Antecedentes

The Asia Pacific Regional Office (RO) is responsible for proactively driving the positioning of UN Women among the donor community and development partners in the regional as well as globally through various HQ units by communicating strategic results, valuable good practices and key messages. Given the functional responsibilities of the RO, the work of the RO includes ensuring technical quality of donor reports and other documents and materials by providing high quality technical advice, strengthening result-based reporting/writing skills of staff, tracking submissions by multi/country offices and supporting them in the finalization/clearance processes. Communicating strategic results and key messages are a must to mobilize partners and resources and are becoming more and more important in the highly complex socio-political dynamics, in the context of 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, in light of Beijing+30 and in various harmonization efforts among development partners.  Also, as it strives to achieve resource mobilization goals set by the Strategic Plan 2022-2026, the number of donor reports is growing in the region as the cost sharing funds grow.  It is expected that the current and expanding cost-sharing programmes require approximately 190-210 donor reports for 2023. Also, with the decentralization of donor report clearance, the RO plays a more significant role for itself and countries that have not received decentralization in this regard. One of the indicators of the Business Review Committee that the HQ Senior Management pays attention to is the timeliness of donor report submissions, and an internal review of compliances of donor agreements re-affirmed that submitting good quality donor reports to donors on time is a must.

Similarly, six -monthly and annual reporting has become an important tool for monitoring and oversight as well as sharing results to external partners with an introduction of “Transparency Portal”, a platform to share information on progress towards and achievements of results exported from annual reports. In this context, there is urgent needs for country offices and the RO units to strengthen their capacity (and their monitoring and reporting focal points’ in particular) to produce quality reports meant for external audience and for the RO Monitoring and Reporting Unit to provide good quality feedback and coaching on how to address them.  These require that the RO have comparable capacity to meet the demand of writing and reporting needs, providing quality control and reflecting the results-based discipline, in order to support and strengthen advocacy and strategic partnerships development. 

Deberes y responsabilidades

Under the overall guidance of the Regional Programme Specialist, the consultant is responsible for the following: 

• Reviewing donor reports (narrative and financial) to improve quality of substantive content and ensure the consistencies with the donor agreements and the project documents/proposals, as well as the RBM standards and other requirements of UN Women. Similarly, where requested, review annual and six-monthly reports ensuring compliance with the corporate reporting guidance notes. These include liaising with project managers or submitting offices or monitoring and reporting focal points to solicit further necessary information or clarifications, where necessary, editing, revising, and rewriting as needed and formatting as to producing high quality, reader-friendly, results-based donor reports and other documents required by donors aligned with UN Women’s established standards and formats, and in compliance with the RO’s clearance and routing process.

• Preparing specific report or reporting-related feedback/analysis to relevant UN Women offices for improvements of quality and for training purposes. Providing them directly to project managers and to monitoring and reporting focal points through the Community of Practice on RBM and training them to better address the feedback.

Expected deliverables and timelines

Supervision

The consultant will be supervised by the Regional Programme Specialist.

Competencias

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

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

• Master's degree or other advanced degree in one or more of the following disciplines: social sciences, international development, and/or communications, or Bachelor's degree in those fields with 10 years of work experience in writing, editing, reporting, or international development.
• Minimum of 7 years of high-level experience in reporting and communicating complex programmatic information/results in reader-friendly formats and styles in English, as part of responsibilities. Professional experience in international development, project management, and resource mobilization is an asset.
• Demonstrated abilities and track record writing high quality English-language reports and information.
• Excellent understanding of and experience with gender-sensitive and results-based management and reporting.
• Experience in reporting in the UN system is an asset.
• Must be capable of effectively using MS Word and Excel.
• Proficiency in English.

Contract period and work location

From 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 initially one year with a possibility of extension with maximum 105 days of assignment period (UN Women does not warrant the maximum of 105 days and the service will be purchased during the term of the Agreement). The consultant will be engaged under a retainer contract, which facilitates direct engagement of the consultant depending on need and availability within the contract period for a pre-agreed fee.

Evaluation

Applications will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis:

• Technical qualification (100 points); weight: (80%)
•  Financial proposal (100 points): weight (20%)

A two-stage procedure is utilized in evaluating the applications, with evaluation of the technical application being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. Only the price proposal of the candidates who passed the minimum technical score of 70% of the obtainable score of 100 points in the technical qualification evaluation will be evaluated.

Technical qualification evaluation criteria:

Only the candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% of total points will be considered as technically-qualified candidates who may be contacted for validation interview.

Financial/Price Proposal evaluation:

• Only the financial proposal of candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation will be considered and evaluated.
• The total number of points allocated for the price component is 100.
• The maximum number of points will be allotted to the lowest price proposal that is opened/ evaluated and compared among those technical qualified candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation. All other price proposals will receive points in inverse proportion to the lowest price.

Submission of application

Interested candidates are encouraged to submit electronic application, updated CV, and short summary of your expertise and your experience, P-11, and daily consultancy rate to hr.bangkok@unwomen.org, chittra.kaewnok@unwomen.org with a subject line as “Application for Report Reviewer Consultant”, no later than  25 January 2023.

Submission package includes: 

• Cover letter outlining relevant work experience and skills and strengths
• UN Women Personal History Form(P11);
• Writing sample, preferably in the area of gender equality or women’s empowerment or international development
• Financial proposal which shall specify a total lump sum amount, breaking down the daily professional fee, proposed number of working days. Please see the financial proposal template as below:

Payments

Payments for this consultancy will be based on the achievement of each deliverable and certification approved by the Regional Programme Specialist that each has been satisfactorily completed.

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits employ, trains, compensates and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity, and organizational need.  If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application. 

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority, and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)