National Consultant to support the Economic Council to the Prime Minister to develop a roadmap focused on women economic empowerment interventions.Vacancy Number: Pr21/02179
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. Through its programmes and projects, UN Women is providing technical assistance to national partners (governmental and non-governmental), including private sector, in the implementation of existing international and national commitments to women’s rights and gender equality, it facilitates networking and exchange of good practices and advocates for women’s rights and gender equality in all areas of life. The work of UN Women in the Republic of Moldova is guided by its Country Strategic Note for 2018-2022, aligned with the Republic of Moldova–United Nations Partnership Framework for Sustainable Development 2018–2022, the Global Strategic Plan of UN Women for 2018-2021, the National Strategy on Gender Equality for 2017-2021 (NSGE), and aims to contribute to the gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The overarching vision of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is inclusive and sustainable growth with its promise to leave no one behind. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, target 5.5. calls to “ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of the decision-making in political, economic and public life”. Gender equality is mainstreamed throughout the SDGs, including SDG 8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth”. Gender equality by 2030 requires urgent action to eliminate the many root causes of discrimination that still curtail women’s rights in private and public spheres. At its core, the economic empowerment of women depends on the quantity and quality of paid employment, the provision or absence of public services, the amount of unpaid care work borne by women, as well as coverage or lack thereof under core social and labor protections. The UN Women Strategy for Moldova 2018-2022 focuses on three main areas where gender equality gaps are still present: 1) strengthening women’s participation in politics and decision making, 2) advancing the economic empowerment of women and 3) preventing and combating violence against women and girls. To achieve progress under these areas, UN Women works with variety of national and international partners and as part of different national and regional initiatives. One of the three priority areas of UN Women in its SN2018-2022 is advancing the economic empowerment of women. Women’s access to income, through decent employment opportunities, entrepreneurship and social security are a foundation for women’s economic empowerment and the achievement of substantial equality. Rationale In 2020 Moldova has been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis. Started as a health crisis, pandemic had an unprecedent socio-economic impact on Moldovan economy overall. The GDP in 2020 is estimated to register a decline by 7.2%, poverty is expected increase to about 13%. Most of the investment activity was postponed or canceled due to uncertainty. A dramatic and sudden loss of demand and revenue for SMEs caused reduction of jobs or wage cuts of employees, many of whom transferred to work remotely. It is expected to have 70,000 jobs lost, of which the majority in trade and hospitality, followed by agriculture and industry. Young workers and micro firms are expected to be affected the most. In addition to that, the pandemic revealed and, at the same time, worsened the gender inequalities, having a disproportionate effect on women and, exposing vulnerabilities in social, political, and economic systems which are, in cycle, amplifying the impacts of the pandemic. The health of women overall was severely impacted by COVID-19 because of the reallocation of resources and priorities, including sexual and reproductive health services. Economic and social stress was amplified because of restricted movement and social isolation measures, and gender-based violence has been increasing exponentially. Moreover, the unpaid care work has increased, with children permanently or temporarily out-of-school and day care facilities. The need to care for older persons was also increased, thus putting additional burden on women. Compounded economic impacts are felt especially by women and girls who are generally earning less, saving less, hold insecure jobs or depend on social benefits. The situation of the underrepresented women - returned emigrants, minorities, elderly, women with disabilities etc. - worsened significantly. As COVID-19 unprecedentedly hit the economic activity of the businesses in Moldova, women were hit as well, either in their roles as business owners and managers, especially from the industries that were hit hardest by COVID-19, such as tourism, food service, retail, and entertainment, or as wage workers in the sectors particularly effected by the pandemic crisis, such as health, education, retail, HORECA, etc. In the early stages of the pandemic and during the previous year, the Moldovan Government adopted and implemented a set of sound measures meant to help the most affected companies and protect and stimulate entrepreneurs regardless the economic sectors. These included: credit interest rate subsidy program, VAT reimbursement program, subsidy program for technical and stationary unemployment, grant scheme to support digitalization of SMEs, grant scheme to support internationalization of high-growth potential SMEs, a credit guarantee product for the companies affected by the pandemic, as well as many other measures to improve business resiliency to crisis. Recently, the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure developed a set of measures to redress the negative impact of COVID-19 on economy in general, and particularly on the activity of the SMEs.
Although women, especially from underrepresented groups, were hit the hardest by the pandemic crisis, most of the support measures (implemented and planed) are gender blind. To date, there are no available studies that estimate the impact of the state support measures on entrepreneurship with particular focus on the impact of these measures from gender perspective. In 2020, with the support of the UN Women, a set of recommendations and legal amendments were presented and debated at the Economic Council meetings, among which: barriers to employment for women, equal pay gap and alternative childcare solutions. The Economic Council Secretariat took an active role in promoting these matters, by building on its members’ expertise and engaging relevant public and private stakeholders. Considering the uncertainty of economic situation in the country these recommendations must be supported further. An efficient private-public dialogue at the ministerial and inter-ministerial level can lead to a rigorous and practical recommendations aimed to catalyze economic empowerment of women. Such a roadmap can be then used to implement actions to help women improve their incomes, productivity, and ultimately, their communities. Scope of work
The objective of this call is to support the Economic Council to the Prime Minister to (1) develop a roadmap to catalyze actions for women's economic empowerment in Moldova, including on reducing the negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis and, (2) when needed, draft amendments to legislative acts with argumentation note to support the changes exposed in the roadmap. To achieve the above objective, UN Women Moldova is seeking to hire a national consultant (hereinafter “the consultant”) who will implement the following: Task 1. Review the status of measures that were initiated and discussed within the Economic Council. Identify the barriers and bottlenecks (if any) and propose an action plan to speed up the process. Deliverable: Report on the status of measures currently under the supervision of the Economic Council, including the recommendations on further actions.
Task 2. Review the SMEs support measures implemented by the Government to support the companies overcome the COVID-19 crises from gender perspective and develop an analytical report with findings and recommendations. The report should be presented and discussed with the members of the Economic Council and should provide the inputs for the overall Roadmap. Deliverables: Analytical report on gender impact of the state measures on combatting the negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis, at least one meeting organized within the Economic Council on issues related to women economic empowerment. Task 3. Identify measures / specific interventions (e.g., through surveys, data analysis, interviews etc.) that need to be initiated under the guidance of the Economic Council. The process of selecting the interventions must be participative with active involvement of the private sector representatives, the governmental entities, CSOs and development partners. The identified interventions should be presented in a form of a Roadmap agreed by the Economic Council members. Deliverables: Public presentation of the Roadmap, preliminary (draft version) and final version of the Roadmap. Task 4 Follow-up on measures identified within the roadmap development exercise. The consultant will be responsible to implement all the activities necessary to ensure that the gender response is included in public policies. The activities might include, but not limited to, development of argumentation notes to legislative amendments, meetings with stakeholders, participation in public-private dialogue, provision of expertise opinion on various matters, etc. Deliverables: Implementation roadmap with recommendations on gender responsive public policies. Requirements for experience
Core Values:
Core Competencies:
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
Education:
Experience:
Other skills and Language Requirements:
. Documents to be included
Interested candidates are invited to submit their online applications by February 25, 2021 with the following documents.
If possible, previous reports, studies, and analysis performed by the Consultant should be attached to the application. | |||||||||||||||
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