Consultant to Develop

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

Aligned with the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN Women’s Second Chance Education and Vocational Learning (SCE) Programme is a solution for those who have missed out on education. It aims to break current trends and provide a comprehensive solution for marginalized women and young women who are at risk of being left behind. This project aims to develop context specific, affordable and scalable learning, entrepreneurship and employment pathways for empowering the world’s most disadvantaged women and young women. It offers women and young women, their families, local communities and societies the benefits of access to educational services which are tailored not only to their needs as learners, but also to their future as earners. The Second Chance Education Programme achieves this by leveraging the opportunities of innovative teaching approaches, digital technologies and social networks.

The Programme will contribute to the following outcomes: i) More marginalized women and young women  access and benefit from high quality educational content, material and learning pathways; ii) More marginalized women and young women benefit from increased employment, livelihood and entrepreneurial opportunities; iii) Fewer marginalized women and young women are disadvantaged and denied education opportunities due to harmful and discriminatory social norms; iv) More marginalized women and young women have improved access to education and employment pathways through enhanced multi-sectoral policy and financing frameworks that enable scaling of successful Second Chance Education solutions.

The programme will be implemented in select aspirational districts of Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Delhi through civil society partners.

Duties and Responsibilities

UN Women will be partnering with civil society organizations to implement the programme activities in the areas of identifying/developing relevant educational content, vocational skills and entrepreneurship development for women.

The objective of the assignment is to support UN Women in developing the Terms of Reference to solicit proposals from the civil society organizations in educational content development, capacity building, vocational and entrepreneurship development initiatives.

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

• An understanding of the educational, vocational and entrepreneurship landscape for women in the programme states;
• Knowledge of various programmatic interventions undertaken by the civil society organizations in second chance education, vocational and entrepreneurship development programmes for women;
• Familiarize herself/himself with key documents including the SCE Programme Document.

Deliverables:

• A terms of reference document (in the prescribed UN Women format) to solicit proposals from civil society organizations for identifying/development of relevant educational content for women’s second chance education as well as capacity building of key stakeholders for one and/or more programme states.
• A terms of reference document (in the prescribed UN Women format) to solicit proposals from civil society organizations for women’s vocational skills initiatives for one and/or more programme states.
• A terms of reference document (in the prescribed UN format) to solicit proposals from civil society organizations for women’s entrepreneurship for one and/or more programme states.

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 5 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
• 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 (100 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.