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National Consultant to provide gender expertise for the Women in Leadership and Governance programmatic interventions at central and local levels.

Vacancy Number: Pr21/02279

Location:	Chisinau, Moldova
Application Deadline:	06 Aug 2021, 23:00 (GMT+2:00)
Application Extended deadline:	11 Aug 2021, 23:59 (GMT+2:00)
Type of Contract:	Service Contract
Starting date:	16 Aug 2021
Reference to the project:	UN Women
Expected Duration of Assignment:	Up to 80 working days within a 15 calendar months period
Supporting Documents: Annex I. Price Proposal Guideline and Template Annex II. Price Proposal Guideline and Template Terms of Reference UN Women Conditions of Service Consultants

Background

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.

In 2018 UN Women Moldova Country Office started to implement its new Strategic Note (SN) for 2018-2022, which is aligned with the Republic of Moldova–United Nations Partnership Framework for Sustainable Development 2018–2022 and the Global Strategic Plan of UN Women. Under its current SN, UN Women cooperates closely with the government, civil society, academia, private sector and the media to advance social, economic and political rights and opportunities for women and girls, placing special focus on those from marginalized, excluded and under-represented groups. These include rural women, Romani women, women with disabilities, women living with or affected by HIV, women survivors of violence, women migrants, elderly women and others. UN Women’s operation in Moldova focuses on bringing about concrete change in the lives of women and the society towards the long-term impact of achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in the country. Specifically, the SN 2018-2022 advances progress under the following three Impact Areas (IA): IA1: More women fully participate and lead in gender responsive governance processes and institutions, including in the security sector, IA2: Women have income security, decent work and economic autonomy, IA3: Public authorities, institutions and communities prevent violence against women and girls and deliver quality essential services. Towards these Impact Areas, UN Women works with variety of national and international partners to challenge gender-based stereotypes and towards the creation of an environment, whereby women act as key agents of change towards greater equality and development, in partnership with men and boys.

Rationale

One of the three priority areas of UN Women is working on advancing women’s leadership and participation. Women and girls constitute more than half of Moldova’s population, yet they are under-represented in the bodies that make key decisions affecting their lives. Despite an increase in women’s representation in the Parliament and at local level over the past years, the country plans to achieve 50/50 representation as per SDG commitments the value of the Political Empowerment Sub-index of the Gender Gap Index is still low (0.176 – placing Moldova on 72th place).

The complete and equitable participation of women in public life is essential to building and sustaining strong and lively democracies. Getting women elected is the most critical impediment for ensuring women’s representation, but to achieve policy impacts and reforms in governance, it is critical that these women are effective legislators and executives once elected. Elected and appointed women, as well as women willing to run for offices, still struggle with a lot of stereotypes and prejudices related to women in decision-making.

When women do get a seat on the decision-making table, their ability to act as gender equality  advocates is influenced  by  the  governance  systems  in  place.  Without adequate understanding within the executive and legislature of gender equality principles and gaps and how to apply gender analysis to the entire policy making cycle, including at the last critical stage of budgeting, even well-meaning or presumably gender neutral policies and laws may not make a difference, or worse -have a negative effect.  In order to address these and other gender inequalities, a systematic approach to integrating gender perspective in all sectoral policies, plans and budgets is needed, backed up by adequate gender capacity within the government institutions. While some pilot actions have been undertaken at the district level on gender responsive budgeting (GRB) and there have been recent advances in academia, the integration of  GRB  at  local  and  national  level  is  still  at  an  early  stage.  The capacities of the gender equality machinery, including gender focal points and units in central and local public institutions, need to be further strengthened.

Elected and appointed women, as well as women willing to run for offices, still struggle with a lot of stereotypes and prejudices related to women in decision-making.  Besides this, it has been noticed the low level of knowledge of the local public officials and civil servants on how to mainstream gender equality principles and gender responsive budgeting in the local decision making. This contributes to the perpetuation of gender inequalities, as the local decisions, plans and budgets don’t come to solve the gender issues or to respond to the specific needs of women and men, girls and boys.

In 2021, in line with its Strategic Note 2018-2022, UN Women Moldova within Women in Leadership and Governance Area signed several Partner Agreements (PCA) for strengthening the capacities of the public authorities' representatives, including from Women, Peace and Security sector in applying the gender perspective at central and local level, and namely with:

1. Governmental Institution from Moldova, Academy of Public Administration (APA) to act as Responsible Party for initiatives resulting in the provision of continuous support to elected civil servants and public officials, and personnel from security and defence sectors to enhance their capacities to integrate the gender equality perspective in their daily activities at local, district and central levels. The gender related skills and capabilities gained by the targeted civil servants and public officials, as result of the project, are expected to contribute towards advancing the mainstreaming of gender equality across public decisions, policies, plans and budgets.

Under this Partner Agreement the following results are expected:

• Output 1:  Civil servants and public officials, from central and local public authorities gained new skills and strengthened the capacities and knowledge in the field of gender equality.
• Output 2: Representatives and political decision makers from local public authorities  from Cahul and Ungheni districts strengthened their knowledge and technical capacities on gender responsive budgeting.
• Output 3: Civil servants and public officials received coaching on gender mainstreaming and gender-sensitive budgeting in planning programmes.
• Output 4: Academy developed an e-course of professional development for civil servants and public officials on "Integration of the gender perspective in public policies" .
• Output 5: Staff of the Defence, Security Sector Ministries and Ministry of Finance improved their knowledge on Gender Equality, GRB, Gender Mainstreaming and leadership.
• Output 6: Academy conceptualized, developed and digitized an e-course on "Sexual harassment at the workplace".
• Output 7: An e-course on "I know Gender – Women, Peace and Security " conceptualized, developed and digitized.

2. Non-governmental organization “The Congress of Local Authorities from Moldova (CALM)” to act as Responsible Party for initiatives that will contribute to the fulfilling of the following outputs:

• Output 1. Capacities of CALM Women’s Network members on gender mainstreaming in policies and budgets increased and the Network’s visibility and advocacy for gender equality consolidated.
• Output 2. Up to 12 selected communities from Cahul and Ungheni districts are enabled to develop gender mainstreamed local budgets.
• Output 3. Women members of the professional networks of employees within LPAs have strengthened the capacities and knowledge on gender mainstreaming in local public policies.
• Output 4. Local women leaders’ visibility increased and public’s awareness on women’s leadership at local level raised.
• Output 5. Local initiatives advancing gender equality derived from participatory gender sensitive planning and budgeting processes piloted in 20 women-led communities.
• Output 6. CALM Women’s Network shares regionally, on NALAS platform, Moldova’s experiences and lessons learned in advancing women leadership in local governance and the progress in implementing NALAS Women’s Forum recommendations on GRB implementation.

UN Women also cooperates with a wide range of other institutions, including Civil Society Organizations, through partner agreements as well as institutional contracts, to provide extensive support to relevant national and local stakeholders to ensure promotion and meaningful participation of women at different levels and in different sectors, including the security and defence area.

To ensure a consistent integration of the gender perspective, from a qualitative perspective, into the activities delivered by the responsible partners under the WILG Area, UN Women is seeking to engage a national consultant to provide expertise and recommendations on gender mainstreaming into the analytical and informational products developed primarily by CALM and APA, but also other institutions/partners within the WILG area, upon request.

Scope of work

Under the overall guidance and direct supervision of the UN Women Programme Analyst and Programme Officers of Women in Leadership and Governance Area, the selected national consultant will support the WILG team and its partners by providing gender expertise for designing and implementing programmatic interventions at central and local levels, primarily for activities implemented in partnership with Congress of Local Public Authorities from Moldova (CALM) and Academy for Public Administration (APA) as well as other UN Women partners on WILG area, upon request

Duties and Responsibilities

More specifically, the following tasks shall be undertaken by the national consultant:

Note: The mentioned number of working days has been estimated as being sufficient/feasible for the envisaged volume of work to be completed successfully and is proposed as a guideline for the duration of assignment. It cannot and shall not be used as criteria for completion of work/assignment. The provision of envisaged deliverables approved by the UN Women Programme Analyst and Programme Officer WILG or WPS shall be the only criteria for the National Consultant work being completed and eligible for payment/s. UN Women takes the responsibility, in case of more than one application, to divide the tasks among more relevant consultant based on their field of expertise. It is suggested that the submitted application to contain the number of tasks mentioned to be undertaken in the attached ToR and what are the task beyond their knowledge.

Requirements for experience

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS FOR GENDER EXPERT :

Education

• Master’s Degree in gender equality, human rights, public administration, law, political science, sociology, international relations, security or other related fields.

Experience

• At least five (7) years of proven track record of working on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the Republic of Moldova, including conducting participatory trainings, workshops, and presentations stated;
• At least three (3) years of professional experience in conducting capacity building activities on Gender Equality and related aspects.
• Proved work experience with central and local public authorities on gender mainstreaming in public policy documents, in analysing/developing policies or provision of recommendations and/or amendments to national legal framework from Gender Perspective
• Experience in working with UN WOMEN or other UN agencies is a strong asset

Language Requirements

• Excellent command of Romanian, Russian and English languages.

Documents to be included

1. Duly filled Personal History Form PHF11/CV (downloadable from http://www.unwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/P_11_form_UNwomen.doc);
2. Letter of Intent to include a brief overview about which of your previous experiences makes you the most suitable candidate for the advertised position.
3. Financial proposal – specifying a total lump sum amount for the task specified in Terms of References. The Financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (daily rate). Please see ANNEX I and ANNEX II.