Republic of Moldova

UN Women: National Consultant to undertake a rapid assessment of the National Gender Equality Machineries in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Region

Vacancy Number: Pr19/01908

Location:	Chisinau, Moldova
Application Deadline:	30 Oct 2019, 23:59 (GMT+2:00)
Application Extended deadline:	04 Nov 2019, 23:59 (GMT+2:00)
Type of Contract:	Individual Contract
Starting date:	11 Nov 2019
Reference to the project:	UN Women
Expected Duration of Assignment:	Up to 25 working days within a 2 months’ calendar period
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), including private sector, 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.

The work of UN Women in the Republic of 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 overarching vision of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is inclusive and sustainable growth with its promise to leave no one behind.  Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, target 5.5. calls to “ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of the decision-making in political, economic and public life”. Gender equality is mainstreamed throughout the SDGs, including SDG 8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth”. Gender equality by 2030 requires urgent action to eliminate the many root causes of discrimination that still curtail women’s rights in private and public spheres. At its core, the economic empowerment of women depends on the quantity and quality of paid employment, the provision or absence of public services, the amount of unpaid care work borne by women, as well as coverage or lack thereof under core social and labor protections.

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) advancing the economic empowerment of women and 3) preventing and combating 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. UN Women’s interventions are contributing to the realization of the National Strategy on Gender Equality (NSGE) for 2017-2021 and its associated Action Plan, approved in early 2017, focus on ten areas of interventions such as: women’s participation in decision-making, labor 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.

National Gender Equality Machineries (NGEM)

Establishing a strong national gender equality institutional mechanism (national Gender Equality Machineries -GEM) is one of the key obligations stemming from the Beijing Declaration and UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). An effective mechanism with the adequate mandate and resources would be the driving force for the fulfillment of international obligations and the national legislation on gender equality.

During last two decades, National Mechanisms for gender equality have increasingly been set up in European Union Countries, Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership Countries (EaP) and Central Asia and their mandates and scope of action have been progressively enlarged, particularly after the 4th World Conference on Women ( Beijing, 1995).  International guidelines and calls to action in this regard, particularly adopted at UN level and those put forward by the Council of Europe and EU have had a decisive role for these developments.  

The role and functions of the national institutional mechanisms for promoting gender equality could not be underestimated, as these are the key pre-requisites and instruments to ensure gender  accountability for the implementation of national  legal and policy frameworks related to gender equality responding to the legally binding international commitments to CEDAW, BPfA, UN SCR 1325, CoE recommendations and European Conventions, as well as commitments to implement the Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030.

The national gender equality machineries are in change of monitoring how the government entities ensure gender mainstreaming of all public policies, how the public institutions are ensuring evidence- based policy making and decision taking based on sex-disaggregated data; cross- sector coordination  and observance and promotion of women’s human rights across all sectors of the society, monitoring, evaluation and reporting on results for each women and girl, man and boy of every country, as well as elaboration  and adoption of concrete implementation mechanisms and funds allocation.

Different countries in the region have shared their experiences in building and strengthening of their NGEM, however the joint experience has demonstrated the pivotal role of the national institutional mechanisms and gender mainstreaming along with gender-responsive budgeting as a factor of success in their positive results. The reports by different countries can be accessed on UN Women’s web page.

Considering the UN Women Moldova’s Strategic Note 2018-2022, and it its 2019 AWP, UN Women Moldova intends to deploy efforts to strengthen the national institutional gender equality machinery in the country. For this purpose, it is important to learn the lessons about the processes and practices encountered by the gender equality institutional mechanisms during past few years, the challenges and opportunities to establish a strong NGEM.

For this purpose, UN Women Moldova intends to hire a national consultant to undertake a comparative analytical research of the institutional mechanisms in the ECA region and provide the best practices examples and recommendations for Moldovan case.

Scope of work

The National Consultant is expected to perform a rapid comparative analytical assessment of the NGEMs (national gender equality institutional mechanisms) in the ECA ( Europe and Central Asia) region covering the countries from Western Balkans such as Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia; EaP states: Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Central Asia states: Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan; and Romania.  

This review is expected to provide analytical insights (challenges, factors of success, opportunities), some best practices examples from other states and recommendations to the Moldovan Government  and national institutional mechanism of gender equality (Government Committee on ensuring equality between women and men), reflecting the role of strong and sustainable NGEM in achieving progress in the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, CEDAW, UN SCR 1325  and other policies related to gender equality and women empowerment in the selected countries. A comparative analysis of main gender equality benchmark indicators from the selected countries also to be reflected as part of analytical work.

For detailed information, please refer Terms of Reference.

Requirements for experience

Education:

• Advanced Degree (Master or higher) in human rights, gender studies, public relations, development studies and/or other social science related areas relevant for the assignment.
• A university degree in these areas, in combination with two additional years of related working experience may be accepted.

Experience

• At least 5 years of proven work experience in the field of gender equality, human rights and development;
• At least 3 years of proven work experience in developing analytical reports, in assisting/supporting drafting policy recommendations/ policy reports, coordinating activities with the Government or international human rights treaty bodies;
• At least 2 years of proven experience in working with international organizations (successful experience in working with UN agencies is an asset).

Language Requirements

• Excellent command of Romanian and English knowledge of Russian would be an asset

Documents to be included

Interested candidates are invited to submit their online applications by 25 October 2019 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 (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. Please see TOR Annex I: Price Proposal Guideline and Template and Price Proposal Submission Form.

 

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