National Consultant, Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting -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. In Nepal, UN Women focuses on strengthening women’s voice, agency and leadership across sectors to advance women’s rights, provide space for women’s meaningful participation, and contribute to tangible differences in their lives. Under the overarching Nepal Country Office’s Strategic Note (SN) for the period 2018-2022, UN Women focuses on two programmatic areas, inclusive governance and women’s economic empowerment.

As part of its ongoing programmatic efforts, UN Women also supports key national stakeholders to mainstream gender in planning and budgeting processes. The Government of Nepal (GoN) has engaged with gender responsive budgeting (GRB) since 2001 in collaboration with UNDP and UN Women and it was introduced formally in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2007/08. In 2012, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) issued comprehensive guidelines requiring all ministries to apply a classification and coding system aimed at identifying the gender responsiveness of the budgetary activities. The GRB landscape changed in 2017, with a major restructuring of the government from a unitary to a federal system. The federal system devolved the powers of human resource management and funding of public services like education and health to the sub-national governments. This posed new systemic and capacity challenges and presented opportunity for effective GRB implementation. To enable an extension and continuity of the GRB strategy at the sub-national level, the 15th plan (2019/20-2023/24) reiterated its importance and directed the government to establish adequate procedures and systems at all tiers of governance. Given the commitment of the GoN to apply GRB system all level, considering the changing public finance management (PFM) systems in Nepal and new advancement in GRB approaches globally, it is important to re-assess and re-align the present GRB strategy, to make it more relevant and effective.

UN Women Nepal is implementing several initiatives on GRB. These include: 1. Strengthening Gender Responsive Budgeting in Federal Nepal (in partnership with the Nepal Administrative College-NASC); 2. SDG Aligned public financing (in partnership with UNDP and UNCDF); 3. Promoting Decent Employment for women with gender inclusive equitable policies and investment in care economy (with ILO). In its current SN, UN Women has also prioritized the sectoral application of GRB, including in Humanitarian Action and DRR, as well as strengthening social Accountability.

The key strategies entail – research and evidence generation; strengthening technical capacities of government officials and key stakeholders at all three levels and policy advocacy for increased financing for GEWE commitments. Towards this goal UN Women works with elected officials, civil servants and citizens at all levels. The approach extends beyond policy and law reform, to implementation and monitoring of policies, supporting the development of plans and budgets, enhancing the capacity of key government officials, and promoting gender equality and social inclusion in governance mechanisms. In addition, UN Women works together with excluded groups to support their active participation and enable their voices to be heard, thus contributing to transforming discriminatory social norms and eliminating harmful practices and behaviors through gender responsive allocations and growth policies. All of the above contribute to fulfilling Nepal's obligations to international treaties and commitments, including regular reporting on progress related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Beijing Platform for Action and to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and Universal Periodic Reviews (UPR). UN Women is seeking to engage two National Consultants on a retainer bases to support the Country Office’s aforementioned programmes.

The National Consultants will be responsible for providing technical support to UN Women and its key partners, including the NASC, Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Federal Administration and General Affairs, National Planning Commission, etc. The technical support will include review/ analysis of documents, conducting training and orientation, support in regular reporting on progress related to CEDAW, UPR and similar other reporting. The consultants are also expected to provide support in ongoing programmatic interventions; including but not limited to; sectoral application of GRB, social accountability, SDG aligned public financing, Decent Employment Joint Programme. This will require the Consultants to work closely with all three -Federal Provincial and Local Government units with potential visit to municipalities for trainings, orientations and consultation meetings. With the continuation of the COVID 19 crisis, the National Consultant is expected to provide COVID related technical oversight and quality assurance, to roll out contextual initiatives in the evolving context of COVID and disaster situation that have differential gender impacts.

[1]Gender Budget Audit in Nepal, UNIFEM/UNDP, August 2002

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall guidance of the Head of Programmes and direct supervision of Programme Officer, the Consultants detailed scope of work and responsibilities of the assignment are as follows:

Strengthening evidence building on GRB with document reviews and research works

• Review and provide technical inputs in the documents, technical briefs and strategy paper from gender perspective to ensure gender mainstreaming in national, provincial and local level frameworks.
• Review and summarize key documents and literature on key issues of gender and GRB to the Nepalese context to enable UN Women to provide relevant inputs from gender perspective. Key issues include gender responsive budgeting, social accountability, SDG aligned gender responsive public financing, DRR, sectoral application of GRB.
• Collect relevant planning and budgeting policy papers from the provincial and local levels including the Provincial Plans and analyse the priorities related to changing governance landscape with federalism in Nepal with a specific focus on planning and budgeting processes at the national and sub-national level. Results of the analyses shall support UN Women Nepal to identify entry points for GRB and social accountability, SDG aligned public financing and other similar initiatives.
• Provide technical inputs to budget guidelines, SDG coding manuals and knowledge products for the SDG aligned public financing programme in national and provincial budgeting including SDG responsive MTEF and SDG coding.
• Support primary and secondary research on GRB to inform the development of technical papers/policy papers on GRB, include for the two JPs listed above
• Documentation of best practices/lessons learned

Support in capacity building components

• Design and facilitate capacity development initiatives for government officials and civil society organizations at all levels of the government in on mainstreaming gender in planning and budgeting processes at all levels including as part of the JP on SDG Aligned Financing; and JP and Decent Employment
• Provide accompaniment support to UN Women and key partners on GRB, including design/customization of GRB tools for application in programming.

Coordination with stakeholders and participation in relevant meetings.

• Provide coordination support to NCO to liaise with key government and CSO partners for the implementation of ongoing programmes.
• Participate in policy dialogues and technical meeting to provide technical support and coordination, participating in relevant reference meetings related to the GRB policy advisory support with the Government stakeholders and with UN Women’s implementing partners.

Expected deliverables

Expected deliverables include:

• Evidence of technical inputs reviewing documents, technical briefs and strategy paper
• Evidence of review key documents/literature on key issues of gender and GRB, social accountability, SDG aligned gender responsive public financing as well as DRR
• Evidence of analysis of planning and budgeting policy papers from the provincial and local levels
• Evidence of technical inputs to budget guidelines, SDG coding manuals and knowledge products for the SDG aligned public financing programme.
• Evidence of support to primary and secondary research on GRB to inform the development of technical papers/policy papers on GRB.
• Training Report on capacity development training design and facilitation for the stakeholders on GRB.
• Brief report on accompaniment support to UN Women and key partners on GRB
• Meeting minutes and summaries of coordination support to NCO
• Meeting minutes and summaries after participation in policy dialogues and technical meetings

Inputs

• UN Women will provide reference materials and facilitate coordination with key stakeholders.
• UN Women can give access the UN Women office for printing of relevant documents during the assignment, if required.
• The consultant will be required to provide their own local communications such as SIM cards and mobile phone.
• It is the Consultant’s responsibility to arrange private insurance.
• It is mandatory for the consultant to participate in a UN security briefing and to follow UN security rules and guidance.
• The Consultant will be required to provide a Statement of Good Health, endorsed by a certified Medical Practitioner.

Duration of the assignment and duty station

This is a home-based assignment for 1 year (15 August 2022- 14 August 2023) on retainer basis (as and when required) with a maximum of 60 working days. This is a home-based assignment with field missions and participation in meeting and consultations in Kathmandu and in the federal, provincial and local levels on required basis for a year after the signing of the contract, with a possibility of extension. In the light of COVID-19 context, the assignment will include virtual meetings and possibly limited field work

Schedule of payments

Payment will be made based on the invoice submitted by the consultant as per the agreed number of days for the assignments and upon certification of satisfactory performance by the supervisor. The contractor’s performance will be evaluated against such criteria as: timeliness, responsibility, initiative, communications, accuracy, and quality of the products delivered. Time required for review and approval of the deliverables may vary depending upon the nature of the products delivered. In average, it is expected to take a week to get each deliverable reviewed and approved.

Competencies

Competencies

Core Values and Guiding Principles

• 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.

Functional Competencies

• Ethics and Values: Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.
• Organizational Awareness: Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.
• Development and Innovation: Take charge of self-development and take initiative.
• Work in teams: Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multiethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.
• Communicating and Information Sharing: Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication

Required Skills and Experience

Qualification and experience

• Master’s degree in Gender and Development Studies, Political Science, Social Science, or any other related field of studies.
• A minimum of ten years of professional experience in working with gender equality and women’s empowerment and/or inclusive governance including training and facilitation skills for adult learning.
• Proven expertise in the area of gender equality and the empowerment of women and well versed in CEDAW, Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and SDG goals and indicators.
• Previous experience working with different levels of government, civil society and development partners. Experience working with the UN system is an asset.
• Knowledge and experience of gender responsive budgeting conceptwill be an asset.
• Fluency in written and oral English and Nepali is required. Knowledge of other languages such as Maithili and Bhojpuri will be an asset.
• Ability to handle documents and the information contained therein with strictest confidentiality is a non-negotiable requirement.

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals?

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• Expression of interest explaining why you are interested to this position and what professional skills and experiences make you a strong candidate.
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded: http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment
• A separate page of financial proposal, professional fee per day in NPR (min 8 hours)

Please note that DSA for field missions will be paid at UN rates and travel, booked in compliance with UN Women policy, so these costs do not need to be included in the financial proposal.

Evaluation criteria

A two-stage procedure is applied in evaluating the proposals.

1. The technical evaluation will be carried out as per the criteria listed below. Those that meet a minimum threshold (scoring at least 70% on the technical assessment) will be qualified for the assessment of the financial evaluation.

Technical evaluation criteria (including minimum qualifications):

• Master’s degree in Gender and Development Studies, Political Science, Social Science, or any other related field of studies. (15 points)
• A minimum of ten years of professional experience in working with gender equality and women’s empowerment and/or inclusive governance including training and facilitation. (15 points)
• Proven expertise in the area of GRB at different levels of government, civil society and development partners in Nepal will be an asset (25 points).
• Knowledge and experience of gender responsive budgeting concept (10 points)
• Experience working with the UN system is a considerable asset. (5points)

2. The financial evaluation of candidates who meet the technical assessment threshold will be evaluated. The financial assessment will count as 30% of the total points. In this methodology, 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 formula is as follows:

p = y (µ/z)

Where:

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated

y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal

µ = price of the lowest priced proposal

z = price of the proposal being evaluated