National Expert on Gender

Background

The Government of Albania launched its national adaptation plan (NAP) process in February 2015, with the support of GIZ and UNDP, through consultations with national stakeholders and a stocktaking exercise. The NAP process is framed within the National Adaptation Framework Document and a multi-sectorial coordinating mechanism (the Inter-Ministerial Working Group on Climate Change, or IMWGCC) headed by high-level authorities.

The analytical exercises carried out so far highlighted the limited institutional and technical capacity at the national and sectoral level to address climate change impacts through adaptation actions, with a need to improve the technical capacity to collect, generate, use, and disseminate climate information and services. The results confirmed that to adequately address climate change vulnerabilities, Albania must overcome information gaps, vulnerability assessments and climate adaptation planning capacity weaknesses, and a lack of awareness of CCA – both at the national and subnational levels. In addition, climate change is not integrated into existing environmental and development policies, or their associated budget priorities, and financing appropriations for funding CCA are absent.

This project is designed to help the Government of Albania to build and strengthen capacities for mainstreaming CCA, produce actionable climate risks and vulnerability assessments, and implement effective methods, tools, and information systems to better inform decision-making on climate risks and catalyse and direct climate investments. It will also support the formulation of financing strategies and mechanisms for scaling up adaptation in the mid- to long-term.

The overall goal will be to reduce climate change related risks throughout Albania, through the strengthened institutional and technical capacities that will support integrated CCA planning in the long-term. All the envisaged activities will be carried out utilizing an integrated gender-sensitive approach. Activities will be achieved through 3 outcomes and related sub-outcomes, as follows:

The strengthening of a national mandate, strategy and steering mechanism that focuses on assessing and addressing capacity gaps (particularly in the priority sectors of tourism, urban development, agriculture, transport, and energy) – Outcome 1.
The development of a NAP Strategy action plan document and its implementation plan – Outcome 2.
The development of financing, monitoring and evaluation strategies to ensure that capacities and funding options are institutionalized for the long-term sustainability of adaptation planning beyond the life of the project – Outcome 3.

Reducing Albania’s vulnerabilities to climate change requires greater investments in data management and capacity building, and greater integration of CCA and disaster risk reduction (DRR) into on-going development programs, and therefore this project will result in a variety of deliverables including an improved hydrometeorological database, a NAP Strategy document, and curricula and tools to improve capacity for climate adaptation planning, budgeting, and gender mainstreaming within the CCA.

To address these issues, the Government of Albania took strides to start to coordinate climate adaptation efforts at the national level by establishing in 2014 an Inter-Ministerial Working Group on Climate Change with the mandate to draft policies related to climate change, promote institutional coordination across ministries, and contribute to UNFCCC processes on behalf of Albania. The IMWGCC, which is chaired by the Deputy Minister of Environment and includes representations from 12 ministries, needs to be restructured to fit within the structure of the new government under territorial reform.

UNDP is seeking for a National Expert with technical knowledge for NAP drafting and implementation plan development, with relevant experience in mainstreaming gender issues into sectoral policies to support Outcome 2, and in close cooperation to the International Gender Expert and UNDP/national partners, to support development and guidance to prioritize mainstreaming of gender considerations into future CCA efforts in Albania.

Duties and Responsibilities

The National Gender Expert will work in close cooperation with the international Gender Expert and the other team’s members under the direct supervision of NAP Project Coordinator and in close coordination with UNDP Programme Officer for Environment and Climate Change to perform the following duties:

General duties of the Consultant

Support CCA capacity development methodologies to ensure skills development and increased awareness of CCA at national and subnational levels.
Support NAP strategy action plan formulation and accompanying communications plan by introducing gender-sensitive requirements in the communication and awareness activities.
Promote CCA integration into existing planning and budgeting and cross-sector coordination, by developing gender sensitive adaptation mainstreaming, goals, targets, and indicators.
Integrating gender-sensitive climate adaptation measures into the NAP process and assist to the preparation of the NAP Gender Action Plan.

More specifically the Consultant will:

Provide support to the International Gender Expert for strengthening of the legal and institutional framework and mandate for CCA work at the national government level by:

assisting the IMGWCC on the review of its mandate striving for balanced gender representation, identification of gender focal point and gender-responsive oversight of climate adaptation planning.
supporting the strengthening of the role and mandate of the Albania Institute of Geosciences, Energy, Water and Environment (IGEWE) (as the central agency responsible for hydrometeorological climate data collection, processing, and dissemination) to assess gender-disaggregated climate change vulnerabilities in different economic sectors/ systems.

Support the International Gender Expert for updating of vulnerability analysis and gender-disaggregated climate information via upgrading of stocktaking on climate vulnerabilities, CCA opportunities and development needs by further analysing climate change’s impacts to gender-disaggregated socio-economic indicators, resulting in a gender-disaggregated vulnerability analysis for at least one priority sector (to be determined during the project initiation). It is recommended that the analysis includes a compilation of sex disaggregated data and identifies a) gender gaps relevant to the climate agenda (particularly the CCA), and b) climate vulnerabilities and impacts differentiated by gender.

Support the International Gender Expert for addressing of CCA-related capacity gaps by providing trainings for technical staff at the Ministry of Tourism and Environment - MOTE (as the lead agency for climate change policy in Albania and the NAP process) as well as the priority sector ministries (Agriculture, Tourism, Urban development, Transport, and Energy), the National Environment Agency – NEA (the lead institution for collection and processing of environmental quality information), the Ministry of Health and Social Protection and the Ministry of Finance and Economy - MOFE on gender mainstreaming on gender mainstreaming in the context of climate change.

Develop and promote mainstreaming of climate related tools, methodologies, training and guidelines on gender sensitive adaptation mainstreaming and screening to assist sectorial technical planners and end users. These tools will include expanded training materials on adaptation planning and assessments; expanded training materials on gender mainstreaming in the context of climate change; and development of screening tools and methodologies for adaptation to support improved communication between sectoral policy and administration levels.

Assist with the development of a gender action plan for the NAP Strategy.

Identify entry points for integrating gender-sensitive climate adaptation measures into NAP document, national and subnational development and sectorial plans and budgets by the implementation of gender sensitive CCA tools and methodologies.

Support the IMWGCC with feedback on the NAP Strategy and associated implementation and communications strategies through development of the NAP Gender Action Plan and contribution on NAP Communication Plan, in which the long-term CCA planning for Albania will consider gender issues to ensure that climate risk reduction efforts reach, and include, all demographics and are built on the needs of both men and women.

Integrate screening tools for gender sensitive CCA investments into the budgeting life cycle under the Ministry of Finance and Economy and Economy, including into the Medium-term Budget Process and post-2020 Public Finance Management Strategy updates.

Determine the long-term financial needs to support gender sensitive climate adaptation. As part of this process:
Assess funding needs based on basic costing for all CCA projects identified (as part of the NAP Strategy and prioritized in the implementation plan).
Review the prioritized adaptation options identified in the NAP Framework document, the NAP Strategy implementation plan, and other planning protocols and policies and guidelines for climate sensitive development, and
Review domestic data sources for climate finance flows to determine the medium-term budget needs for gender sensitive climate adaptation.

Develop the list of gender sensitive CCA indicators for inclusion on the environmental monitoring system.

Other tasks will include:

The gender expert will support IMWGCC and the team on technical aspects related to stakeholder engagement as well as gender mainstreaming. The expert will work in close cooperation with the International Gender Expert, and the assigned social and gender focal point at priority sector ministries, as well as with the team of consultants. More specifically gender expert will:

Review of available information on gender and climate change in Albania, including 3rd and 4th National Communications to UNFCCC. This includes an analysis of the extent to which gender equity and equality been mainstreamed into current climate change legal, policy and institutional frameworks. This Policy Review should also identify gender mandates included in environmental/climate change policies and strategies (or other policies/strategies relevant to the CCA).
For each sector assess the quality of existing targets in programme planning, implementation through the following aspects: Review multi-year and annual work plan, concept notes and donor proposals; Review the programme planning, monitoring, reporting, research and evaluation through review of programme monitoring reports, and research and evaluation reports; Assess capacity of programme staff in ensuring effective integration and propose corrective measures where gaps exist; Organize sector meetings to review their results frameworks with a view to identify issues, priorities and bottlenecks and way forward;
Become fully acquainted in detail with the role of all stakeholders in the CCA monitoring and reporting system, identify key national institutions responsible for generating and processing data with a focus on adaptation to climate change.
Provide expert input to Outcomes 1, 2 and 3 to support stakeholder engagement and gender mainstreaming of the same, this will include (not exhaustive) to support the deliverables under each of the 3 outcomes listed below.
Support the project team in addition to the mandatory UNDP and GCF M&E requirements, to develop M&E plan activities by identifying and recommending and/or developing gender indicators to be used for monitoring the implementation of the CCA.

3 - Deliverables

Although almost all below listed deliverables are part of teamwork, the Gender Expert should directly contribute and be a key instrument in ensuring the following deliverables are completed.

Deliverable 1 (D1)

Prepare a proposal to ensure involvement of gender responsive expertise in the technical working group on adaptation under the IMWGCC, ensuring that consistent, gender-responsive expertise is present in the technical working group.

Prepare operations manual for IMWGCC with clear roles and responsibilities of membership (to ensure these consider how social/gender aspects are integrated into workflows), as related to adaptation.

Develop work instructions to support the integration of gender implementation in the role and mandate of IGEWE.

Carry out needs assessment on capacity to handle cross-cutting issues, including level of knowledge, systems in place, resource allocation, access to tools etc., and development of recommendations for increased capacity at IGEWE to accomplish additional mandate responsibilities.

Deliverable 2 (D2)

Compile and synthesize available socio, gender-disaggregated information at sectorial, national, and sub-national levels (for all regions, as available) for at least one priority sector (yet to be determined).

Assess and filling gaps with regards to information availability and existing processes to improve the ability to integrate climate and gender integration and more clearly identify the gender risks of climate change.

Deliverable 3 (D3)

Actively participate at informal meetings/small presentations aimed at sensitizing other ministry employees, parliamentarians, parliamentary working groups on climate change and its implications in Albania (including socio-economic and gender-specific issues).
Develop and conduct webinar or remote training events to strengthen the general understanding of gender sensitive CCA awareness within subnational entities of the priority sectors (such as the National Agency of Water Resources Management, Agency for Territory Planning, etc.).
Develop the NAP Gender Action Plan for the NAP Strategy by providing input on gender sensitive CCA mainstreaming, including development of gender-sensitive adaptation goals, targets, and indicators, considering their quantitative, temporal, spatial, initial costing, and descriptive aspects for each of the priority sectors of tourism, urban development, agriculture, transport, and energy. Through this process all stakeholders involved in NAP Strategy action plan execution will have clear accountability for including marginalized groups, including women in CCA planning and activities moving forward.

Integration of CCA into NSDI promoted via sharing of tools and targeted training (bilateral or small group meetings with IMWGCC) with MoF, MoI, and Prime Minister’s Office.

Develop a set of guidelines and screening tools for gender sensitive CCA planning for all five priority sectors.

Deliverable 4 (D4)

Develop Gender-specific CCA indicators, to be endorsed (June 2023) and integrated into budgeting review and approval processes, at Ministry of Finance and Economy (November 2023).
Complete the financial needs assessment based on costing information for all projects listed in the NAP (during 2023).
Develop the list of gender sensitive CCA indicators for the environmental monitoring system.

Payment Schedule

First payment - 30%. That is upon completion of deliverables D1+D2 indicatively by March 2023

Second payment - 40%. Upon completion of deliverables D3 indicatively by September 2023

Third payment – 30%. Upon completion of deliverables D4 indicatively by November 2023

Competencies

Corporate competencies and values:

Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards
Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability
Treats all people fairly without favouritism

Functional Competencies:

Strong analytical, negotiation and communication skills, including ability to produce high quality practical advisory reports and knowledge products.
Ability to work independently, produce high quality outputs.
Ability to produce high quality outputs in a timely manner while understanding and anticipating the evolving client needs.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

Academic degree in gender equality/ social/economic/political science or similar relevant field at Master level.

Experience

At least 7 years of experience in gender mainstreaming and climate change issues into sectoral policies.
Previous experience in capacity building assessments and working with various systems analysis methods and techniques for gender mainstreaming.
Substantial experience in working with government partners and other stakeholders.
Good knowledge of international best practices in the project related fields, state of the art approaches in the specific areas the project and its subcomponents are dealing with.
Significant experience of designing and carry out training program design and implementation of training programs.
Knowledge of institutional set-up in Albania, including gender legislation.
Experience of working with EU Gender Acquis.

Language requirements:

Fluency in written and spoken English.

Evaluation of Applicants

Applicants will be assessed on relevant expertise and competencies, as reflected in the CVs, and explored during an interview.

Applicants will be evaluated based on a Combined Scoring system taking into consideration different criteria, which will total to 70 points. Applicants scoring 49 points or more of the technical points will be considered for financial evaluation.

Applications will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis taking into consideration the combination of their qualifications and financial proposal. A two-stage procedure is utilized in evaluating the applications, with evaluation of the CVs being completed prior to any financial proposal being compared. The award is made to the individuals whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

Responsive/compliant/acceptable
Having received the highest score out of the pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specified to the vacancy announcement

Technical Evaluation Criteria

Relevant experience in participating to gender mainstreaming projects, programmes, policies, or strategies development (to ensure these consider social/gender aspects) (25 points).
Sound experience and knowledge of women’s human rights and gender equality (15 points).
Previous experience in implementing key training events, workshops, and appropriate consultations for gender mainstreaming (10 points).
Previous experience with the required analytical work experience in developing a gender action plan/action/measure for climate projects, programmes, policies, or strategies (10 points).
Knowledge of Albanian context and gender equality (5 points).
Previous professional experience with development agencies and the United Nations (5 points).