Antecedentes

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; the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development; human rights; as well as humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women's rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women Programme Office in the Republic of North Macedonia in line with its priorities set in the UN Women strategic plan and in the UN Partnership for Sustainable Development, is coordinating the UNCT on gender equality, supports the country on the normative commitments and is working in two thematic areas – governance, leadership and participation and ending violence against women. In fulfilling its mandate, UN Women is cooperating with UN, the government and the CSOs to advocate for women’s empowerment and advancement of gender equality.

Over the past years, through the regional project “Promoting Gender Responsive Polices in South-East Europe and the Republic of Moldova”, UN Women has provided extensive support to national and local stakeholders to strengthen democratic governance and advance women’s rights through initiatives aimed at mainstreaming gender in policy planning and budgeting. As result, gender responsive budgeting has increasingly been recognized as important tool for advancing gender equality in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Republic of North Macedonia and Republic of Moldova.

In 2018, UN Women Programme office in Skopje has started with the implementation of a new 4-year project “Promoting Gender Responsive Policies and Budgets: Towards Transparent, Inclusive and Accountable Governance in the Republic of North Macedonia” (2018-2022). The project is structured around two outcomes:

1. The Government’s public finance management and the strategic planning processes are improved to respond to the different needs of women and men as a result of effective application of gender responsive budgeting.
2. Civil society organizations, women, including the most vulnerable actively participate in planning and decision-making mechanisms, and their priorities are fully reflected in public policies and budgets. 

The country project includes activities focused on enhancing the institutionalization of gender responsive budgeting (GRB) at central level and local level.

At central level UN Women is working closely with the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy (MLSP), extending technical and expert support to advance institutionalization of GRB. The MLSP is playing a lead role in the process of implementation of the gender provisions set in the budget instructions issued by the Ministry of Finance and the Government Methodology on GRB, by facilitating the application of GRB by other line ministries and state institutions.

The implementation of the above commitments and the operationalization of the entire institutional process of gender responsive budgeting are led by the MLSP, which acts as the central gender equality mechanism and leads the initiatives on GRB.

To support the MLSP to implement the obligations under the Law on Equal Opportunities of Women and Men, the National Action Plan on Gender Equality (2018-2020), UN Women is seeking to recruit a local consultant to extend expert support to MLSP in the analysis of the Law on Equal Opportunities of Women and Men.

Scope of work

The objective of the assignment is to conduct an analysis of the Law on Equal Opportunities of Women and Men. More specifically, the aim is to further strengthen the Law and its provisions, by assisting MLSP to conduct analysis of the implementation weaknesses and opportunities of the Law, analysis of the alignment of the Law with the Acquis Communautaire and other international standards and providing recommendations for improvement of the Law.

With this ToR, UN Women is seeking to hire a national consultant to conduct expert analysis of the Law on Equal Opportunities of Women and Men and support the MLSP in the process of amending and aligning the law with national and international gender equality commitments.

Deberes y responsabilidades

Based on the above-described objectives of the assignment, under the supervision of the GRB Regional Technical Adviser, GRB programme team, and working in close coordination with MLSP, the local consultant will undertake the following tasks and responsibilities:

• Gender analysis of the implementation weaknesses and opportunities of the Law on Equal Opportunities of Women and Men with focus on general and special measures on national level for establishing equal opportunities for women and men;
• Conduct consultations with National stakeholders, including focus groups and interviews with members of the Parliamentary Commission for equal opportunities for women and men, the Club of Women MPs as well as with coordinators for equal opportunities in the line ministries. Evaluation of the Law on Equal Opportunities of Women and Men in terms of its alignment with the Acquis Communautaire, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women as well as with other international standards;  
• Comparative analysis and recommendations for strengthening of the Gender Mechanisms at national level and their capacities for gender responsive policy making;
• Presentation of the findings and the proposed measures for amendments and revisions of the Law on Equal Opportunities of Women and Men;
• Prepare final report on the assignment.

Key deliverables, activities and timeframe

The Local consultants will be expected to complete the below tasks within the indicative timeframe:

Reporting

Under the overall supervision of the to the GRB Regional technical advisor and the GRB programme team at UN Women Skopje Office, the National consultant will develop and deliver the above listed deliverables in accordance with the indicative timeframe.

All deliverables of an acceptable standard and quality should be submitted to the UN Women and in languages as specified above.

Competencias

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 Consultant knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.
• Cultural sensitivity and respect for diversity - Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Additionally, the individual should have an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies:

• Planning & Organizing – Develops clear goals in line with agreed strategies, identifies priorities, foresees risks and makes allowances accordingly.
• Organizational Awareness - Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.
• Teamwork - Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi-ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.
• Accountability – Takes ownership of all responsibilities and delivers outputs in accordance with agreed time, cost and quality standards.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Shares knowledge and experience
• Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside UN Women
•  Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills
• Development and Operational Effectiveness
• Demonstrates excellent written and oral communication skills. Communicates sensitively, effectively and creatively across different constituencies
• Demonstrates very good understanding of and experience in communications and outreach/advocacy
• Ability to perform a variety of standard specialized and non-specialized tasks and work processes that are fully documented, researched, recorded and reported
• Ability to review a variety of data, identify and adjust discrepancies, identify and resolve operational problems
• Uses Information Technology effectively as a tool and resource

Leadership and Self-Management

•     Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback
•     Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
•     Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure
•     Proven networking skills and ability to generate interest in UN Women’s mandate
•     Identifies opportunities and builds strong partnerships with clients and partners

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Academic Qualifications:

• A university degree in law, international law, gender studies, international relations, social, cultural sciences or other degree relevant to the requirements of the ToR. A Master’s degree is considered an asset.

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of demonstrated professional experience in the area of gender equality, human rights, social policy or justice system is required;  
• Previous experience in conducting legal and policy analysis, with focus on gender equality and women’s rights is considered a strong asset;  
• Previous experience in conducting qualitative researches is considered a strong asset;
• Demonstrated experience and knowledge on national and local gender machineries and international commitments of central government institutions in the Republic of North Macedonia;
• Previous experience in working with international organizations and government institutions would be considered as an asset.

Language

Fluency in Macedonian and English is required.

Evaluation of applicants:  

UN Women applies a fair and transparent selection process. Applicants will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of the applicants’ qualifications/skills and their financial proposal. Contract will be awarded to the individual consultants whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive to and compliant with the ToR; and
• Having received the highest score out of below combined technical and financial criteria.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula: S = Fmin / F * 30

S - score received on financial evaluation;

Fmin - the lowest financial offer out of all the submitted offers qualified over the technical evaluation round;

F - financial offer under the consideration.

Duration and remuneration:

The national consultant will be engaged for a total of 20 working days during the period of 29nd  April 2019 until 25th July 2019. Deliverables from the consultant will be reviewed and approved by UN Women before they are considered final. UN Women will process the payment of consultancy fee upon satisfactory completion of all tasks in the assignment, submission and approval of final report by UN Women.

Application:

Interested individual consultants are requested to apply electronically through the following link: http://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_jobs.cfm  no later than 18th April 2019 and to submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• Short Letter of interest, including financial proposal in local currency (MKD), indicating a total lump sum for the delivery as per above description. The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (consultancy fee, travel and any other possible costs).
• Completed UN Women Personal History (P11) form, that can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment
• UN Women applies fair and transparent selection process that would take into account the competencies/skills of the applicants as well as their financial proposals.