National consultant GRB expert

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. UN Women Jordan Country Office supports the Government of Jordan to implement global norms and standards on gender equality and women’s empowerment; promotes women’s economic empowerment; and implements a resilience and empowerment model for Syrian refugee women and vulnerable Jordanian women. The country office is implementing its Strategic Note for the period 2018-2022 and is prioritizing coherence and interlinkages across its projects and programmes under these three pillars. This requires effective implementation, monitoring and reporting on progress and results and coordination with key stakeholders in government, civil society, the private sector, and the international community.

Over the past years, and in response to the need for increased accountability for implementation of gender equality commitments policies and financing decisions related to aid and domestic resources, UN Women played an active role to ensure that gender equality is mainstreamed in strategies, programmes and action plans. Moreover, UN Women is leading the global efforts related to women, peace and security (WPS) agenda and playing a key role in achieving progress towards women’s economic empowerment.

One of the key areas of work for UN Women Jordan Country Office is supporting the Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) and other government stakeholders in the security sector. Part of this work is focused on the implementation of the Jordanian National Action Plan on UNSCR 1325 (JONAP), which was endorsed by the prime minister and the cabinet in December 2017 and formally launched in March 2018. Since that time JNCW, with the technical support of UN Women, has been working with key stakeholders to establish the JONAP governance and coordination mechanism, finalize the monitoring and evaluation framework, develop the Communication and Advocacy Strategy and support the implementation together with the key line Ministries and national stakeholders. There were also extensive discussions during 2018 between UN Women, government and international partners on additional funding required for JONAP full implementation. As a result, a pooled fund mechanism was established in partnership between UN Women and the Government with support of Canada, Finland, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom[1].

In addition, UN Women is working closely with multiple development partners, sister agencies and national stakeholders in addressing the structural and social challenges that hinder women’s economic

The pooled fund mechanism was approved for the period of 2018-2021.

empowerment and achieve progress towards SDG 5. One of the operationalization tools of UN Women’s interventions is gender responsive budgeting that support in aligning planning, budgeting, and financing and in ensuring that public investments increasingly address gender priorities. As gender responsive budgeting plays an important part in the utilization of public resources in an effective manner for women’s economic empowerment. This process requires the alignment of budgets to national development plans and priorities to address entrenched disparities in terms of gender and other inequalities.

As part of supporting JONAP’s implementation, aligning the public resources with gender priorities relevant to women’s economic empowerment, and establishing the accountability mechanism, UN Women has been working with JNCW and General Budgeting Department (GBD) towards advancing the Gender-Responsive Budgeting (GRB). UN Women support is carried out by an international Gender Responsive Budgeting Expert, who is responsible of supporting identified government partners in strengthening their skills and knowledge on applying the gender responsive budgeting methodology to sector budgeting. In addition, she works with them on strengthening government’s capacity for GRB implementation broadly on a national level. This is a significant step to ensure sustainable financing of national frameworks, including the JONAP, National Strategy for Women, and the Action Plan for Women’s Economic Empowerment in future national budgets on the central and ministerial levels. UN Women plans to provide further support to strengthen policy work and build the capacity of the national partners to institutionalize a GRB approach into the central national budget process and at line ministries in Arabic. In addition, UN Women plans to provide further support for the implementation of national frameworks relevant to gender equality and women’s empowerment, monitor the progress achieved, and address the identified gender gaps

Objective of the Assignment:

The main objectives of this assignment are to support government partners identified as responsible parties in the JONAP and women’s economic empowerment framework. The consultant will support strengthening their skills and knowledge on applying the gender responsive budgeting methodology to sector budgeting and will support strengthening the government’s capacity for GRB implementation broadly on ministerial and on a national level. The goal of this technical support is to strengthen institutional capacity of key implementing partners and Ministry of Finance. This will be done according to their respective needs in implementing gender responsive budgeting and gender analysis

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme Analyst, and in collaboration with JNCW focal point, and International GRB Expert the GRB national Consultant will be responsible for the following duties and responsibilities:

1. Develop work plan for the assignment, including the methodology, specific activities and timeline.
2. Provide technical assistance to the selected government agencies and women MPs to conduct the gender budget analysis and develop the gender indicators for budget programmes (as pilot ones) in line with the JONAP and women’s economic empowerment goals. This task should be fulfilled in line with the national budgeting process and timeline.
3. Build the capacity of selected civil society organizations to better understand how to advocate for GRB responsive regulations and their role in this respect.
4. Review MOL and SSC financial planning procedures and templates to identify and operationalize entry points to align them with GRB tools in collaboration with their respective concerned employees.
5. Support the international Gender Responsive Budgeting Expert in working with concerned government stakeholders in the introduction and operationalization of gender functional classifier to the national budget circular call.
6. Analyze climate specific budgets for gender coding requirements.
7. Build the capacity of MPs on SDG budget tracking and how to participate effectively in Finance
8. and Economic and Investment committees’ consultations.
9. Support the International GRB Expert in the duties she carries out in Jordan, regarding GRB that requires a national expert support.
10. Conduct awareness raising workshops and sessions on GRB and policy planning for stakeholder in the government and civil society.
11. Liaise on an ongoing basis with UN Women, JNCW and Ministry of Finance and provide advice to UN Women and partners, as needed.
12. Work closely with the national partners to ensure their effective engagement in the execution of the assignment.
13. Other agreed upon tasks relevant to GRB in Jordan.

Competencies

• Monthly timesheets and brief progress reports about implemented activities and achieved results with supporting documents (desk review, summary of strategic meetings, training reports, other materials) submitted. (by 5th of each month, up to 200 working days)- starting from July 15th by 2021.
• Final report about the progress and achievements, lessons learnt, and recommendations submitted (up to 5 working days)- by the end of September 2022.

All monthly reports and final report should be submitted in English language.

The Consultant is expected to work from home and the financial offer should be based on daily basis all inclusive.

The Consultant will be provided with UN Women’s programme related necessary materials and strategic guidance by UN Women during the implementation of the assignment

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

• Demonstrated knowledge of gender equality and climate interventions;
• Excellent written skills;
• Experience in conducting similar mapping exercise;
• Fluency in English and Arabic.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• A master’s degree in economics, finance, or relevant fields, combined with at least 5 years of professional experience.

Or, a bachelor’s degree in any same field combined with at least 2 additional years of professional experience

Experience

• At least 5 years of relevant experience in the field of aid effectiveness, macro-economics, public finance or related fields.
• Proven experience on gender equality, gender responsive budgeting and strategic planning and budgeting systems.
• Proven experience on costing gender equality priorities, including Gender Responsive Budgeting.

Proven experience in developing training material and delivering training courses on gender equality, gender responsive budgeting and programming

Language Requirements

Good written skills in English and Arabic is required