Consultant – Study on Global Gender Indices

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.

Collaboration with government stakeholders at global, national, and local levels, remains integral to UN Women’s efforts at advancing gender equality. UN Women plays a central role in delivering on UN Women’s normative support functions and strengthens linkages between normative work and operational activities. It contributes to the UN Women's support for the development and strengthening of a comprehensive set of global norms, policies and standards on gender equality and women’s empowerment that is dynamic, responds to new and emerging issues, challenges and opportunities and is applied through action by Governments and other stakeholders at all levels.   

UN Women supports the coordination of substantive servicing of intergovernmental and expert bodies as mandated in relevant legislative frameworks. It focuses on three broad areas of work: (i) engage with and service intergovernmental bodies related to gender equality and women’s empowerment as well as managing India’s participation in regional and international policy discourse on gender equality; (ii) support and coordinate interagency follow-ups; (iii) plan, organize and support in building partnerships with the private sector and the civil society in the country.

Globally many countries have enacted gender-focused policies and legislations, implemented programmes and tracked government spending to bridge the gender gaps. Despite the   heterogeneity that exists across these countries, some of initiatives have significantly contributed to gender parity. In collaboration with the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the UN Women India office is undertaking a research study to assess evidence-based practices that have improved global gender indices in select countries. The countries have their comparability to India in terms of geo-cultural proximity and economic performance. It aims to deep dive into the performance of countries on indicators under three global gender indices namely Gender Inequality Index 2022, and Global Gender Gap Report 2023, and identify the enabling factors towards achieving gender parity in these countries.

In this context, UN Women India Country Office seeks the services of a Consultant who will design an innovative framework to collate information through different primary and secondary data collection tools, identify the best practices from across these countries and recommend innovations for India to explore and improve their performances against these indicators. The analysis will aim to generate/strengthen evidence on the existing gender gaps in policy/programme design and implementation, budgetary allocations and expenditure on women, and recommendations to strengthen these indices for the country. 

Under the direct supervision of the Deputy Representative of UN Women ICO, the Consultant would be responsible for the following results:  

• Conduct a comparative analysis of the selected countries on the Gender Inequality Index 2022, and Global Gender Gap Report 2023.
• Identify and document best practices from across the countries that reduce gender gaps to learn and adopt from them.
• Develop the research tools and administer them to collate information.
• Increase the policy dialogue and make the necessary policy changes to demonstrate a proactive approach to advancing the welfare and rights of girls and women.

Key Deliverables:

• A work plan for the assignment with details of stakeholders and meetings with timelines as per the concept note of UN Women – 15 June 2024 – 30% payment;
• Development of the data collection tool for collating these data points from each country office, and other stakeholders, Meetings conducted with country offices/stakeholders for data collection, etc.- 30 June 2024 – 30% payment;
• Submission of draft final report – 5 July 2024
• Submission of final report – 10 July 2024 – 40% payment

Core Values / Guiding Principles:

Integrity:

• Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

Professionalism:

• Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity:

• Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies:

Ethics and Values:

• Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.

Organizational Awareness:

• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Work in teams:

• Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of diverse backgrounds.

Communicating and Information Sharing:

• Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication.

Self-management and Emotional Intelligence:

• Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behaviour towards others.

Conflict Management:

• Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing:

• Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge.

Functional Competencies:

• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Focuses on impact and result for the partners and responds positively to feedback;
• Sound understanding of development issues and gender;
• Adheres to deadlines and follows up on time-bound issues;
• Maintains diplomacy, tact and strict confidentiality with internal and external partners and clients.

Education:

• Master’s Degree or equivalent in Social Sciences/ Social Work /Gender Studies/Public Administration/Policy or related fields.
• PhD in related subjects will be an added advantage

Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of experience at the national/state level policy work, preferably in Gender Equality and Women’s Rights.

• Experience in policy analysis, statistics and quantitative and qualitative research is required.

Language:

• Proficiency in English.
• Good command over Hindi in reading and writing.

Interested applicants should apply to this announcement through UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org.

Application:

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:

• All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs.
• Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment, please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.
• Applications received after the close date will not be accepted.
• Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.                                                        

Evaluation and Selection Criteria:

Criteria for shortlisting of CVs will be based on the following assessment:

• Required Degree and Qualification (5 points).
• Minimum Experience relevant to the assignment (10 points)
• Working knowledge and experience of working on Gender Issues (5 points).

The evaluation process for selection of the candidate will be based on the following assessment:

• Interview (80%)
• Writing Samples (20%)

Please Note:

• Consultants are required to submit doctor's certificate to state fitness to work and travel for this assignment.
• Due to large number of potential applicants, only competitively selected candidates will be contacted for remaining steps of the service procurement process.
• The consultant is expected to use their own computer equipment. The office will not provide any computer equipment for this assignment.
• This is a full-time assignment. The consultant is expected to disclose any outside activity and shall not be permitted to take up any outside work during this assignment.
• The Consultant will be connected with all the other country's offices by UNW ICO team.
• The Consultant is expected to use their resources (research assistants/personal assistants/IT equipment) for analysis and report writing work.

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality, and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.