International Consultancy on Disability Marker

Background

Background:

Persons with disabilities encounter considerable challenges regarding social inclusion based on environmental, attitudinal and institutional barriers to, for example, education, livelihoods and employment, safety and protection, and self-representation in both development, peace and security and humanitarian contexts. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) outlines a framework for the inclusion and self-advocacy of persons with disabilities, The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) commit to ensure that global development processes are disability-inclusive in sync with SDG Principle of Leaving No One Behind (LNOB)’, and the IASC Guidelines on the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action set out essential actions by humanitarian actors to effectively identify and respond to the needs and rights of persons with disabilities who are most at risk of being left behind in humanitarian settings. International aid provides fundamental support to meeting these goals. UN-Women has also initiated to explore how the existing work on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS)  can be more inclusive. In order to ensure that persons with disabilities are not left behind, measuring the scale of allocation of resources and, and tracking expenditures that promote inclusion and empowerment of persons with disabilities is essential.

In 2018, the OECD DAC proposed to introduce a policy marker in their Creditor Reporting System (CRS) to, for the first time, track development finance for aid projects that are targeted to the ‘inclusion and empowerment for persons with disabilities’. The addition of this marker represents a step in the right direction in advancing the availability of better data on disability inclusion in development.

UN-Women HQ’s Disability Inclusion and Intersectionality Portfolio/UNSCD (hereinafter ‘DIIP’) leads, coordinates, and promotes the implementation of UN-Women corporate Strategy for Disability Inclusion (The empowerment of women and girls with disabilities: Towards full and effective participation and gender equality), and, responds to the United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy (UNDIS)’s Entity Accountability Framework. This connects to the Entity’s principal mandate and focus on gender equality and the empowerment of women at the global, regional and country levels. The DIIP promotes gender promotes gender responsive disability inclusion agenda for advancing, among others, empowerment of women and girls with disabilities. It advocates for inclusive management and mainstreaming disability inclusion at all levels.

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic affects persons with disabilities in myriad ways. UN-Women, with support from its partners immediately reacting to and supporting existing programs to adapt and respond to the current crisis through technical support, evidence, knowledge base, learning and guidance. However, the continuous hardship caused by COVID-19 makes the need for timely and comprehensive reporting of disability-inclusive development assistance even more important. This would contribute to eventual tracking  allocations made and expenditures incurred.

Duties and Responsibilities

Purpose of the consultancy:

The purpose of this consultancy will be to develop a disability marker package for UN Women that will provide policy and operational guidance a) to track the allocation of resources for disability inclusion, and,  b) to track the expenditures made for disability inclusion including disability inclusive COVID-19 responses. In this regard, it is pertinent to distinguish between disability-relevant and disability-inclusive spending. While disability-relevant aid is any and all spending aimed at supporting persons with disabilities, not all such spending is inclusive. Disability-inclusive (mainstreamed) aid/technical assistance  directs efforts specifically towards the achievement of full and equal participation in society.

Key Deliverables:

Under the guidance of and  reporting to Un-Women  Global Adviser/Team Lead, Disability Inclusion and Intersectionality Portfolio (DIIP), the Consultant will:

1. Develop a policy marker to track disability inclusion (i.e., Definition - Eligibility Criteria - Scoring System including minimum standards for scoring - Best practices / examples - Example of data use - Linkages with SDGs and relevant UN documents etc.);
2. Suggest operational guidance and advocacy requirements for institutional adoption of a disability marker;
3. Support development of a Menu of Services;
4. Facilitate internal and external stakeholders’ consultations [at least 4];
5. Identify and Develop minimum 3 knowledge product and services;

Please submit your Expression of Interest (EoI) along with indicative workplan (please also mention your daily/monthly fees and availability) for the consultancy/assignment and a competency-based resume to be considered for the consultancy.

Competencies

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

Functional Competencies

·      Strong knowledge and familiarity of gender and disability related issues (including CRPD) as well as key concepts related to intersectional approaches and inclusive financing

• Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities
• Ability to handle a large volume of work under time constraints
• Establishes, builds and sustains effective relationships with clients, demonstrating understanding of client’s perspective

Required Skills and Experience

Required Skills and Experience:

Education:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in international development, economics, political sciences, public administration, public policy, gender studies, sociology, human rights or other relevant social science fields is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experiences and required skills:

·       At least 5 years of experience in supporting entities/organisations on development cooperation, disability inclusion, (i.e., operational support for reasonable accommodation), or gender equality and disability inclusion.

·       Knowledge of disability-inclusive budgeting, tracking expenditures for disability inclusion and/or related public expenditures tracking processes.

·       Experience in working with marker systems, familiarity with an existing disability marker system (gender marker), and building capacity on the use of markers would be an advantage.

·       Experience working with development cooperation reporting processes (i.e., results-based reporting etc.) and databases.

·       Experience monitoring/auditing/evaluating disability inclusion within cooperation programmes e.g. government/multilateral programmes.

·       Experience working with financial data (budgets and accounts).

·       Excellent writing skills in English.

·       Knowledge of country-level UN System accountability processes would be an

advantage.  

Language:

Fluency in oral and written English is required. Knowledge of another official United Nations language is desirable