Background

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (UN Women), Ethiopia Country Office (ECO) is working towards ensuring a gender responsive financing system within the public finance management system in Ethiopia. It ensures that new and existing internationally and nationally agreed commitments on GEWE are effectively financed in Ethiopia by enabling the government to establish Gender Responsive National Planning and Budgeting system.

Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) aims at mainstreaming gender into public budgets, looking into how financial resources are collected and allocated with respect to women and men. GRB is used to shape policies, set priorities and provide the means to meet the social and economic needs of all citizens. It helps governments understand potential adjustments in resources needed to achieve their priorities and commitments to achieve gender equality and advance women’s rights as stipulated in international conventions, commitments and goals, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing platform for action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Beyond ensuring accountability to women’s rights, GRB is also a step towards improved public transparency and economic efficiency.

Increasing financing for gender equality recognizes that planning, resource allocation and prioritization of development initiatives have to be disaggregated, by sex, among other parameters, to understand where the greatest needs are, to direct resources to those areas, and to monitor how resources and planning bridge gender gaps and contribute to the empowerment of women.

Ministry of Finance (MoF) leads nationally in promoting GRB and has mandated its Gender Directorate to engage relevant directorates within the Ministry, demonstrating political will and direction. While progress has been made in integrating gender in the revised financial administration proclamation and budget call and building the capacity of experts and officials using the GRB guidelines, an accountability mechanism to ensure that gender is integrated in sectoral planning and budgeting processes is not yet in place. This limits the government’s ability to realize its commitment to uphold the rights of Ethiopian women, including through the financing of national programmes.

UN Women, in partnership with the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and with support from the governments of Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands, implemented a four-year “Transformative Financing for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment’’ programme (July 2017-June 2021) in Ethiopia with an estimated budget of USD 2.99 million (actual budget allocation of USD 2,848,233) for the entire programme period. The programme Transformative Financing for Gender Equality was initiated with the aim of contributing     to the overall goal of adequate and effective financing of new and existing national and international commitments on Gender Equality and Women Empowerment. The following are four expected outcomes of the program contributing to the achievement of the overall goal:

1. Creating political consensus by the Government of Ethiopia on the need to systematically address Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB),
2. Supporting the reform of fiscal laws, policies, and national action plans to prioritize budgetary allocations in favour of gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE),
3. Ensuring equitable distribution of international financing to address gender inequalities and the empowerment of women, and for increased resources for GEWE, and
4. Strengthening oversight mechanisms for allocations for GEWE, and ensuring the inclusion of parliamentarians, civil society, and women’s organizations in GRB.

 The programme document has been implemented at the federal level and regional including Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR and Tigray in partnership with Ministry of Finance (MoF), Ministry of Women and Social Affair (MoWSA), Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), Federal Job creation and Food Security Agency (FUJCFSA) and their regional counterparts. To build the capacity of gender advocated, UN Women partnered with Budget, Women and Children Standing Committees of the House of People Representatives (HoPR) and women’s associations. UN Women also worked with CSOs such as Union of Ethiopian Women and Children Association (UEWCA) to strengthen the capacities of women’s associations in Amhara, Tigray and the Dire Dewa City Administration. Other key stakeholders of the Programme were the Office of the Federal Auditor General (OFAG).

The focus of the programme is enhancing the capacity of experts on Gender Responsive Budgeting to enable them to consider gender during planning and budgeting through training and South-South experience sharing. The program also generated a pool of knowledge products and data as one of the strategies to create discussion and influence intervention and also as sustainable mechanism for institutions to consider gender responsive budgeting when implementing their programs. In addition, in collaboration with international organizations such as International Monitory Fund (IMF) high level dialogue was organized on key findings of the gender inequality impacts to Ethiopia’s economic growth.

The programme was initiated to contribute to the overall goal of adequate and effective financing of new and existing national and international commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment. The focus is on enhancing the capacity of experts on Gender Responsive Budgeting to enable them to consider gender during planning and budgeting through training and South-South experience sharing.  The Programme is in line with UN Women’s Global Strategic Plan 2018-2021, particularly Outcome 2: women lead, participate in, and benefit equally from governance systems, contributing to SDGs Goal no, 1,2,3,5,10,16 and 17. At the national level,  the design is aligned with UNDAF 2016-2020, i.e., pillar 4 on good governance, participation, and capacity development and pillar 5 equality and empowerment, Ethiopia’s Growth and Transformation Plan II (2016-2020), i.e., strategic pillar 7 on the promotion of gender and youth empowerment and equity; and the country strategy of UN Women Ethiopia.

Following the end of the programme, the document was independently evaluated by consultants and the report finalized and submitted end of October 2021 providing recommendations and way forward. The evaluation provided an in-depth assessment of the programme results against its four outcomes and the programme performance in terms of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, impact, inclusiveness, participation, equality, non-discrimination, and social transformation. The programme end evaluation covered the entire implementation period from July 2017 - June 2021 under its four outcomes.

 As a result, the evaluation report shows that the programme has made some good progress in GRB, however, a lot still needs to be done to fully integrate GRB in all federal and regional budgetary processes and sectors. Therefore, based on the recommendations from the evaluation, instead of formulating a new programme, UN Women is considering developing a second phase of the current Programme by taking good practices, lessons learned, and recommendations provided in the evaluation as well as taking into consideration GRB experts advise and comments.

Accordingly, UN Women is planning to recruit an international consultant with extensive knowledge of Financing for Gender Equality/ Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) to develop the phase II programme document, Transformative Financing for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women 2022- 2025

Duties and Responsibilities

The international consultant will accomplish the following tasks:

• Prepare a Work Plan which includes:
• Approach and methodology for carrying out the tasks and scope of the project
• Schedule of activities
• Stakeholders for a project implementation, containing the list of relevant stakeholders to be consulted
• Hold regular consultative meetings with UN Women National Planning Team to develop a good understanding of the assignment as well as the knowledge and technical resources required to develop the programme document
• Develop a draft annotated outline for the phase II programme document to be shared with UN Women and finalize it after feedback is received from UN Women National Planning Team,  Deputy Country Representative and Monitoring and Reporting Analyst
• Review the Transformative Financing for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women programme document, evaluation report, various publications with regard to Gender Responsive Budgeting, existing policy documents, new UN Women Strategic Note 2021-2025 and the UNSDCF 2020-2025  and any other relevant documents.   
• Conduct consultations with key stakeholders including government and non-government organizations and UN Women.
• Develop a strong Theory of Change in accordance with the revision of relevant documents including evaluation report and consultations conducted, which is line with the new UN Women Strategic Note 2021-2025 and the UNSDCF 2020-2025
• Develop a clear Result and Resources Framework with smart indicators which clearly outlines the ultimate objectives of the newly developed programme and are in line with the new UN Women Strategic Note 2021-2025 and the UNSDCF 2020-2025
• Develop a comprehensive second phase of the Transformative Financing for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women programme including theory of change, results and resources  framework, budget and etc. in line with UN Women standards and practice.

Competencies

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 expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity:

• Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies

Ethics and Values:

• Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.

Organizational Awareness:

• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Development and Innovation:

• Take charge of self-development and take initiative.

Work in teams:

• Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multiethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

Communicating and Information Sharing:

• Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication.

Self-management and Emotional Intelligence:

• Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others.

Conflict Management:

• Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing:

•  Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making:

• Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making.

Functional Competencies

• Ability to work with minimal supervision
• Evidence of having undertaken similar assignments such as developing program documents for UN entities
• Excellent knowledge of Gender Responsive Budgeting
• Excellent analytical skills, especially in understanding complex information and managing multiple data sets
• Strong knowledge of programme development and implementation,
• Good ability to use information and communication technologies as tools and resources,
• High level written and oral communications skills in English
• Result-oriented, team player, exhibiting high levels of enthusiasm for gender equality, diplomacy and integrity
• Demonstrate excellent interpersonal and professional skills in interacting with government and development partners.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in International Development, Development Economics, , Social science, Gender/Women studies, human rights, international relations or other social science fields is required;

Experience:

• At least 10 years progressively responsible experience in designing and managing programmes related with promoting Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB),
• Technical experience in GRB is required,
• Experience in Developing programme, policy analysis, and strategic planning for UN entities,
• Experience working with governments, donors and civil society organizations in the Required field,
• Experience working with the UN is an asset.

Language Requirements:  English

Application:

• All applications must include (as an attachment) a completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment.
• Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment and candidates are required to include in the P-11 form links for their previously published reports and articles completed within the last two years. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.