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 and the third gender as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

All human development and human rights issues involve gender dimensions. UN Women globally focuses on key priority areas that are fundamental to women’s equality, and that can unlock progress across the board. UN Women’s priority areas include increasing women’s leadership and participation in political spaces, ending violence against women, enhancing women’s economic empowerment, engaging in all aspects of women peace and security processes, making gender equality central to national planning and budgeting through Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) and advancing gender in intergovernmental processes.

UN Women’s work on GRB involves ensuring that national planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation processes incorporate a gender perspective. UN Women’s GRB programmes at the regional and country level have made significant contribution towards this by building political support, developing technical resources and capacities, generating good practices for improving women's access to services and increasing accountability for Gender Equality and Women’s empowerment (GEWE).  At the forefront of global, regional and local advocacy for application of GRB, UN Women has built partnerships with diverse government, inter-governmental and non-governmental partners to further efforts and demonstrate GRB’s relevance to sustainable development, aid effectiveness, public sector reform and financing for development.

In 2004-05, the report of the expert group of classification of government expenditure became instrumental in laying out the road map for GRB in India. This was followed by the adoption of “Budgeting for Gender Equity” as mission statement by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), Government of India (GoI). In 2005-06, the Ministry of Finance, GoI introduced Gender Budget Statement (GBS) which aimed to reflect the quantum of budgetary allocations for programmes/schemes that substantially benefit women. Another important mechanism institutionalised by the Ministry of Finance was setting up of Gender Budget Cells (GBCs) which serve as focal points for mainstreaming gender through GRB. The rigour has been replicated in at least 19 states, some of which have produced GBS and set up GBCs.

UN Women’s Multi Country Office (MCO), based in New Delhi, India, covers four countries of the region, i.e., India, Bhutan, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. UN Women India MCO is currently implementing a project with the objective of identifying strategies and operational approaches to strengthen on-going efforts on GRB in India, at the national and state level.

Insights generated from this project will enable key stakeholders at the national and state level to accelerate their efforts to ensure that women’s priorities are adequately reflected in national budgeting processes, and to make concrete changes for adequate resource allocation towards women’s priorities. The focus areas of the project are the following:

  • Establishing/strengthening institutional mechanisms for GRB.
  • Generating evidence on how sectoral policies/programmes could be made more gender responsive.
  • Enhancing capacities of officials for sustaining change.
  • Strengthening the link between outlays to outcomes through gender audit.

Within this context, UN Women seeks the services of a Technical Expert to undertake GRB analysis of policies and programmes from the perspective of women with disabilities and tribal women. The research will aim to generate/strengthen evidence on the existing gaps in policy/programme design, budgeting, implementation and evaluation from a gender perspective. Analysis for women and girls with disabilities will be undertaken at the union level, working with the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Empowerment, Government of India; whereas, that for tribal women and girls will be undertaken with Governments of Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. The findings of the analysis will be used to enhance capacities of officials at the national and state level to engender institutional planning and budgetary processes.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the guidance and direct supervision of GRB Analyst-UN Women, the Technical Expert will lead research on the two constituencies of women with disabilities and tribal women, using the GRB framework to analyse policies/schemes/programmes for these constituencies. The Technical Expert will also be required to enhance capacities of relevant officials using the evidence generated on GRB analysis. In both the research studies (women with disabilities and tribal women), the analysis will primarily focus on conducting a thorough desk review of programmes/schemes of the relevant departments from a gender lens, analysis of the existing data and providing concrete recommendations to ensure that policies and programmes respond to the specific concerns of women with disabilities and tribal women. The research should also capture perceptions of officials at the union government/state government level. Capturing of primary data from the field will be minimal and will not be desired for the research on women with disabilities.

The Technical Expert will work with the teams of UN Women in India and Government partners at the Union and State level to ensure that the research includes diverse perspectives and meets the required standards of quality, within the given time and cost specifications. 

Therefore, the Technical Expert will have the following tasks:

  • Organise inception meetings to discuss the scope of work with relevant research partners including Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Government of India; Department of Welfare, Government of Jharkhand; and Tribal Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh;
  • Develop a mixed-methods methodology note with key tools, for analysing data/inputs for select schemes/programmes of the Government along the planning, budgeting, implementation and evaluation phase/s; specifically ensuring that sex-disaggregated and gender-aware data is captured and analysed;
  • Finalise methodology note with inputs from UN Women and Government partners;
  • Conduct the research using GRB as a framework to examine the extent to which the policies/programmmes and budgets address the specific concerns of women with disabilities and tribal women;
  • Develop an intermediate report capturing initial findings and discussion based on analysis of data and inputs;
  • Develop final reports (separately focusing on women with disabilities and tribal women), upon incorporation of inputs from relevant partners, with key recommendations and way forward for strengthening mechanisms, systems and processes for women with disabilities and tribal women;
  • Train officials of the two departments (tribal and persons with disabilities) at national and state level to sensitise them on GRB as well as on how to integrate GRB in their planning, budgeting and auditing of schemes and programmes.

Deliverables & Payment Schedule:

  • Briefing note with expectations of relevant partners vis-à-vis the research study, capturing key inputs on the scope of work (10 days) – 20% payment;
  • Methodology note on the research study, including key research tools, data analysis, sampling, etc.  (30 days) – 20% payment;
  • Intermediate report with initial findings and discussion (50 days) – 20% payment;
  • Trainings of officials of the two departments – tribal welfare and persons with disabilities (20 days) – 20% payment;
  • Final report with key recommendations and way forward for strengthening mechanisms, systems and processes for the welfare of women with disabilities and tribal women (30 days) – 20% payment.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

  • Demonstrates commitment to UN Women’s mission, vision and values;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge Management and Learning:

  • Shares knowledge and experience;
  • Actively works towards continuing personal learning, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills.

Development and Operational Effectiveness:

  • Ability to perform a variety of specialized tasks related to design, planning and implementation of programme, managing data, reporting;
  • Ability to provide input to and use new IT based systems.

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 even under pressure;
  • Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities;
  • Good understanding of gender and development in South Asia;
  • Demonstrable ability to work in a team;
  • Ability to work under pressure;
  • Good writing and communication skills;
  • Excellent computer literacy and skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Master’s Degree in Social Sciences/ Social Work /Gender Studies/Public Administration/Policy or related fields.

Experience:

  • Minimum 5 years of experience at the national/state level working with development projects including hands-on experience of design, implementation and monitoring/evaluation of projects preferably on Gender Equality and Women’s Rights;
  • Experience on financial/budgetary data analysis, statistics and quantitative and qualitative research is required;
  • Experience of working with national/ state governments; particularly on GRB is highly desirable.

Language:

  • Proficiency in English; good command over Hindi in reading and writing.

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:

  • 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 close 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);
  • Demonstrable experience relevant to the assignment (10 points);
  • Working knowledge and experience of working on Gender Responsive Budgeting (5 points)

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

  • Interview.

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.