Republic of Moldova

UN Women: National consultant to undertake the review of national legal frameworks and develop amendments for incorporating gender responsive budgeting approach at all levels

Vacancy Number: Pr19/01851

Location:	Chisinau, Moldova
Application Deadline:	07 Jul 2019, 23:59 (GMT+2:00)
Type of Contract:	Individual Contract
Starting date:	15 Jul 2019
Reference to the project:	UN Women
Expected Duration of Assignment:	Up to 62 work days within a 9 months assignment
Supporting Documents: Terms of Reference Procurement Notice Annex I Personal History Form (P11) UN Women UN Women Conditions of Service Consultants

Contacts:

Ms. Irina Cozma.

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, the UN Women leads and coordinates the United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world.

Through its programmes and projects, UN Women is providing technical assistance to national partners (governmental and non-governmental) in the implementation of existing international and national commitments to women’s rights and gender equality, it facilitates networking and exchange of good practices and advocates for women’s rights and gender equality in all areas of life.

UN Women’s presence in the Republic of Moldova has evolved from being a project-based office in 2007 to a Country Office with fully delegated authority as of 2015. The work of UN Women in Moldova is guided by its new Country Strategic Note for 2018-2022, aligned with the Republic of Moldova–United Nations Partnership Framework for Sustainable Development 2018–2022, the Global Strategic Plan of UN Women for 2018-2021, the National Strategy on Gender Equality for 2017-2021 (NSGE), and aims to contribute to the gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The UN Women Strategy for Moldova 2018-2022 focuses on three main areas where gender equality gaps are still present: 1/strengthening women’s participation in politics and decision making, 2/economic empowerment of women and 3/ending violence against women and girls. To achieve progress under these areas, UN Women works with variety of national and international partners and as part of different national and regional initiatives. Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) is integrated in the current Strategic Note for 2018-2022 under the “Women lead, participate and benefit equally from governance system” Outcome, and is meant to contribute to increased capacities of the public institutions to analyze and improve policies, regulations, and budgets to fulfill gender equality commitments.

The second National Strategy on Gender Equality (NSGE) for 2017-2021 and its associated Action Plan, approved in early 2017, focus on ten areas of interventions with one dedicated to GRB. These are: women’s participation in decision-making, labour market and gender pay gap, social protection and family policies, health, education, climate change, institutional mechanism, stereotypes in the society and non-violent communication, gender equality in the security and defense sector and gender responsive budgeting. Under the “Gender Responsive Budgeting” area of intervention, the NSGE focuses on development, piloting and institutionalizing of GRB tools (gender sensitive indicators, expenditure strategies and concepts) by building capacity of government Gender Coordination Groups/gender focal points to develop and promote gender responsive fiscal laws, policies, national and sectorial action plans to enable specific budgetary allocations for advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Since 2008, some actions have been taken to develop a strategic vision for gender-sensitive budgeting implementation, to strengthen the capacities of stakeholders and to pilot gender-sensitive budgeting in three districts. The Government of Moldova has embarked on a comprehensive program of modernization and reform covering central public administration, the budgetary processes and the delivery of public services, summarized in the Public Finance Management Development Strategy 2013-2020 (PFM). In terms of the budget, Moldova has made considerable progress in recent years in the modernization of its budget formulation process. Among the most significant reforms are the harmonization and unification of the budget (removal of off-budget expenditures), rolling out of a Medium-Term Budget Framework, adequate budget coverage of state guarantees, and regular macroeconomic forecasting.

Moldova introduced a Program Based Budgeting (PBB) for Central Public Authorities starting with the 2014 budget, Local Public Authorities Level II with the 2015 budget and Local Public Authorities Level I, starting with the 2016 budget. The implementation of the PBB system revealed certain shortcomings that have kept the PBB process from unfolding its full potential and effectively contributing to budget planning and resource allocation.

International experience shows that in several countries, the GRB implementation is legally binding in normative acts at different levels, Budget Law, etc. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Protection has decided to review once again the national legislative framework on gender equality and link the gender sensitive policy formulation with the available state resources that would promote or facilitate achieving substantive gender equality. For example, to assess the fiscal aspects, public resource management, auditing and control of public finances, etc.

Nevertheless, the integration of gender-sensitive budgeting is still at an early stage in the Republic of Moldova due to the discontinuous nature of the actions and commitments made. Gender-sensitive budgeting is a cross-cutting area that requires a comprehensive and committed approach to budgeting programs and policies geared to gender equality, as well as a fair allocation of resources, both locally and centrally.

In this respect, UN Women is planning to hire an expert to support the Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Protection (which is the lead agency under the NSGE, area of intervention: Gender-sensitive budgeting) and other relevant state stakeholders in revision of the national legislation and proposing amendments from the perspective of gender responsive budgeting for improving the existent legal and regulatory framework and aligning national legislation to the international standards.

Scope of work

The selected national consultant will review the range of national legal and normative framework and propose amendments for incorporating gender responsive budgeting principles within the legislation. 

 For detailed information, please refer to Annex 1 - Terms of Reference.

Requirements for experience

Education:

• Master degree in public finance or economic science related to the areas relevant for the assignment.
• University degree in public finance, gender studies, development studies, law, statistics and/or other social or economic science related to the areas relevant for the assignment;
• Other formal education relevant for the assignment is an asset.

Experience:

• Minimum 4 years of proven experience working/collaborating with the Government sectors in assisting/ supporting drafting policy recommendations/ policy reports, coordinating activities;
• Minimum 3 years of proven work experience in the field of public finance;
• Minimum 2 years of proven work experience in gender responsive budgeting methodologies and approaches;
• Minimum 2 years of experience in working with international organizations (successful experience in working with UN agencies is an asset)

 Language skills:

• Excellent verbal and written Romanian. Working knowledge of English and Russian are required.

Documents to be included

• Duly filled Personal History Form PHF11/CV; P11 can be downloaded at http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment;
• 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 (in MDL) - specifying an all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs as per template provided.

Financial proposal

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

 

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