National Consultant on WEE - Tunisian national only

Consultant

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.

The labor force participation rate in Tunisia stood at 46.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, increasing compared to the previous quarter. In the same period, the male labor participation rate corresponded to 65.7 percent. On the other hand, only 28 percent of the female population in the country was part of the labor force as of the fourth quarter of 2022 (National Institute of Statistics). Drivers of low female labor include an entrenched patriarchal context that constrain women’s participation in the economy or relegates them to informal and lower-paying jobs, lack of policies and frameworks that facilitate women’s economic participation (e.g. childcare, family-friendly work policies), occupational segregation in female and male-dominated jobs driving gender pay gaps as well as Personal Status Laws that discriminate against women in inheritance. Insufficient job creation, both in number and quality, in the private sector is another key constraint. Access to finance and investment are also challenges for entrepreneurs, especially women entrepreneurs.

UN Women Regional Office for the Arab States (ROAS) adopted its strategic plan for 2022-2025 in March 2022. In the strategic plan, it is highlighted that one of the key priorities to achieve gender equality in the Arab States is the speedy acceleration of women’s employment throughout the region, which has hovered around 21% since the 1990s, UN Women is embarking on a large-scale multi-country program to surge women’s employment in 7 countries (3 in North Africa, 2 in the Levante and 2 in the Gulf).

The initial phase of this work was concluded in May 2022. It was dedicated to the analysis of the factors behind the stagnated levels of women’s employment in the Arab States, with a focus on not only challenges but, more specifically, on distinct opportunities that could accelerate women’s employment in the region. The analysis established the need for a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing together efforts to shift social norms, reduce the burden of care work, improve laws and policies, and strategically use social and mass media to bring about these changes. The strategy has a strong emphasis on the role of the private sector, focusing on three sectors, with distinct business cases in each. Lastly, the approach seeks to guarantee sustainable finance to deliver on this agenda through a shift to gender-responsive budgeting and blended finance.

The regional programme will be implemented across several countries, with Tunisia being one of them. The UN Women Country Office for Tunisia engages national stakeholders to contextualise the programme to national priorities and local context. This will be done through national consultations and analytical work on relevant themes and economic sectors. To support this process, UN Women Tunisia & Libya Cluster Office is looking to engage the services of a National Consultant on Women’s Economic Empowerment to support:

• Support stakeholder mapping consultation and facilitate co-creation of the employment programme.
• the development of the country's profile on women’s economic empowerment and contribute to employment projections.
• Support work on creating an enabling environment for women’s employment (policy and legal reforms and a shift in social norms).
• Contribute to sector assessments to support women’s employment.
• Support the development of a sustainable finance component to advance women’s employment.

The consultant will work under the overall guidance of the RO and CO Senior leadership (DRD and Representative) and report directly to Representative of the UN Women's Tunisia & Libya Cluster Office and the WEE Advisor in RO. The role will complement the work of by RO hired consultants developing country level business cases towards surging women’s employment in the Arab States.

Duties and Responsibilities

Develop a national roadmap.

• Develop a roadmap for the development of the contextualized employment programme and its inception, following the guidelines and outlines established as part of the Surging Women’s Employment Programme.
• Undertake a desk review and develop a country context analysis aligned to the themes and sectors of interest to complement the employment projections, particularly referring to the accelerators and enablers of the employment programme.

Support the development of a multi-disciplinary programme

• In collaboration with UN Women regional office (advisor and consultants) undertake a mapping of key national and sectoral level stakeholders, civil society organization and businesses, particularly as related to the amplifiers of the programme.
• Support introductory workshops to sensitize stakeholders of the design processes and the envisaged employment programme.
• Contribute to the development of workshop outcomes and desk review to prepare a set of baseline and target indicators for Phase 2 in total and per country.
• Conduct detailed key informant interviews, focus group discussion and sector level / member-based organizations workshops to consult on the design of the women’s employment programme. Use these engagements to:

1. Ideate and conceptualize possible interventions.
2. Identify international best practices to introduce and national aspects to scale up.
3. Map the ecosystem players (as aligned to the programmes multi-disciplinary approach), their strength weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

4. Seek validation of ideas from other leading experts

   Data Gathering and country consultations

• Co-facilitate the respective in-country missions and work-sessions (supported by UN Women staff).
• Support the preparation of meeting materials, such as power point presentations, including an executive summary of the meeting discussions, results and proposed actions.
• Contribute to the documentation of the different workshops, engagements and detailed documentation of methodologies:

1. The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the development and delivery of the employment strategy.

• Consultants are expected to be equipped with all materials and equipment needed to perform their tasks, for exam taple laptop, software etc..

Deliverables Timeline

Activities

Expected completion time (due day)

Payment Schedule

Inception report. [expected 3 working days]

5 February 2024

-

Draft desk review report. [expected 10 working days]

20 February 2024

10%

Final desk review. [expected 3 working days]

29 February 2024

20%

Stakeholder consultation report [expected 14 days]

-Support at least 3 country level consultations and submit a consultation report:

-Mapping relevant actors and designing an engagement approach that are suitable.

-Document the outcomes, agreements and next steps from the engagements with stakeholders.

-Outline emerging lessons from engagements to inform design of programme

25 March 2024

20%

Inputs into draft national women’s employment strategy

Contribute to the drafting of a national women’s employment strategy containing [expected 15 days]:

An overview of the situation and the proposed response

Aspects to incorporate include policies and laws, social norms, private sector and blended finance, accompanied by three country level annexes (care; STEM and green jobs).

20 April 2024

20%

Draft programme document [expected 15 days]

Lead the drafting of a high-quality programme document in line with UN Women’s programme and policy guidance

15 May 2024

10%

Programme implementation plan [expected 10 days]

Support the development of the implementation plan and lead the rolling out of programme inception activities.

15 June 2024

20%

Competencies

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/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf

• FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES:
• Strong knowledge of women’s economic empowerment, especially on private sector development.
• Strong programme formulation, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation skills.
• Strong analytical skills.
• Ability to synthesize program performance data and produce analytical reports to inform management and strategic decision-making.
• Strong networking skills.
• Ability to identify and analyze trends, opportunities, and threats to fundraising.
• Strong knowledge of the region.
• Ability to write policy papers, speeches, and briefings.

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in Economics, Finance, Law, Gender or a related field is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• A project/program management certification would be an added advantage.

Experience

• At least 15 years of experience in development and management of large-scale national programs.
• At least 5 years of experience in leading and managing staff in international settings is required.
• At least 10 years of strong research background and demonstrated experience producing high profile reports.
• At least 5 years of progressively responsible work experience in conducting research and studies on Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Arab Region.
• Demonstrated experience in Women Economic Empowerment and Employment Creation is required.
• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.) and spreadsheet and database packages, experience in handling of web-based management systems is required.
• Experience in the use of a modern web-based ERP System, preferably Oracle Cloud, is desirable.
• Excellent and verbal written communication skills.

Languages

• Fluency in English is required.
• Knowledge of another official UN language is desirable (French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish).

Application

Interested Individual Consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• A cover letter with a brief presentation of your consultancy explaining your suitability for the work and link to portfolio of work.
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment

The above-mentioned documents should be merged into a standalone file including all them, since the online application submission does only permits to upload one file per application. Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification.

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.

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits employ, trains, compensates and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity, and organizational need.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority, and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)

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Added 3 months ago - Updated 3 months ago - Source: jobs.undp.org