National Consultant to support Agricultural and Rural Development Agency of Georgia (ARDA) to Develop Gender Equality Action Plan and to Map Economic Empowerment Programmes

Background

United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (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. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, the UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality are translated into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts while building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women Georgia is implementing Women’s Economic Empowerment in the South Caucasus (WEESC) Project with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC). The overarching goal/impact of the project is to ensure that women, particularly the poor and socially excluded, in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are economically empowered and participate in relevant decision-making.

Gender Equality Council of the Parliament of Georgia launched a thematic inquiry of women’s participation in state economic programs with the aim to carry out a gender-specific analysis of these state programs to support women’s economic empowerment, in accordance with the objectives set out in the 2018-2020 strategy and action plan. The thematic inquiry among others has reviewed projects implemented by the Agricultural and Rural Development Agency of Georgia (ARDA). The report concluded that every citizen of Georgia or a legal entity registered in Georgia might become a beneficiary of the projects/programs implemented by the Agency provided that the requirements of a project/program are met. Since no special conditions are envisaged based on gender and women's situation is not considered in program design and implementation, men are disproportionately more likely to benefit from ARDA's programs because of the structural barriers that women face in Georgia. According to 2018 data, the total gender balance of projects/programs implemented by the ARDA is 23% women (15,400 beneficiaries) against 77% men (52,100 beneficiaries). This ratio reflects only the natural persons and individual entrepreneurs since the firm-level gender-disaggregated data is not currently available.

Within this scope, UN Women would like to hire a national consultant to provide technical assistance to ARDA in mainstreaming gender equality in the policy, and structural units of the organization, designing and implementing the programs that are more accessible for women. In parallel with the thematic inquiry, UN Women has supported the facilitation of the Participatory Gender Audit (PGA) in ARDA. Both the Thematic Inquiry and the PGA provided key areas of intervention and strengthening for gender mainstreaming. The national consultant will be responsible for meeting the following objectives:

• Conduct the mapping of the economic development grant programs implemented by the state and development partners – including the information on the gender responsiveness of projects being implemented;
• Develop the gender equality action plan for ARDA based on the PGA recommendations and considering the findings of the Thematic Inquiry. 

Duties and Responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities of the National Consultant are:

• To conduct the consultations with ARDA on developing the gender equality action plan based on PGA recommendations and considering the Thematic Inquiry findings;
• To draft and submit the gender equality action plan of ARDA;
• To incorporate the inputs from ARDA and UN Women into the gender equality action plan;
• To conduct the consultations with UN Women, ARDA and other relevant state agencies and development partners to identify the key stakeholders and the initiatives for the mapping;
• To collect the information about the projects / economic development grant initiatives, undertake the fieldwork in case necessary, identify the new projects through the chain-referrals;
• To draft and submit the mapping report;
• To incorporate the inputs from UN Women and ARDA in the final mapping report;

Deliverables:

1. The detailed work plan (1 working day, due September 10, 2019);
2. The draft action plan on gender equality for ARDA (3 working days, due September 18, 2019);
3. The finalized gender equality action plan of ARDA with the incorporated inputs (2 working days, due September 23, 2019); 
4. The list of the interviewed stakeholders with the brief description of the grant program and gender component in it (4 working days, due September 26, 2019);
5. The draft report, mapping (3 working days, October 4, 2019);
6. A validation meeting of the mapping report with the ARDA and UN Women (1 working day, due October 10, 2019);
7. The finalized report on mapping with the incorporated inputs from the validation meeting (1 working days, due October 17, 2019).

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: http://www.unwomen.org//media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in social sciences, economics, gender studies, public policy or in another relevant field.  

Experience and competencies: 

• At least three years of relevant professional experience in the field of gender equality and women’s rights; 
• Excellent writing skills with demonstrated ability to write the reports related to programmatic assessment, evaluation and/or economic development;

Language:

• Fluency in Georgian and good knowledge of English.

Evaluation Procedure:

The candidates will be evaluated in three stages: according to minimum qualification criteria, technical and financial evaluation.

The candidates must possess following minimum qualification criteria to be eligible for further technical evaluation:

• Master’s degree in social sciences, economics, gender studies, public policy or in another relevant field;
• Demonstrated work experience in economic, agricultural or rural development projects;
• Fluency in Georgian and good knowledge of English.

Technical evaluation criteria (including minimum qualifications):

• Master’s degree in social sciences, economics, gender studies, public policy or in another relevant field (max 50 points);
• At least two years of relevant professional experience in the field of gender equality and women’s rights (max 100 points);
• Demonstrated work experience in economic, agricultural or rural development projects (max 70 points); 
• Excellent writing skills with demonstrated ability to write the reports related to programmatic assessment, evaluation and/or economic development (max 100 points);
• Fluency in Georgian and good knowledge of English (max 30 points).

Maximum total technical score amounts to 350 points. Only candidates who have passed over the minimum qualification criteria and have accumulated at least 245 points out of maximum 350 under technical evaluation will qualify for the next stage i.e. evaluation of their financial proposals.

Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula: S = Fmin / F * 150

S – score received on financial evaluation;

Fmin – the lowest financial offer out of all the submitted offers qualified over the technical evaluation round;

F – financial offer under consideration.

The winning candidate will be the candidate, who has accumulated the highest aggregated score (technical

scoring + financial scoring).

Management arrangements:

The Consultant will work under the overall supervision and guidance of UN Women Country Representative and Deputy Country Representative, and in collaboration and day-to-day management of UN Women WEESC project teams.

Financial arrangements:

Payment will be made in two instalments per reported number of fee days based on submitted and approved Time Sheet and after all the deliverables are submitted, accepted and approved:

• Deliverable 1-3 (6 working days) – 40%;
• Deliverables 4-7 (9 working days) – 60%

The accommodation and the travel costs will be covered by the UN Women (in case necessary).

Application submission package:

• CV;
• Writing sample in English;
• Duly filled Personal History Form PHF11 that can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment
• Financial Proposal - lump sum proposal/offer* in GEL (including breakdown of this lump sum amount, indicating all necessary costs to complete this assignment).

*The applicants are required to submit an aggregated financial offer: “aggregated financial offer” is the total sum of all financial claims of the candidate for accomplishment of all tasks spelled out in this ToR. Travel costs (ticket, DSA etc.)  should not be included and will be paid for separately by UN Women.

Please, group all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.