partners and key constituencies (government and civil society) in that reflection;
• To take stock of changes in the programming context (including normative developments) and operational response; 
• To check in on key management issues, such as availability of data and evidence to allow informed and credible analysis of performance, and the ‘evaluability’ of the programme; 
• To finalize agenda for mid-term review meeting, to facilitate the mid-term review  meeting and produce the report based on provided template; 
• To elaborate an updated strategic note, including DRF and OEEF, based on the mid-term review findings;
• In collaboration with the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, the Consultant will analyze and present the results of staff and partners’ surveys at the mid - term review meeting and will incorporate partners and staff feedback in order to reflect the results in the new strategic note;
• Production of the report on strategic note-mid-term review;
• Production of the revised strategic note.

Deliverables:

The Consultant is expected to deliver the following outputs:

• An Inception Note (max. 3 pages excluding annexes, i.e. meeting schedules, mission plan) outlining the approach to the consultancy including key issues to discuss with each group of partners, method of working (with a specific focus on consultation and discussions, including frequency and modality of discussions with the UN Women India Senior Management Team). The Inception Note shall be delivered no later than 10 working days after the start of the Consultancy, after the Consultant has had the opportunity to read most relevant documents.
• An initial debriefing with the UN Women India Senior Management Team (SMT) and other UN Women staff sharing key impressions, and suggestions of ways forward, following initial meetings.
• A second debriefing with the Senior Management of India Office and other relevant staff with the purpose of sharing key impressions, including outline of key findings.
• Eight discussion papers to answer the following questions:

1. Positioning Paper: Are we relevant in the country and making a difference? Is the office succeeding in striking the right balance between its programmatic, normative, advocacy, and coordination roles? Are the Theories of change that underpin the programme still valid? What are the issues and challenges? Does something need to change? Are we responding to the right issues at the right level?
2. Programmatic Performance Paper:  Does the office have a clear sense of whether its programme is working well or not? How? What has the office learned about what works and what does not? Is the programme being monitored properly and is it equipped to handle a thorough evaluation? How is knowledge being managed (internally and externally) by the office?
3. Partnerships Paper: Does the office have the right approach to partnerships? Are we working with the right partners? How are we engaging with stakeholders that do not agree with us on key issues?  What is our relationship with government and civil society and how is it delivering results?
4. Normative Paper: How well has the office been able to incorporate normative issues and commitments into the rest of its work (programmatic, coordination, advocacy)? What can be done to strengthen this? How have we responded to new or emerging normative frameworks (post 2018 etc.)?
5. Coordination Paper: How well is the UNCT performing on gender? What role is the office playing in coordinating and improving the UNCT’s performance on gender equality and women’s empowerment? Is our approach working and what are the challenges? How well is UN Women and the broader UN engaged in national coordination structures?
6. Programme and Operations – how well are programme and operations working together? What are the issues and bottlenecks? Are human resources and capacities being managed in a way that maximizes programme effectiveness?  Have the resources envisaged by the SN been mobilized?
7. Learning and capacity – does the office have the requisite capacities and skills to deliver on its programme commitments and operational functions?  How can the learning needs of staff and partners be met?
8. Communication and outreach – how well is the office communicating internally and externally? Is there clarity on the UN Women mandate and the results that the organization is working towards in the country? Is the office acting as a knowledge hub in GEWE in the country?

• MTR meeting with UN Women India;
• Draft MTR finding report and revised Strategic Note;
• Present the revised draft SN to UN Women India and key development partners in a meeting;
• Deliver the final SN;
• Deliver the MTR report.

Competencies

Core Values / 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.

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 difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies:

Ethics and Values:

• Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.

Organizational Awareness:

• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

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 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 behaviour 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.

Functional Competencies:

• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude.
• Demonstrates good oral and written communication skills.
• Focuses on impact and result for the partners and responds positively to feedback.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Post Graduate Diploma of Master’s Degree in Social Sciences/ Social Work /Gender Studies/Public Administration/Policy or related fields.

Experience:

• Minimum 10 years progressively responsible experience in the area of planning, policy work or program management preferably with 5 years field experience in one or more of the regions in which UN Women operates. 

Language:

• Proficiency in English. Good command over Hindi in reading and writing.

Interested applicants should apply to this announcement through UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org.

Application:

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:

• All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from  http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs;
• Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment, please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment;
• Applications received after the close date will not be accepted;
• Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Evaluation and Selection Criteria: 

Criteria for shortlisting of CVs will be based on the following assessment:

• Required Degree and Qualification (5 points);
• Minimum Experience relevant to the assignment (10 points);
• Working knowledge and experience of Programme Management (5 points).

The evaluation process for selection of the candidate will be based on the following assessment:

• Interview (70 Points)
• Writing sample (30 Points)

Please Note:

• For an assignment requiring travel, consultants of 65 years or more require full medical examination and statement of fitness to work to engage in the consultancy.
• Due to large number of potential applicants, only competitively selected candidates will be contacted for remaining steps of the service procurement process.

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.