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Consultant: Rights and Inclusive Development of LGBTI People, Gender Equality, HIV, Health and Development

New York City

  • Organization: UNDP - United Nations Development Programme
  • Location: New York City
  • Grade: Consultancy - International Consultant - Internationally recruited Contractors Agreement
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Public Health and Health Service
    • HIV and AIDS
    • Women's Empowerment and Gender Mainstreaming
    • HIV, Health and Development
  • Closing Date: Closed

Background

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN’s global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life, as envisaged by 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We are on the ground in more than 170 countries and territories, working with governments and people on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. As they develop local capacity, they draw on the people of UNDP and our wide range of partners that can bring about results.

The Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan and help countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.  BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, South-South and Triangular cooperation initiatives, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas.

BPPS supports UNDP’s 2014-2017 Strategic Plan, focusing on 7 outcomes including strengthening institutions to progressively deliver universal access to basic services (outcome 3). The HIV, Health and Development Group (HHD), within BPPS, is helping to contribute towards this outcome.

UNDP is a founding cosponsor of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). As such, under the UNAIDS division of labor, UNDP convenes work on removing law and policy barriers that prevent people living with HIV, or people most at risk of HIV from accessing quality prevention, treatment, care and support. UNDP, together with UNFPA, also co-convenes the work on enabling men who have sex with men, sex workers and transgender people to access quality HIV services and on addressing gender based violence in the context of HIV.

UNDP is also a partner of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, and a co-sponsor of several other international health partnerships. UNDP’s work on HIV, health and development, as described in the HIV, Health and Development Strategy 2016-2021: Connecting the Dots, leverages UNDP’s core strengths and mandates in human development, governance and capacity development to complement the efforts of specialist health-focused UN agencies. UNDP delivers three types of support to countries in HIV, health and development.

First, UNDP helps countries to mainstream attention to HIV and health into action on gender, poverty and the broader effort to achieve and sustain the Sustainable Development Goals.  For example, UNDP works with countries to understand the social and economic factors that play a crucial role in driving health and disease, and to respond to such dynamics with appropriate policies and programmes outside the health sector. UNDP also promotes specific action on the needs and rights of women and girls as they relate to HIV.

Second, UNDP works with partners to address the interactions between governance, human rights and health responses. Sometimes this is done through focused or specialized programmes, such as promoting attention to the role of the law and legal environments in facilitating stronger HIV responses, including the use of flexibilities in intellectual property law to lower the cost of drugs and diagnostics. UNDP also works to empower and include marginalized populations who are disproportionately affected by HIV, such as sex workers, men who have sex with men and people living with HIV. Beyond these focused efforts, UNDP plays a key role in ensuring attention to HIV and health within broader governance and rights initiatives, including support to municipal action on SDGs, sustainable responses for Health and HIV such as improving sustainability of AIDS financing, sustainable health procurement, strengthening of national human rights institutions and increasing access to justice for key populations.

Third, as a trusted, long-term partner with extensive operational experience, UNDP supports countries in effective implementation of complex, multilateral and multisectoral health projects, while simultaneously investing in capacity development so that national and local partners can assume these responsibilities over time. The UNDP/Global Fund partnership is an important part of this work, facilitating access to resources for action on SDG 3 by countries that face constraints in directly receiving and managing such funding.  UNDP partners with countries in crisis/post-crisis situations, those with weak institutional capacity or governance challenges, and countries under sanctions. When requested, UNDP acts as temporary Principal Recipient in these settings, working with national partners and the Global Fund to improve management, implementation and oversight of Global Fund grants, while simultaneously developing national capacity to be able to assume the Principal Recipient role over time.

Connecting the Dots: Strategy Note, HIV, Health and Development 2016-2021: “Promoting gender equality and empowering women and girls”

Gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment are key drivers of sustainable development and central to UNDP’s mission of eradicating poverty and reducing inequalities and exclusion. Gender inequality is one of the most powerful and pervasive factors influencing health, and overlapping forms of inequality (gender, income, disability, ethnicity) affect women’s health.25, 26 As a part of the Every Woman, Every Child initiative, UNDP has committed to improving HIV, health and development outcomes for women and girls by supporting multisectoral action to address and prevent gender-based violence, strengthen enabling legal and policy environments and promote equal access to sexual reproductive health and rights for women and girls in at least 80 low- and middle -income countries by 2020.

Gender inequality has direct implications for women’s and girls’ risks of acquiring HIV 27 and significantly impacts their ability to cope with the disease. Strategies to address negative male and female gender norms, eliminate sexual and gender-based violence, promote women’s economic and legal empowerment, increase access to sexual and reproductive health services and HIV prevention and treatment for women and adolescent girls are essential to ending the HIV epidemic. Addressing sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls is a particularly high priority within UNDP’s HIV and health work, as it is associated with serious physical and mental health outcomes for women and their children. Recent figures indicate that 35% of women worldwide have experienced either intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.28 Sexual violence is particularly prevalent in complex emergencies and humanitarian disasters where systems for physical, social and legal protection of women and girls have been disrupted. Therefore, strategies aimed at both preventing gender-based violence and improving access to justice are critical.

UNDP’s work advancing the rights and Inclusion of LGBTI People

UNDP supports work to ensure the inclusion of LGBTI people in the development agenda. UNDP is one of the twelve UN agencies and programmes to sign the Joint Statement on Ending Discrimination of Violence against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex (LGBTI) People. In implementation of the pledge of UN Member States to leave no one behind, as expressed in the Agenda for Sustainable Development (Agenda 2030) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), together with governments, LGBTI communities, the civil society sector and sister multilateral agencies, UNDP works to ensure the inclusion of LGBTI people in development.

Promoting the inclusion of marginalized groups happens through a series of actions and programmes that reflect the principles of inclusion, and are targeted towards meeting that goal. Social inclusion is thus both a process as well as an outcome. As such, analytical work and extensive research that measure key aspects of both access to opportunities and achievement of outcomes for LGBTI people are needed, along with the development of indicators and measure the extent to which LGBTI people are being included.

The existence of quantitative & qualitative data is critical to informing development policies, programmes and budget priorities to drive inclusion, including of LGBTI people. Multilateral development agencies can support national stakeholders with technical assistance and capacity building required to gather, analyse and apply data to policy and budgetary decision-making. However, to date, the global data collection efforts that exist to inform drive human development, do not yet include the systematic collection of data on LGBTI inclusion. Specific data on LGBTI populations are sparse and where they do exist, they are rarely collected systematically and are not always comparable or aggregable. Ultimately, this makes it hard to track trends and develop analysis about how to advance the inclusion of LGBTI people that can be applied to legal, policy, and programmatic reforms.

In response, since 2015, UNDP has been undertaking consultations to inform the development of a global LGBTI Inclusion Index  

In 2015, a multi-sectoral expert meeting, brought together multilaterals, UN representatives, civil society representatives, including LGBTI organizations, academics, data collection experts, and some key private sector leaders in data collection and analysis, to define and conceptualize measuring LGBTI inclusion. Together, the experts developed a working definition of LGBTI inclusion, and identified priority development dimensions that should be the starting point for addressing data gaps that stand in the way of measuring LGBTI inclusion that could be captured in an LGBTI Inclusion Index.

Following this multi-sectoral expert meeting, two leading global LGBTI organizations with UN ECOSOC consultative status facilitated additional consultations with LGBTI organizations from around the world to validate the working definition of, and the dimensions prioritized to measure LGBTI inclusion. This process resulted in consensus on five priority dimensions, for which addressing the data gaps are essential:

  1. Economic Well-being;
  2. Political and Civic Participation (broadly defined to also include anti-discrimination frameworks and legal recognition);
  3. Personal Safety and Non-Violence;
  4. Health; and
  5. Education.

Based on these consultations, UNDP has further developed the concept of the proposed LGBTI Inclusion Index, to include two primary components: the collection/mining and analysis of existing data, and the generation of new research and data on LGBTI inclusion. Both components strive to increase the evidence base related to LGBTI inclusion and thus inform development policy, programmes, and advocacy.

As follow-up to the multi-sectoral expert meeting and civil society validation, UNDP and the World Bank are collaborating on consultations aimed at developing a core set of measurable indicators for all five priority areas of LGBTI Inclusion and the methodologies that could be applied to gather the necessary data in a range of contexts.

Objective of the assignment: UNDP seeks a consultant to support the efforts of the HIV, Health and Development Group in developing and finalizing the LGBTI Inclusion Index, as well as in supporting the team’s work on gender by reviewing documents, developing policy documents and knowledge products and performing other related tasks, as assigned by the Supervisor.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall supervision of the Team Leader on Rights, Laws, and Access to Medicines, under the immediate supervision of the Policy Specialist for Key Populations, LGBTI and Rights within the HIV, Health and Development Practice of the UNDP Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS), the Consultant will be responsible for:

Specific Deliverables and Activities: 

  • Complete technical inputs on the core set of indicators for the five dimensions of the Index (40 days);
  • Develop a process for identifying the most appropriate data collection methodologies for the proposed set of core indicators and provide inputs to the country level piloting of data collection methodologies in (40 days);
  • Develop a proposal for next steps required to operationalize the LGBTI Inclusion Index (10 days);
  • Prepare and make presentations on the LGBTI inclusion Index for different stakeholder groups (government, civil society, private sector, UN) (10 days);
  • Provide inputs to the webinar on intersex issues for UN agencies (5 days);
  • Provide inputs to regional and country level LGBTI programming (5 days);
  • Complete technical inputs to interagency work on gender and HIV (20 days); and
  • Technical inputs to the gender issues paper and follow up to the Global Commission on HIV and the Law (20 days).

Expected Outputs:

  • LGBTI Inclusion Index Indicators finalized and endorsed by relevant stakeholders (December 2017 2018);
  • A report on methodologies for data collection of the LGBTI Inclusion Index finalizing (February 2018);
  • At least two webinars on advancing the rights and inclusive development of intersex people carried out for UN agencies (June 2018);
  • Country level and regional LGBTI programming supported, as evidenced by reports and correspondence (December 2018); and
  • Gender issues paper as follow up of the recommendations of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law finalizing (August 2018).

Reporting:

The Consultant is expected to submit weekly progress report to the immediate Supervisor and a monthly progress report to the Team Leader on Rights, Law and Access to Medicines.

Travel:

There is no anticipated travel for this assignment. In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP HHD Team and the Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be covered and paid by UNDP. The fare will always be “most direct, most economical” and any difference in price with the preferred route will be paid for by the expert. UNDP will not cover any costs associated with moving to the duty station. If applicant is requesting for such coverage the cost to be calculated and included in the financial proposal.

Evaluation:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on a cumulative analysis taking into consideration the combination of the applicants’ qualifications, as evidenced by the P11 form (see below) and a financial proposal of a daily rate, in US$, which includes all consultant’s costs except missions. 

The award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

  1. Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
  2. Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

Only the highest ranked candidates who would be found qualified for the job will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Technical Evaluation Criteria (maximum 70 points):  

  • Relevant education: law, human rights, queer/LGBTI studies, gender/women’s studies, international relations, international development, data analysis, economics, other relevant fields (10 points)
  • Relevant experience: LGBTI, gender (20 points)
  • Relevant experience: research and/or data collection and analysis on inequalities, including on LGBTI people (15 points)
  • Competence based interview: work with multilaterals and multi-stakeholder processes, communication skills, (25 points)

Financial Evaluation Criteria (maximum 30 points):

p = y (µ/z), where

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluatedy = maximum number of points for the financial proposalµ = price of the lowest priced proposalz = price of the proposal being evaluated

Payment Method: All-inclusive daily fee:  

  • The consultant will be paid as a daily rate (based on the number of days worked).
  • Payments will be based on the Certificate of Payments that will be submitted on a monthly basis;
  • Time Sheet will be attached and verified by the direct supervisor; and
  • Final tranche upon performance evaluation from the direct supervisor.

Competencies

Organizational Competencies:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
  • Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
  • Commitment to the principles set forth in the Agenda 2030, the relevant development and Human Rights principles, norms and standards on the human rights and inclusion of LGBTI people; and
  • Commitment to the UNDP and HIV Health and Development Group’s Strategic Plans.

Functional Competencies:

  • Strong analytical and communication skills, including ability to produce high quality practical advisory reports and knowledge products.

Project and Resource Management:

  • Ability to produce high quality outputs in a timely manner while understanding and anticipating the evolving client needs;
  • Ability to focus on impact and results for the client, promoting and demonstrating an ethic of client service;
  • Strong organizational skills;
  • Ability to work independently, produce high quality outputs; and
  • Sound judgment, strategic thinking and the ability to manage competing priorities.

Partnership building and team work:

  • Strong ability to manage teams; creating an enabling environment, mentoring and developing colleagues; and
  • Provides constructive coaching and feedback.

Communications and Advocacy:

  • Strong ability to write clearly and convincingly, adapting style and content to different audiences and speak clearly and convincingly;
  • Strong presentation skills in meetings with the ability to adapt for different audiences;
  • Strong analytical, research and writing skills with demonstrated ability to think strategically; and
  • Strong capacity to communicate clearly and quickly.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Masters’ degree in law, human rights, international relations, international development, queer/LGBTI, gender/women’s studies, data analysis, economics, or another relevant field.

Experience:

  • At least 7 years of experience in the area of human rights and inclusive development of marginalized groups, including LGBTI people, gender equality and women’s empowerment;
  • At least two years of experience in the development of indicators and data collection and analyses, as indicated by the P11, including relevant publications;
  • At least three years of relevant experience in project management and reporting;
  • At least two years of experience working with UN agencies or programmes, or other multilaterals;
  • At least 2 years working with civil society organizations; and
  • Strong communication skills, as demonstrated by the competence-based interview.

Language skills:

  • Excellent written and spoken English.
  • Knowledge of Spanish and other UN languages is an advantage.

Guidelines for Applications:

Interested applicants are advised to carefully review this advertisement and ensure that they meet the requirements and qualifications described. Qualified candidates are requested to apply online via this website. The application should contain:

Please note that our system only takes one attachment. Therefore, kindly scan all your documents into a single PDF file to upload.

*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. rent of dwelling, fee, health insurance, vaccination, visa costs and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services...). All envisaged costs (except of the unforeseen travel costs for missions, if any) must be included in the financial proposal. Unforeseen travel costs for missions, if any, will be paid separately according to UNDP rules and regulations. All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. Per diems cannot exceed UN DSA rates (http://icsc.un.org/rootindex.asp).

Security: Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director. Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under https://trip.dss.un.org

Incomplete applications will not be considered. Please make sure you have provided all requested materials.

Due to large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.

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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.
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