Antecedentes

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is the UN’s Global Development Network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in over 170 countries, employing participatory approaches to developing local solutions to national and global development challenges. UNDPs core vision is to help countries achieve simultaneous eradication of poverty and significant reduction of inequalities and exclusion.

Addressing gender equality and women’s empowerment is a key aspect of UNDPs approach to achieving its core vision. In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and in UNDP’s Strategic Plan, gender equality is both a goal in its own right and an essential catalyst to progress across all development outcomes. UNDP is guided in its work by its Gender Equality Strategy, which details how UNDP works towards gender equality in each of the goals and key results set out in the UNDP Strategic Plan.

The Gender Team of the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) is the institutional anchor of UNDP’s work on gender equality and women’s empowerment. The Gender Team provides policy advice and technical support to all of UNDP’s Bureaus and leadership on how to mainstream gender across all areas of their work. The Gender Team works to implement gender equality as a core objective of UNDP through a two-pronged approach (i) mainstreaming gender in all core practices; and, (ii) dedicated interventions that empower women and promote gender equality. In addition, the Gender Team is responsible for all corporate planning, for supporting corporate programming, reporting on gender and for supporting Senior Management in ensuring accountability for gender mainstreaming. Finally, the Gender Team supports the Administrator and senior management in addressing gender equality and women’s empowerment in their convening and representational functions.

Under the Long-Term Agreement contract, the selected candidates on gender and women’s economic empowerment will support the work of the Gender Team within in the area of gender and women’s economic empowerment by providing expert inputs when required.

Objective:

To contract technical experts on women’s economic empowerment under a long term agreement to support the work of the Gender Team in the area of gender and women’s economic empowerment.

Deberes y responsabilidades

Scope of work / Duties and responsibilities

The consultants will report to the Women’s Economic Empowerment Specialist and will support tasks related to women’s economic empowerment that require technical expert substantive advice and strategic input. The consultants will also work closely with other UNDP staff and their partners in the HQ and selected pilot countries and local sites, including local researchers and project implementers.

The scope of tasks to be undertaken will be agreed with the Technical Expert(s) as the need arises, and may cover, but may not be limited to:

• Provide substantive advice and strategic inputs through the drafting of policy briefs, concept notes, project concept notes, issues briefs, and other substantive technical inputs on issues related to gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, women and poverty and related topics. This may include reports to UNDP Executive Board.
• Provide substantive input through the drafting of or commenting on project proposals, project evaluation reports, terms of references, or aide memoires.
• Provide expert review, comments and inputs into UNDP policy documents to ensure that the gender dimensions are suitably integrated, represent cutting edge knowledge on gender dimensions of women and economic empowerment and women and poverty and are consistent with the UNDP Strategic Plan 2018-2021 and the upcoming UNDP Gender Equality Strategy 2018-2021. This may include, but is not limited to: Post-2015 implementation strategies, Human Development Reports, Regional Human Development Reports, global economic policy processes or any other relevant substantive documentation produced by UNDP.
• Provide substantive assistance in the development and facilitation of critical discussions on women’s economic empowerment and the gender and poverty, including UN inter-agency discussions, regional events, lecture series and online discussions as required.
• Support specific requests by Country Offices or Regional Centers on integrating gender in their work within other practices.
• Undertake capacity development activities on gender-responsive economic policy making and inclusive equitable local development at country, regional and global levels as required.
• Provide training for UNDP staff and partners on matters related to gender equality, women’s economic empowerment, poverty, sustainable development and related topics.
• Provide substantial input into the development of new training modules for the development of the joint UNDP, UNCDF and UN Women programme, Inclusive and Equitable Local Development (IELD) and the modules on local and equitable local economic development.
• Deliver, on behalf of UNDP, policy advisory and capacity development trainings to targeted country offices and government counterparts on request.
• Prepare manuals and other capacity development materials on gender and poverty and advise UNDP on integrating gender dimensions into existing training manuals and initiatives.
• Provide advice to the Director of the Gender Team on the strategic direction for the gender team’s work in the field of women’s economic empowerment.

Expected outputs and deliverables:

The following deliverables will be expected:

• Briefs, policy notes/issue briefs, concept notes, project concept notes and other substantive technical inputs on issues related to women’s economic empowerment and gender and poverty, including on trends, emerging issues and challenges, etc.
• Substantive inputs on project proposals, capacity development strategies and other initiatives.
• Expert reviews and comments on UNDP documents, such as SDGs and the Post-2015 implementation strategies, Human Development Reports, Regional Human Development Reports, or any other relevant substantive documentation produced by UNDP.
• Substantive technical input including research, briefs, technical tools, training materials and modules to support the programming activities of the Inclusive and Equitable Local Development (IELD) programme, a joint UNDP, UNCDF and UN Women initiative.
• On demand capacity development activities at the levels of Country Offices and Regional Centers;
• Facilitation of critical discussions on women’s economic empowerment and gender and poverty, including UN inter-agency discussions, national/regional events, lecture series and online discussions as required by the Gender Team.

Competencias

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity;
• Integrity;
• Professionalism.

Functional Competencies:

• Substantial knowledge and understanding of women’s economic empowerment
• Demonstrated leadership ability and technical ability to communicate complex ideas verbally and in writing
• Experience drafting of research findings and recommendations
• Familiarity with processes and thematic issues related to the SDGs
• Ability to lead development of clear strategies and to provide strategic advice to senior management.
• Ability to communicate effectively both in written and oral.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Academic qualifications:

Applicants will have an Advanced university degree (PhD preferred) in Economics, Public Administration with strong knowledge of gender issues, or related discipline.

Experience:

• Minimum 10 years of relevant experience in the field of promoting gender equality and poverty reduction;
• Substantive experience conducting research and analysis in the area of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment with relevant national and regional experience and at least one other related theme: sustainable development, inclusive economic growth, poverty, livelihoods, social protection, unpaid care work and time use, access to credit and finance, employment, trade, gender responsive budgeting;
• Knowledge of and experience in producing substantive inputs to policies on issues concerning gender and poverty at the national, regional and international levels, demonstrated experience in training and advocacy work;
• Experience in conducting policy advisory and capacity development services to policy makers at the global regional and national levels;
• Working knowledge and experience of UNDP policies and programmes in the area of gender equality.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English (written and oral);
• Knowledge of any other official UN language would be an asset.

Application Procedure

Application is a two-step process:

STEP 1

Qualified applicants are requested to apply online via this website. Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications (note: all documents must be compiled into one file to be uploaded as part of the online application):

• Proposal / Cover letter explaining why the candidate is the most suitable for the assignment; and
• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects and specifying the relevant assignment period (from/to), as well as the email and telephone contacts of at least three (3) professional references.

STEP 2

Financial Proposal.

After review of applications, shortlisted candidates (ONLY) will be contacted by UNDP and requested to submit a Financial Proposal:

• The financial proposal should specify a daily professional rate;
• The financial proposal must be all-inclusive and take into account various expenses that will be incurred during the contract, including: the daily professional fee; cost of travel from the home base to the duty station and vice versa, where required; living allowances at the duty station; communications, utilities and consumables; life, health and any other insurance; risks and inconveniences related to work under hardship and hazardous conditions (e.g., personal security needs, etc.), when applicable; and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services under the contract.
• The Consultant will be home-based. The Consultant may be expected to undertake official travel. The cost of those missions will be borne by UNDP and will be specified in TORs following award of the LTA. Offers from applicants should not reflect/include these costs.
• Payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.
• If the Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.

The Financial Proposal is to be emailed as per the instruction in the separate email that will be sent to shortlisted candidates.

Incomplete applications will not be considered. Please make sure you have provided all requested materials.

Qualified women are encouraged to apply.

Due to the large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidate(s) about the outcome or status of the selection process.

Evaluation process

Applicants are reviewed based on Required Skills and Experience stated above and based on the technical evaluation criteria outlined below. Applicants will be evaluated based on cumulative scoring. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Being responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation where technical criteria weighs 70% and Financial criteria/ Proposal weighs 30%. Total obtainable points = 700 technical and 300 financial (1,000 points)

Technical evaluation - Total 70% (700 points):

• Criteria 1. Advanced University degree in Economics/Public Administration or related field with 10 years record of analytical thinking, strong policy research and publication activity. Weight = 10%; Maximum Points: 100.
• Criteria 2. Experience in conducting policy advisory and capacity development services to policy makers at the global, regional, national and local levels Weight = 25%; Maximum Points: 250.
• Criteria 3. Experience conducting research and analysis in the area of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment with relevant national and regional experience and at least one other related theme: sustainable development, inclusive economic growth, poverty, livelihoods, social protection, unpaid care work and time use, access to credit and finance, employment, trade, gender responsive budgeting, local economic development. Weight 25%; Maximum Points: 250.
• Criteria 4. Familiarity and policy and programmatic work experience with UNDP and the UN system. Weight: 10% Maximum points: 100 points.

Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (490 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (700 points) shall be considered for the financial evaluation.

Having reviewed the applications received, UNDP will invite the top shortlisted candidates for interview. Interviews will be scored as Pass/Fail. Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Financial evaluation - Total 30% (300 points)

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:

p = y (µ/z), where

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated

y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal

µ = price of the lowest priced proposal

z = price of the proposal being evaluated

Contract Award

Six to eight candidates obtaining the highest combined scores in the combined score of Technical and Financial evaluation will be considered technically qualified and will be offered to enter into an Long-Term -Agreement (LTA) with UNDP. The LTA with UNDP will not warrant that any quantity of Services will be purchased during the term of the Agreement, which shall be for three years in which the contractor can be engaged to work based on secondary competition to identify the most suitable LTA holder for specific call-off assignments. Call-off assignments will vairy in duration.

Institutional arrangement

The Consultant work form home, and will be supervised by and report directly to the UNDP Women’s Economic Empowerment Specialist.

Payment modality

Payment to the Individual Contractor will be made based on the actual number of days worked, deliverables accepted and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the manager.