Team of three national consultants to support customizing and piloting a diagnostic tool on detecting stigma and discrimination against women with disability.Vacancy Number: Pr22/02411
Contacts: Ms. Viorica Culeac. 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. Placing women's rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates the United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. 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. UN Women presence in the Republic of Moldova has evolved from being a project-based office in 2007 to a Country Office with fully delegated authority as of 2015. The work of UN Women in 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. UN Women Strategy for Moldova 2018-2022 focuses on three main areas: 1) strengthening women’s participation in politics and decision making, 2) economic empowerment of women and 3) ending violence against women and girls. To achieve progress under these areas, UN Women works with a variety of national and international partners and as part of different national and regional initiatives. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) works in nearly 170 countries and territories, including the Republic of Moldova, helping to achieve the eradication of poverty, and the reduction of inequalities and exclusion by supporting countries to develop policies, leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities and build resilience to sustain development results. UNDP in Moldova is guided by its Country Programme Document, and the UN-Moldova Development Assistance for 2018-2022, which is in line with the priorities of the Government of Moldova. In a rapidly changing global environment, the work of UNDP and the broader UN family aligns with the new national development vision and sector strategies. UNDP Moldova’s country programme for 2018–2022 has three major focus areas (Inclusive growth, Effective governance, Climate change, environment and energy) and three cross-cutting areas (Gender equality, Crisis response, Development impact). UN Women, UNDP work closely with other UN agencies in Moldova, under the leadership of the UN Resident Coordinator, to support efforts by the Government, Parliament, civil society, media and communities to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. Relying and complying with key global norms and standards, such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the agencies seek to eliminate and prevent intersectional discrimination affecting women with disabilities. As part of the ongoing efforts to combat gender-based violence, to increase the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals and to advance the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Women have launched a global initiative to respond to the growing intersectional inequalities faced by women and girls with disabilities, entitled ”Addressing stigma and discrimination for empowering women and girls with disabilities and protecting them from violence” in four countries: Moldova, Palestine, Pakistan and Samoa. Considering the growing intersectional inequalities and barriers women and girls with disabilities face, the project aims at supporting rights holders and duty bearers to identify the drivers of inequality and impact of stigma and discrimination against women and girls with disabilities. This will be ensured by contextualizing and piloting in Moldova a global diagnostic tool to inform evidence-based decision making, as well as designing and piloting of behavioural insights-informed interventions seeking to changing behaviours rooted in stigma and discrimination against women and girls with disabilities. This project is implemented with the support of the UN Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNPRPD) through UNDP’s Global Programme on Strengthening the Rule of Law and Human Rights for Sustaining Peace and Fostering Development and UN-Women’s Global Portfolio on Disability Inclusion and Intersectionality. The project is based on a victim-cantered and evidence-based approach, that fully takes into account the voices and experiences of women and girls with disabilities victims and survivors of stigma, violence and discrimination. The project’s strategy will ensure a participatory approach, by effectively engaging stakeholders in the planning, designing, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the project. A critical component in the programme is developing tools to detect and assess stigma and discrimination against women with disabilities. Rationale Persons with disabilities (PWDs) in general experience stigma and discrimination driven by various attitudinal, environmental and institutional barriers, prejudice and stereotypes, that are amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Persons with disabilities face discrimination and other barriers in accessing livelihood and income support, participating in online forms of education, and seeking protection from violence. Women and girls with disabilities experience double discrimination, which places them at higher risk of gender-based violence, sexual abuse, neglect, maltreatment and exploitation. Women and girls with disabilities are far more likely to be victims of violence, and particularly of domestic and sexual exploitation, and estimates show that women with disabilities are 1.5 to 10 times more likely to be abused than non-disabled women.[1] Tools to identify and quantify stigma and discrimination, its causes, manifestations and impacts, are critical to ensure targeted and evidence-based approaches to addressing stigma and discrimination. Such tools have been well developed and standardized by the UN in other sectors such as HIV/AIDS. In relation to persons with disabilities, there is scope for consolidating the lessons learned from these and for developing global tools which can be used by Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) and others to advocate for more effective policies and interventions to address stigma and discrimination. PWDs in Moldova[2] face multiple challenges in exercising their rights and experience difficulties in accessing essential services. Disability is largely perceived in Moldova as a health condition. Thus, the current system for disability assessment and referral does not contribute to the empowerment of PWDs to advance the enjoyment of rights, access to services and prevention of all forms of discrimination. The perceptions and stereotypes regarding disability vary greatly depending on whether a person interacts with people with disabilities in everyday life. PWDs are accepted by the community as ‘a neighbor’ (persons with mental or intellectual disabilities) or as ‘a friend’ (person with a physical disability). The social distance index (0 to 6, the lower, the better), measured based on the Bogardus social distance scale, places the people with mental and intellectual disabilities (2.6) above the average social distance (2.4), while people with physical disabilities (1.7) are below the average. At the same time, 16% of respondents-people with disabilities associate the disability with ‘discrimination’.[3] As per the Equality Council practice, gender and disability accounts for circa 39% of discrimination complaints solved in 2019. 54% of disability related discrimination cases refers to the access to public goods and services.[4] In the Republic of Moldova as in other countries, key drivers of stigma and discrimination against persons with disabilities (PWD) include environmental and attitudinal barriers. Stigma and discriminatory practices have a substantial impact on the lives of PWD – whose number has tended to increase overtime, as they are faced with important difficulties in accessing services – including education – and employment. This is only compounded by environmental obstacles brought about by the protracted humanitarian and occupation context, which tend to disproportionately affect women. According to the data of sociological study conducted by CSOs on the impact of the pandemic on the rights of persons with disabilities, more than 50% of households with persons with disabilities were economically and socially affected. Reductions of already low incomes and higher spending caused by the pandemic, led to greater impoverishment of persons with disabilities, especially women with disabilities, due to the pre-existing gender inequalities. In this context, UN Women and UNDP intend to engage a team of three national consultants (one consultant with expertise in gender equality, one in the field of disability, and one in sociological studies) to support the customization and piloting phase of the tool. At the country level in Moldova, the joint initiative will be closely implemented with the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and CSOs invested on this front.
Scope of work
Scope of work The main objective of this consultancy is to provide technical and expertise support to country programme team in customizing, piloting a diagnostic tool which will be developed at global level, on detecting stigma and discrimination against women with disability, and conducting capacity building for duty bearers and right holders on the tool. The activity of the group of three national consultants will consist of providing technical assistance, guidance, facilitation, coordination and regular exchange of knowledge and expertise with the relevant national authorities, country programme team and international consultants.
Requirements for experience
REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE Specific requirements for the team leader: Education:
Work experience:
Language Requirements:
Specific requirements for the consultant with expertise in the field of disability: Education:
Experience:
Language Requirements:
Specific requirements for the consultant with expertise in the field of in sociological research: Education:
Experience:
Language skills:
Documents to be included
Documents to be includedInterested candidates are invited to submit their online applications with the following documents:
Financial proposal
Financial proposalFinancial 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. UPDATE as of 25 March 2022: Revised Terms of Reference were published hereby | |||||||||||||||||||||
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