National Consultant-Communications WING

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 centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. UN Women provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. 
 
UN Women in Bangladesh supports the government in implementing commitments to international normative standards on gender equality and women’s human rights. In line with the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for 2022-2026, UN Women Bangladesh country office’s (BCO) Strategic Note (2022-2026), defines UN Women’s strategic engagement in Bangladesh. The country strategy focuses on strengthening the national structures and mechanisms for gender mainstreaming in policies, plans and budgets; supporting efforts to prevent and eliminate violence against women; promoting women’s access to decent and safe work; promoting policies and government investment in women’s empowerment and resilience building in the context of climate change, humanitarian crisis as well as other threats to peace and security. UN Women works with a range of stakeholders in Bangladesh including the government, civil society and women’s organizations, youth, UN agencies and donors, to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.
 
UN Women BCO focuses on women’s economic empowerment a key priority of the Government of Bangladesh (GoB). UN Women follows a whole-of-society approach rooted in feminist values to ensure that women have income security, decent work, and are economically empowered. As such, BCO works with the most vulnerable groups of women – which include women migrant workers, women with disabilities, gender diverse groups, ethnic minorities, and home-based workers, among others – to enhance their voices and economic leadership. UN Women Bangladesh’s WEE programme is aligned with the national priorities reflected in Bangladesh’s 8FYP (2020-2025)
 
Under its Women’s Economic Empowerment portfolio, UN Women has been implementing a Joint Programme (JP) entitled Women’s Empowerment for Inclusive Growth (WING) project in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Bangladesh.  The WING JP seeks to foster skills that create dignified and formal participation of women as employees and entrepreneurs in local economies. The overall goal of the programme is to ensure that women have sustainable improvements in income and economic security at the local level with more women having wider access to local economic opportunities, private and public financial services as well as income-generating activities.
In this regard, UN Women is seeking the services of a national consultant to support the WING team in implementing the communications plan and enhance the visibility of WING results and advocacy initiatives through print media, visual media, web platforms, and social media.

II. Objective and Scopes of the Consultant: 

To enhance the WING project’s visibility through strategic communication initiatives and implementing the communications plan in line with BCO’s communication strategy. 

Duties and Responsibilities

III. Duties and Responsibilities:

a. Provide support to implement WING strategies for communications, advocacy, and outreach under the guidance of BCO Communications Analyst. 

b. Ensure timely implementation of the WING communications plan by developing social media posts, and human impact stories, support organizing advocacy events, and ensuring media coverage. 

c. Maintain media relations, and develop briefing materials for media and press releases, under the guidance of BCO Communications Analyst.

d. Provide technical, coordination and logistic support to organize webinars, events, and social media dialogues. 

e. Develop process documentation on Women Empowerment Principles (WEPs) implementation by WING. 

f. Review and provide inputs to policy briefs, knowledge products, and pictorial manuals for advocacy initiatives.

g. Identification and synthesis/documentation of good practices of influential entrepreneurs and lessons learned linked to project goals and activities.

h. Plan and develop audio-visual success stories and disseminate them to the relevant stakeholders using multiple communications channels. Ensure key programme interventions, WING-supported enterprises, and entrepreneurs' stories are captured through photography and archived in UN Women's official Flickr account, under the guidance of BCO’s Communications Analyst

i. Liaise with partner UN agencies, CSO partners, consulting firms/vendors as required, and provide technical guidance as per UN Women’s requirements in consultation with the Programme Manager

IV. Duration of the Assignment: 

The duration of the assignment will be from 1 January 2024 to 30 Sep 2024 (Maximum 80 working days) in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with field visits expected to select geographic areas of the WING project and other locations such as Thakurgaon, Kurigram, Manikganj, Jashore, and Cox’s Bazar districts. 

V. Supervision and Performance Evaluation:

Under the overall guidance of the UN Women Deputy Country Representative, the selected consultant will work under the supervision of the Programme Manager – Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) and in close collaboration with BCO’s Communications Analyst. 

VI. Travel, Logistics and DSA:

No travel and DSA will be provided at duty station but Travel arrangements for the consultant for outside Dhaka will be organized by UN Women upon prior agreement/approval from UN Women such travel expenses shall be borne by UN Women. The Consultant/SSA shall receive per-diem or DSA and terminals not to exceed the United Nations daily subsistence allowance rate in such other location(s) and actual travel cost.  

The consultant is expected to use his/her own computer, IT and other internet and telecommunications facilities. 

VII. Expected Deliverables and Payment Modalities:

Payments will be made based on deliverables as follows:

Items /Deliverables	Payment Schedule	Payment Milestone
Deliverable 01 (up to 4 days): WING communication and social media implementation work plan for January-August 2024	By 31 January 2024	20% of the total contract amount shall be paid upon submission of deliverables – 01 and 02 and all acceptance as certified by the UN Women contract administrator
Deliverable 02 (up to 12 days): Develop WEPs process documentation.   Develop and share at least 2 posts regarding project interventions and results on social media platforms. Documentation of the process.
Deliverable 03 (up to 20 days): Develop case stories, and photo albums, and produce a minimum 4 social media content. Update a Flickr photo album with WING entrepreneurs' photos. Documentation of the process.	By 30 April 2024	25% of the total contract amount shall be paid upon submission of deliverables - 03 and all acceptance as certified by the UN Women contract administrator
Deliverable 04 (Up to 20 days): Organize Media advocacy on accessible and inclusive markets and improved business environment for women entrepreneurs. Evidence of wider dissemination of the videos developed under WING and IEC materials in social media groups. Develop and share at least 2 social media posts on WING events/ results. Documentation of media visibility of all events.	By 30 June 2024	25 % of the total contract amount shall be paid upon submission of deliverables – 04 and all acceptance as certified by the UN Women contract administrator
Deliverable 05(Up to 24 days): Organize webinars (live streamed Facebook group) on Women Empowerment Principles jointly with WING partner. Evidence of local media engagement (community radio, local print media), Women women-centric online media engagement.	By 30 Sep  2024	30% of the total contract amount shall be paid upon submission of deliverables - 05 and all acceptance as certified by the UN Women contract administrator.

VIII. Performance Evaluation:

The consultant will report to the Programme Manager, WEE, UN Women Bangladesh, who will also carry out a performance evaluation of the consultant at the end of the assignment under the overall guidance of the UN Women Deputy Country Representative in Bangladesh.

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity

• Integrity

• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues

• Accountability

• Creative Problem Solving

• Effective Communication

• Inclusive Collaboration

• Stakeholder Engagement

• Leading by Example

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

A master's degree in communications, journalism, or a related field such as international development, gender studies or social science.

Technical Competencies:

• Minimum 5 years of demonstrated work experience in communications including experience in media relations in promotion of gender issues and women’s empowerment. Relevant experience at the national level in delivering communications services to promote activities of international development organizations will be considered an asset.
• At least 3 years of experience in managing social media campaigns, advocacy events, online outreach, use of multimedia, and producing communication materials (print and online) for a variety of media.
• Demonstrated evidence in developing process documentation, knowledge and communication products and success stories for diverse platforms

Language:

• Excellent communication skills in Bangla and English.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

Consultant must send a financial proposal based on Lump Sum Amount. The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all
costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, only  and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the SSA in completing the assignment.

The contract price will be fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done upon
completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages

Evaluation Method and Criteria:
Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology.

Cumulative analysis-

The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant up on Cumulative Analysis/evaluation and determined as:
1. Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
2. Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the
solicitation;

Only candidates obtaining a 70 mark in technical evaluation will be considered eligible for financial evaluation.
Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 70 points out of 100)

Criteria-01; Academic Qualification  - Max Point 10

Criteria-02; years of demonstrated work experience in communications including experience in media relations in promotion of gender issues and women’s empowerment. - Max Point 30

Criteria-03; years of experience in managing social media campaigns, advocacy events, online outreach, and use of multimedia and producing communication materials (print and online) for a variety of media. - Max Point 30

Criteria-04; Demonstrated evidence in developing process documentation, and knowledge & communications products.- Max Point 20

Criteria-05; Language proficiency in Bangla and English. - Max Point 10

The total number of points allocated for the weighted qualification component is 100. The technical qualification of the individual is evaluated based on following technical qualification evaluation criteria:

Only the candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% of total points (70) will be considered as technically-qualified candidate.

Interested candidates will submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications.

To be included as part of the proposal: Only applications including all items mentioned above will be considered.

Submission of package

The following documents should be submitted as part of the application:

Application submission package:

• Interested Individual Consultants will submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. 
• To be included as part of the proposal: 
• A brief expression of interest: a brief narrative presenting your suitability for this assignment · 
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from: http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment.
• A writing sample with a list/links of publications
• Financial proposal: Propose per day lump sum professional fees in BDT for 80 days and indicative per day/professional fees. 

Notes:

• UN Women retains the right to contact references directly. Due to the large numbers of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.
• Applications without the financial offer will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.
• The individual consultants should take the mandatory learning security course prior to commencement of assignment– details will follow before the issuance of contract.

Only applications will all items mentioned above will be considered

Note: The individual consultant who does not meet the above eligibility criteria shall not be considered for further evaluation. Necessary documentation must be submitted to substantiate the above eligibility criteria

• At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided based on qualifications, competence, integrity, and organizational need. If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

• UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check).