Background

Public procurement refers to the many ways in which governments acquire goods (supplies or products), works, and services, using a range of contractual arrangements and purchasing tools. Public procurement offers an attractive market for entrepreneurs since governments around the world spend around 12 per cent of global GDP on public contracts. Public procurement was estimated to be at least $13 trillion out of the global GDP in 2018.

Access to public procurement represents an important potential market and a significant source of business for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) since public contracts can stimulate an increase in investment, job generation and productivity for firms. Moreover, a well-designed public procurement framework strengthens citizens’ confidence in government and private sector competitiveness, especially by creating opportunities SMEs. Women own 30 per cent of the small and medium businesses worldwide, yet women-owned businesses only access 1 per cent of all procurement contracts suggesting systemic gender disparities within procurement systems. In Ethiopia more than 1.5 million SMEs face a financing gap of 1.6 billion USD, which would have created 7.5 million jobs, if well addressed (First Consult 2021). While the gap is much more for women owned in SMEs (Ethiopian Economic Association (EEA), 2022).

In balancing the gender disparities and reaching the most marginalized ones, countries are developing policies and legal frameworks in facilitating business licensing and permits, trade regulations, labor regulations, tax administration and collateral by allowing use of rural land and resources (Ethiopian Rural Land use and Administration Policy). These efforts among others aim to support rural entrepreneurship and foster inclusivity.

While these are encouraging actions to help women actively participate in various developmental activities and entrepreneur ecosystem, realizing potential requires the implementation of policies and practices actively promoting the inclusion of women-led businesses and concerted efforts to integrate and include women in the workforce (Africa Freedom of Information Centre, 2023). While government contracts can be crucial for businesses and contribute to local economic growth, women-led enterprises face significant underrepresentation in this sector. Gender bias and entrenched power dynamics perpetuate discrimination and oppression throughout the planning, procurement, implementation, and monitoring of government expenditures.

One key strategic approach to promoting women's empowerment and fostering their active involvement in and benefit from the economy is Gender Responsive Public Procurement. This involves making sustainable choices in the acquisition of services and goods, considering their impact on gender equality and the empowerment of women by prioritizing sourcing from women. The entity responsible for overseeing public procurement in Ethiopia is The Ethiopian Federal Government Procurment and Property Administration Agency, which is accountable to the Ministry of Finance.

The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has demonstrated an explicit commitment to address gender and other social inequalities that discourages sustainable and equitable development through conducive legal, policy and instrumental frameworks that support gender equality and women empowerment at all spheres of development. However, there is no existing policy or legal framework that particularly promotes the participation of women led businesses in public procurement in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Federal Government Procurement and Property Administration Proclamation (No. 649/2009) does not offer preferential treatment to women entrepreneurs, and there is a lack of available data on the extent of government sourcing from women entrepreneurs.

The Government of Kenya has put in place several interventions to promote domestic market access by Government entities such as the program on Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO) established in 2013 arguably Kenya’s largest affirmative action program. The AGPO Program facilitates the participation of enterprises owned by women, youth and persons with disabilities to uptake government procurement. It also empowers enterprises owned by these disadvantaged groups by giving them more opportunities to do business with the Government. The program classifies the three categories of persons as disadvantaged groups, making them eligible for a preference and reservation scheme of thirty percent (30%) of government procurement contracts.

The Nigerian UN Women Country Office experience on GRP (gender responsive procurement) is that they initially produced evidence on the Women Owned Business (WOB) and their status in accessing public and other procurements in the country, as well as opportunities and threats to working on GRP. Based on the evidence, they started working with one region to have quota (affirmative public procurement) for women, as the CO was challenged working at national level due to big resistance. So, Kaduna Region and currently Legos are working on GRP while third region is also interested to join the team as attracted by the initial ones.

Other countries like South Africa, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have amended their procurement laws and established an affirmative action to facilitate women owned businesses to participate in public procurement.

The current proclamation (No.649/2009) has just been endorsed by the House of People’s Representatives. Currently the Procurement and Property Administration Agency is currently preparing a directive on procurement this would be an opportunity for UN Women to support the agency to come up with a gender responsive directive with a view that provisions on gender responsive procurement would enable Ethiopia’s women led businesses to compete and win more tenders contributing to their economic participation and sustainable development. 

Justification

Following discussions with the Public Procurement Agency, it became evident that there is   lack of gender disaggregated data regarding the government's procurement practices when it comes to who is involved and benefiting especially women owned and or led enterprises.  Further to the above, there is need to come up with a definition of what a Women Owned Business is since there is no single acceptable definition. Otherwise, this can be continuous, and some businesses partially owned by women and men might be disqualified. And the absence of legal provisions reserving a specific percentage of procurement for women-owned businesses is another bottleneck in supporting women’s access to public procurement. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the PPA's capacity and requirements for enhancing Gender Responsive Public Procurement, UN Women proposes conducting an assessment on the general practices of public procurement, how women practicing in the process and identify the capacity gaps to inform intervention strategies.

In view of the above UN Women ECO (National Planning and WEE Program Team) in collaboration with the Federal Procurement and Property Administration Agency and the Center for Accelerated Women’s Economic Empowerment (CAWEE) are interested to bring on board experienced and competent two national consultants (under leadership of one consultant) to take the assignment with the purpose of generating evidence to influence polices (legal frameworks), capacities and actions.

Objective

The general objective of the assignment is to understand the practices, gaps and opportunities around gender responsive public procurement processes of the country and come up with strategic actions including capacity enhancement and development of strategic guideline towards gender responsiveness of the PPA and its regional counterparts.

Specific Objective include:

• Conduct an assessment on the magnitude (size) of Women Owned and Lead Enterprises by type of enterprises (Sectors) and their access to public procurement services.
• Review the existing legal and policy framework used for public procurement to inform their revisions and/or development of new legal/policy frameworks in the area,
• Identify good practices within and other countries’ experience in implementing gender responsive procurement to inform Ethiopia’s analyses,
• Based on identified good practices, gaps and opportunities propose recommendations to enhance gender responsive public and other procurement practices in Ethiopia.
• Support development of tools and building capacities of PPA towards gender responsive public procurement practices and cascading to the regions.
• Produce a two pager policy Brief that would serve as starting point for policy dialogue on how identified barriers could be removed   

Duties and Responsibilities

Competencies

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
• Experience on gender responsive, procurement, budget analysis and development of assessments
• High level written and oral communications skills in Amharic and 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 at regional and federal level.
• Experience in conducting assessment, writing high quality reports both in English and Amharic

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in Gender, Economics, International Development, or other relevant Social Science fields.

Experience:

• At least 10 years professional experience related to the qualifications stated.
• Demonstrated expertise with comprehensive and documented knowledge of public procurement issues, coupled with a strong understanding of gender mainstreaming principles.
• Proven experience in conducting assessments, developing training manual and delivering training, and facilitating workshops for government officials.
• Familiarity with effective training methodologies and techniques.
• Experience working with the United Nations will be considered an advantage.

Language Requirements:  Amharic and English

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