Senior Economist Advisor

Background

UN Women Regional Office for the Arab States (ROAS) adopted its strategic plan for 2022-2025 in March 2022. In the strategic plan, it is highlighted that one of the key priorities to achieve gender equality in the Arab States is the speedy acceleration of women’s employment throughout the region, which has hovered around 21% since the 1990s, UN Women is embarking on a large-scale multi-country program to surge women’s employment in 7 countries (3 in North Africa, 2 in the Levante and 2 in the Gulf).

The initial phase of this work was concluded in May 2022. It was dedicated to the analysis of the factors behind the stagnated levels of women’s employment in the Arab States, with a focus on not only challenges but, more specifically, on distinct opportunities that could accelerate women’s employment in the region. The analysis established the need for a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing together efforts to shift social norms, reduce the burden of care work, improve laws and policies, and strategically use social and mass media to bring about these changes. The strategy has a strong emphasis on the role of the private sector, focusing on three sectors, with distinct business cases in each.  Lastly, the approach seeks to guarantee sustainable finance to deliver on this agenda through a shift to gender-responsive budgeting and blended finance.

The regional programme will be implemented across several countries, with Jordan being one of them. The UN Women Country Office for Jordan engages national stakeholders to contextualise the programme to national priorities and local context. This will be done through national consultations and analytical work on relevant themes and economic sectors. To support this process, UN Women Jordan CO is In line with this is looking to engage the services of a National Consultant on Women’s Economic Empowerment to support:

• Revise the pre-progamme analysis documents, identify gaps if existed, advise and support in closing them through the evidence he/she will produce based on analysis he/she will conduct using national data, which will be used in the programme design and the establishment of its business case.
• Develop an economic model/ models and generate results to establish the business case of the selected economic sectors and sub-sectors as amplifiers to surge women’s employment in Jordan.
• Support UN Women JCO in the development of an employment programme for women in Jordan with technical advice based on all the collected data and generated evidence. 

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant will work under the overall guidance of the UN Women Jordan Deputy Country Representative. The role will complement some activities at the UN Women ROAS as it is part of a regional initiative.

• Revise the pre-progamme analysis documents, identify gaps if existed, advise and support in closing them through the evidence he/she will produce, which will be used in the programme design and establishment of its business case
• Develop an economic model/ models that would generate results about:

• Number of direct/indirect jobs that can be created due to the investment in job creation in the identified sectors based on additional information shared with the consultant.
• Number of jobs created per type of employment, full time, part time, traineeship, …based on the available and newly created jobs in the identified economic sectors based on additional information shared with the consultant.
• Conduct an evidence-based estimation of the cost of creating one job disaggregated by the type of employment in the identified economic sectors.
• Compare results between different subsectors under the same identified economic sectors to determine which are the most cost effective for job creation

• Support UN Women JCO in the development of an employment programme for women in Jordan based on all the collected data.

• Provide technical advice to JCO about the women’s employment programme during its different stages.
• Lead technical discussions with economists on the programmes approach to enhance women’s employment and its projections.

• Establish the business case of the selected economic sectors as amplifiers to surge women’s employment and of the programme based on all analysis done before and by the selected consultant.
• The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the development and delivery of the employment strategy.

Deliverables

Competencies

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:

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES:

• Strong knowledge of economics, economic analyses and modeling.
• Strong data analysis tool and reports writing
• Strong analytical skills.
• Strong communication skills
• Ability to identify and analyze trends, key stakeholders, opportunities, and threats to fundraising.
• Strong knowledge of the region.

Ability to write policy papers, speeches, and briefings.

Required Skills and Experience