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To contract the services of a Gender Responsive Budgeting Expert to undertake a Fiscal Space Analysis for the Provision of Universal Day Care Services for Children Age 0 to 3 in St. Lucia

Bridgetown

  • Organization: UNWOMEN - United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
  • Location: Bridgetown
  • Grade: Consultancy - International Consultant - Internationally recruited Contractors Agreement
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Operations and Administrations
    • Administrative support
    • Banking and Finance
    • Women's Empowerment and Gender Mainstreaming
    • Outer space and satellite technology
    • Children's rights (health and protection)
  • Closing Date: Closed

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.

The UN Sub-Regional Team for the OECS will be implementing the project “Enhancing Resilience and Acceleration of the SDGs in the Eastern Caribbean: Universal adaptive social protection modelled at the community, national and sub-regional levels” form January 2020 to January 2022. The project, which is funded by the SDG Fund, is co-led by UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP), with ILO, UNDP and UN Women as the other UN agencies to jointly implement the project.

The Joint Programme will contribute to creating an enabling environment for poor and vulnerable people to have predictable access to universal and adaptive social protection. This will support the ultimate goal of reducing structural inequality, reducing poverty and building resilience. Predictable access to universal and adaptive social protection will be promoted through an approach that spans and connects national, community and regional levels. At the national level, the Joint Programme’s interventions will focus on two countries (Barbados and St. Lucia) and will contribute to strengthening national social protection systems to support integrated service delivery by improving institutional capacities and through evidence-based, gender-responsive social and disaster risk management policies and legislation. It will also strengthen these systems through improved management and operational tools. The Joint Programme will support the introduction of innovative financing strategies to ensure fiscal sustainability and expanded coverage of the social protection system. At the community level, the Joint Programme will support the design of innovative community-based adaptive and shock responsive services within existing national programmes to generate evidence for social protection reform and strengthen the targeted communities’ ability to anticipate, absorb and recover from major shocks. At the regional level, legal and policy coherence will be supported by strengthening regional capacities, inter-institutional engagement and South-South cooperation in the Eastern Caribbean.

Through a multi-country approach, the Joint Programme is expected to enable partner governments to accelerate progress towards the implementation of SDGs in support of national commitments and reflective of the significant vulnerabilities of SIDs to external shocks, including climate-related events and impacts. Three key targets will be addressed through Joint Programme interventions to increase the adaptability of social protection to prepare for and respond to shocks and stresses by strengthening its linkages to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation. Specifically, the Joint Programme is expected to contribute to strengthening institutional capacities to expand coverage and adequate social protection through vulnerability analysis and identification of at risk people on this basis, promoting a national social protection floor and sustainable and risk-informed financing (1.3); promoting and monitoring equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sex (5.1) and increasing regional capacity to recognize unpaid care work (5.4); as well as improving service delivery to boost people’s resilience and risk-management capacities (13.1) through evidence-generation and regional cooperation and knowledge sharing.  At the end of the Joint Programme, the universal adaptive social protection model should be scalable to become an accepted framework for implementation in most, if not all 11 OECS countries and territories. Working with IFIs will be key not only to ensure sustainable results in Saint Lucia and Barbados but also in replicating the model to other countries.  

UN Women’s role in the project is to support OECS Member States with working towards further strengthening national capacity to monitor commitments to global gender equality norms and commitments specified in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the SDGs. UN Women will deploy its technical expertise to address the structural inequalities that exist, and which undermine resilience to economic and climatic shocks from a gender perspective; as well as the relationships between gender, unpaid care work and resilience to climate-related and economic shocks. The Joint Programme will leverage the strategic partnership in place between UN Women and the CARICOM Secretariat on Gender Statistics for measuring unpaid care and domestic work. In 2014/2015, the United Nations provided support to the Government of St. Lucia to conduct the Study “Fiscal Space for a Social Protection Floor”. The study, with support for the Joint Programme, will be updated with UNICEF and ILO taking the lead in providing technical support to the Government of St. Lucia. As a contribution to this effort, UN Women will deploy its global technical expertise on gender-responsive budgeting to assess fiscal space for physical and service delivery infrastructure for the provision of universal access of day care services for children ages zero to three in St. Lucia.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objective of the assignment

Under the overall supervision of the UN Women MCO - Caribbean Representative, the Gender Responsive Budgeting Expert will spearhead the conduct of a fiscal space analysis for the provision of universal day care services specifically for children age zero to three in St. Lucia. The analysis should include the following:

  • Documentation and analysis of budgetary allocations and expenditures on public day care and pre-primary education;
  • An assessment of the capacity of public day care centres to meet current and future demand;
  • An assessment of the accessibility and affordability of childcare services provided by both the public and private sector;
  • Recommendation of at least three models for providing universal access to day care services for children ages zero to three;
  • Unit costs for the provision of the ideal full-day model for providing day care services; and a half-day model;
  • Scenarios which should include (1) Minimum Cost for the ideal full-day universal provision for day care services; (2) Expansion through half-day programmes and full day programmes for the socially vulnerable; and (3) Expansion through half-day programmes.

Scope of Work and Deliverables

The Gender Responsive Budgeting Expert is expected to travel to St. Lucia (if not domiciled in this country) for the full duration of the consultancy; and deliver the following results:

  • Document outlining study methodology and approach (May 2020);
  • Documentation and analysis of budgetary allocations and expenditures on public day care and pre-primary education. (May 2020);
  • Assessment of the capacity of public day care centres to meet current and future demand (May 2020 – June 2020);
  • Assessment of the capacity of accessibility and affordability of childcare services provided by both the public and private sector (May 2020 – June 2020);
  • Recommendation of at least three models (universal full day model; half-day model; half-day model and full day for socially vulnerable populations) for providing universal access to day care services for children age zero to three. (June 2020 – July 2020);
  • Unit costs for the provision of the ideal full-day model for providing day care services; and a half-day model. (July 2020 – August 2020);
  • Scenarios, which should include (1) Minimum Cost for the ideal full-day universal provision for day care services; (2) Expansion through half-day programmes and full day programmes for the socially vulnerable; and (3) Expansion through half-day programmes. (September 2020 – October 2020);
  • Report “Fiscal Space Analysis for the Provision of Universal Access to Day Care Services for Children Age Zero to Three in St. Lucia” (October 2020);
  • Preparation and delivery of presentation of findings during a National Dissemination Meeting (November 2020).

Reporting Requirements

The consultant will work under the overall supervision of the UN Women MCO-Caribbean Representative, with direct reporting to UN Women Programme Specialist for Economic Empowerment and Statistics.

Competencies

Core Values / Guiding Principles:

  • 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:

https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf?la=en&vs=637

Functional Competencies:

  • Strong gender responsive budgeting, economic analysis, social research and analytical skills;
  • Excellent written and oral communications skills including the conveying complex concepts and recommendations, in a clear and persuasive style tailored to match different audiences;
  • Ability to interact independently as part of a team;
  • Ability to multi-task and operate effectively in stressful situations.

Required Skills and Experience

The Gender Responsive Budgeting Expert should meet the following criteria:

Required skills and experience:

Education:

The Gender Responsive Budgeting Expert should herself/himself meet the following criteria:

  • A Master’s Degree in any of the following areas: Economics, Econometrics, Public Policy, Social Policy.

Experience:

  • At least five years’ experience as a gender responsive budgeting professional is required;
  • At least three years’ experience undertaking economic forecasting and modelling is required;
  • At least five years’ experience working on gender equality and/or human rights is required;
  • At least three years’ experience working within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is an asset but not required.

Languages:

  • Fluency in oral and written English is required.

References:

  • Minimum of three client references that include the name of the contact person, title and contact information.

Remuneration:

  • The consultancy fee will be negotiated before contracting. Each payment will be based on a predefined and formal agreement between UN Women and the consultant and will be disbursed based on satisfactory completion of agreed deliverables.

Hardware, Software and Communication:

  • The consultant must be equipped with a fully-functional laptop, which must run at least Windows 7. The consultant must be reasonably accessible by email and telephone (preferably mobile). The use of reliable, internet-based telecommunications application software (Skype or equivalent) is required.

Location and Duration:

  • The consultancy will be home based with travel to St. Lucia, if the consultant is not domiciled in this country. Fees related to travel should be included in the proposed renumeration;
  • The consultant will be engaged for a maximum of 40 working days during the period 1 May 2020 – 30 November 2020.

Other:

  • Interviews will be conducted with the shortlisted applicants;
  • The consultant contracted will be required to sign a statement of confidentiality and freedom from any conflict of interest with potential future contractors with respect to the TORs and work that they will be delivering;
  • The consultant should submit, along with his/her application, the curriculum vitae of team members.

Note:

Submissions to UNDP Jobs are limited to a maximum of 10 MB, virus-free or corrupted contents to avoid rejection, and no more than 1 email transmission.   As such, all application materials must be scanned into one document and submitted.

All applications must be submitted through UNDP jobs.  Please do not send applications to UN Women staff as they will not be accepted.

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
This vacancy is now closed.
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