Background

SWAPNO is a public-works and social transfer-based poverty graduation project that targets ultra-poor rural women who are widowed, divorced, abandoned or left with a disabled husband. The project does not only aim at lifting poor women out of poverty during the project period; it also helps them sustain with a higher income level after the end of project support. To achieve this goal, the focus is on future employability. The idea is that the set of skills learnt from training will help women invest their savings for productive purposes, which would yield a stream of income in years to come. In addition to self-employment, SWAPNO also helps place women in jobs in local Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and private sector companies in the formal and informal sectors.

While SWAPNO has demonstrated success, lessons show that women risk falling back into poverty as they are malnutrition, vulnerable to climate and disaster risks, and can risk facing gender-based violence by participating in a project that can be perceived to be challenging social norms. At the same time, the project has successfully piloted public-private partnerships that improve the women’s skills and help place them in formal sector jobs; it also ran successful microplots that used mobile money for promoting financial inclusion and improving efficiency in the government-to-person (G2P) platform. The findings on mobile money will inform national policy on scaling up digital payments through G2P across Bangladesh.

By integrating these lessons, this proposal outlines SWAPNO’s strategy to support women’s access to decent employment, ensure discrimination-free environment in public workplaces, develop adaptive livelihoods and access to financial services for sustainable graduation from extreme poverty, and develop local government capacity to implement pro-poor projects. SWAPNO will achieve the following results:

• Outcome 1: Increased income and assets by expanding options
• Outcome 2: Enhanced human capabilities for exercising choices
• Outcome 3: Strengthened resilience to shocks including disasters and climate change
• Outcome 4: Enhanced financial inclusion for equitable opportunities
• Outcome 5: Improved policies and mechanisms for sustaining SWAPNO’s benefits

The Social and Gender Development Specialist will bear the responsibility of life-skills development and women empowerment component. S/he will ensure that the graduation strategy for core beneficiary women is implementable considering local gender conditions and engage in advocacy to remove obstacles and create a more congenial environment. Apart from Life-skills development interventions, s/he will advise on specific training needs of women UP representatives and devise training interventions accordingly. S/he will also support partnership development initiatives of the project and formal sector employment specialist with the corporate sector for employment and resource mobilization

Social and Gender Development Specialist will also closely work with the UP-standing committee, local administration and District Legal Aid Committees to ensure safe job environment and access to legal support

OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The Consultant is to lead and implement the activities under Gender and Social Development component of SWAPNO project. The main objective is to create awareness on gender equality, equity and social development in project area to strengthening the women empowerment and prevention and precaution of Gender-based Violence.

The specific objectives are:

• To enhance the capacity of SWAPNO beneficiaries and its communities to address Physical Sexual Harassment Abuse (PSHA) and Violence Against Women (VAW)
• To facilitate ensuring decent workplace environment and awareness creation on workplace safety and Gender Base Violence (GBV) in formal sector.

Duties and Responsibilities

SCOPE OF WORK,DELIVERABLES

IMPACT OF RESULTS

Women beneficiaries and their dependents will have improved human capital in terms of empowerment, nutrition, health, education and voice. Ultimately, it will help for graduation of the extreme poor and pro-poor economic growth.

DURATION OF ASSIGNMENT, DUTY STATION

Duration of the assignment is for 115 working days from 24 January to 30 June 2022. Duty station is Dhaka, Bangladesh.

SUPERVISION, REPORTING AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

The consultant will be supervised by and report to the National Project Manager, SWAPNO who will also carry out a performance evaluation at the end of the assignment and also work closely with Enterprise and Employment specialist of the project to achieve project outputs.

INPUTS

From the project:

• Knowledge products
• Project documents and progress reports
• Funding and logistical support to conduct workshops, training, events etc.

 From the consultant:

• Use own office and laptop

 TRAVEL

• No DSA will be paid at the duty station (Dhaka).

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards (human rights, peace, understanding between peoples and nations, tolerance, integrity, respect, results orientation (UNDP core ethics) impartiality.
• Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional Competencies:

Development and Operational Effectiveness

• Strong analytical, communicational and writing skills.
• Strong ability to effectively interact with technical and non-technical end users in a pleasant, cooperative, and helpful manner;
• Demonstrated ability to solve problems and work independently.
• Ability to read, analyze, interpret and apply general technical instructions and procedures.

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, controlled and good humoured even under pressure.
• Develop network skills with different levels.

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Has deep knowledge on project management, social and poverty research.
•  Share knowledge and experience.
• Seek and apply knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside UNDP
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• Master’s degree in social science or any related subject from a recognized university

Working Experience

• At least 15 years of working experience in the development sector, with at least 5 years in similar positions
• At least 15 nos. of Training conducted on gender, social safety net/ poverty reduction programmes.
• Demonstrable knowledge on social protection, rural development, gender mainstreaming, poverty alleviation, food security, livelihood promotion and working with donors and development agencies
• Experience in high quality report writing
• Proficiency with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and other relevant software
• Experience of working with Local Government Division (LGD)

Language

• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written, in English and Bengali

EVALUATION METHOD AND CRITERIA

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

Cumulative analysis

The award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

1. responsive/compliant/acceptable, and
2. Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

• Technical Criteria weight; [70%]
• Financial Criteria weight; [30%]

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 point or 70% would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Financial score shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced proposal received by UNDP for the assignment

Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 70 points)

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSAL

• Explanation of why the candidate is the most suitable for the work.
• Technical proposal with methodology.
• Financial proposal.
• Personal History Form-P11 or Updated CV.

Interested individual Consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Proposers who shall not submit the below-mentioned documents will not be considered for further evaluation.

• Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references; P11 can be downloaded from the UNDP website:
• Financial Proposal: Financial Proposal has to be submitted through a standard interest and availability template (National consultants must quote prices in BDT) which can be downloaded from the link:
• Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable candidate for the assignment and submit evidence by the Consultant which would substantiate the technical requirements
• Incomplete proposals may not be considered.

http://www.bd.undp.org/content/dam/bangladesh/docs/Jobs/Interest%20and%20Submission%20of%20Financial%20Proposal-Template%20for%20Confirmation.doc