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National Consultant to support the development of a Program Document on: Preparing Communities for IPARD: Rural Tourism, Rural Development & Women in Albania

Tirana

  • Organization: UNWOMEN - United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
  • Location: Tirana
  • Grade: Consultancy - International Consultant - Internationally recruited Contractors Agreement
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Library Science
    • Women's Empowerment and Gender Mainstreaming
    • Infrastructure and Urban-Rural development
  • Closing Date: Closed

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 center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality are translated into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts while building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. UN Women in Albania operates in four core areas, focused on women’s economic empowerment, promoting women in decision making and their active political participation, eliminating violence against women and supporting gender responsive national planning and budgeting.

The agricultural sector employs more than 54 per cent of all active women in Albania, 87 per cent of which work as contributing family workers, so a high share of women provides unpaid labor for the family farm.  Although the share of family farms owned by women is very small, most women are “hidden farm leaders”. There is a vertical and horizontal gender-based segregation in employment, in which women tend to be over-represented in lower positions (vertical) and in less productive economic areas (horizontal), and which is coupled with a persistent gender pay gap, women being paid less than men for the same job. Businesses led by women represent 28% of total and are located mostly (87%) in urban areas. Women entrepreneurs lead small firms (95% of the enterprises led by women have less than 5 workers), focused on lower value-added production, and highly informal sectors. Such informal work reduces the access of women from rural areas to social protection and pension schemes, and increases women’s risks of falling into poverty in older ages. Informality also increases job insecurity, social exclusion and economic dependence. Furthermore, there is a low access of women to state or donor financial support. Lack of networks and advocacy, and the existence of male dominance on information channels decrease women’s access to financial support or even subsidy schemes. 

IPA Rural Development funding (IPARD) from the EU to support rural communities is an incredible opportunity to improve rural businesses, not only the funding opportunity but also the LEADER  approach itself. In EU Accession countries experience has shown that rural communities find it difficult to effectively absorb available financial resources effectively or invest them well, this includes government grants as well as IPARD finances. Structural barriers and fragmented institutional structures in rural areas raise various challenges for women to benefit from pre-accession support instruments such as IPARD or national subsidy schemes. This means that access to support programmes and projects should be backed up by a series of measures and interventions which will increase the likelihood of positive impact on rural women. Additionally, since rural women do not represent a homogenous group in terms of their skills, knowledge, capacity and access to assets, they have different needs which require tailored responses to be comprehensively addressed. This calls for a more proactive approach to be applied by development projects and programmes.

UN Women, FAO and Ministry of Agriculture- MoARDWA  have identified the need to support rural women in collective actions (associations) and income diversification through entrepreneurship as crucial to their empowerment. This will entail providing models of change for rural communities, analyse data and stakeholders at the local level, explore potentials of groups that can later be transformed into local action groups (LAGs ) and identify local interest groups that are able to effectively utilise and invest funds available to support the rural economy and rural tourism. Therefor UNW Albania country office needs specialist engagement with communities to pilot research in at least three communities, identify related value chains in rural tourism, note-ably in specialist value chains such as in gourmet food for restaurants or specialist production, match them with women’s groups and municipal planning and supportive policy, and provide a detailed interventions plan in the shape of project document which aligns with UN Women FPI Climate Resilient Agriculture.

The objective of this assignment is to develop a programme document for UN Women Albania with the purpose to ensure women led businesses and communities are better prepared to be valuable contributors to local area tourist development plans and local action groups and effective use of available finances to invest in rural development and tourism, including IPARD financing.

Duties and Responsibilities

In close cooperation with Ministry of Agriculture Rural Development and Water Management, FAO in Albania and under the supervision of the UN Women National Program Coordinator on women economic empowerment the national consultant will support the international consultant hired under this assignment and will work in team to conduct the following:

  • Support desk top and literature review and analysis of data and policy on Rural development, IPARD and women;
  • Accompany the international consultant during field work or conduct some of the the field work himself/herself to identify 3 localities and explore in detail women farmer groups within, key stakeholders, municipal services, private sector, interest groups, 
  • Support in the identification of specific value chains and wide pool of potential beneficiaries within these pilot localities
  • Explore existing vertical networks throughout the different chains;
  • Support the Research and identify areas in each region that offer opportunities for complementarities between value chains (e.g., tourism and traditional food)
  • Conduct the Capacity assessment of various groups to access IPARD Funds, self-organize into LAGs and participate in local development strategies;
  • Conduct workshops/ focus groups and face to face interviews with key stakeholders including women’s groups and CSO, Ministry of Agriculture Rural Development Water Administration (MoARDWA), Local governance; Rural institutions, Rural women’s networks, clusters and businesses
  • Support the process of Interventions strategy for Preparing Communities for IPARD: Rural Tourism, Rural Development and Women
  • Support the Drafting of Project document in line with the FPI Climate Resilient Agriculture
  • Perform any additional elements related to the development of the programme document and as jointly agreed upon with supervisor and international consultant.

Deliverables:

  1. Assignment workplan
  2. A draft programme document reflecting inputs/feedback from UN Women key partners and HQ
  3. The finalized programme document (in accordance with the UN Women format) with all final inputs/feedback incorporated

Exact dates to be confirmed upon signing of contract

Competencies

Core Values:

  • Respect for Diversity
  • Integrity
  • Professionalism

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: http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf

Functional Competencies:

  • Possesses the ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines;
  • Possesses the ability to work independently;
  • Good knowledge of gender equality and women's rights issues; women’s economic empowerment;
  • Strong analytical skills;
  • Strong project writing and report writing skills;

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Post graduate degree in gender studies, rural economy, public policy, humanities or a similar field  relevant to the TORs

Experience:

  • At least 10 years of experience at national level;
  • Experience in formulating/writing program documents, research reports, etc.;
  • Experience in gender equality, rural economy, and women’s rights, particularly women’s economic empowerment.
  • knowledge of Europe and Central Asia would be considered an asset;

Language requirements:

Fluency in English (written and oral).

Application procedure:

The following documents should be submitted as part of the application:

  • P11 form 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 - Specifying a total lump sum amount for the tasks specified in this Terms of Reference. The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (daily rate and number of anticipated working days, any other possible costs);  Any travel related to this assignment will be covered separately.
  • An example of documents written by the candidate relevant to the requirements of this TOR.

Payment Schedule:

Consultant will be paid upon submission and the acceptance of all deliverables.

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.
This vacancy is now closed.
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