Consultant- Programme Implementation (Sri Lankan Nationals only) - 2 Positions

Contract

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

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. Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates the United Nations system’s efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts towards building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

All human development and human rights issues involve gender dimensions. Globally, UN Women focuses on key priority areas that are fundamental to women’s equality, that can unlock progress across the board. The six priority areas include increasing women’s leadership and participation in political spaces, ending violence against women, enhancing women’s economic empowerment, engaging in all aspects of women peace and security processes, making gender equality central to national planning and budgeting through Gender Responsive Budgeting and advancing gender in intergovernmental processes.

The UN Security Council Resolution 1325 recognizes that conflict affects women and girls differently when compared to men and boys, and that women must be part of conflict resolution and long-term peacebuilding processes. In this regard, UN Women has a universal mandate to assist countries and the UN system in progressing more effectively and efficiently towards achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women, as well as upholding women’s rights. UN Women plays a critical role in the development and strengthening of international norms and standards alongside their implementation through operational and coordination activities, while also informing the development of those norms and standards through experiences on the ground. It has also established strategic partnerships and networks with a wide range of stakeholders, including governments, women’s human rights advocates, and civil society organizations.

Following the aftermath of the conflict in 2009, Sri Lanka has made several commitments to peacebuilding, reconciliation and good governance, which represents a historic opportunity to advance accountability and reconciliation as necessary steps towards long-term and sustainable peace. This includes Sri Lanka’s commitment to advance the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda to ensure that peacebuilding initiatives in Sri Lanka include leveraging women’s capacities and contributions, and developing strategies for inclusion, which recognize their roles, and diverse experiences of conflict. Without women’s engagement at the stages of peace consolidation, the dangers of relapse are greatly heightened. Empirical evidence reveals a strong connection between the inclusion of women in peace processes and more durable and stable peace. Despite this however, the most challenging gap in terms of women’s inclusivity in decision-making, concerns the participation of women in peace processes and post-conflict political transitions. This is particularly relevant to the context of Sri Lanka, given that, when compared to other development indices, the political participation of women claims the widest gender gap in the country.

In this context, UN Women is seeking the services of two Consultants to support implementation and provide administrative support for its ongoing projects, which are focused on implementing the WPS Agenda and the G7 Partnerships Initiative, women’s leadership, engagement in peacebuilding, ending violence against women and girls, and women’s economic empowerment. The Consultant - Programme Implementation will support the project inception, implementation, reporting, including overall monitoring and coordination.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision and guidance of the UN Women Programme Analyst, Sri Lanka, the Consultant - Programme Implementation is expected to undertake the following tasks, in close coordination with team at UN Women Sri Lanka and related project partners/stakeholders. The Consultant - Programme Implementation will remain accountable for the timely submission of the deliverables as per the timeline given below. The consultant’s duties and responsibilities have been defined against each project as follows:

Administration, coordination and implementation of the project:

• Provide administrative and procurement support with organizing logistics for project activities, events, trainings, meetings, in accordance with UN/UN Women rules and regulations;
• Liaise with other UN agencies, government counterparts, project partners, consultants, vendors and beneficiary in coordinating and implementing project activities.
• Support the project team with contract process related to Project Partners, Vendors and Consultants and supervise the progress and completion of their activities and deliverables.
• Support in coordinating the timely and effective implementation of the project.

Technical and financial management, monitoring and reporting:

• Provide technical support for project implementation.
• Assist the UN Women team in the management of budgets.
• Assist in periodic monitoring meetings with government and non-government partners;
• Support monitoring, analysis and evaluation of technical and financial reports from partners, including technical and management support;
• Support preparation of internal technical reports and briefs including donor reports; documentation of activities, outputs and outcomes
• Assist regular field visits and liaise with UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific as required.

Strategic partnerships, advocacy and knowledge management:

• Support the development and strengthening of partnerships with UN agencies, government institutions, and civil society programme/project implementation and other stakeholders;
• Support the development of knowledge management strategies, advocacy products and methodologies on women, peace and security.
• Assist in organising and coordinating advocacy and media campaigns with partners.

• Undertake travel to project locations with the project team.

• Any other responsibilities as assigned by the Supervisor.

Expected deliverables

No

Tasks and Deliverables

Target Submission Date

1

Provide the necessary administrative and other assistance as specified under the tasks and responsibilities in the ToR

Deliverable: 3-5-page report detailing the tasks undertaken for the assigned projects per month.

20 June 2021

20 July 2021

20 August 2021

20 September 2021

20 October 2021

20 November 2021

20 December 2021

Duration of Assignment and Duty Station:

The Consultant is expected to work full-time, starting from June 2021- Dec 2021. The consultancy is primarily home-based. However, the consultant is expected to visit the UN Women Sri Lanka Office located at 202-204, Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Colombo 7 when requested and undertake travel to project locations along with the project team as required by the project. The cost of most economic and direct travel on mission must be pre-approved by Programme Analyst of UN Women Sri Lanka and it is reimbursable upon submission of evidence of travel, following UN Women Travel Guidelines.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the United Nations' values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of the UN and UN Women;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Ability and willingness to work as part of a team to meet tight deadlines and produce high quality work.

Required Skills and Experience

Required Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Business, Accounting, Gender Studies, International Relations, Development Studies, Public Administration, Law, Human Rights or equivalent in relevant fields of Social Science. A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• At least 2 years of demonstrable experience in working in the development sector, preferably on gender equality and women’s empowerment, including administrative/financial management experience.
• Work experience in project implementation, administrative support for development programme/project is an advantage.
• Experience of working with civil society organisations and provincial/local levels of governments/ the UN is an asset.
• Proficiency in English (written and spoken) AND a local language (Sinhala/Tamil)
• Proficiency in software applications like Word, Excel, Power point, etc.

Evaluation Criteria

• Applications will be evaluated based on the Cumulative analysis.
• Technical Knowledge (100 points) weight; [70%]
• Financial Proposal (100 points) weight; [30%]

A two-stage procedure is utilised in evaluating the proposals, with evaluation of the technical proposal being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. Only the price proposal of the candidates who passed the minimum technical score of 70% of the obtainable score of 100 points in the technical qualification evaluation will be evaluated for the financial assessment.

A written exam will be administered to the shortlisted candidates. The candidate who scores 70% and above will be interviewed. Those who pass the interview will be considered technically qualified for the assignment.

Financial/Price Proposal evaluation******:

• Only the financial proposal of candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation will be considered and evaluated.
• The total number of points allocated for the price component is 100.

The maximum number of points will be allotted to the lowest price proposal that is opened/evaluated and compared among those technical qualified candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation. All other price proposals will receive points in inverse proportion to the lowest price.

Submission of application

Interest candidates are encouraged to submit electronic application with the complete submission package consisted of the documents mentioned below to UNDP Jobs no later than 04 June 2021.

Submission package includes:

• Updated CV
• Personal History Form(P11) of all team members. The P11 form can be downloaded from http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs
• Writing sample (previous research report, article, publication etc.)
• Financial proposal: monthly fee in LKR. Please do not submit the financial proposal in USD.

All applicants must combine the CV, P11, and financial proposal and upload as a single attachment to the recruitment system. Applications without the said documents will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

PAYMENTS:

Payments for this consultancy will be based on the achievement of each deliverable and certification that each has been satisfactorily completed. Payments will be made upon submission of deliverables with an approval of the National Programme Analyst at UN Women Sri Lanka.