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.

UN Women is mandated by the UN Security Council to lead on UN system-wide coordination on Women, Peace, and Security, and to this end, UN Women has been working with governments, UN partners and civil society through the region to support women’s participation and influence at all levels of decision-making to prevent and resolve conflict and to address issues of extremism. Women across divides play a crucial role in mobilizing actors for inclusive peacebuilding through collective action and mediation at the formal and informal levels. Supporting them in mobilizing support and enhancing their voices can contribute to resuming and continuing peace dialogue in a more inclusive way.

The Tunis Forum on Gender Equality

The Tunis Forum on Gender Equality will take place from the 16-18 of April 2019 and provides an opportunity to continue to pursue efforts initiated during the Stockholm Forum on Gender Equality organized in April 2018. The Stockholm Forum gathered the main global constituencies involved in promoting Gender Equality as one of the key goals and one of the main catalysts of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. Building on the momentum of Stockholm Forum and taking into consideration the necessity to keep working on the Gender Equality agenda and follow up the initiatives, commitments, and partnerships that have resulted from the Stockholm Forum, Tunisia will host a second forum in 2019 with the support of Sweden Government. This second forum, that will take place almost 5 years after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda and one year before the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA), as well as one year before the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. The forum will be an opportunity to mobilize women leaders from Parliament, Government and Regional and Local Governments and reinforce their voice, networking and advocacy in order to make international commitments a reality on the ground (from global to local). The forum will be an initial consultation for Beijing + 25, as well as a platform for discussion, interactions with key actors from government, public administration, civil society, the private sector, and the media to share and multiply breakthroughs that make a difference for individuals and societies alike.

Reporting to the dual Country Representative for Libya and Tunisia, a consultant is required to support the Tunisia UN Women Office with organizing the Tunis Forum on Gender Equality. The consultant will ensure all administrative and financial tasks related to the forum organization.

Duties and Responsibilities

Finance

  • Maintain financial records for the forum organization s for which responsibility is assigned. Codes and records receipts of payments assure the accuracy of computation and completeness of documents and maintain the continuing status of allotments against obligations;
  • Prepare recurring reports on assigned accounts, noting problems resulting from excess cost or shortfalls.  Prepare special reports to clarify problems or as requested for other reasons;
  • Calculate and comply cost estimates and projected budget requirements and assist in the preparation of budget statement for the area of assignment;
  • Prepare routine correspondence and maintains personal and telephone contacts with others to discuss matters concerning accounts and related assignment;
  • Follow up on deadlines, commitments made, actions taken and coordination of collection and submission of the reports;
  • Proper control of the supporting documents for payments and financial reports for projects;
  • Follow up on deadlines, commitments made, actions taken and coordination of collection and submission of the reports
  • Assistance in the elaboration of periodic financial reports for the forum organization;
  • Compilation of data for internal/external audit.

Administrative

  • Give administrative support to the team in charge of the organization;
  • Follow communication and event aspects with the service providers;
  • verify services rendered on the basis of quality and timeliness;
  • Administrative support to the forum side events (letters, phone calls, emails..);
  • Check all supporting documents supporting payments before establishing payment claims;
  • Maintenance of the forum organization filing system ensuring safekeeping of confidential materials.

    Deliverables:

  • The consultant will submit monthly progress reports provide financial and administrative support to the Representative to ensure the successful achievement of the aim of the Tunisia Gender Equality Forum.

Competencies

Core Values:

  • Respect for Diversity;
  • Integrity;
  • Professionalism.

Core Competencies:

  • Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
  • Accountability;
  • Creative Problem Solving;
  • Effective Communication;
  • Inclusive Collaboration;
  • Stakeholder Engagement;
  • Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf.

Functional Competencies:

  • Development and Operational Effectiveness;
  • Ability to perform a variety of standard specialized and non-specialized tasks and work processes that are fully documented, researched, recorded and reported;
  • Ability to review a variety of data, identify and adjust discrepancies, identify and resolve operational problems;
  • Ability to perform work of confidential nature and handle a large volume of work;
  • Good knowledge of administrative rules and regulations;
  • Strong IT skills (to use in a possible training on Atlas);
  • Ability to provide input to business processes re-engineering, implementation of new systems;
  • Excellent communication skills;
  • Excellent organization and planning skills and high attention to detail;
  • Good analytical and report writing skills;
  • Ability to work under pressure and with tight deadlines.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

  • Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, economics is required.

Experience

  • 4 years (at least) of relevant experience in program support service and /or in information and technology and/or in administration and finance fields;
  • Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.);
  • Certification/degree in computer science and/or in IT (Information and Technology) is desirable;
  • Good command of French-speaking and writing and mid-level English, Arabic is an asset.

Language

  • Must be an Arab speaker, with fluency in spoken and written French;
  • Working knowledge of English would be an asset.

 Evaluation Criteria:

The contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical).

Criteria Weight Technical: 70%

The total number of points allocated for the technical qualification component is 70 points. The technical qualification of the individual is evaluated based on the following technical qualification evaluation criteria:

  • Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, economics; (10 points)
  • 4 years (at least) of relevant experience in program support service and /or in information and technology and/or in administration and finance fields; (20 points)
  • Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.); (10 points)
  • Experience in managing budgets; (20 points)
  • Must be an Arab Speaker, with fluency in spoken and written French; (10 points)

Only the candidates who have attained a minimum of 49 points (70%) will be considered as a technically-qualified candidate.

Financial: Lowest Financial Proposal: 30%

The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:

  • The contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical);
  • The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula: (Lowest Bid Offered*)/ (Bid of the Consultant) x 30;
  • 'Lowest Bid Offered' refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 49 points in the technical evaluation.

Application:

Interested Individual Consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

  • A cover letter with a brief presentation of your consultancy explaining your suitability for the work and link to a portfolio of work;
  • UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment; applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment; Make sure that you provide a valid email address for future communications.
  • Financial proposal; Proposed inclusive daily rate.

The above-mentioned documents should be merged in a standalone file including all them since the online application submission does only permit to upload one file per application. Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification.

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.

UN Women is applying a fair and transparent selection process that would take into account both the technical qualification of Consultants as well as their price proposals. The contract will be awarded to the candidate obtaining the highest combined technical and financial scores.