Consultant - To Develop a Comprehensive and Integrated Women’s Economic Empowerment Strategy and a Comprehensive Programme Document (Open to Indian Nationals Only)

Background

UN Women is the UN organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.

UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality, and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes and services needed to ensure that the standards are effectively implemented and truly benefit women and girls worldwide. It works globally to make the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals a reality for women and girls and stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life, focusing on five priority areas:

• increasing women’s leadership and participation;
• ending violence against women;
• engaging women in all aspects of peace and security processes;
• enhancing women’s economic empowerment;
• and making gender equality central to national development planning and budgeting.

UN Women also coordinates and promotes the UN system’s work in advancing gender equality, and in all deliberations and agreements linked to the 2030 Agenda. The entity works to position gender equality as fundamental to the Sustainable Development Goals, and a more inclusive world.

Enhancing women’s economic empowerment:

Guided by the principles of substantive equality, non-discrimination and justice, UN Women conceives women’s economic empowerment as:

 ‘…increasing the ability of women to bring about change that drives valuable outcomes a result of their increased economic capabilities and agency i.e. their ability to function effectively in the economy; to participate in labour and product markets on equal terms, to shape the gender division of labour; to accumulate assets, and to shape the relationship between markets and the state and to influence the institutions and processes that determine growth and development’.  (UN Women 2012- Concept Not on Women’s Economic Empowerment)

This understanding seeks to fundamentally realise women’s rights to sustainable livelihoods, while acknowledging that women will be in a position to achieve their livelihood potential only when the barriers that hold them back- from discriminatory laws, gender based violence, limited voice in decision making to an unfair share of unpaid work, home and family care are addressed.

Within the overall context of UN Women’s Strategic Plan for India, the Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) unit works towards realization of women’s right to gender just sustainable livelihoods.  with a focus on women from the most marginalized and vulnerable communities.

This work is grounded in an approach based on human right principles and has helped to operationalize normative frameworks and global commitments into real changes in the lives of women using a two-pronged strategy – (a) Transforming Development Discourse and Practices – Mainstreaming gender in laws, policies and programmes for sustainable rural livelihoods and (b) Facilitating movement building to strengthen accountability for women’s livelihoods and an enabling ecosystem for it. Programmes have a special focus on women from rural settings, particularly those in marginalized and vulnerable situations, such as Dalits, tribals, marginal farmers, agriculture workers and more. Much of this has been possible through grassroots intervention supported by the UN Women’s Fund for Gender Equality (FGE).

Background of UN Women WEE unit’s programmes:

UN Women’s work in India has focused on various gender mainstreaming initiatives, at the national and state levels, to incorporate gender into the design, implementation and monitoring of all the flagship programmes on rural development. UN Women, through collective commitment from the government and civil society, has successfully demonstrated models on mainstreaming gender within institutions – both government and grassroots organizations such as State Rural Livelihoods Missions (SRLM) and women’s groups/federations in select states by supporting them in developing and implementing gender action plans. Over 9000 women members of Self Help Groups in two states (Bihar and Madhya Pradesh) and  over 30 grassroots government functionaries received livelihoods trainings with a focus on issues of rights, entitlements, voice and agency and over 60 district and state level government officials were sensitized on gender mainstreaming in rural livelihoods through review meetings and workshop under the UN Women supported project on strengthening gender responsive implementation and monitoring of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission. Subsequently, with advocacy and support from UN Women, the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) adopted this approach to livelihoods, strongly based on gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment. 

Through its programmes under Fund for Gender Equality, UN Women has  facilitated movement building and supported organization of over 120,000 women from the most marginalized communities including from scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and manual scavengers  across ten states  to understand and transform gender relations, raise their voice against violations, access their political and economic rights and entitlements under Central and State government policies and gain skills in non- traditional livelihoods domain. UN Women’s advocacy contributed to the passing of a Government Order for inclusion of liberated women manual scavengers under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in UP.

UN Women FGE supported a programme aimed at increasing Dalit women’s access to and participation in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the programme focused on building consciousness and addressing gender, caste and class stereotypes at village, state and national level. As a result, successful demonstration for Dalit women’s participation and leadership in MGNREGA in two states, accompanied by documentation and policy advocacy at local, state and national levels, led to mainstreaming of gender issues in MGNREGA. The project successfully demonstrated an increase in Dalit women’s participation in MGNREGA from 62 per cent to 97 per cent across 102 project villages in 2 states. Innovative strategies like women’s collectives, all women worksites and trained women supervisors impacted 30,000 women in terms of enhanced information, participation and leadership as well as financial inclusion (9000 women opened bank accounts).

Learnings from UN Women’s on-ground experience and on the invitation of the Ministry of Rural Development, UN Women launched an action research in seven states with the focus on districts where women’s participation was below the legally mandated 33 per cent in MGNREGA.

UN Women has played an important role in supporting the Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch (MAKAAM) – Forum for Women Farmers’ Rights, the first ever nationwide alliance of networks, campaigns, movements, organizations, people’s collectives and individuals advocating for the ‘Right to Sustainable Livelihoods’ of women farmers, particularly Dalits, Adivasis, single women, women with disabilities and displaced and migrant women. UN Women’s catalytic support to the forum has led to its expansion and outreach in 24 states of the country, within a span of 3 years. As a result, over 500 women farmers were trained on land laws and water use policies, climate change impacts, strategies for securing their rights, social security schemes, access to institutions like farmer cooperatives and use of innovative technology to increase the scope of farming. In 2017, significant milestones were achieved towards the adoption of gender-responsive policy recommendations in Union Ministries and state departments. High-level political commitments were secured from the Union Minister of Agriculture to adopt gender-responsive recommendations in policies and programmes on agriculture and farmer welfare, including (a) Collecting Sex Disaggregated Data on Land Ownership and Promoting Land Rights of Women Farmers (b) Addressing Barriers to Equal Rights and Entitlements of Women Farmers (c) Strengthening and Supporting Women Farmers Institutions and Agri-Enterprises. High level political commitments were also secured from the Department of Land Resources, MoRD, GoI on increasing women’s right to land, including public, private and cultivable land. At the Western Consultation held on 8-9 May 2017 in Pune, the Maharashtra State Commission for Women committed to strengthening the consultation process, by organising 2 state-level consultations with women farmers in Maharashtra. Further, a formal channel to draw in women’s voices to inform policy making was established with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) invitation to local women’s organisations (associated with MAKAAM) to review and provide technical expertise on its budget and activities from a gender perspective, including representation of women farmers’ organisations in their working group on water resource development and management. 

UN Women’s work also focuses on creating an enabling environment for women’s work, both paid and unpaid, to ensure the recognition, reduction and redistribution of women’s unpaid work. UN Women recognizes that women’s work, both within and outside of the household, is essential for sustainable livelihoods and development. However, this support provided, including collecting water and fuels, care of family and community member etc., is unrecognized and neglected in the economic analysis and policy development. In this context, UN Women engaged in an action research to (a) collect evidence and data on women’s paid and unpaid work, with sectoral focus on construction workers and agriculture workers; and (b) build capacities of grassroots women’s collectives to take up the recommendations from the research study for policy advocacy.  The research findings highlight the feminization of both numbers and time spent on unpaid and paid activities to fight gender-based division of labor and by inequalities. These findings and recommendations will be used to inform the policies and programmes on female labour force participation and macro level data collection on women and work.

UN Women’s work with the private sector focusses on adoption of the Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs), among others, that offers guidance to business and the private sector on how to empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community. Developed through a partnership between UN Women and the United Nations Global Compact, the Principles are designed to support companies in reviewing existing policies and practices — or establishing new ones — to realize women’s empowerment.

UN Women has launched a Programme on Second Chance Education for marginalised young girls and women who have missed out on education. The programme builds upon and expands UN Women’s ongoing work and aims to offer pathways either back into formal education or to employment or entrepreneurship.

UN Women's technical support to governments and movement building efforts have also included widening the base of stakeholder engagement across other UN agencies, international organizations, foundations and private sector to advance women’s rights within policy and programmes for sustainable livelihoods.

Expanding women’s economic empowerment is central to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Moreover, with the adoption of Agenda 2030, the importance of rural and marginalised women as key agents to achieving the transformational economic, environmental and social change needed for sustainable development was recognised. Here, the word “transformational” is important- it symbolises a global commitment to address the root causes of inequality, not just its symptoms. Goal 5 of the Agenda has special significance  for rural and marginalised women, through its emphasis on eliminating all forms of discrimination and violence against women, creating opportunities for effective participation and leadership at all levels of decision-making, undertaking reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access,  ownership,  and control of land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, and stepping up measures for women’s unpaid work to be recognised, reduced and redistributed. In short, for the first time, Agenda 2030 provides all national and sub-national governments, a platform to accelerate the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEEW), with a focus on the most marginalised.

UN Women in India plans to build on its existing work and results, particularly in the area of rural livelihoods and entrepreneurship, rights of women farmers and addressing women’s unpaid work, strengthening its unique triple mandate of Normative, Operational and Coordination agenda for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women. Under the changing context, UN Women will expand its work to address the emerging issues related to young people, education, skills and entrepreneurship  development, ICTs, affirmative procurement, climate change and disasters and new and renewable energy.

The objective of the assignment is to support the UN Women India office to create a binding narrative for UN Women’s ongoing work in WEE and establish strategic priorities for its women’s economic empowerment portfolio in response to the most urgent and important national priorities and goals, the 2030 Agenda, normative mandate and other corporate mandates. The strategy will be supported by a strong theory of change, potential partners and key stakeholders as well as donor intelligence.

Duties and Responsibilities

To achieve this objective, the assignment will entail the following:

• Undertake a situation analysis of the policies and interventions relevant for women’s economic empowerment 
• Familiarize herself/himself with key documents including but not limited to UN Women’ s Strategic Plan and India Strategic Note (2018-2021), reports of the High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment and project / programme reports
• Work closely and consult with key stakeholders as well as select thematic Units within UN Women, particularly the Gender Planning & Budgeting, Ending Violence Against Women and Women’s Political Participation and Leadership Units to understand the current approaches for informing an integrated women’s economic empowerment strategy and programme document on sustainable livelihoods.
• Undertake travel to select states, if need be.

The above will lead to following key deliverables:

• A draft comprehensive integrated women’s economic empowerment strategy document that includes
  •  A binding narrative (2-3 pages) that brings together UN Women’s three major interventions/programmes on rural livelihoods, second chance education and entrepreneurship as well as on women’s empowerment principles. The narrative should identify relevance, key/common strategies and key/common results that these programmes contribute to.
  • An integrated  WEE strategy along with context analysis, rationale and relevance including around aspirational districts , UN Women’s comparative advantage, theory of change, logical framework, risk assessment, sustainability and exit, potential partners and key stakeholders, donor intelligence (8-10 pages)

A A presentation of the draft strategy document at UN Women’s office.

• A final comprehensive integrated women’s economic empowerment strategy document with
  • A binding narrative (2-3 pages) that brings together UN Women’s three major interventions/programmes on rural livelihoods, second chance education and entrepreneurship as well as on women’s empowerment principles. The narrative should identify relevance, key/common strategies and key/common results that these programmes contribute to.
  • An integrated WEE strategy along with context analysis, rationale and relevance including around aspirational districts, UN Women’s comparative advantage, theory of change, logical framework, risk assessment, sustainability and exit, potential partners and key stakeholders, donor intelligence (8-10 pages).

Time Frame :

• Based on the literature review, prepare and submit an inception report including methodology and workplan : 3 days (30 October 2018);
• A draft comprehensive integrated women’s economic empowerment strategy  : 15 days (25 November 2018);
• Presentation  on the draft strategy  : 3 days (1 December 2018);
• A final comprehensive integrated women’s economic empowerment strategy document  :  4 days (10 December 2018).

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates commitment to UN Women’s mission, vision and values;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge Management and Learning:

• Shares knowledge and experience;
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills.

Development and Operational Effectiveness:

• Ability to perform a variety of specialized tasks related to design, planning and implementation of programme, managing data, reporting;
• Ability to provide input to and use new IT based systems.

Leadership and Self-Management:

• Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Remains calm, in control even under pressure;
• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities;
• Good understanding of gender and development in South Asia;
• Demonstrable ability to work in a team;
• Ability to work under pressure;
• Good writing and communication skills;
• Excellent computer literacy and skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Masters’ degree in Gender and Development Studies, or any Social Sciences.

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years of professional experience in developing and implementing programmes on women’s economic empowerment;
• Demonstrable understanding of gender, development and policy issues in the context of women’s economic empowerment;
• Demonstrated experience of working with high-level functionaries and policy makers;
• Relevant papers, articles and knowledge products published;
• Ability to work independently and with minimal supervision.

Language:

• Strong written skills in English and good command over Hindi as medium of communication.

Application:

Interested applicants should apply to this announcement through UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:

• All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs;
• Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment, please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment;
• Applications received after the close date will not be accepted;
• Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Evaluation and Selection Criteria

Criteria for shortlisting of CVs will be based on the following assessment:

• Required Degree and Qualification (5 points);
• Minimum Experience relevant to the assignment (5 points);
• Experience of working in gender related projects would be desirable (5 points);
• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.) required and advance knowledge of spread sheet and database packages desirable. (5 points).

The evaluation process for selection of the candidate will be based on the following assessment:

• Interview (70 points);
• Writing Samples (30 points).

Note:

 In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.