Consultant – Innovative Finance (Open to Indian Nationals Only)

Contract

This is a National Consultant contract. More about National Consultant contracts.

Background

UN Women is the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. UN Women is dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.

All human development and human rights issues have gender dimensions. UN Women focuses on priority areas that are fundamental to women’s equality, and that can unlock progress across the board. Six focus areas that UN Women include violence against women, economic empowerment, leadership and participation, peace and security, national planning and budgeting and intergovernmental processes.

The Partnerships, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit is a cross cutting unit which leads and provides technical support to the programme units in developing and implementing monitoring processes across the portfolios and evaluating the programme results. It is also responsible for building partnerships across sectors and mobilizing resources for the organization.

The purpose of this consultancy is to support the efforts of the Unit, relating to innovative and sustainable financing activities for gender equality and empowerment of women. The Consultant will support the Partnership lead in the development of strategy, consultative workshops, briefs and implementation of the innovative financing products.

The consultant will work under the overall supervision of the Country Representative, UN Women India.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Consultant will have the following responsibilities:

• Lead the development of strategy and approaches, design structuring and fundraising of innovative finance products/ proposals to fund gender equality & women empowerment, such as Gender Bonds, ESG investments;
• Conduct research, organize stakeholder roundtables and policy analyses on the related topics to identify key thematic challenges and potential solutions;
• Initiate discussions, establish and strengthen partnerships within the UN System, Multilateral Development Banks, Bilateral Donors, Commercial Banks, Regulators, Standard setting bodies, Government partners and other relative stakeholders to expand the social bond and its principles to include Gender Bonds encouraging the market to finance SDG5;
• Liaison with the UN Women Regional & HQ teams;
• Build skills and education of UN Women staff and other stakeholders to engage on Innovative Finance discussions;
• Advise on making Women Livelihood Bonds functional launched by UN Women India, World Bank & State Bank of India
• Advise on innovations and market solutions around blended finance models to promote women’s economic empowerment
• Spearhead the adoption and promotion of the Gender Bond Guidelines (launched by UN Women, IFC & ICMA) by various stakeholders and partners in India;
• Advise on structuring deals and financial instruments for various UN Women India Programmes;
• Advise on resource mobilizing proposals/efforts entailing innovative finance mechanisms;
• Support any other strategic activities relating to innovative financing.

Expected Deliverables:

• Innovative Finance Strategy Document along with Implementation of Action Plan aligned with UN Women’s priority areas.
• 4 Roundtable meetings and consultative workshops with various stakeholders.
• 4 Sessions for key stakeholders to socialize innovative financing mechanisms for gender equality.
• Recommendations for successful implementation of the Women’s Livelihood Bonds.
• Recommendations on innovative finance mechanism in resource mobilization proposals developed by UN Women.

Competencies

Core Values / Guiding Principles:

Corporate Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women

Development and Operational Effectiveness

• Demonstrated research and analytical capacity;
• Excellent organizational, inter-personal, communication and administrative skills;
• Excellent drafting and presentation skills
• Strong IT skills
• Proven ability to manage diverse and complex tasks, with tight deadlines;
• Able to take initiative and work independently, with minimum supervision;
• Able to work effectively in a team and in an international environment;

Management and Leadership

• Focuses on impact and results and responds positively to critical feedback
• Creativity and innovation
• Conflict resolution skills
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
• Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills
• Willing to work as a team, and promote a learning environment and a focus on results-based management.

Integrity:

• Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

Professionalism:

• Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity:

• Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff;
• Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in economics, development economics, finance, business administration, or a related field with expertise in innovative development finance mechanisms and blended finance instruments

Experience:

• Ten or more years of increasingly senior level experience in development finance, impact investment and ESG Tools.
• Knowledge of the latest research, progress and lessons in development finance and experience applying best practices, tools and approaches.
• Knowledge and experience working in gender equality and women empowerment preferred, or ability to develop this knowledge.
• Previous experience engaging with high level national government/ministry level officials, as well as businesses and senior management in financial institutions.
• Experience working with bilateral/multilateral donors a plus.

Language:

• Fluency in English and working knowledge of the language of the duty station.
• Excellent writing and communication skills.
• Oral and written fluency in English.

Application:

Interested applicants should apply to this announcement through UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:

• All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-P11-Personal-History-Form.doc
• Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment, please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment;
• Applications received after the close date will not be accepted;
• Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Evaluation and Selection Criteria

Criteria for shortlisting of CVs will be based on the following assessment:

• Required Degree and Qualification (5 points);
• Minimum Experience relevant to the assignment (10 points);
• Working knowledge and experience of working on Women’s Economic Empowerment projects/programmes (5 points).

The evaluation process for selection of the candidate will be based on the following assessment:

• Interview (80 points)
• Relevant published work (20 points)

Please Note:

• For an assignment requiring travel, consultants of 65 years or more require full medical examination and statement of fitness to work to engage in the consultancy.
• Due to large number of potential applicants, only competitively selected candidates will be contacted for remaining steps of the service procurement process.

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.