Senior Technical Consultant – Gender, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), Government of India (Open to Indian Nationals Only)

Contract

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

Background

UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.

The entity leverages partnerships, holistic approaches, and innovative technology to break current trends, and provide a comprehensive solution for marginalized young women who have missed out on education and are at risk of being left behind. The organisation creates pathways back either into formal education or to employment or entrepreneurship. It offers young women, their families, local communities and societies the benefits of access to educational services, which are tailored not only to their needs as learners, but also to their future as earners.

One of the goals of UN Women is to ensure that marginalized women and young women have access to, participate in and achieve quality learning, entrepreneurial and employment outcomes, by underlying the structural barriers that women and young women face to equally access quality education, learning and decent work opportunities.

UN Women’s programme on Second Chance Education (SCE) and Vocational Training aims to reach out to and enable 40,000 young women and women from marginalised communities, in India through education, training, employment and entrepreneurship skills. The programme is trying to address the structural barriers young women and women face in realizing their full economic potential by trying out innovative pilots in all these verticals across project states viz Bihar, Maharashtra, Odisha and Rajasthan. To support young women and women in getting skilled and gainfully employed, the project adopts an empowerment approach to livelihoods as against the instrumental approach where the focus is merely on skills/income generation. The activities to strengthen women’s learning and earning pathways, therefore, will be coupled by the capacity building initiatives on making women aware about their rights and entitlements, raise voice against violations and demand accountability from duty bearers.

The Programme will adopt evidence-based policy advocacy, leveraging UN Women’s and implementing partners’ institutional relationships with key relevant Ministries such as Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), Ministry of Rural Development/National Rural Livelihoods Mission and Ministry of Human Resource Development. The programme intends to create a supportive ecosystem to enhance, women’s participation in the workforce and opportunities of self-employment, at the state as well as national level.

Objectives:

As part of the technical expertise support, UN Women will work closely with the SANKALP team and perform the understated activities.

• Strengthening the gender-responsive planning, implementation and monitoring of policies and programmes, specifically in the thematic areas of skill, employment, and entrepreneurship.
• Strengthening the access of short-term skill development training to women enabling the mainstreaming of women in the workforce by way of improved participation.
• Monitoring gender related programmes and activities of SANKALP on the ground for effectiveness.
• Incorporating global and national good practices in skilling for women and facilitate inter-state learning and exchange.
• Suggest and recommend women-based initiatives that can be undertaken under SANKALP, to demonstrate ways of improving women participation in skill training programs and break gender-based stereotypes.

In this context, UN Women seeks to hire a Technical Consultant to provide support to Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of India. Under the guidance and supervision of the Joint Secretary, MSDE and Country Programme Manager - SCE, UN Women, the Technical Consultant will undertake the following key tasks and other responsibilities as may be assigned.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide technical support for the implementation of the SANKALP programs across India, from a gender perspective.
• Assist the Ministry in undertaking actions and initiatives on gender-based issues related to skilling, employment and entrepreneurship and/or as per the mandate and priorities of the Ministry under SANKALP.
• Assist the Ministry in developing and effective implementation of the Gender Action Plans.
• Develop and propose recommendations for restructuring of schemes and programmes of the Ministry to enable participation of women in the schemes/programmes
• Develop resources to build capacities of relevant stakeholders on addressing challenges that act as barriers to women’s employment and entrepreneurship.
• Prepare briefing notes and updates on the status of women in India, particularly on issues of employment and entrepreneurship.
• Conduct assessment and monitoring of gender-based programmes under SANKALP
• Support States and districts, where required, to prepare gender-responsive skill development plans and programs.
• Organise capacity development programmes for national and state officials on gender and gender-responsive skilling
• Preparation of monthly performance reports.
• Any other duties assigned by Supervisors from time to time.

Deliverables:

• Develop a wok plan and strategies focused on strengthening gender-responsive implementation and monitoring of policies and programmes, specifically in the thematic areas of skill, employment and entrepreneurship.
• Undertake periodic review of policies, schemes and programme and develop recommendations with a view to strengthen the access to short-term skill development training to women enabling the mainstreaming of women in the work-force by way of improved participation.
• Undertake process documentation and monitor gender related programs of SANKALP on the ground for effectiveness
• Suggest and recommend women-based initiatives that can be undertaken under SANKALP, to demonstrate ways of improving women participation in skill training programs and break gender-based stereotypes
• Periodical reporting as agreed by the Department.
• Document all the information related to the assignment.

Competencies

Core Values/Guiding Principles

Integrity:

• Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

Professionalism:

• Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity:

• Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies

Ethics and Values:

• Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.

Organizational Awareness:

• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Development and Innovation:

• Take charge of self-development and take initiative.

Work in teams:

• Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

Communicating and Information Sharing:

• Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication.

Self-management and Emotional Intelligence:

• Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behaviour towards others.

Conflict Management:

• Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing:

• Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making:

• Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making.

Functional Competencies:

• Ability to perform a broad range of specialized activities aimed at effective and efficient functioning of the Programme unit including logistical support;
• Ability to provide input to business process re-engineering, elaboration and implementation of new data management systems;
• Ability to create, edit and present information in clear and presentable formats, using appropriate IT functionality;
• Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities;
• Ability to handle a large volume of work possibly under time constraints;
• Ability to establish, build and sustain effective relationships with clients, demonstrating understanding of client's perspective; anticipates client needs and addresses them promptly;
• Ability to administer and execute financial processes and transactions;
• Ability to manage data, documents, correspondence and reports information and workflow.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in social sciences, women’s rights, international studies, gender and development, law or any other related discipline.

Experience:

• 10 years of professional experience, on gender with the government or civil society sector;
• Experience of working in skills and entrepreneurship related projects is essential;
• Experience of Government functioning is desirable ;
• Demonstrated verbal and written communication skills;
• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.) required and advance knowledge of spread sheet and database packages desirable

Language:

• Fluency in English and Hindi.

APPLICATION

Interested applicants should apply to this announcement through UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org.

Application:

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:

• All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs;
• Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment, please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.
• Applications received after the close date will not be accepted.
• Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Evaluation and Selection Criteria:

Criteria for shortlisting of CVs will be based on the following assessment:

• Required Degree and Qualification (5 points);
• Minimum Experience relevant to the assignment (10 points);
• Working knowledge and experience of working with National /State Government (5 points);

The evaluation process for selection of the candidate will be based on the following assessment:

• Interview
• Writing Samples

Please Note:

• For an assignment requiring travel, consultants of 65 years or more require full medical examination and statement of fitness to work to engage in the consultancy.
• Due to large number of potential applicants, only competitively selected candidates will be contacted for remaining steps of the service procurement process.

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