Consultant - Women's Economic Empowerment with SEWA Bharat (Open to Indian Nationals Only)

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.

Gender equality and women’s empowerment are intrinsic to the achievement of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. With a stand-alone sustainable development goal—SDG 5—“to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”, the 2030 Agenda recognizes the importance of women’s empowerment, including their economic empowerment, as a prerequisite for ending poverty. There are large gender gaps in economic opportunities and outcomes in almost all countries. Women earn less, have fewer assets, bear the burden of unpaid work and care and are largely concentrated in vulnerable and low-paying activities.

To lead a discussion on closing gaps for women’s economic empowerment and in line with his leadership on and long-standing commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, during his tenure as UN Secretary-General, established the High-Level Panel (HLP) on Women’s Empowerment. The panel brought together leaders from different constituencies: governments, civil society, business and international organizations. The initiative was supported by UN-Women in collaboration with the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID).  India was represented by Ms Renana Jhabvala, President, Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and Chair, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO).

The panel submitted its final report to the UN Secretary General in 2017 that recognized informal economy, agriculture, formal sector employees and women owned enterprises as four key areas of work where women are primarily engaged.  The report identified seven drivers for women’s economic empowerment and laid out concrete actions for accelerating progress towards women’s full and equal economic participation. The seven drivers are:

Driver 1: Tackling adverse norms and promoting positive role model

Driver 2: Ensuring legal protection and reforming discriminatory laws and regulations

Driver 3: Recognizing, reducing and redistributing unpaid work and care

Driver 4: Building assets- digital, financial and property

Driver 5: Changing business culture and practice

Driver 6: Improving public sector practices in employment and procurement

Driver 7: Strengthening visibility, collective voice and representation

Following the release of the HLP report, SEWA Bharat and UN Women organized a National consultation in India with civil society organizations, researchers, philanthropists and international organizations to prioritize action on the drivers for women’s economic empowerment in the context of India.  Following four drivers, amongst seven, were prioritized through the consultative process:

Driver 2: Ensuring legal protection and reforming discriminatory laws and regulations

Driver 3: Recognizing, reducing and redistributing unpaid work and care

Driver 4: Building Assets- digital, financial and property

Driver 7: Strengthening visibility, collective voice and representation 

As a follow, up and to implement the recommendations of HLP in India focusing on women workers in the informal sector and agriculture, priority constituency for UN Women, a National Consultation was organized by UN Women.  The consultation was chaired by the UN Women’s Executive Director Madam Phumzile Mlambo- Ngcuka. The consultation “Taking Action Towards Transformative Change for Women in the Informal Sector in India” was attended by key stakeholders working for rights of women informal sector workers such as SEWA, WEIGO, National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), The National Domestic Workers Movement (NDWM), Construction Workers Federation of India, Mahila Kisan Adhikar Manch ( MAKAAM), All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and organizations working in the areas of women’s access to land, finance, technology and livelihoods such as Working Group for Women and Land Ownership (WGWLO), Friends of Women’s World Banking (FWWB), IT for Change, PRADAN and Indian Society of Labour Economics.

The key recommendation at the consultation included formation of an Expert Working Group (EWG) to develop a National roadmap to contextualize and implement the recommendations of HLP in India within the ambit of the four identified drivers for women’s economic empowerment.

The Expert Working Group will be chaired by SEWA Bharat and co-chaired by UN Women with women’s rights experts as members.

Duties and Responsibilities

UN Women seeks the services of a consultant to support SEWA Bharat in its work with EWG to develop the National roadmap to contextualize and implement the recommendations of HLP in India. To achieve this objective, key expectation from the consultant are outlined below.

The consultant will work under the overall supervision of the Programme Analyst – Women’s Economic Empowerment, UN Women and day to day supervision of Programme Officer, SEWA Bharat. The consultant will work in close coordination with Expert Working Group as well as team members at SEWA Bharat and UN Women.  Specifically, the consultant will undertake the following tasks:

• Facilitate and support the process of constitution of the EWG including developing an overall strategy for its functioning;
• Facilitate the functioning of EWG:
  • review of existing laws and policies for rights of women workers in the informal sector.
  • review of international normative frameworks and good practices.
• Preparation of relevant policy briefs, notes and case studies based on this review, as defined jointly between UN Women and EWG;
• Facilitate consultative meetings with government and non-government stakeholders, relevant UN agencies and other development partners;
• Facilitate and coordinate the organization of 1 national and 2 regional consultations, combining two or more regions (North, South, East, West and North-East), or as decided by EWG, with women farmers and workers in the informal sector and their collectives, as well as other relevant stakeholders, policy makers, practitioners, government partners, and academia towards refining and finalizing the roadmap in coordination with the EWG;
• Support in preparation of agenda, outcome documents and consultation reports for all regional and national consultations and meetings;
• Support in finalizing roadmap and framework for action based on inputs received from key stakeholders.

Deliverables:

• Full and Final document with overall strategy for its functioning, key roles, responsibilities and tasks, key milestones, deliverables and results. : July 2019
• Relevant policy briefs, notes, case studies document drafted and submitted :  July through December 2019
• Fully successful in organizing National and Regional consultations..  Consultation reports drafted and submitted: July– October 2019
• Fully successful in organizing EWG meetings, Meetings reports  developed and submitted  reports: August- December 2019
• Successfully developed and finalized Roadmap document in close coordination with the EWG as well as UN Women and SEWA Bharat’s team. Roadmap document drafted and submitted: October 2019

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:

• Minimum secondary school education.  A graduation degree in Gender and Development Studies or Social Sciences will be an asset.

Experience:

• Minimum work experience of 2 years;
• 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;
• Good understanding of gender and development in South Asia;
• Good writing and communication skills;
• Excellent computer literacy and skills;
• Ability to conceptualise, organise and implement large scale events;
• Experiences to manage budgets.

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);
• Expertise and Experience relevant to the assignment (10 points);
• Demonstrable experience on policy advocacy with the government and other stakeholders (5 points);

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

• Interview (100 points)

Please Note:

• For an assignment requiring travel, consultants of 65 years or more require full medical examination and statement of fitness to work to engage in the consultancy.
• Due to large number of potential applicants, only competitively selected candidates will be contacted for remaining steps of the service procurement process.

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.