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.

Over the past years, UN Women has provided extensive support to local and local stakeholders to strengthen democratic governance and advance women’s rights through initiatives aimed at mainstreaming gender in policy planning and budgeting. In Kosovo, the gender equality objectives are enshrined in the Law on Gender Equality which determines the general and specific measures to ensure and protect the equal rights of men and women. The Kosovo Programme on Gender Equality (2020-2024) sets the general framework for integrating gender equality into laws, policies, and public services. The Law on Gender Equality requires gender mainstreaming of all policies, documents and legislation which implies analysis of policy documents and legislation on from gender lenses. It introduces the concept of Gender Responsive budgeting (GRB) in all areas encompassing institutions in central and local level.

In order to strengthen the capacities of the institutions and ensure sustainability of the interventions on Gender Responsive Budgeting, UN Women has initiated a regional programme with participation of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia and North Macedonia on  “Transformative Financing for Gender Equality towards more Transparent, Inclusive and Accountable Governance in the Western Balkans” (2020-2024) funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation. The main programme approach will be transformative financing as an enabler factor for policy and financing actions to accelerate implementation of existing national and international commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The project includes a set of interventions focused on gender mainstreaming in local planning and budgeting processes, which aims at extending technical and expert support to local government) to advance the application of gender responsive budgeting.

At this stage the project will support total of 12 municipalities in mainstreaming gender in sectoral local programmes and introducing gender specific objectives and measures that help the monitoring process and impact at local level. UN Women is seeking to recruit three local experts that will provide capacity development and mentoring support on GRB. The team of local experts will work under guidance of a lead expert that coordinates the overall training and mentoring process in the municipalities and ensure the work between the experts is synchronized and well-coordinated.

Deberes y responsabilidades

Scope of work 

The objective of the assignment is to provide expert, training and mentoring support on gender responsive programme planning and budgeting to 12 municipalities.  More specifically, the aim is to build capacities and skills of the local administration and officials to mainstream gender in policies, programmes and budgets. The support will be provided through assisting the local administration to analyse specific local programmes and budgets and develop gender specific measures and indicators, as well as by mentoring the local officials to review local policies from a gender perspective. 

With this ToR, UN Women is seeking to hire three (3) Local experts to provide expert, training and mentoring services on gender responsive budgeting to 12 municipalities. Each expert will cover total of 4 municipalities which will be agreed together with UN Women.  

Tasks and Responsibilities 

Based on the above-described objectives of the assignment, under the supervision of the GRB programme team, the local experts are expected to undertake the following tasks and responsibilities: 

• Desk-review of findings of relevant programme analyses and other materials on gender mainstreaming and gender responsive budgeting related to Kosovo context to inform their work on the assignment; 

• Develop detailed training and mentoring plan tailored to the needs of 4 municipalities that will be assigned to each expert, under guidance of the lead expert. 

• Deliver standard orientation programme to municipal officials in 4 municipalities to introduce the objectives of the tailored capacity building programme on GRB.

• Extend mentoring support to 4 municipalities through tailored interventions based on the needs and capacities of each municipality, develop local action plans and/or strategies on gender equality.

• Deliver capacity building programme to public officials from targeted directorates in 4 municipalities on gender mainstreaming and gender responsive budgeting.

• Participate in introductory session and regular preparatory and coordination meetings with UN Women, the team leader, and other consultants throughout the assignment.

• Facilitating exchange of good practices and lessons learned among local level policy and budget makers by participating and facilitating thematic roundtables and thematic events on GRB.

• Provide the team leader with regular updates on the progress with implementation of the assignment.  

• Submit monthly time sheets for recording the time spent on each activity.

• Prepare quarterly progress reports summarizing results (changes in capacities, engendered local programmes and budgets, lessons learned, recommendations, list of participants and pictures from the activities).

• Prepare individual /final reports 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 Project Coordinator and Head of Office at UN Women Kosovo Office the Local consultants will develop and deliver the above listed deliverables in accordance with the indicative timeframe, along with a timesheet.

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 local consultants will be engaged for a total of 40 working days during the period of July 15th, 2021 to July 20th, 2022. Deliverables from the consultants will be reviewed and approved by UN Women before they are considered final.

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 humoured 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 master’s degree in public administration, economic studies, social, gender studies, international relations, or any other degree relevant to the requirements of the ToR;

Experience:

• A minimum of 3 years of demonstrated professional experience in the area of gender equality with focus on gender responsive budgeting and/or public policy and budget monitoring.
• Previous experience in designing and delivering training and/or mentoring programmes on gender equality and gender mainstreaming in policy making and budgeting.
• Experience and knowledge on decentralization, national policy, and budget development process in the Kosovo.
• Previous work experience with UN would be considered as an asset.
• Knowledge on results-based management and strategic planning is a strong asset.

Language

Fluency in Albanian and Serbian is required. English would be an asset.

Application:

Interested individual consultants are requested to apply electronically no later than June 29th, 2021 and to submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• Short Letter of interest, including financial proposal in local currency (EUR), indicating a total lump sum for the delivery as per above description. The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (daily 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.