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.

UN Women is mandated to strengthen coherence between the global and  regional intergovernmental processes and operational activities on Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (GEEW). As part of its normative mandate, UN Women supports the member states in implementation of recommendations emerging from processes including the Commission on Status of Women (CSW), Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and other treaty body and charter based bodies at the national level.

Placing women’s rights at the centre of its efforts, UN Women is also mandated to lead and coordinate United Nations’ system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming are translated into action. It is also mandated to provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

The UPR is a unique intergovernmental process of the Human Rights Council to periodically review the actions undertaken by Member States to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to fulfil their human rights obligations. The UPR was created through the UN General Assembly on 15 March 2006 by resolution 60/251, which establish the Human Rights Council itself. Further, the UPR aims to support the enhancement of State’s capacity and technical assistance through sharing of best practices. One of the key principles of the UPR is that it should fully integrate a gender perspective (Para 3K of Human Rights Council Resolution 5/1).

In keeping with the treaty reporting obligations, India will be reviewed by the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Review Process (UPR) in October 2022. This will be India’s fourth review under the UPR. The third review took place in 2017 and the recommendations were adopted in September 2017 (All the relevant documents for India’s third UPR can be accessed at: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/Pages/INIndex.aspx).  A critical part of the UPR reporting is also the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) joint report, including review and recommendations from gender perspective by UN Women.

To this end, UPR reporting by the UNCT is integral to track progress on accepted recommendations and draw attention to gender specific concerns and secure strategic and implementable recommendations. In that regard, with the general  objective to support the development of the UPR reporting by UNCT in India, UN Women India Office seeks to hire a consultant to work with the office in supporting its provision of input to UNCT’s report on India’s UPR IV.

Under the overall guidance of the UN Women Country Representative and direct supervision of the Programme Analyst – Inter Governmental Process, UN System Coordination and Women, Peace and Security, UN Women India Office, the consultant will provide support to UN Women in preparing inputs to the UNCT’s report on India’s UPR IV from the perspective of the women’s human rights in India.

More specifically, the consultant will be responsible for the following major tasks:

• Undertake a desk review of the existing analysis, reports and other data to feed into the UNCT report on India’s UPR IV.
• Draft the initial inputs for the UNCT UPR report from the perspective of women’s human rights issues in India.
• Organise consultations with Civils Society Advisory Group (CSAG) members of UN Women and other relevant groups and partners to validate data and analysis.

Deliverables:

• Draft UNCT Report on India’s UPR IV based on desk review.
• Final UNCT Report on India’s UPR IV.

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.

Education:

• Master's degree or equivalent in human rights, gender studies, law, social sciences, international development or related field.

Experience:

• Proven professional experience in working on gender equality issues;
• At least 5 years of proven working experience I the area of gender equality and women’s human rights;
• At least 2 years experience in gender responsive review and evaluation, including data collection and analysis, groups discussions etc;
• Previous experience with UN treaty bodies and charter based mechanisms is a strong asset;
• Proven record of producing well written reports demonstrating analytical ability an communication skills. 

Language:

• Proficiency in English.

Application:

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

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 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);
• Expertise and Experience relevant to the assignment (10 points);
• Demonstrable experience on Report Writing (5 points).

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

• Writing Samples (30 points)
• Interview (70 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.