Background

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; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

Within the overall context of its Strategic Plan, UN Women launched a Global  Programme on Women’s Sustainable Energy, Entrepreneurship, and Access with United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at the Paris Climate Conference (COP 21) in six countries. Other five countries are Bolivia, Indonesia, Morocco, Myanmar and Senegal.

The Programme is in line with the Government of India’s national priorities and international commitments towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically on Gender Equality (SDG5) and Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG7) as well as the United Nations Framework on Climate Change.

The objective of the Programme is to identify and remove fundamental gender-specific barriers facing women entrepreneurs, women’s productive use of sustainable energy, and women’s involvement and leadership in gender-sensitive energy policy-making.

In India, the Programme will be implemented in partnership with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in select states of Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

The Programme focusses on:

  • Building leadership and entrepreneurial skills of women in non-gender stereotypical domains using access to energy;
  • Enhancing access to sustainable energy for women through energy entrepreneurship;
  • Mainstreaming gender in energy discourse and policies.

The expected outcomes for the five year Programme are:

  • Energy planning and policy development is gender inclusive, participatory and responsive;
  • Skills, information and social norms barriers are removed and equal opportunities are created for women’s decent employment in the sustainable energy sector;
  • Access to finance for sustainable energy is increased for women;
  • Women’s productive use of sustainable energy is promoted and time dedicated to unpaid care and domestic work is reduced.

UN Women Multi Country Office in India is working towards designing National (consolidated) and state specific Programme Design and implementation roadmap documents for the implementation of the Programme in select states in India in line with the Global Programme. Towards this end, UN Women is working with multiple partner organizations and experts in developing the Programme Design and Implementation roadmap that will identify key interventions.

The Consultant will be supporting UN Women in developing a financial modelling toolkit for the interventions identified in the roadmap documents.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Consultant will be responsible for supporting the development of the National and state specific roadmap documents by developing a financial modelling toolkit to undertake cost benefit analysis of the specific interventions identified in the implementation roadmap and advise prioritization to maximise return on investment.  It will enable understanding investment risks (capital, HR and other investments) and establishing value for money, specifically by arriving at the input output ratio. 

The consultant will undertake travel in the select states.

Deliverables:

  • Develop a financial modelling tool based on the interventions identified in the National and state specific roadmaps. The tool will help provide input output ratio;
  • Recommend financial instruments and partners as required for implementation of the interventions identified in the roadmap;
  • Understand and highlight the risks and challenges for funding and finances for the interventions recommended in the road map;
  • Identify, evaluate and explain the key financial metrics to be tracked during the program for the implementations to ensure value for money, inform risk mitigation approach on capital and human resource investments;
  • Create a narrative for funding requirements for successful implementation of road map interventions state wise and nation-wise.

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 organisation 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.

Organisational Awareness:

  • Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Work in teams:

  • Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi ethnic 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 behaviour 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.

Functional Competencies:

  • Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
  • Demonstrates good oral and written communication skills;
  • Focuses on impact and result for the partners and responds positively to feedback.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Master`s degree or equivalent in accounting, finance, business administration or a related field.

Experience:

  • Minimum 7 years of experience in financial design and analysis of large development programmes, preference will be given for those with experience in renewable energy, with Government partners, donors, practitioners and other stakeholders. Field based experience of assessing costs and impact of interventions.

Language:

  • Fluency in English and working knowledge of any other Indian language.

Application:

Interested applicants should apply to this announcement through UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:

  • All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs;
  • Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment, please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment;
  • Applications received after the closing date will not be accepted;
  • Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Evaluation and Selection Criteria:

Criteria for shortlisting of CVs will be based on the following assessment:

  • Required Degree and Qualification (5 points);
  • Minimum 7 years of experience in financial design and analysis of large development programmes, preference will be given for those with experience in renewable energy, with Government partners, donors, practitioners and other stakeholders (5 points)
  • Field based experience of assessing costs and impact of interventions (5 points)
  • Working knowledge and use of computers and its programmes / applications. Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.) and advance knowledge of spread sheet and database packages (5 points).

The evaluation process for selection of the candidate will be based on the following assessment:

  • Interview (70 points);
  • Proof of relevant writing samples (30 points)

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.