International Gender Mainstreaming Consultant – to lead a team of experts in drafting the BiH Country Gender Assessment of Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods (CGA)

Background

UN Women Strategic Note implementation for 2015-2020 includes a range of development interventions, providing a comprehensive response through the synergy of five key functions: technical assistance, advocacy, knowledge generation and management, coordination and programming. The proposed programme is designed to support the implementation of Gender Action Plan of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2018 – 2021) and address priorities in the five main impact areas as follows: Impact 1: Governance structures and sector priorities reflect gender equality concerns and commitments; Impact 2: Women have income security, decent work and economic autonomy; Impact 3: Women and girls live a life free of violence; Impact 4: Peace and security and humanitarian action are shaped by women leadership and participation.

The Country Gender Assessment of Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods (CGA) is a requirement by the corporate CPF guidelines  and mandated by the FAO’s Policy on Gender Equality  and is in line with UN Women Strategic Note 2015 -2020. The CGA is a knowledge tool that identifies gender disparities in agriculture, rural development and food security, to provide evidence for country level agricultural and rural development policies formulation and implementation.

UN Women CO BiH and FAO are engaging in a joint intervention towards conducting the Country Gender Assessment of Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods. UN Women CO BiH is working for a number of years with the RS Ministry of Agriculture through gender responsive budgeting on bridgiding the gap between policies and budgets in order to achieve a better quality of life for women in rural areas. In the current Sida SN support 2019-2020 UN Women is continuing this support country wide. Thus FAO sees UN Women CO BiH as a valuable partner to engage jointly in coduning the CGA in BiH.

Duties and Responsibilities

The overall objective of this consultancy is to lead a team of experts in drafting the BiH Country Gender Assessment of Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods (CGA), through:

• Informing FAO and UN Women country level planning and programming in line with national development priorities (with complementarity to UNDP focus and IPARD like funding schemes);
• Facilitate FAO’s contribution to the UN Country Team CEDAW Report with up-to-date and objective information on the situation of rural women in the country;
• Provide recommendations to the FAO and to the Ministries of Agriculture and other relevant government bodies for better working towards the achievement of gender equality in rural areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially for developing gender-responsive ARD Strategies and Action Plans.

Tasks and responsibilities

Working under the supervision of the Programme Specialist and GRB Coordinator at UN Women CO BiH, and in close collaboration with the Gender Team of FAO Regional Office for Europa and Central Asia and FAO BiH, the International Gender Consultant will conduct the following:

• Brief national gender consultants on the FAO Country Gender Assessment approach and guide them regarding the collection, organization and reporting of data needed for the CGA BiH (by also jointly developing a work plan and undertaking the first interviews with key informants during his/her mission to the country),
• Review, synthetize and analyse data collected and reported by the national gender consultants,
• Address the comments and requests arising during the validation/awareness raising workshop of the report (the stakeholders will include, among others the BiH Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, entity Ministries of Agriculture, Gender Equality Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Gender Centre of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Gender Centre of Republika Srpska, representatives from UN Agencies, EU and CSOs).
• Address the comments received and provide inputs throughout the proofreading and editing process until the final product is ready to be uploaded in-line.
• Contribute to the Concept Note developed based on the recommendations and conclusions of the CGA.

The implementation of the above-mentioned duties will expect also one mission in BiH in duration of 5 days.

Key deliverables, activities and timeframe

The Consultant will be expected to complete the tasks within the indicative timeframe:

The International consultant shall be responsible for the following deliverables:

1. Guidance provided and work plan developed jointly with national gender consultants;
2. Draft report of the Country Gender Assessment submitted;
3. Formal and content related comments (derived from the validation workshop) addressed and final product delivered;
4. Draft Concept Note reviewed and inputs are provided to it;

REPORTING

All deliverables should be submitted to the UN Women CO BiH, Gender Team of FAO Regional Office for Europa and Central Asia and FAO BiH. The deliverables shall be delivered in English language.

Competencies

Core Values/guiding principles:

• Integrity - Demonstrates integrity and fairness by modelling UN values and ethical standards;
• Professionalism  - Demonstrates professional competence and is conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results;
• Cultural sensitivity and respect for diversity  - Displays sensitivity and adaptability to culture, gender, nationality, religion and age;

Core Competencies:

• Builds strong relationships with clients Approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Ability to advocate and provide policy advice;
• Focuses on impacts and results for the partners and responds positively to feedback;

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

Functional Competencies

Knowledge Management and Learning:

• Shares knowledge and experience;
• Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside UN Women;
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills;
• Development and Operational Effectiveness;
• Demonstrates excellent written and oral communication skills. Communicates sensitively, effectively and creatively across different constituencies;
• Demonstrates very good understanding of and experience in communications and outreach/advocacy;
• Ability to perform a variety of standard specialized and non-specialized tasks and work processes that are fully documented, researched, recorded and reported;
• Ability to review a variety of data, identify and adjust discrepancies, identify and resolve operational problems;
• •Uses Information Technology effectively as a tool and resource;

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 and good humored even under pressure;
• Proven networking skills and ability to generate interest in UN Women’s mandate;
• Identifies opportunities and builds strong partnerships with clients and partners;

Required Skills and Experience

Academic Qualifications:

• Bachelor degree in Sociology, Social Sciences, Economics, Development Economics, or other related disciplines;
• Master degree would be considered an asset;

 Skills and Experience:

• At least 5 years of experience in analysing and integrating the perspective of gender equality in programme formulation in the context of agriculture and rural development and experience in socio-economic and gender analysis;
• Excellent knowledge of the key gender equality, social equity and women’s empowerment issues in Europe or Central Asia preferably in the context of agriculture and rural development;
• Demonstrated ability (through publications) to produce written analysis of socio-economic and gender issues;
• Excellent English language skills, particularly in the preparation of written documents;
• Knowledge of Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian languages would be considered an asset;
• Prior experience in conducting similar tasks with the UN System and FAO would be an asset.

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

Interested individuals must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. Expression of interest and confirmation of immediate availability;
2. Detailed financial proposal inclusive of all costs (which includes consultancy fees, travel, accommodation, subsistence allowance etc);
3. Completed UN Women Personal History (P11) form, that can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment

For any additional information, please contact unwomen.bih@unwomen.org

(Please note: All documents have to be uploaded in 1 single file).

EVALUATION OF OFFERS

UN Women applies a fair and transparent selection process that takes into account both the technical qualification of potential consultants as well as the financial proposals submitted in support of consultant applications. Candidate applications will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of applicant experience, qualifications and a financial proposal. The contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• responsive/compliant/acceptable, and

having received the highest score out of technical and financial criteria defined below.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 50 points in the technical evaluation will be considered for an interview. Top 3 candidates (with highest number of points in the technical evaluation) will be interviewed. The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal will be allocated to the lowest price proposal among those candidates who have reached at least 5 points in the interview. All other price proposals receive points in inverse proportion.

Criteria:

Technical Evaluation – documents based (70%)

Out of which:

• Bachelor degree in Sociology, Social Sciences, Economics, Development Economics, or other related disciplines; Master degree would be considered an asset – 10 percentage points
• At least 5 years of experience in analysing and integrating the perspective of gender equality in programme formulation in the context of agriculture and rural development and experience in socio-economic and gender analysis – 20  percentage points
• Excellent knowledge of the key gender equality, social equity and women’s empowerment issues in Europe or Central Asia preferably in the context of agriculture and rural development – 20 percentage points
• Demonstrated ability (through publications) to produce written analysis of socio-economic and gender issues – 10 percentage points
• Prior experience in conducting similar tasks with the UN System and FAO would be an asset – 10 percentage points

Financial Evaluation (30%)

Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula: S = Fmin / F * 30

• 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 the consideration.

Please note that travel costs should be covered by the consultant.

Qualified women and members of minorities are encouraged to apply. UN Women applies fair and transparent selection process that would consider the competencies/skills of the applicants as well as their financial proposals.

Due to large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.