Republic of Moldova

International Consultant to provide support to UN Women innovation initiative in HIV and EVAW areas

Vacancy Number: Pr17/01532

Location:	Chisinau, Moldova
Application Deadline:	14 May 2017, 23:59 (GMT+2:00)
Type of Contract:	Individual Contract
Starting date:	22 May 2017
Reference to the project:	UN Women
Expected Duration of Assignment:
Supporting Documents: Terms of Reference Individual Consultant Procurement Notice Personal History Form (P11) UN Women UN Women Conditions of Service Consultants

Background

 UN Women is operational in Moldova since 2010. Currently, it is implementing its Strategic Note for 2014-2017. UN-Women closely cooperates with the government, civil society, and private sector to advance social, economic and political rights and opportunities for women and girls, placing special focus on those from marginalized groups. These include, but not limited to rural women, Romani women, women with disabilities, young women, women living with or affected by HIV, women survivors of violence and trafficking, women migrants, elderly women and women in Transnistria and Gagauzia. We work with them to challenge the stereotypical image of women. We apply new tools to ensure women’s proactive engagement in designing, prototyping and implementing the state policies and plans. Thus, UN-Women’s operation in Moldova focuses on bringing about concrete change in the lives of women and the society through the following three key areas.

Eliminating Violence Against Women. UN-Women employs adaptive solutions by empowering survivors of violence from various backgrounds to speak up and advocate for concrete actions with their peers as well as with authorities and the media. This approach so far has led to changing perceptions of survivors by the authorities, media and other women, so they are acknowledged and involved as the key experts (positive champions or positive deviants) in eliminating VAW in legislative, policy, institutional and community level initiatives. Lately, UN-Women has started to mobilize other actors of society including youth, religious leaders, former perpetrators, judicial staff, police, members of the artistic community, so that under the leadership of the survivors of violence, the ‘whole of society’ can produce long-overdue results for women. Apart from these, UN-Women has continued the conventional technical interventions/solutions, such as support to government authorities and civil society partners to implement provisions of the Domestic Violence Law (2008) and strengthening the legislative framework by further aligning it to international norms and standards. UN-Women’s next Strategic Note for 2018-2022 in Moldova will build on these results and further inform support to the country in this area of work at all levels.

Women in Politics and Leadership. Women’s opportunities to hold elected office in Moldova are still low, with women from marginalized groups virtually absent from decision-making positions. In response to these challenges, UN-Women is leading a comprehensive UN joint programme on promoting women in politics, implemented together with UNDP and two civil society organizations. Partnerships are forged with legislators, institutions and community leaders to empower them to increasingly work with women, especially those who are marginalized from the decision-making, thus enabling the women to lead the required changes. This is being done through community level mentoring and role modeling, exchange of good practices and establishment of self-support networks, especially among women elected for the first time in Parliament and local councils or appointed as mayors. UN-Women will work further to strengthen the networks between women from all levels and continue legislative and policy work in order to ensure women’s fair access to politics and real influence in a sustainable manner.

Women’s Economic Empowerment. UN-Women has initiated a number of strategic actions in this area. The first state strategy for women’s entrepreneurship was jointly created with women in business and currently being considered by the Government. Additionally, the government launched a process of re-engineering public services (as part of the Public Services Modernization Reform agenda) by taking over a successful public services provision model through one-stop shop piloted by UN-Women. For over two years, more than 100 girls, including Romani girls, girls with disabilities, girls who experienced violence and girls who are left behind by their migrant parents, benefited from an initiative on information and communication technologies (ICTs) as one of the promising employment and self-employment opportunities. UN Women also works closely with policy makers to adopt state programmes that empower women in technology and entrepreneurship.

Together with Government and national counterparts, the organization has fully embraced the call for exploring innovative ideas to find sustainable and transformative solutions as envisaged by Agenda 2030. UN Women jointly with CSO partners continues working on mainstreaming innovation approach throughout all results areas with a focus on women survivors of violence and women living with HIV.

Therefore, UN Women is seeking to hire an individual international consultant to provide support in innovating in HIV and help local partners work out loud with innovation experience.

Scope of work

 The main objective of this assignment is to facilitate and provide support in testing new approaches working with the community of people living with HIV and provide advice to UN Women on further expanding these initiatives. For that, the consultant will be responsible for the following major tasks:

Document the Innovation in HIV, that was tested by UN Women through the local partner NGO “Initiativa Pozitiva” with the main purpose to further share the experiences with the wider community in the field of HIV/AIDS. This will include, but not limited to:

• Undertake interviews with the Positive Deviants from among women and men living with HIV, from Moldova;
• Undertake a User-Journey and document the unique practice of the Women and Men Positive Champions (UN Women can provide the tools);
• Undertake a process mapping of the NGO “Initiativa Pozitiva”, to illustrate their approach applied throughout the work within UN Women’s Innovation prototype;
• Engage this and other NGOs into the above processes as an on-the-job learning for further replication of the tested approach in their outreach work.

Assist UN Women Moldova Country office to work-out loud about the Innovation experience. For this,

• Develop a proposal for dissemination of the tested model at the community, national, regional and global level;
• Disseminate the model at the afore-mentioned levels;
• Develop two articles for the dissemination within UN Women and the UN system on the practices of UN Women Moldova Country Office in close collaboration with UN Women Communication team.

Provide advice to UN Women Moldova Country Office on how to expand/build on the existing practice from Innovation in HIV during the next Strategic Note covering 2018-2022. This will include the following actions, but not limited to:

• Review UN Women guiding strategic documents, including in the field of HIV;
• Organize e-meeting/s with UN Women Headquarters section on HIV with the view to engage them in the strategizing process;
• Participate in the relevant UN Women meetings, Conferences, retreats organized in Moldova, and if needed, outside of the country representing UN Women Moldova Country Office
• Organize co-creation meeting with the Women Positive Champions from among the HIV Community to obtain their advice/support to UN Women;
• Develop a brief proposal for UN Women Moldova Country Office management consideration for the upcoming 2018-2022 plan.

Provide advice and facilitation to strengthen collaboration between the HIV related NGOs in Moldova from the perspectives of engendering their work as well as integrating Innovation in their practices:

• Undertake/update a mapping of the NGOs by concrete categories;
• Develop a concept for strengthening collaboration between the NGOs.;
• Facilitate their networking as per schedule agreed with UN Women;
• Provide practical advice and capacity building for the participants of the network.

Build capacity of the Positive Deviants from among the women living with HIV to be able work with other community members to become champions:

• Capacity building of Women Positive Champions on story telling and empowering other women;
• Cooperate with the relevant NGOs to support the networking of Women Positive Champions;
• Engaging Men and Boys for the empowerment of Women Positive Champions.

Requirements for experience

 Education:

• Advanced degree in gender equality, human rights, public health, sociology or any other related science;
• Additional trainings and certifications on HIV is an asset.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of progressive working experience at international level in the design, management and implementation of HIV related development assistance projects and good knowledge of the regional, global HIV related platforms;
• At least 5 years of proven work experience in the field of public health related to HIV, service delivery, of which at least 3 years related to work on improving service delivery through building national capacities of HIV community NGOs;
• At least 3 years records of working/collaborating with local government and NGOs in assisting/supporting drafting policy recommendations/ policy reports and coordinating activities for the improvement of life of women and men living with HIV;
• At least one year of experience in applying co-creation, design thinking and other innovation tools and techniques in the development area is required;
• At least 2 years proven experience in working with international organizations (successful experience in working with UN agencies is an asset).

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in written and oral Russian and English are required;
• Working knowledge of one or more additional languages relevant for Moldova, including Romanian, Bulgarian, Gagauzian, Romani, Ukrainian or sign language would be an asset.

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.

Documents to be included

 

Interested candidates are invited to submit their online applications by 10 April 2017 with the following documents.

• Duly filled Personal History Form PHF11/CV;
• Letter of Intent to include a brief overview about which of your previous experiences makes you the most suitable candidate for the advertised position;
• Financial proposal (with breakdown of fee on a per day basis).

Financial proposal

 The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of the lump sum amount (daily rate and number of anticipated working days). Please see Annex I: Price Proposal Guideline and Template and Annex II: Price Proposal Submission Form.

 

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