Vetted Experts Roster – Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) (UN Women Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (ECA RO)

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, the UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action globally. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. The UN Women Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (ECA RO) was established in Istanbul, Turkey, at the beginning of 2014 as a part of the UN Women’s new regional architecture. The UN Women ECA RO leads and supports the field offices in presenting and positioning themselves as thought and action leaders on gender equality and women’s empowerment. UN Women's work on financing for gender equality supports the implementation of government and donor policy commitments to gender equality and women’s rights. Our work aims to strengthen policy, planning and budgeting processes at national and local levels for improved government accountability, transparency and service delivery. The full and equal participation of women and civil society is central to achieve these objectives.ObjectiveConsultants play an important role in contributing to implementation of activities of the UN Women and they form significant part of capacities of the organization. In order to increase effectiveness of contracting process and enable instant contracting in emergency and urgent situations, ECA RO launched a competitive process to create a pool of qualified consultants and experts in following areas: 

• Gender-Responsive Macroeconomic Policies and Policy Simulation;
• Gender-Responsive Fiscal Policy and Public Finance;
• Gender and Taxation;
• Gender-Responsive Public Services;
• National Development Plans;
• Gender Responsive and Social Protection Policies;
• Care Economy;
• Time-Use Studies and Unpaid Care Work;
• Poverty and Gender;
• Cost of Gender Based Violence;
• Gender Equality Indicators;
• Gender Statistics and Economic Data;
• Gender Analyses;
• Trainer on GRB;
• GRB in University Curricula;
• Gender budget analyses;
• Gender responsive planning at national and local level;
• Budget literacy and monitoring;
• Policy advocacy.

Duties and Responsibilities

Roster members selected for the consultancy assignment will work with ECA RO and COs in the region in the following areas:

• Provide strategic and operational advice to governments, private sector and/or civil society organizations on the formulation and execution of policies;
• Mentor levels of application of gender responsive budgeting of public institutions
• Design and delivery of capacity building training on budget literacy and monitoring and other various trainings; 
• Consult methods to integrate gender perspective in the process of budget preparation and in drafting gender sensitive budget instructions for provincial bodies;
• Develop of mechanisms to assess and monitor the levels of application of gender responsive budgeting within national and provincial budget users 
• Develop recommendations for changes into existing policy and legislative framework to address gender aspects; 
• Write a report on the assignment with recommendations;
• Support to improving legislative framework, processes and procedures;
• Share knowledge, experience, good practices and lessons learned;
• Developing toolkits, guidelines, publications;
• Support to awareness raising;
• Collect and analyze relevant documentation;
• Provide technical inputs to knowledge products and reports;
• Carry out a research and prepare a comprehensive needs assessment report; 
• Carry out policy advocacy on gender responsive policy making;
• Extend expert support on GRB to central and local governments.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of UN Women;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats people fairly and without favoritism.

Functional Competencies:

• Strong interpersonal, teamwork and communication skills;
• Ability to work independently and proactively solve problem;
• Capacity to plan, priorities and deliver tasks on times;
• Capacity to engage with national and international staffs, to provide clear feedback and maintain effective rapport with different kinds of people;
• Actively works towards continuing learning and share with other to support local capacity development;
• Ability to research, analyze and present complex information.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Bachelor Degree in Gender Studies, Social Science, International Relations, Development Studies, International Law, Political Science, Economics, or related field. 
• Master Degree in these areas is considered an asset. 

Experience:

• At least 5 years’ experience in development work with specific emphasis on gender equality and women’s empowerment focusing on gender budgeting methods;
• Experience in this or a related field in Europe and Central Asia would be considered an asset;
• Previous professional experience with the United Nations or similar organisations in this or a related field would be considered an asset;
• Experience in conducting capacity building and substantive gender policy analysis or gender budget analysis in the context of gender budgeting;
• Experience with public administration and socio-economic development in the ECIS region would be an advantage;
• Experience developing analysis and report documents on gender-related issues would be considered an asset;
• Experience in conducting trainings is an asset;
• Experience in working with public officials at central and local level is an asset;
• Experience in working with civil society and academia is an asset.

Language:

• Fluency in English is required;
• Knowledge of the other language of the region is an asset.

Contracting arrangements:Successful candidates will be included in the Vetted Roster of Experts for the maximum period of 3 years. Membership beyond the 3-year period must be renewed through a new application process.  Entry into the expert roster system does not necessarily mean that contract with UN Women is guaranteed. Where a request for services arises, the UN Women shall directly contact consultants with the most appropriate experience from the roster. A specific Terms of Reference outlining outputs for each assignment shall be provided and a Special Service Agreement (SSA) will be issued. Conditions of a particular assignment may be negotiable.Application procedure:The following documents should be submitted as part of the application:

• P11 with past experience in similar assignments; can be downloaded at http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment, a signed copy should be submitted.
• Financial Proposal* – maximum all-inclusive daily fee in USD. 
• Examples of previous work related to Gender Responsive Budgeting area.

*Please note that the financial proposal is all-inclusive and shall take into account various expenses incurred by the consultant/contractor during the contract period (e.g. fee, health insurance, and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services). Financial proposal provided by the consultant is bound to the validity period (max. 3 years), unless the consultant applies to the roster during its re-opening. Consultants will be requested to provide a price offer for every assignment, amount can be reduced to make the offer more competitive, but it cannot exceed maximum daily fee approved for the roster.Evaluation of applicants:Consultants will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of qualifications and financial proposal. Membership will be awarded to the individual consultants whose offers have been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable, and 
• Having received the sufficient score out of below defined technical and financial criteria. 

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation can be recommended for the membership.

Evaluation Criteria Technical evaluation (70%) - max. points: 70:

• Master Degree in Gender Studies, Social Science, International Relations, Political Science or related field - max. points: 10;
• At least 5 years’ experience in development work with specific emphasis on gender equality and women’s empowerment focusing on gender budgeting methods - max. points: 15;
• Experience in this or a related field in Europe and Central Asia would be considered an asset - max. points: 10;
• Previous professional experience with the United Nations or similar organizations in this or a related field would be considered an asset - max. points: 5;
• Experience in conducting capacity building and substantive gender policy analysis or gender budget analysis in the context of gender budgeting - max. points: 5;
• Experience with public administration and socio-economic development in the ECIS region would be an advantage - max. points: 5;
• Experience developing analysis and report documents on gender-related issues would be considered an asset - max. points: 5;
• Experience in conducting trainings is an asset - max. points: 5;
• Experience in working with public officials at central and local level; Experience in working with civil society and academia is an asset - max. points: 5;
• Fluency in English; Knowledge of the other language of the region - max. points: 5;

Financial Evaluation (30%) – max. 30 points:The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal. All other price proposals receive points in inverse proportion. A suggested formula is as follows: p = 30 (µ/z)Using the following values:p = points for the financial proposal being evaluatedµ = price of the lowest priced proposalz = price of the proposal being evaluatedDuration and Remuneration Membership in the roster is valid for a maximum period of 3 years. Duration of contracts can vary from one day (1) to a maximum of three (3) years. Payments will be made as specified in the actual contract upon confirmation of UN Women on delivering on the contract obligations in a satisfactory manner.Consultant’s profileProfiles of consultants who are included in the roster will be published on internal UN Women roster pages and they will be accessible for UN Women ECA RO and COs.