National Media Consultant to support the Ministry of Finance and Economy on Gender Responsive Budgeting

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 center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system 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, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

The Government of Albania has made national and international commitments to advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women in many different socio-economic aspects. Several international conventions and platforms, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the UN Beijing Platform for Action, demonstrate Albania’s commitment to the realization of women’s rights and the achievement of gender equality.

Over the past years, UN Women in Albania has provided support to national and local stakeholders in strengthening democratic governance and advancing women’s rights through initiatives aimed at mainstreaming gender in policy planning and budgeting. Gender Responsive Budgeting -GRB has been included as a legal requirement in both the Organic Budget Law (2016) and Local Government Financial Management Law (2017) which both paved the way for the effective inclusion of GRB in all the phases of central and local financial management cycles (medium term and annual budget programming, monitoring & reporting, evaluation, and auditing). GRB is currently an important tool for advancing gender equality in key national documents as in accordance with existing Albanian national policy documents on social inclusion and gender equality.

In order to strengthen the work hitherto done and ensure sustainability of the interventions on GRB, UN Women has initiated a regional programme with participation of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Serbia, and North Macedonia on “Transformative Financing for Gender Equality towards more Transparent, Inclusive and Accountable Governance in the Western Balkans” (2020-2024) funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation. The main programme approach will be transformative financing as an enabler factor for policy and financing actions to accelerate implementation of existing national and international commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment. The country component of the regional programme will focus on expanding the strategic partnerships with Ministry of Finance and Economy (MoFE) and Ministry of Health and Social Protection (MoHSP) toward increasing funding for GE priorities. Technical assistance and continued mentoring will be provided to strengthen institutional capacity and knowledge of budget users at central and local level, as well as of oversight bodies, including the parliament commissions, Ombudsperson and the Commissioner for Protection Against Discrimination.

The program is also highly relevant for Albania during and post COVID 19 Pandemic, and it is very important to also provide transparency and accountability of the Government to ensure gender specific impact is closely considered in the decisions on financial allocations.

In this respect, the role of media has been identified as a powerful tool to advocate for women’s empowerment and promotion of gender equality but also making budgets transparent to the citizens and ensuring that No One is left behind in the actual emergency situation, as well as in long-term plans for recovering from this pandemic.

UN Women seeks to systematically integrate Gender Equality and support the Government towards greater transparency at all stages of national and local policymaking and budgeting processes.

In this context, UN Women is seeking a national consultant to support the Ministry of Finance and Economy in making budgets transparent for citizens and creating a bridge between the government and Media in ensuring openness and accountability as regard gender equality and financing for gender equality in Albania.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall supervision of the UN Women Programme Manager on Gender Responsive Policies Planning and Budgeting the national consultant is expected to support Ministry of Finance and Economy in making budgets transparent for citizens and creating a bridge between the government and Media in ensuring openness and accountability as regard gender equality and financing for gender equality in Albania. He/she will perform the following duties and responsibilities/Key Results Expected::

• Prepare a work plan for the specific assignment, with clear time frame of activities and deliverables.
• Support MoFE to develop and implement the communication plan for the Citizen’s Budget including creation of a webpage, respective blog, and social media channel on “Budget for citizens perspective
• Create and update respective communication channels with informative posts on Public Budget priorities;
• Prepare various written articles and fact sheets on Budget and gender perspective.
• Provide support in identifying and engaging a roster of communications experts/journalists to be oriented on budget priorities and their transparent reporting on public project-budget.
• Conceptualize dedicated thematic events focusing on sectorial budgets and gender such as women in business, women employers, women in leadership positions etc.
• Organize meetings with various groups of women (i.e. women in business, employers, Roma women etc.) to inform them on MoFE’s support policies and available budgetary programs and facilitate their access to funding through information.
• Produce message videos/testimonials from women professionals in different fields for providing best practices and promoting role models of successful women.
• Other tasks as assigned by the Programme Manager for GRB on National Planning and Budgeting.

Deliverables, including but not limited to:

• Gender sensitive Citizen’s budget document;
• Webpage, respective blog, and social media channel on “Budget for citizens perspective” created and functional;
• At least 20 posts in the Webpage, respective blog, and social media channel;
• At least 5 articles and 10 fact sheets annually on Budget and gender perspective;
• At least 2 thematic events organized annually focusing on sectorial budgets and gender;
• At least 5 meetings organized annually with various groups of women (i.e., women in business, employers, Roma women etc.) to inform them on MoFE’s support policies and available budgetary programs;
• At least 3 message videos annually from women professionals in different fields for providing best practices and promoting role models of successful women;
• Periodic (quarterly) consultancy reports in English together with the timesheet for the days committed to the consultancy.

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• 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:

• Proven research, analytical and drafting skills,
• Demonstrated ability to interact effectively with media related various public and non-public stakeholders including in the areas of gender equality and violence against women;
• Excellent writing skills in English and Albanian;
• Strong interpersonal skills;
• Strong initiative-taker;
• Focuses on impact and results for the partner;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude.

Required Skills and Experience

Qualifications/Education:

• Master’s degree in communication and media, or development-related disciplines (international development, gender and social studies, law, public administration, or any related field) combined with 2 more years of relevant work experience in communication and media .

Work Experience:

• 5 years of relevant professional experience in the areas of media/communication, with exposure to human rights or gender equality issues.
• Experience related to media reporting on economic, financial issues including on gender equality and gender financing or women and economy.
• Experience in designing and maintaining webpages, social communication channels and blogs.

Language requirement:

• Proficiency in written and spoken English and Albanian

Schedule of Payments:

Payment will be made as per the payment schedule in the contract upon (i) satisfactory completion of tasks; (ii) provision of deliverables specified in the ToRs; (iii) submission of the respective certification of payment.

Recommended Presentation of Offer:

Qualified and interested candidates are asked to submit their application online no later than 7 November 2021

The application should contain:

• Cover letter explaining the applicant’s interest in applying for the position.
• Filled Personal History Form (P11 form) including past experience in similar assignments and contact details of referees (blank form can be downloaded from: http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment/); please upload the P11 instead of your CV
• Financial Proposal - Financial proposal specifying the daily fee in Albanian Lek. Please note that the financial proposal is all-inclusive and shall consider various expenses incurred by the consultant/contractor during the contract period (e.g., fee and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services). Other travel costs different from the above will be covered by UN Women separately.

Note: Applications without the financial offer will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

Evaluation of applicants:

Candidates will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of the applicants’ qualifications and financial proposal. Contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of below defined technical and financial criteria.

Technical Evaluation –70 points:

Applications will be assessed according to the following Technical Criteria:

• Master's degree in communication and media or development-related disciplines (international development, gender and social studies, law, public administration or any other social science related to development) combined with 2 more years of relevant work experience in communication and media (15 points);
• 5 years of relevant professional experience in the areas of media/communication, as well as human rights or gender equality (20 points);
• Experience related to media reporting on economic, financial issues including on gender equality and gender financing or women and economy (20 points).
• Experience in designing and maintaining webpages, social communication channels and blogs; (15 points)

Financial Evaluation –30 points:

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (49 points) in the technical evaluation would be considered for financial evaluation.

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. The calculation formula applied is as follow:

p = 30 (µ/z); where: p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated; µ = price of the lowest priced proposal; z = price of the proposal being evaluated.

How to Submit the Application:

To submit your application online, please follow the steps below:

• Download and complete the UN Women Personal History Form (P11)- http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment
• Merge your UN Women Personal History Form (P11), the Financial Proposal, and Cover Letter into a single file. The system does not allow for more than one attachment to be uploaded;
• Click on the Job Title (job vacancy announcement);
• Click 'Apply Now' button, fill in necessary information on the first page, and then click 'Submit Application;'
• Upload your application/single file as indicated above with the merged documents (underlined above);
• You will receive an automatic response to your email confirming receipt of your application by the system.

Notes:

• UN Women retains the right to contact references directly. Due to the large numbers of applications, we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.

• The consultancy post is open to local (Albanian) individuals or foreign individuals with valid temporary or permanent residence in Albania.

• Applications without the financial offer will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.
• The individual consultants should take the mandatory learning security course prior to commencement of assignment– details will follow before the issuance of contract.