Senior Gender Field Researcher - Lebanese Nationality ONLY

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.

Lebanon is facing a profound economic and political crisis that will take decades to recover from. As efforts for reform and recovery continue to be discussed, poverty and vulnerability deepens and the number of those in need of urgent assistance grows. In Lebanon, and globally, women are disproportionately vulnerable to economic shocks, with less resources to enable them to withstand and recover from them. This reality finds its roots in gender inequalities which manifest themselves in women’s marginalization from paid employment, in a high gender wage gap and high levels of unpaid work – which in turn result in women having less savings, smaller pension funds - if any at all, and lower rates of access to health insurance. Combined with broad social acceptance for notions of masculine honor, this also makes women more vulnerable to exploitation and violence in and outside the home.

The National Poverty Targeting Programme (NPTP) is Lebanon’s first poverty-targeted social assistance programme, and works to provide social assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable Lebanese households. The NPTP is implemented by the Ministry of Social Affairs (MOSA) with support of the World Food Programme (WFP). The WFP Lebanon Country Office, which provides the e-card transfer mechanism, has contracted 500 shops across Lebanon to participate and it provides financial support for the programme while MOSA covers the beneficiary assessment and selection procedures whereby households are ranked on a poverty scale using 62 proxy means indicators. In 2021, WFP and MOSA are scaling up the NPTP, and anticipate to support 75,000 vulnerable families across Lebanon by early 2022.

UN Women and WFP are partnering to conducting a qualitative PDM to provide insights into how the NPTP can improve its processes to ensure the provision of assistance is maximally safe and accessible to women, girls and other persons of concern such as female-headed households, pregnant and lactating women, older people and people with disabilities, children and adolescents. This work seeks to fill an important gap as the PDM method has depended on largely quantitative data which may miss important and sensitive nuances specific to women, girls and marginalized groups. The objectives of this exercise are threefold, as follows i) equality: to better understand gender and social inequalities related to food in/security and assistance access, ii) effectiveness: To measure the effectiveness of the food assistance on diverse women and marginalized groups, with a focus on pregnant and lactating women, and iii) protection: To understand the protection concerns, risks, and incidents amongst women, FHH, and marginalized groups, whilst accessing food assistance.

For the purpose of this consultancy, the objective is to hire a Senior Gender Field Researcher who leads the data collection for the Qualitative PDM of the NPTP at the field level.

Duties and Responsibilities

Leads Field Data Collection:

• Coordinates interviews with selected beneficiaries for interviews across at least field locations in Lebanon;
• Conducts field observation site visits to WFP supermarkets and select distribution sites;
• Conducts individual semi-structure interviews (in person) with utmost sensitivity for protection issues, confidentiality, and data protection;
• Refers any cases identified with protection issues (SGBV, PSEA) along the appropriate referral pathways;
• Provides on-going feedback on the research tools during the data collection process, and ensures approaches are aligned with protection principles and are gender sensitive.

Deliverables

Timeline

Package 1 of clean collected qualitative data, ready for analysis, including:

• Community interview transcriptions
• Key informant interviews
• Site visit observation notes
• Exit interviews

February 6, 2022Package 2 of clean collected qualitative data, ready for analysis, including:

• Community interview transcriptions
• Key informant interviews
• Site visit observation notes
• Exit interviews

February 28, 2022

Competencies

Core Values

• Respect for Diversity;
• Integrity;
• Feminism;
• Professionalism.

Core Competencies

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example.

Functional Competencies

• Substantial knowledge and understanding of gender equality, women’s rights, feminism, and protection.
• Demonstrated ability approach sensitive issues with affected populations;
• Ability to work flexibly and collaborative on own initiative and as part of a team;
• A positive problem-solving approach and supportive management approach;
• Research experiences utilizing a participatory and feminist approach.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in human rights, gender and women’s studies, international relations, sociology, anthropology, international development, international law or other social science fields 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.

Experience:

• Minimum 4 years of relevant field experience in research and assessments;
• Experience researching cash-assistance programmes in Lebanon;
• Strong field work experience on issues of protection and gender, including SGBV and PSEA;
• Experience with UN, INGO and national organizations in Lebanon is an asset;

• Computer skills, internet communication and command of MS Office.

• Knowledge of NVivo is an asset.

Language requirements:

• Proficiency in oral and written English and Arabic is a must.

Evaluation criteria:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology: Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for the financial evaluation.

Consultants will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of 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%) split such as:

• Education: 20%
• Experience: 40%. Minimum 4 years of relevant experience in researching, data analysis and editing complex reports with a focus on humanitarian action
• Experience: 10%. Strong field work experience on issues of protection and gender.

Financial Evaluation (30%): The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:

• Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical);
• The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula: (Lowest Bid Offered*)/ (Bid of the Consultant) x 30;
• 'Lowest Bid Offered' refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 49 points in the technical evaluation.

Financial: Lowest Financial Proposal: 30% (30 points)

The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:

• Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical);
• The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula: (Lowest Bid Offered*)/ (Bid of the Consultant) x 30;
• 'Lowest Bid Offered' refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 49 points in the technical evaluation.

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 https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment/application-process; Personal CV; and Financial proposal; Proposed inclusive daily rate.

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

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, 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.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

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.)