1.Organizational Background

UN Women is the UN agency with the explicit mandate to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. UN Women is committed to assist Member States in meeting their commitments of the Sustainable Development Goals and ensuring equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of crisis and humanitarian response. UN Women works in crisis prevention, scales-up preparedness, and response to reduce vulnerabilities, addresses risks, promotes resilience, and leverages women’s leadership.

“Implementing norms, changing minds” is a UN Women ECA regional programme, aiming to support a reduction in discrimination and violence against women and girls in the Western Balkans – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia – and Turkey, anchored in the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Istanbul Convention, and also in alignment with European Union accession standards.  The programme is funded by the European Commission under IPA II. The programme supports the development of an enabling legislative and policy environment on eliminating violence against women and all forms of discrimination; promotes favourable social norms and attitudes to prevent gender discrimination and violence against women; and pursues empowering women and girls (including those from disadvantaged groups) who have experienced discrimination or violence to advocate for and use available, accessible, and quality services. The programme channels its interventions through and to women’s organizations, with an emphasis on those working with women from disadvantaged groups.

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in 2013 and COVID-19 on the 11th of March 2020. The dual pandemic has unveiled structural inequalities across countries and disproportionately affected marginalized communities. Concomitantly, specialist services to support survivors are being disrupted or made inaccessible. Specialist services providers caught short by the COVID-19 pandemic, face difficulties in appropriately reshaping their services to provide continuous assistance to women who are simultaneously at the frontline of the pandemic’s response and the first victims of the pandemic’s impacts.

Following the findings and recommendations from the Rapid Assessment “Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on specialist services for victims and survivors of violence in the Western Balkans and Turkey: A proposal for addressing the needs” conducted in April and May 2020 among 40 civil society organizations (CSOs) programme partners, the programme activities are reshaped to address the impact of the COVID-19 in support to CSOs service providers and beneficiaries of services.  Findings of the assessment revealed general and specialist services provision to survivors of VAWG require mid-term investments to adapt to the situation caused by the COVID-19 in order to serve all women optimally and to curb the expected rise of violence following the pandemic. The assessment also revealed that the pandemic, as any other crisis, poses challenges, but also presents opportunities for innovation as CSOs adjust their services to fit the new reality; this innovation should be supported in order to develop more effective and better-quality services. Informed by the assessment findings, the programme “ Implementing norms, changing minds” will double efforts to support CSOs to strengthen their capacities to deliver specialist services to women victims of violence, and to guarantee accessible and quality services within the evolving working conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this context, UN Women would like to bring on board an international consultant to address CSO partners’ needs, gather information, and support them to deliver within the framework of COVID-19 response. The consultant will provide support for the smooth implementation of partnership agreements with CSOs. The consultant will work under the supervision of the Regional Programme Manager and in close collaboration with UN Women relevant staff. 

Duties and Responsibilities

2.Purpose of Assignment

The main purpose of this consultancy is to support CSOs programme partners to implement partnership agreements smoothly, provide them with knowledge, sharing opportunities and networking for better delivery of services.

3.Scope of work and responsibilities

Within the framework of COVID-19 response, the tasks of the consultant will include, but will not be necessarily limited to the following:

• Provide support for the smooth implementation of partnership agreements including but not restricted to delivery of services, knowledge generation, information sharing and networking.
• Provide support for effective monitoring of activities and results that could inform emerging needs as the crisis evolve.
• Support functioning of all operational activities related to partnership agreements with CSOs.
• Support information collection and dissemination, and support CSOs to network.

4.Deliverables

The consultant will be required to submit a quarterly report on the implementation of project activities, including update of the project implementation and status of partnership agreements implementation. The schedule and/or nature of the deliverables may be modified by the hiring manager, in agreement with the consultant.

Competencies

5.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: 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

• Good knowledge of gender equality and women’s rights issues;
• Ability to work under pressure and within limited time frames;
• Communicative, results-driven, ability to work in teams;
• Proven networking skills, and ability to mobilize support on behalf of UN Women;
• Excellent negotiating skills;
• Knowledge and understanding of UN system;
• Excellent IT skills, office software packages;
• Strong risk-management skill;
• Familiarity with UN Women;
• Ability to identify opportunities and build strong relationships with clients and external actors;
• Consistent work approach with energy, a positive, and constructive attitude.

Required Skills and Experience

6.Required Skills and Experience

Education:

A Master’s degree in international relations development studies, and/or gender studies, social science, political science is required. 

Experience:

• 1 year minimum of work experience, preferably relating to areas relating to TOR.
• Experience in report writing, reporting, programming, or communications
• Experience on programmes supporting CSOs working on ending gender-based discrimination and violence against women considered an asset.
• Previous experience with the United Nations is required, experience working with UN Women considered an asset
• Experience in the implementation of European Commission funded projects is considered an advantage.
• Experience within the Western Balkans and Turkey is an advantage

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English is required (written and oral).
• Knowledge of other UN working languages is highly desirable.

7.Location of Activities and Duration of Assignment:

• The consultant is expected to work remotely, utilizing his/her own office space, computer, internet, telephone, and other equipment, as needed, to undertake the assignment.
• The consultant will be engaged up to 145 working days within the period of 1 February 2021 to 31 January 2022 (12 months).

8.Application procedure

The following documents should be submitted as part of the application:

• Cover letter including a brief overview about which of your previous experiences makes you the most suitable candidate for the advertised position.
• Financial Proposal specifying a total lump sum amount for the tasks specified in this Terms of Reference. The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount by indicating the daily rate with an anticipated 145 working days, and other possible costs, if any.
• P11 (and CV) including past experience in similar assignments; can be downloaded at http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment, a signed copy should be submitted with the application.

Candidates should have the ability to quickly gather degree certificates and medical certification (of good health) should they be short-listed in consideration of the consultancy post.

9.Payment schedule

The consultant will be paid in USD in four quarterly instalments (as per the daily rate in the financial offer from the consultant) based on the review and approval of deliverables/reports by UN Women Regional Programme Manager as explained in the section of Deliverables above.

10.Evaluation of applicants

Candidates will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of the applicants’ qualifications and financial proposal. Contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer receives the highest score out of below defined technical and financial criteria. Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for financial evaluation.

Financial Evaluation (30%) – max. 30 points:

The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal. All other price proposals receive points in inverse proportion. A suggested formula is as follows:

p = 30 (µ/z)

Using the following values:

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated

µ = price of the lowest priced proposal

z = price of the proposal being evaluated