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; the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development; human rights; as well as humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women's rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women Programme Office in the Republic of North Macedonia in line with its priorities set in the UN Women strategic plan and in the UN Partnership for Sustainable Development, is coordinating the UNCT on gender equality, supports the country on the normative commitments and is working in two thematic areas – governance leadership and participation and ending violence against women. In fulfilling its mandate, UN Women is cooperating with UN, the government and CSOs to advocate for women’s empowerment and advancement of gender equality.

Over the past years, through the regional project “Promoting Gender Responsive Polices in South-East Europe and the Republic of Moldova”, UN Women has provided extensive support to national and local stakeholders to strengthen democratic governance and advance women’s rights through initiatives aimed at mainstreaming gender in policy planning and budgeting. As result, gender responsive budgeting has increasingly been recognized as important tool for advancing gender equality in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Republic of North Macedonia and Republic of Moldova.

In 2018, UN Women Programme office in Skopje has started with the implementation of a new 4-year project “Promoting Gender Responsive Policies and Budgets: Towards Transparent, Inclusive and Accountable Governance in the Republic of North Macedonia” (2018-2022). The project is structured around two outcomes:

1. The Government’s public finance management and the strategic planning processes are improved to respond to the different needs of women and men as a result of effective application of gender responsive budgeting.
2. Civil society organizations, women, including the most vulnerable actively participate in planning and decision-making mechanisms, and their priorities are fully reflected in public policies and budgets. 

The programme’s country component implemented in the Republic of North Macedonia includes activities focused on enhancing the institutionalization of GRB at central and local level.

The local level component covers total of twenty-one local self-government units in the country, that have piloted and implemented GRB initiatives. The cooperation with those LSGUs will continue, focused on upscaling the proven approaches in mainstreaming gender in sectoral programmes through gender analysis, introduction of gender specific objectives and measures and monitoring progress and impact on lives of women and men.

To support these LSGUs to mainstream gender in sectoral programmes and to introduce gender specific objectives and measures that help the monitoring process and impact at local level, UN Women is seeking to recruit a local team of experts that will provide capacity development and mentoring support to the LSGUs.

Scope of work

The objective of the assignment is to strengthen the capacities of the local administration and municipal council members on gender responsive programme planning and budgeting. More specifically, the aim is to further strengthen the capacities of the 21 LSGUs that have already been exposed to GRB capacity development and/or have implemented GRB initiatives and have undertaken specific measures to engender their local programing and budgeting, by assisting the local administration to analyse specific local programmes and budgets and develop gender specific measures and indicators, as well as by mentoring the local councilors to review local policies from a gender perspective.

With this ToR, UN Women is seeking to hire a team of 3 Local Consultants to provide expert, training and mentoring services on gender responsive budgeting. The consultants will be responsible for delivering expert training and mentoring services to 21 municipalities that have already piloted GRB initiatives and have the basic capacities and skills to mainstream gender in policies and programmes. Each expert will cover total of 5 LSGUs while the lead expert will cover 6 LSGUs.

The team of experts will work under guidance of a lead expert who would coordinate the overall training and mentoring process in the municipalities and ensure the work between the experts is synchronized and well-coordinated.

Duties and Responsibilities

Based on the above-described objectives of the assignment, under the supervision of the GRB Regional Project Manager and GRB programme team, the local consultants are expected to undertake the following tasks and responsibilities:

• Desk-review of findings of relevant programme analyses conducted in the framework of the project, training evaluations and other materials on gender mainstreaming and gender responsive budgeting to inform their work on the assignment;
• Conduct initial unified capacity needs assessment in the targeted municipalities for the purposes of designing tailoredtraining and mentoring approach under guidance of the lead expert;
• Develop and deliver standard orientation programme for capacity building of local administration and members of municipal councils and commission for equal opportunities to introduce the objectives of the local level training and mentoring on GRB;
• Submit monthly time sheets for recording the time spent on each activity;
• Extend mentoring support to 21 LSGUs that have implemented GRB and have undertaken specific measures to engender their local programing and budgeting through tailored interventions based on the needs and capacities of each municipalities, develop local action plans and/or strategies on gender equality;
• Extend training support to public officials from targeted departments of the 21 LSGUs, local Commissions for equal opportunities between women and men, local Intersectoral working groups for gender equality and Commissions for budget and finance on gender responsive budgeting and results-based management;
• Facilitate series of 8 training workshops for members of regional municipal councils;
• Improve the existing check-list and reporting template designed to monitor and track progress and results achieved at local level, including documenting good practices;
• Extend expert support and training services to the Association of the Units of Local Self-Government (ZELS) by adapting the Training and mentoring programme on gender responsive budgeting for the needs of their training activities;
• Facilitating exchange of good practices and lessons learned among local level policy and budget makers by participating and facilitating thematic roundtables and thematic events on GRB;
• Participate in introductory session and regular preparatory and coordination meetings with UN Women, the team leader and other consultants throughout the assignment;
• Provide the team leader with regular updates on the progress with implementation of the assignment for the final report on the assignment; 
• Facilitate workshops with participation of public officials from different municipalities to exchange experiences and learn from each other
• Prepare quarterly progress reports summarizing results (changes in capacities, engendered local progammes and budgets, lessons learned, recommendations and pictures from the activities);
• Prepare individual reports on the assignment.

Key deliverables, activities and timeframe

The Local consultants will be expected to complete the below tasks within the indicative timeframe:

Reporting

Under the overall supervision of the to the GRB Regional Project Manager and the GRB programme team at UN Women Skopje Office, the Local consultants will develop and deliver the above listed deliverables in accordance with the indicative timeframe.

All deliverables of an acceptable standard and quality should be submitted to the UN Women and in languages as specified above.

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 Consultant knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.
• Cultural sensitivity and respect for diversity - Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Additionally, the individual should have an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies:

• Planning & Organizing – Develops clear goals in line with agreed strategies, identifies priorities, foresees risks and makes allowances accordingly.
• Organizational Awareness - Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.
• Teamwork - Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi-ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.
• Accountability – Takes ownership of all responsibilities and delivers outputs in accordance with agreed time, cost and quality standards.

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:

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Shares knowledge and experience
• Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside UN Women
•  Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills
• Development and Operational Effectiveness
• Demonstrates excellent written and oral communication skills. Communicates sensitively, effectively and creatively across different constituencies
• Demonstrates very good understanding of and experience in communications and outreach/advocacy
• 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
• Uses Information Technology effectively as a tool and resource

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 and good humored even under pressure
•     Proven networking skills and ability to generate interest in UN Women’s mandate
•     Identifies opportunities and builds strong partnerships with clients and partners

Required Skills and Experience

Academic Qualifications:

• A university degree in public administration, social studies, development studies, gender studies, international relations, or any other degree relevant to the requirements of the ToR. A Master’s degree is considered an asset.

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of demonstrated professional experience in the area of gender equality with focus on gender responsive budgeting and/or public policy and budget monitoring;
• Previous experience in designing and delivering training and/or mentoring programmes on gender equality and gender mainstreaming in policy making and budgeting;
• Experience and knowledge on decentralization, local policy and budget development process in the Republic of North Macedonia;
• Previous work experience in working as part of or managing large team would be considered as an asset
• Knowledge on results-based management and strategic planning is a strong asset;
• Previous experience working with international organizations would be considered as an asset;

Language

Fluency in Macedonian and English is required.

Evaluation of applicants:

UN Women applies a fair and transparent selection process. Applicants will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of the applicants’ qualifications/skills and their financial proposal. Contract will be awarded to the individual consultants whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive to and compliant with the ToR; and
• Having received the highest score out of below combined technical and financial criteria.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula: S = Fmin / F * 30

S - score received on financial evaluation;

Fmin - the lowest financial offer out of all the submitted offers qualified over the technical evaluation round;

F - financial offer under the consideration.

1.Duration and remuneration:

The national consultants will be engaged for a total of 90 working days during the period of 5th April 2019 until 25th November 2020. Deliverables from the consultants will be reviewed and approved by UN Women before they are considered final.

UN Women will divide the payment of consultancy fee into the following instalments:

I instalment - 25% upon submission and approval of deliverables 1-4 (30 May 2019)

II instalment - 25% upon submission and approval of deliverables 5,8,9 and 13 (30 November 2019)

III instalment - 25% upon submission and approval of deliverables 6, 7, 10, 11 and 12 (30 June 2020)

IV instalment - 25% upon satisfactory completion of all tasks in the assignment, submission and approval of final report by UN Women (5 December 2020)

Application:

Interested individual consultants are requested to apply electronically through the following link: http://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_jobs.cfm  no later than 25th March 2019 and to submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• Short Letter of interest, including financial proposal in local currency (MKD), indicating a total lump sum for the delivery as per above description. The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (consultancy fee, travel and any other possible costs).
• Completed UN Women Personal History (P11) form, that can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment
• UN Women applies fair and transparent selection process that would take into account the competencies/skills of the applicants as well as their financial proposals.