Gender consultant to perform gender analysis, contribute to gender mainstreaming strategy, compile gender action plan and budget for the purpose of full-size Project Document formulation

Background

UNDP and GEF Policies on Gender Mainstreaming and Gender Equality

Gender equality is central to UNDP support to countries to implement and achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals. The UNDP gender equality strategy 2018–2021, inter alia, delineates the UNDP commitment to: strengthen the integration of gender equality into UNDP work on environment, energy and crisis response and recovery. 

Similarly, the GEF has long recognized gender equality as a cross-cutting priority that is integral to the GEF’s ability to achieve global environmental benefits. It has made, together with GEF Agencies, significant progress on gender mainstreaming over the past years. This progress has been guided by several GEF policies and strategies, such as the Policy on Gender Mainstreaming (GEF, 2012a); GEF 2020 Strategy (GEF, 2015b); and the Gender Equality Action Plan (GEF, 2014), GEF Policy on Gender Equality (GEF, 2017c). The latest policy approved by GEF Council in November 2017 marks GEF’s increased ambition to shift from a gender-aware, “do no harm” approach to a gender-responsive, “do good” approach to ensure gender equality and promote women’s empowerment across its operations.

http://www.thegef.org/sites/default/files/council-meeting documents/EN_GEF.C.54.Inf_.05_Guidance_Gender_0.pdf

As such, the GEF Policy on Gender Equality seeks to ensure equal opportunities for women and men to participate in, contribute to and benefit from GEF-financed activities. The GEF recognizes that gender equality is an important goal in the context of the projects that it finances because it advances both the GEF’s goals for attaining global environmental benefits and the goal of gender equity and social inclusion.

Systematic consideration of gender during the project preparation (the stakeholder identification and consultations stage) is needed to ensure that women’s and men’s voices alike are heard. It strengthens the design and implementation of GEF-financed activities by reducing risks and addressing the social and economic needs of affected stakeholders.

Gender considerations at the Project CEO Endorsement stage should include:

1) Summary of the findings from stakeholder consultations and the gender analysis or equivalent socioeconomic assessments, including elaboration on the gender context of the project, identified gender differences and gaps, and gender-differentiated impacts and risks.

2) Gender Action Plan that elaborates concrete and project-specific actions to address gender differences and gaps, gender-differentiated impacts and risks, and opportunities to promote the empowerment of women that support project objectives and outcomes.

3) Stakeholder engagement plan that reflects and clearly describes actions on stakeholder engagement.

4) Gender-sensitive indicators that will be used to track, monitor, and report on gender results.

Project background

UNDP in Ukraine is now developing a full-sized project document based on the Child Project Concept Note/Project Identification Form (PIF) titled “Promoting sustainable livestock management and ecosystem conservation in Northern Ukraine” approved by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) in May 2019 as part of a package of child projects under the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR) Impact Program. The project aims to demonstrate a large-scale transformative change of agriculture and food systems, land degradation neutrality, climate, biodiversity, and economic benefits, by putting in the center the model of sustainable cattle management, through cooperatives of land users (on peat soils) as well as partnership agreements with larger enterprises (at forest-steppe areas) working together with water engineers to restore land, zone it, subsequently decide and apply best land use or conservation regime.

In particular, the Project aims to target productive agricultural areas in Northern Ukraine to demonstrate viable restoration techniques and better livestock management standards. For areas in need of restoration (tentatively about 17,000 ha of degraded agricultural lands, mostly among the small-holders on peat soils) the ground-water table will be restored. Restoration may presuppose construction of local dikes to close the drainage ditchers, construction or repair of sluices for regulation of ground water table. Engineering projects will be designed for each land parcel, reviewed and implemented. The optimal water regime will be set in such a way as to allow the most profitable paludiculture / other economic activity at the given peatland, with maximum care for bird nesting timing, preservation of organic layer and upper vegetation. Land user cooperatives will be then set up to bring together farmers and water managing authorities at each given peatland to trigger actual introduction of sustainable livestock, or other forms of paludiculture activities. For larger agricultural areas (those especially in the forest steppe zone) which are managed by large holdings partnership agreements will be reached to implement sustainable livestock solutions.

The project responds to national priorities and the Project Document needs to be prepared by March 2020 in alignment with Ukraine’s national strategies and based on targeted research, background information and baseline data that include a detailed gender analysis to fully consider the different needs, roles, benefits, impacts, risks, differential access to and control over resources of women and men given a project’s context, and to identify appropriate measures to address these and promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. The analysis will form the basis of a Gender Action Plan and Budget to guide gender mainstreaming during project implementation. The Gender Analysis, and the Gender Action Plan and Budget must be developed in accordance with the respective guidance and attached as Annexes to the Project Document.

In this context the United Nations Development Programme in Ukraine seek to engage a Gender consultant to 1) undertake gender analysis, 2) to develop gender action plan, budget and gender-sensitive indicators to ensure that planned project interventions are gender responsive and improve the gender equality and women’s empowerment. The project will ensure close consultations with local communities in the target geographies to identify gender mainstreaming opportunities in the project design strategy.

Duties and Responsibilities

OBJECTIVE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The objective of the assignment is to support the project design and help elaborate the project concept into a full-sized Child Project “Promoting sustainable livestock management and ecosystem conservation in Northern Ukraine” along with Mandatory Annexes, specifically offering in-depth gender analysis to identify how gender relations affect environmental problems to be solved under this project and how they affect the proposed solutions; and 2) preparing gender action plan and budget that should form the basis of gender-responsive actions, including gender-related project components, outputs, activities and indicators, where deemed feasible (UNDP Gender Marker Rating for this project is GEN 2 meaning that it should promote gender equality significantly).

The Gender Analysis will serve to:

• collect gender-related information and sex-disaggregated beneficiary data, and to determine the baseline situation;
• inform or form part of the project’s Social and Environmental Screening procedure;
• integrate gender considerations into the program/project theory of change to understand how and why a given intervention will lead to a specific change;
• determine program/project activities required to respond to gender risks, differences, gaps, and opportunities; and
• support the formulation of indicators relating to sex disaggregation and gender sensitivity, to be included in program/project results framework.

The Gender Action Plan and Budget will help provide equal opportunity for men and women to benefit from the planned project activities and will reflect concrete actions, timelines, responsible actors and resource allocations.  

TASKS and SCOPE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The Gender Analysis and the Gender Action Plan and Budget will be developed through the use of both primary data already collected by the project preparation team and available relevant secondary information. In addition, the consultant will facilitate, with support from the project team, targeted gender-sensitive consultations including with women’s groups, NGOs, and communities. The Gender Analysis and the Gender Action Plan and Budget  will be informed by the desk review, consultations and based on PIF and draft project document (project results and indicators set under the project proposal and results framework), as well as the guidelines provided.

Under the overall leadership and guidance of the International Project Development Specialist (Team Leader) and the National Stakeholder Outreach Specialist - PPG National, and in collaboration with UNDP Gender Specialist, the Gender consultant under this assignment will carry out the following tasks:

• Conduct gender analysis based on the project concept and the draft project components, outcomes, outputs and activities, identifying avenues for gender mainstreaming in the project;
• Assess and identify the existing institutional, policy and legal frameworks of sectors (agriculture, livestock water and land management) relevant to ensuring gender equality in the project proposal;
• Review and provide analysis on overarching policy documents on gender of relevance to the sectors;
• Analyse international and national experience of mainstreaming gender equality issues to similar projects;
• Undertake situation analysis and synthesis of gender inequality issues in the agriculture, livestock and water sectors specific to the project’s proposed activities;
• Coordinate with and provide inputs to and review of sub-assessments related to value-chain analysis and land-users cooperatives concept to support development of gender-differentiated strategies;
• Asses and document (elaborate) gender sensitiveness of the project outcome, objectives, activities, indicators and targets to the specific needs, capacities and priorities of women and men;
• Synthesize opportunities and interventions to address bottlenecks to address gender inequality in the sectors while making sure the most vulnerable people are taken into consideration;
• Identify and recommend appropriate gender sensitive indicators, targets and activities in the implementation of project incorporating the various sub-assessments;
• Prepare mandatory Annexes for the Project Document detailing the ‘Gender Analysis’ and the ‘Gender Action Plan and Budget’ according to the guidelines and examples from UNDP-GEF.
• Support action points, including risk assessments, identified in the UNDP Social and Environmental Screening Procedure (SESP) that were completed at the concept stage (“pre-screening”), and assist with the update of the SESP in an iterative fashion throughout the project preparation process;
• Help ensure that gender considerations are fully mainstreamed into project CEO Endorsement documents and Project Document.

DELIVERABLES

DELIVERABLE 1: The Gender Analysis prepared in line with the UNDP-GEF template, its findings are meaningfully integrated into the project’s strategy, theory of change and results framework.

The scope of the Gender Analysis should include at minimum:

1) Analysis of factors and trends (socioeconomic context).

2) Description of tasks and activities of men and women in the target sectors.

3) Description of access and control profile (who has access and control of resources and services and who and how participates in the decision-making).

4) Beneficiary targeting (what are the opportunities or entry points to ensure equal participation and benefits. What measures can the project take to address relevant gender gaps/inequalities).

5) Project responses (how the project will ensure gender-responsive design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation).

DELIVERABLE 2: The Gender Action Plan and Budget prepared in line with the UNDP-GEF template, and can be integrated into project components and elements, including the logical framework, project implementation plan, budget, and results framework. The Gender Actions Plan and Budget should include concrete actions relevant to the project, and set out timelines, responsible actors, and resource allocations.

The Gender Action Plan should be structured around the following components:

1) Introduction/Background: Elaboration of findings from gender analysis and basic information on gender within the project area (national, sub-national, regional).

2) Strategies and Activities: Description of actions and activities the project will put in place to respond to identified gender risks, differences, gaps or opportunities.

3) Monitoring and Evaluation: Description of how the project will track and evaluate gender impacts and results, including sex-disaggregated indicators and targets (included in the project results framework).

4) Resources: Indication of timelines, budget allocations, and staffing resources dedicated to the activities.

Important note: All deliverables shall be submitted to the International Project Development Specialist and UNDP in English.

SCHEDULE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

#	Key activities /Deliverables	Estimated labor effort	Deadline
1	Deliverable 1: The Gender Analysis prepared in line with the UNDP-GEF template	6 weeks	Not later than 31 January 2019
2	Deliverable 2: The Gender Action Plan and Budget prepared in line with the UNDP-GEF template	4 weeks	Not later than 31 March  2020

MANAGEMENT AND INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS

• The principal responsibility for managing this assignment resides with UNDP Country Office in Ukraine.
• The Gender Consultant will receive guidance from the International Project Development Specialist (Team Leader) and UNDP Gender Specialist specifically regarding content and quality assurance of the deliverables under this assignment.
• The Gender Consultant will report to the UNDP Programme Analyst of Environment portfolio.
• Any copyrights and other kinds of intellectual property emerging in the course of contract implementation and produced by the Individual Consultant under the contract shall be retained by UNDP.
• UNDP will be the final authority to control the quality and evaluate the work. No reports or documents should be published or distributed to third parties without approval of UNDP.
• No travel is expected under this assignment. Should any travel be needed to deliver expected results, travel costs (including local tickets, per diems and terminal expenses) will be covered by UNDP (subject to prior approval by the UNDP Programme Analyst of Environment portfolio).

TERMS OF PAYMENT

Payments will be made in three installments upon endorsement of the finalized deliverables by UNDP according to the following payment schedule:

• First payment upon successful completion of the Deliverable 1 (50%);
• Second payment upon successful completion of the Deliverable 2 (50%);

 

Competencies

Corporate competencies: 

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP; 
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability; 
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism; 
• Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment. 

Functional competencies:

• Ability to analyze policy documents and make constructive policy suggestions;
• Strong interpersonal skills, communication and diplomatic skills, ability to work in a team;
• Demonstration of commitment to the Project’s mission, vision and values;
• Good writing and reporting skills;
• Good presentation skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree or higher in a relevant field, such as sociology, ecology, economics, gender studies, gender and development, environment, sustainable development or closely related area.

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years of practical working experience in gender mainstreaming.
• Strong experience (at least 5 years) in carrying out participatory gender equality analysis, developing the theory of change, refining results frameworks towards gender mainstreaming and developing gender action plans.

• At least 2 years of gender consultancy/expert services for national level institutions and/or reputable international organization(s), including at least some experience in Ukraine.

• Proven academic experience, including pieces of research, publications and written reports.
• Prior experience of working within the UN system or GEF is an advantage.

Languages:

• Excellent writing and oral communication skills in Ukrainian and English.

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

Applicants shall submit the following documents:

Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price and all other travel related costs (such as flight ticket, per diem, etc.), supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template attached to the Letter of Confirmation of Interest template. 

CV or a Personal History Form (P11 form), including information about past experience in similar assignments, a list of or reference to prepared materials/publications, and contact details for referees;

Financial Proposal

Lump sum contract

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in instalments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount per number of anticipated working days.  

EVALUATION

Selection method: Selection based on pass/fail basis of below criteria and lowest price technically compliant offer.

Evaluation criteria:

• Master’s degree or higher in a relevant field, such as sociology, ecology, economics, gender studies, gender and development, environment, sustainable development or closely related area – pass/fail;
• Minimum 7 years of practical working experience in gender mainstreaming – pass/fail;
• Strong experience (at least 5 years) in carrying out participatory gender equality analysis, developing the theory of change, refining results frameworks towards gender mainstreaming and developing gender action plans – pass/fail;
• At least 2 years of gender consultancy/expert services for national level institutions and/or reputable international organization(s), including at least some experience in Ukraine – pass/fail;
• Proven academic experience, including pieces of research, publications and written reports – pass/fail;
• Prior experience of working within the UN system or GEF is an advantage – pass/fail;
• Excellent writing and oral communication skills in Ukrainian and English – pass/fail.