Background

UN Women- the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women- leads and coordinates United Nations System efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action. Placing women’s rights at the Centre of all its efforts, UN Women supports Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. UN Women plays a pivotal role in mobilizing governments and civil societies to keep the promises including through landmark agreements such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and Beijing Platform for Action , committed to making gender equality a lived reality for all women and girls who have historically been marginalized and who have waited long enough. 
2020, marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action was intended to be remarkable for gender equality. Instead, with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic backtracked some of the gains made in the past decades, deepening pre-existing inequalities, exposing vulnerabilities in social, political, and economic systems which are in turn amplifying the impacts of the pandemic. COVID-19 has negatively and disproportionately impacted women, girls, and gender diverse people in Bangladesh. It has exacerbated the existing gender inequalities between women, men, girls, and boys in terms of access to information, resources to cope with the pandemic, and its socio-economic impact. Women’s rights organizations play a critical role in meeting the immediate needs of women and girls in communities, on top of responding to pre-existing gender inequalities, whilst facing new operational challenges arising from the pandemic. 
A Rapid assessment on the impact of covid-19 on Women’s civil society organizations ,conducted by UN Women Asia Pacific Region found that almost three quarters (71%) of CSO respondents said that COVID-19 was affecting them somewhat or very negatively, and 12% have had to temporarily suspend activities altogether. CSOs reported several impacts to their activities, including the need to minimize staff presence, an inability to fully provide services for survivors of violence, shortage of funding and closing offices. Women’s and girls’ voices are essential to understanding the impact of COVID19 and meeting the needs of affected populations effectively. CSOs and Women’s rights organizations are among the key stakeholders in upholding these voices and active participation to support the response plans and initiatives of the government, UN and development partners for an effective, rights-based and sustainable recovery. 
In order to ensure the needs of women, girls and gender-diverse persons, particularly the most vulnerable, are rightly realized and addressed in the National Prevention and response efforts, UN Women Bangladesh initiated the Gender Monitoring Network (GMN)  consisting of community-based women’s organizations, CSOs, and gender-issue focused NGOs, in late March right after the country got stricken by COVID19. The network objective was to facilitate exchange of information and tools among network members and to encourage peer support and build joint advocacy efforts . Considering the UN Secretary-General’s call to put women and girls at the center of efforts to recover from COVID19  and based on consultations with civil society and community-based organizations participating in the Gender Monitoring Network, a call for action  was released from the network in mid-June. The call for action stress on 12 key measures addressed to the Government and Policy Makers to recognize women human rights and integrate an intersectional gender equality approach in the COVID 19 Response to ensure everyone, women, and other vulnerable groups most affected by the pandemic, has access to necessary information and supports and resources. Thematic Consultations focused on issues like Social protection, Micro, Small, Medium Enterprise, with the GMN has remained integral in consolidating inputs and first-hand knowledge of the needs and challenges of women, girls, and gender-diverse persons, particularly the most vulnerable to feed into UN’s Socio-Economic Recovery Response Plan. One of the most crucial consequences in context of COVID-19 pandemic, was the increased Violence against women hence emerging risk factors associated with evidence and/or data collection adhering to certain ethical and safety principles. UN Women, in partnership with UNFPA, provided a basic orientation to GMN aimed to discuss how those principles can be applied alongside the safety measures of COVID-19 and other alternative means of evidence collection to better understand the needs around services, risk communication and awareness for prevention of Violence against women. 
As the initial emergency phase of COVID-19 response has passed, in order to recalibrate and adapt the purpose and the corresponding activities of the network to current needs of members, UN Women will undertake a rapid review of GMN to take stock of its contributions, limitations and the evolving needs of network members with the objective of creating a more interactive and demand driven online community that assist member organizations in their work to  support women, girls and gender diverse communities. The review will also assess the interest of members to be part of online dialogue and consultations through GMN on broader gender equality and women’s empowerment policy implementation issues as well as the strategic plans and programmes of the UN and UN Women. 
Against this backdrop, UN Women is looking for a National Consultant to conduct the rapid review of GMN that would capture their feedback on GMN activities so far; current interests, existing needs, and challenges, including on engaging with an online community; recording good practices that has been useful for GMN organizations, and what kind of support e.g., for capacity development/information access and/or advocacy support, they require to better respond to COVID19 crisis and beyond. The Consultant is expected to develop an action plan based on the outcome of the review that would identify UN Women’s strategic engagement plan with GMN. 

Purpose: 

The goal of the assignment is to assess the needs of the organizations in Gender Monitoring network and to develop a plan to adapt GMN to the current needs of members in responding to COVID19 crisis and beyond to provide best support to women, girls, and gender diverse communities. 

Specific Objectives: 

1. To develop an report based on a survey coupled with KIIs, and Consultations with the GMN organizations to capture their feedback on usefulness of GMN activities; current interests, existing needs and challenges, including on engaging with an online community; recording good practices that has been useful for GMN organizations, and what kind of online support e.g. capacity development, information, advocacy etc. they require to better respond to COVID19 crisis 

2. Assess the interest of members to be part of online dialogue and consultations through GMN on broader gender equality and women’s empowerment policy implementation issues as well as the strategic plans and programmes of the UN and UN Women.

3. To develop an action plan based on the outcome of the assessment report that would identify strategic engagement plan with GMN.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall guidance of UN Women Country Representative and close supervision of the Coordination and Partnership Officer.

• Design and develop the survey and roll it out to networks of CSOs/Women’s rights organizations
• Conduct KIIs, FGDs and Consultations with GMN and selected UN Women programme staff
• Collect, triangulate and analyze data and findings to generate the assessment report with strong gender analysis and a strategic engagement action plan as the annex.
• Submit the draft report findings for review and feedback
• Finalize the report

Inputs:

• UN Women will provide contacts to enable the consultant to coordinate with GMN for the online survey/KII/consultations
• The National Consultant will be required to coordinate with an International Consultant contracted by UN Women. The International Consultant will be working on a closely related and partially overlapping assignment that also involves consultation with CSOs to understand the funding landscape of women’s rights organizations following COVID-19. The two assignments are complimentary, and coordination in the design and delivery of the survey and consultations will be required to reinforce the final products and to avoid overloading CSOs.

Duration of the assignment:

The assignment will commence on 20 January 2021 and be completed by 20 March 2021. Total duration of the work will be 10 days over a period of ca three months.

Deliverables 

Supervision & Performance evaluation:

Consultant’s performance will be evaluated based on timeliness, responsibility, initiative, communication, accuracy, and quality of the products delivered. The National consultant will be in direct contact with Punna Islam, Coordination and Partnership Officer, UN Women Bangladesh

Duty Station: Dhaka

Travel and DSA:
This assignment is home-based with online communication. No DSA will be paid at the duty station. If unforeseen travel outside the duty station not required by the Terms of Reference is requested by UN women, and upon prior agreement/approval, such travel shall be at UN women’s expense and the individual contractor shall receive a per-diem not to exceed United Nations daily subsistence allowance rate in such other location(s).

Payment Milestone Linked with deliverables: 

Competencies

Core Values

• Respect for Diversity

• Integrity

• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Communication – Facilitates and encourages open and effective communication. 

• Inclusive Collaboration and Stakeholder Engagement – Demonstrates ability to collaborate and work effectively with stakeholders of different backgrounds

• Accountability – Takes ownership of all responsibilities and deliver outputs in accordance with agreed time, costs and quality standards.

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues- Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment, 

• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability

Functional Competencies:

• Ability to conduct qualitative and quantitative research, reviews, mapping, and studies independently with strong gender analysis 

• Strong skills and experiences in communicating and presenting ideas for training development

• Consistent approach of work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude. 

• Demonstrates openness to ideas and ability to manage complexities of the situations.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in social sciences such as gender studies/ development studies/economics/sociology/ anthropology/ political science etc. 

Experience:

• Minimum 05 years of experience working with gender and development related organizations

• Demonstrated experience with analytic review and research work on gender equality.

• Excellent writing and editing skills, as well as strong analytical aptitude, facilitation, communication and presentation skills in English and Bangla is a must.

• Previous work with UN 

• Track records of working effectively within tight deadlines

Language: 

Excellent writing and editing skills, as well as strong communication and presentation skills in English 

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; Educational Qualification- Max Point 20
Criteria-02; Number of experiences working with gender and development related organization-Max Point 20
Criteria-03; Demonstrated experience with analytic review and research work on gender equality.- Max Point 30

Criteria-04; Excellent writing and editing skills, as well as strong analytical aptitude, facilitation, communication and presentation skills in English an Bangla is a must.- 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:

• Cover letter should be one-page max outlining in brief what makes you the most suitable candidate, including a paragraph on your experience in working with feminist or women’s rights CSOs on any similar/related assignment (s).
• Financial Proposal: Potential candidates are requested to kindly submit their CV and daily rate for the consultancy
• Personal History Form (P11). The P11 Form can be downloaded from the following website: http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs
• 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 including 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