Gender Specialist Consultant for UNDP/GEF Energy Projects in Tuvalu and Vanuatu

Background

The GEF Council has approved the project documents for the full-sized projects in Tuvalu and Vanuatu titled Facilitation of the Achievement of Sustainable National Energy Targets of Tuvalu (FASNETT) (PIMS#5613) and Barrier Removal for Achieving the National Energy Road Map Targets of Vanuatu (BRANTV) (PIMS#5926). The projects are implemented through the Energy Department - Ministry of Public Utilities and Infrastructure (ED/MPUI) for Tuvalu; and the Department of Energy, Ministry of Climate Change & Natural Disaster (DOE-MCCND) for Vanuatu. UNDP is completing the detailed project preparation phase for BRANTV and starting the implementation of FASNETT. 

Facilitation of the Achievement of Sustainable National Energy Targets of Tuvalu (FASNETT)

FASNETT is aimed at facilitating the development and utilization of feasible renewable energy resources and application of energy efficiency technologies for achieving the Government of Tuvalu’s updated target of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from the electricity generation (power) sector by 100% by 2025 based on the country’s INDC in November 2015. The facilitation or enabling objective is meant to address, i.e., eliminate the identified barriers to the cost-effective application of RE technologies using the country’s indigenous RE resources, as well in the effective and extensive application of EE measures and techniques that are also in line with low carbon development and involved in the sustainable development in the country through a barrier removal approach. This will be achieved through the implementation of four project components: (1) Awareness Raising on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Applications; (2) Energy Policy Improvement and Institutional Capacity Building; (3) Applications of Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Technologies & Techniques and (4) Financing of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Initiatives. The project is financially supported through the GEF (USD 2,639,725) and co-financed by the UNDP (USD 250,000), the Government of Tuvalu (USD 8,250,000) and Tuvalu Electricity Corporation (USD 7,400,000).

In the design work, the Project Development Team (PDT) has referred to available gender analysis at the national level gender studies and assessments, e.g. Stock take of the Gender Mainstreaming Capacity of Pacific Island Governments – Tuvalu (SPC 2013) and the Tuvalu National Gender Policy (2014-2016). On this basis, the Logical Framework of the project included gender indicators at the project objective level, e.g. No. of women actively involved in the planning and implementation of energy services provision in the outer islands, to make sure that the project attends to relevant gender issues at least at the Outcome level. The indicator/target can be explained during the Inception phase when stakeholders meet and plan the details since the gender planning requirement needs to be taken alongside other overarching national objectives contained in the National Gender Policy and Action Plan as mentioned above.

In the project, there are opportunities for the involvement of women working in both management and technical departments of the Tuvaluan Government agencies/institutions who can play important roles in the design, development and implementation of the proposed UNDP-GEF project. Potential opportunities to further assess and enhance the role of women in deployment of low carbon technologies and mitigation options and come up with gender-sensitive policies in the energy sector and the energy end-use sectors of the country will be done, recognizing the possible contributions of women in the management and implementation of climate change mitigation measures. Furthermore, the design and preparation of this project considered to the best possible extent the contributions, impacts and benefits of community-based EE and RE technology applications, including children and indigenous people. This is described in detail in Annex M of the FASNETT project document.

Barrier Removal for Achieving the National Energy Road Map Targets of Vanuatu (BRANTV)

BRANTV has the objective of enabling the achievement of the energy access, sustainable energy, and green growth targets of Vanuatu, as represented in the country’s National Energy Road Map (NERM). Without incremental support, Vanuatu is unlikely to meet its NERMs’ 2020 and 2030 targets. As of 2017, about 71% of the nation’s over 270,000 people lacked access to grid electricity. Over 80% of the population cooks over open hearth fire. Of the off-grid population, over half have no other access to power aside from a solar lantern. While donor efforts to improve energy access in rural areas via renewable energy (RE) have been substantial and some more limited efforts to promote energy efficient (EE) cook stoves have been initiated, results have far underperformed targets. Particularly, it is widely agreed that sustainability of off-grid RE power systems is poor. Even when systems are installed for free, lack of funds for repairs and lack of local access to parts and services repeatedly result in broken down systems for the long-run. For village-scale RE power systems, in-country capabilities are extremely limited, so that the few systems set up require costly international contractors and take protracted periods to complete. Dissemination of EE cook stoves in rural areas is virtually imperceptible.

BRANTV takes a multi-pronged approach to removing the barriers that are resulting in unsustainable, unviable, or weakly disseminated RE and EE systems. It does so in the interrelated areas of capacity, policy and planning, institutional framework, financing, and technical and economic viability. Central to the approach is BRANTV’s implementation of Vanuatu’s Rural Off-Grid RE and EE Promotion Program, which includes demonstration sub-programs in each of hydropower, village-scale PV, household and family compound-scale PV, EE cook stoves, and productive, livelihood-enhancing uses of RE and EE. Critical to success of these demonstrations and their replication will be the payment and management system introduced to achieve savings for repairs of the RE systems and the nationwide road show to introduce EE cook stoves to the rural population. Training programs, design and adoption of policy and plans, institutional coordination mechanisms, financing mechanisms, and work in sourcing, best price costing, and in-country parts supply will be carried out to influence the widespread application of low carbon technologies to achieve the energy access, sustainable energy and green growth targets of the country.

A gender survey was conducted in accordance with the UNDP quality assurance assessment for designing and appraising development projects. The Gender Survey was undertaken in December 2017 and helped set the scene for the overall gender assessment that will determine the extent to which gender needs are being addressed through the BRANTV demonstration activities. As described in the relevant annex of the project document, the Gender Survey comprised three methods: (i) Key informant interviews - the purpose of which is to deepen the grasp of context, coping strategies and issues of concern in relation to accessing energy in the context of BRANTV; (ii) Single sex focus groups - the purpose of which is to identify respective gender roles and duties of men and women, as well as to identify gender-specific coping strategies, practices and concerns in relation to accessing energy; and (iii) Time use surveys - the purpose of which is to track the number of hours per day that men and women typically devote to various activities (productive and reproductive) in a specific community, to detect gender differentiated patterns of time use.

The stakeholder engagement and communications plan of the project document states that women in rural Vanuatu often do much of the work and particularly the volunteer work associated with donor projects. At the same time, they often have less opportunity than men for increasing their income and educational level. The project will put special emphasis on the involvement of women in village community meetings with the project, ensuring that 50% of participants (or at least decision-making participants) at such meetings are women. The project will also proactively seek the involvement of women in productive use initiatives, assuring that 50% of project funds for productive uses go to initiatives mainly involving women.

A preliminary gender analysis is outlined in Annex 15 of the BRANTV project document. As of 25th October 2018, time-use surveys have been analyzed, and promotional materials (posters, and brochures) have been developed. The gender survey report has been drafted and needs to be completed. Data entries from key informant interviews and the single sex focus group interviews are still in hard-copy and need to be entered manually and analyzed (an attempt to obtain a software to digitize the data and information was unsuccessful).

Recruitment of Gender Specialist

UNDP is seeking to recruit a Gender Specialist to ensure that gender considerations are fully mainstreamed into all relevant components of the project document as well as produce a participatory gender analysis and action plan, which will be part of the project implementation plan. The objective of the work is to explain how the project will contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment, identify entry points for mainstreaming gender considerations in project components, ensure that the project results framework and theory of change are gender responsive and to develop a gender action plan (within the context of the project) to advance women’s empowerment and promote gender equality.

The project implementation will include stakeholders’ consultations and data collection for the elaboration of baseline data for the project results framework. The consultant will work with the project team to ensure that stakeholder consultations are gender responsive, to integrate the gender analysis results into the project implementation action plan and to use the results to identify opportunities and gaps to help better understand and address gender concerns within the project context.

Where possible during the consultancy period, the consultant shall assist with ongoing capacity building activities and other aspects of project implementation to ensure gender considerations are mainstreamed in the implementation of such activities of the project.

Duties and Responsibilities

UNDP is seeking to recruit a Gender Specialist to perform the following tasks:

1. Carry out a participatory gender analysis to fully consider the different needs, roles, benefits, impacts, risks and access to/control over resources of women and men (including considerations of intersecting categories of identity such as age, social status, ethnicity, marital status, etc.) given a project’s context, and appropriate measures taken to address and these and promote gender equality; collect gender responsive baseline data relevant to project planning and monitoring; identify the share of female and male direct beneficiaries.  

2. Assist in organizing and carrying out gender responsive stakeholder consultation sessions to solicit inputs and ensure both male and female stakeholder involvement and buy-in to the project.Provide written guidance notes and training on the application of these to the project implementation team particularly in using participatory techniques that involve both women and men in project activities that involve assessments and discussions.

1. Ensure that key project activities are gender responsive: work with the project team to elaborate the project activities and ensure that all applicable activities are disaggregated by sex and other relevant, intersecting forms of identity; ensure that gender considerations are integrated into project activities.

2. Develop a Gender Action Plan for the FASNETT and BRANTV projects with annual outputs to facilitate implementation of activities that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.

1. Provide inputs to the elaborated UNDP Social and Environmental Screening Procedure including assessing potential negative impacts of the project on gender equality and specific activities to mitigate and/or minimize them.

1. Assist the project implementation team in developing partnerships with gender equality/women’s governmental institutions, local women’s NGOs/CSOs and relevant national stakeholders. 

2. As requested by the project implementation team, assist with capacity building and other aspects of project preparation to ensure gender considerations are mainstreamed during project implementation. 

The Gender Specialist Consultant’s task is to check whether the approved activities are, as much as possible gender sensitive. Where possible and feasible, project activities can be modified to make them gender sensitive. The Gender Specialist should take note of the following:

• Any proposed changes in an activity should not change the essence/theme or purpose of such activity as it contributes to the delivery of a required output. Modification of an activity is for the sole purpose of making the activity more gender sensitive but should not change the essence/theme or purpose of the activity.

• As much as possible, modifications of an activity should not entail substantial increase in activity budget. Any substantial increase in budget should be covered by co-financing.

• Any proposed additional or incremental activity that is specifically addressing a gender issue in a particular project component must deliver an output that is also contributing to the realization of the expected outcome of that project component. The incremental reasoning (i.e., how it will contribute to bringing about global environmental benefits) for such activity should be explained/justified.

• The budget for any proposed justifiable incremental activity that is specifically addressing a gender issue can be funded using GEF funds. Otherwise, co-financing should take care of such budget.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

The consultant shall prepare and submit:

Deliverable 1: Participatory Gender Analysis for FASNETT and BRANTV: This deliverable will be fully integrated during project implementation of FASNETT and BRANTV and used to inform the process of elaborating the results framework and theory of change.  The participatory gender analysis may consist of:

• Analysis using the guiding questions in the gender analysis template (Annex 2) to understand the national and local context, and understand issues around gendered division of labour and time use, access and control, power and decision making, and knowledge and capacities.A review of national gender statistics, time-use surveys, national action plans, and qualitative data generated through policy and academic research and participation assessments should be used to inform the analysis;

• Stakeholder consultation analysis, interviews and relevant information;

• A baseline survey on women’s participation in project activities/ meetings; women’s participation in national/ local planning processes; women’s livelihood and economic activities; women’s specific needs on the use of energy; women and men’s participation in decision making processes; men and women as project beneficiaries; roles of men and women in collection and use of biomass fuels; gender differences in water access and use; roles of men and women in resource management; etc.].

Due dates: (i) 21st December 2018 for Vanuatu BRANTV (the findings from the 2017 Gender Survey and PPG phase will form the basis of this deliverable and therefore does not require a mission to Vanuatu; and (ii) 31st January 2019 for Tuvalu FASNETT (this will require a mission to Tuvalu).

Deliverable 2: Gender considerations fully mainstreamed into project implementation of FASNETT and BRANTV, including:

• Working with the project implementation teams for FASNETT and BRANTV using the findings from the gender analysis, develop the elaborated projects results framework ensuring that gender-responsive outputs, baselines, targets, and indicators are included; ensure that all applicable indicators are disaggregated by sex and other relevant, intersecting forms of identity.

• Working with the project implementation teams for FASNETT and BRANTV using the findings from the gender analysis, elaborate on the gender-responsive theory of change, including discussion of impact, assumptions, evidence and risks.

Due dates: (i) 31st December 2018 for Vanuatu BRANTV (the findings from the 2017 Gender Survey and PPG phase will form the basis of this deliverable and therefore does not require a mission to Vanuatu); and (ii) 15th February 2019 for Tuvalu FASNETT (findings from the mission to Tuvalu for Deliverable #1 will also form the basis for this deliverable).

Deliverable 3: Gender Action Plan for FASNETT and BRANTV: A Gender Action Plan for FASNETT and BRANTV with concrete outputs to facilitate implementation of activities that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. This will be part of each project’s project implementation action plan.

Due date: 28th February 2019 (Vanuatu BRANTV and Tuvalu FASNETT)

Deliverable 4: Note to file on process to mainstream gender considerations during project implementation of FASNETT and BRANTV: The note to file is an opportunity for the consultant to highlight any key lessons, issues, risks and recommendations (for example, notes for the mid-term review, recommendations to the Regional Technical Advisor or Project Manager) related to gender mainstreaming during any aspect of the project document development process and project implementation not covered elsewhere. The note to file will be part of the project implementation action plan.

Due date: 28th February 2019 (Vanuatu BRANTV and Tuvalu FASNETT)

Competencies

• Demonstrated understanding of issues related to gender and sustainable development; at least 7 years of practical working experience in gender mainstreaming, women’s empowerment and sustainable development in the Pacific region and in the field of sustainable energy (10%);

• Experience carrying out participatory gender analysis; experience collecting and formulating gender responsive indicators and sex-disaggregated data and preparing gender responsive project analysis; developing gender action plans (10%);

• Proven experience in analysis of gender issues in the Pacific region and in the field of sustainable energy (5%);

• Demonstrated understanding of the links between sustainable development, social and gender issues (5%);
• Demonstrated experience working on policy and programmatic issues with national and local governments and civil society organizations including community organizations (10%);
• Experience in facilitating gender responsive stakeholder meetings is highly desired (5%);
• Experience with project implementation and results-based management methodologies is highly desired/required (5%);

• Quality and soundness of the proposed methodology/approach. Excellent analytical, writing, advocacy, presentation, and communications skills are required (5%); and

• Realistic work plan including time schedule (5%).

Required Skills and Experience

• Master’s degree in gender studies, gender and development, environment, energy, sustainable development or closely related area (10%).

• 1.Technical Proposal (Consisting of the following)

• Signed CV including names of at least 3 referees

• Cover letter setting out:

  Proposal on how your qualifications and experience can lead towards the successful deliverable of

  this assignment within the required timeframe; provide a brief methodology on how you will

          approach and conduct the assignment.  Indicate available start date.

  2.Financial Proposal

• Completed template for confirmation of Interest and Submission of Financial Proposal

  Interested Candidates must accept UNDP General Terms and Conditions for Individual Consultants

• Consultancy Proposal should be sent via email to etenderbox.pacific@undp.org no later than 30th November,2018 (Fiji Time) clearly stating the title of consultancy applied for. Any proposals received after this date/time will not be accepted. Any request for clarification must be sent in writing, or by standard electronic communication to procurement.fj@undp.org.

• Complete Terms of Reference and Template for confirmation of interest and Submission of Financial Proposal is available under the procurement section of UNDP Fiji website (www.pacific.undp.org)