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 the priorities set in the UN Women Strategic Plan, the country Strategic Note (2019-2021) and the UN Partnership for Sustainable Development, is supporting the country to fulfil National and International commitments to gender equality and empowerment of women.

Over the past years, 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. Through its ongoing project “Promoting Gender Responsive Policies and Budgets: Towards Transparent, Inclusive and Accountable Governance in the Republic of North Macedonia” (2018-2022), UN Women is extending technical support to Government stakeholders at central and local level on gender responsive budgeting, and to civil society organizations and oversight bodies on strengthening the accountability towards gender equality commitments. The programme provides a consolidated framework that enables systematic and sustained implementation of gender responsive budgeting and optimal impact of gender budgeting initiatives on lives of women and men in the country.

The project includes a set of interventions focused on gender mainstreaming in policy making and budgeting processes at central level, which aims at extending technical and expert support to line ministries and state institutions to advance the application of gender responsive budgeting.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a great impact on the socio-economic life in North Macedonia and particularly on vulnerable groups of women. COVID-19 has been disproportionately affecting more women compared to men, and the pandemic risks to deepen the pre-existing gender inequalities. The Government of North Macedonia has taken immediate strong actions to combat and respond to COVID-19. A series of financial and non-financial support packages have been introduced by the Government aiming to provide special administrative measures and support to the most affected groups and sectors. UN Women will work with the government in drafting future socio-economic policies and plans to ensure that foreseen interventions are gender responsive and evidence based. UN Women will support the government to apply gender responsive budgeting in the new budget planning cycle and to mainstream gender in the national policy-making processes of line ministries, thus ensuring that women and men, girls and boys in North Macedonia benefit equally from all social, health, financial and non-financial support schemes, and No One is left behind from the support provided by the Government of North Macedonia at all levels in facing the actual emergency situation, as well as in long-term plans for recovering from this pandemic.

To support the Government in North Macedonia to mainstream gender perspective in the upcoming policy planning and budgeting cycle, UN Women is seeking to recruit a national consultant to conduct gender analysis on the impact of the Government’s budget re-allocations due to COVID-19 and provide expert support on mainstreaming gender in the policy and budgetary processes to Ministry of Finance and other line-ministries. 

Deberes y responsabilidades

Scope of work

The objective of the assignment is to provide support and evidence-based policy and budgetary recommendations to the Ministry of Finance and other line-ministries on gender mainstreaming in their policies and budgets. More specifically, the aim is to further strengthen the application of gender responsive budgeting in policy-making and budgeting processes, including in emergency responses, by conducting an analysis of the budget rebalances adopted by the Government in North Macedonia in response to COVID-19, from a gender perspective.

With this ToR, UN Women is seeking to hire a national consultant to conduct gender analysis on the impact of the Government’s budget cuts and re-allocations due to COVID-19 and provide expert support to Ministry of Finance and other line ministries in sector specific planning and budgeting processes. The expert will work in close coordination with the lead national consultant mentoring selected state institutions on gender responsive budgeting.

Tasks and Responsibilities

Based on the above-described objectives of the assignment, under the supervision of the GRB Programme Analyst and GRB programme team, the national consultant will undertake the following tasks and responsibilities: 

• Desk review of existing budget programmes and mapping of the budget cuts and re-allocations undertaken by the Government of North Macedonia in response to COVID-19;
• Assess and identify most impacted social and economic sectors and specific budget programmes due to the budget cuts and re-allocations undertaken by the Government;
• Assess the possible impact on the delivery/implementation of Gender Equality policies/strategies and actions;
• Based on the completed analysis, develop set of recommendations to support MoF and line ministries to mainstream gender during the formulation of priorities and allocations in the new budget cycle, with focus on at least 3 specific sectors/policy areas;
• Develop sector specific simple gender responsive checklist and guide that can be used by the Government in reprioritization of expenditures and budgetary allocations in future emergency responses in North Macedonia;
• Coordinate closely with national consultant mentoring selected state institutions on gender responsive budgeting, by extending expert support and contributing to capacity development activities;
• Assess the existing sex disaggregated data and propose data and information to be included in the Citizen’s Budget;
• Prepare final report on the assignment. 

Key deliverables, activities and timeframe

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

Reporting

Under the overall supervision of the GRB Programme analyst 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 economics, public finance, business administration or related studies. Master’s degree or PhD would be considered an asset.

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of demonstrated relevant professional experience in the area of public finance, budgeting and budget monitoring;
• A minimum of 3 year of demonstrated experience on policy making and budgetary processes in the Republic of North Macedonia;
• Demonstrated relevant professional experience in economic research and/or gender analysis;
• Previous experience in policy and budgetary research analysis from a gender perspective is considered an asset;
• Previous experience working with governmental and international organizations is considered 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 requirements of 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 75 working days during the period of 5 October 2020 until 30 June 2021. 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 in three instalments:

I instalment - 40% upon submission and approval of deliverables 1-3 (15 December 2020)

II instalment - 30% upon submission and approval of deliverables 4-5 (by 26 February 2021)

III instalment - 30% upon satisfactory completion of all tasks in the assignment, submission and approval of final report by UN Women (30 June 2021)

Application:

Interested individual consultants are requested to apply electronically through the following link: http://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_jobs.cfm  no later than 28 September 2020 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.