National Consultant on Climate Change and Gender

Contract

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

Background

UN Women was established by GA resolution 64/289 of 2 July 2010 on system-wide coherence, with a mandate to assist the Member States and the UN system to progress more effectively and efficiently towards the goal of achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women. Since 2001 UN Women (previously as UNIFEM) in Kyrgyzstan has implemented catalytic initiatives on promoting women’s economic, political, and social rights. In 2012 a full Country Office was established.

UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes and services needed to ensure that the standards are effectively implemented on climate change and gender and truly benefit women and girls worldwide. It works globally to make the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals a reality for women and girls and stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life, focusing on five strategic priorities:

• Women lead, participate in and influence climate change decision-making processes.
• Governments and key stakeholders generate, analyse and use sex, age, and diversity disaggregated data to inform climate change and disaster risks and actions.
• National policymakers integrate gender equality considerations in climate change strategies, policies, programmes and projects.
• Women use climate actions for economic empowerment, building adaptive capacity and climate-resilient livelihoods.
• Regional platforms and knowledge sharing mechanisms on climate change incorporate gender equality and empowerment perspective.

Climate change is making our world more dangerous. A changing climate affects everyone, but it’s the world’s poorest and those in vulnerable situations, especially women and girls, who bear the brunt of environmental, economic and social shocks. Often, women and girls are the last to eat or be rescued; they face greater health and safety risks as water and sanitation systems become compromised; and they take on increased domestic and care work as resources dwindle.

While women are the most vulnerable to the climate change impacts and more disproportionately affected by the growing negative impacts and social pressures, they possess the experience and knowledge and hold the solutions for the climate change challenges. By ensuring women’s strong positioning at the decision- making in climate change policies and solutions we will be able to reduce the impacts of climate change. The average representation of women in national and global climate negotiating bodies across the ECA region is below 30%. The capacities, skills and resources that women possess to effectively address climate change risks need to be increasingly invited to the decision-making fora. Their ability to bounce back and adjust after extreme climatic events and disasters, reconstruct their lives, and adapt to climate change needs to be given higher recognition and space. Therefore, enabling women’s voices, agency, and leadership are prerequisites for resilience building, sustainable development, and the fulfilment of gender equality and human rights.

Central Asia is already witnessing the negative impacts of changing climate, including warmer temperatures, glacier melt, increased variability in water resources, and frequent and costly weather-related hazards, such as floods and droughts. Since the middle of the 20th century, average temperatures have increased from 0.5 ºC in the south to 1.6 ºC in the north affecting the hydrology and triggering glacier melting. Glaciers have already shrunk by one-third in volume since the beginning of the 20th century and an equal amount is expected to disappear in the next 20 years which will worsen competition over water resources across sectors and countries (water – energy – food security nexus). Most significant long-term challenge - season shift of river water flows - with loss of glaciers river flows will be shifting towards spring and there will be less water available during the harvest growing season. There are estimates that economic losses from weather-related disasters vary from 0.4% to 1.3% of GDP per annum for Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and the Kyrgyz Republic. In Uzbekistan, the growth in agricultural GDP dropped to 0.3% in 2018 from 6% in 2016, largely due to the impact of the droughts.

At the same time the transition to green economy may also temporarily lead to loss of GDP, which is important for more fragile economies. For example, for Serbia, investing in GHG emission reduction could lead to a drop in the GDP by as much as 3.4% by 2030 and 3.9% by 2050, and a consequent job loss of up to 2.1% in 2030 and 2.5% in 2050 compared to a situation in which no action is taken to reduce GHG emissions.Job losses are primarily expected in the fossil fuel and agriculture sectors. However, job losses in one sector do not necessarily mean absolute job losses, since green economy will contribute to the creation of net new jobs. Thus in order to minimize some disturbing effect of transition to green economy, governments will need to invest in sectors of sustainable economy with high potential and take steps to provide for a just transition.

UN Women ECA initiatives on Gender change and climate is aimed to mainstream gender equality considerations in climate change policy and action both nationally and regionally. The initiatives’ overall objective is to enable countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia to implement gender-responsive climate change actions to address key-drivers of gender-based vulnerabilities and use climate action as an accelerator of gender equality and women’s empowerment. The aim is to expand this initiative to Kyrgyzstan as well.

The Government of the Kyrgyz Republic takes measures to reduce the vulnerability of the country, the work is in progress on improving the regulatory framework, material and technical equipment, infrastructural measures on risk reduction, etc. But due to the difficult economic situation, the total provision of security from disasters is a difficult task for governmental agencies at the present days. It is required the support and assistance of development partners.

Duties and Responsibilities

The scope of work of the consultancy requires experience and in-depth understanding of gender equality and climate change issues, related both to mitigation and adaptation as well as acquaintance with climate policy and institutional framework in Kyrgyz Republic. Under the overall guidance and direct supervision of UN Women Head of Programmes and under the guidance of ECARO International Consultant on Climate Change and building on the results of recent climate and gender mission, the National Consultant will perform the following tasks:

1. Undertake gender analysis/screening of climate change mitigation and adaptation policies, actions and institutional frameworks undertaken and established by the Government, UN system, International Organization, NGOs as well as other partners in the Kyrgyz Republic;
2. Based on the above analysis and 8 entry points and actions identified and preliminary discussions held with various partners during the climate and gender mission, identify an appropriate positioning and value added of UN Women in this area and develop a proposal on climate change, gender equality and women’s rights in line with the vision of the upcoming Strategic Note of UN Women Country Office in Kyrgyzstan for 2021-2025, using the objectives of upcoming UN Women Regional Programme on Climate and Gender as a guidance;
3. Organize and facilitate at least five dialogues with the Government and other partners within and outside of UN system on the draft proposal to build partnership and greater synergy with the planned actions on climate change as well as agree on concrete cooperation in line with the key Government strategies and action plans;
4. Reflect the results of the dialogues in the proposal, provide regular updates to UN Women on the progress of the initiative.

Timeframe: The duration of the consultancy is through 15 October 2021 for up to 25 fee days:

The payments will be made in KGS at the UN Operational Rate for Exchange (UNORE) effective at the month of payment and in one instalment per reported number of fee days based on submitted and approved deliverables, as follows:

Deliverables

Deliverables

Number of fee days

Target Date

1. An inception report detailing workplan, including the methodology.

2. Proposal on Gender Equality, WHR and Climate Change in the context of Kyrgyz Republic with the main purpose to support the Government and other partners efforts on Climate Change through gender equality and Women Human Rights prisms validated by UN Women. (The initial document is allowed to be developed in Russian and then translated into English)

   20 w/days

   17 September

3. Report from the consultations with concrete recommendations reflected in the proposal.

   3 w/days

   24 September

4. Presentation of the proposal on Gender Equality, WHR and Climate Change to UN Women and relevant partners.

   2 w/days

11 October

Tasks, timeframe, payments

The duration of the consultancy is through 15 October 2021 for up to 25 fee days:

The payments will be made in KGS at the UN Operational Rate for Exchange (UNORE) effective at the month of payment and in one instalment per reported number of fee days based on submitted and approved deliverables, as follows:

Reporting requirements:

The National Consultant is expected to work remotely using her/his own computer but may access the UN Women office to print relevant documents or whenever required to work on-site at any point during the assignment.

Consultancy report should be provided in both in printed and electronic versions in Russian and English with detailed description of the fulfilled tasks, according to the present Term of Reference, and the contribution of the expert. Analytical documents, reports and other materials developed by expert should be attached to the report as annexes, which will serve as a justification for payment.

Competencies

• Knowledge of gender equality and women rights issues
• Ability to conceptualize and convey strategic vision from the spectrum of gender equality, climate change and sustainable development
• Proven experience in Formulating of Project Proposals for Climate Change and Gender
• Excellent inter-personal communication and team-working skills
• Effective planning and time-management skills
• Good analytical and writing skills
• Commitment to quality and timely results

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in climate sciences, environmental sciences or another relevant 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.

Experience:

• Minimum five years of relevant experience on issues related to climate risk, vulnerability reduction, humanitarian action and capacity development.
• Proven track record in policy analysis, development work in the area of climate change/DRR and related issues;
• Substantive knowledge of gender equality and women’s rights issues in the area of sustainable development;
• Ability to conceptualize and convey strategic vision from the spectrum of gender equality and sustainable development experience;
• Strong oral communication and writing skills, with proven expertise in writing cogent and convincing policy and programme documents;
• Demonstrated track record in policy research and preparing policy reports and papers, employing qualitative and quantitative evidence and data;
• Significant familiarity with intergovernmental and normative processes
• Demonstrated effectiveness in establishing and fostering good relations with representatives of government, UN entities, donors, academia and civil society;
• Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks under time constraints by establishing priorities;
• Proven ability to produce high quality written work within short timeframes.
• Strong experience in partnership building;
• Experience in working with government, donors or the UN is an asset;

Language:

• Fluency in Russian (written and spoken), working knowledge of English.

Other Skills

• Knowledge and skills of relevant computer applications of MS Office applications (Word, Excel, Power Point), knowledge of Internet communications and command is required.

Attention:

All online applications must include (as an attachment) the completed Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment.

Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment. Applications without the completed P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.