Consultant – Gender Based Advocacy with Parliamentarians (Local Post for Indian Nationals and Applicants with a Valid Work Permit)

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.

Collaboration with government stakeholders at global, national, and local levels, remains integral to UN Women’s efforts at advancing gender equality. Gender-sensitive parliaments and public administration institutions can be crucial for bringing about gender equality through a combination of legal, policy, and administrative reforms, along with social norm change. While women’s political representation has significantly increased over the past decade, achieving true gender parity within existing political institutions itself requires normative and structural changes that depend on a supportive political ecosystem. Engagement with political representatives and government policymakers is especially important at this time when countries are still grappling with the socioeconomic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and its particularly adverse effects on women and girls, when climate change is drastically transforming economic sectors and the world of work, and when substantial financial investments, policy innovations, and most importantly – political commitments – are required to bridge existing and emergent gender gaps.

UN Women’s Engagement with Intergovernmental Processes

UN WOMEN plays a central role to deliver on UN Women’s normative support functions and strengthens linkages between normative work and operational activities through its Unit for Intergovernmental Processes(IGP). 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. The Unit also has special responsibility for the coordination of substantive servicing of intergovernmental and expert bodies as mandated in relevant legislative documents. The Unit 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 coordination and its smooth running and follow-up; (iii) plan, organize and support in building partnerships with the private sector and the civil society in the country.

Generation Equality is the world’s leading initiative convened by UN Women in 2021, to accelerate investment and implementation on gender equality. It has six “Action Coalitions (Gender Based Violence, Economic Justice and Rights, Bodily Autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights, Feminine Action for Climate Justice, Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality and Feminist Movement and Leadership)”. The five Rs of Care work fall under the Coalition on Economic Justice and Rights.

Building upon UN Women’s work with governments in India and other countries worldwide, and in light of India preparing to enter a new electoral cycle in 2024, UN Women India is seeking to deepen its engagement with existing and newly incoming national parliamentary representatives around issues of gender equality. Utilising a variety of mechanisms ranging from research support to parliamentarians and gender scorecards for parliament constituencies to national discussion forums, the initiative focuses on providing parliamentarians with in-depth gender-related information that both enables and incentivizes them to develop and support gender-responsive policies and interventions.

In this context and under direct the supervision of the Programme Manager (IGP), UN Women the Consultant will support UN Women, India in designing, operationalizing, and implementing an innovative strategy to engage with national parliamentarians on issues, laws, and policies related to gender equality, both nationally and within their specific parliamentary constituencies. In addition to planning and coordinating engagement with parliamentarians, the consultant will also identify and partner with additional stakeholders as required to deliver upon the full scope of this work, such as research organisations and civil society organisations.

The engagement with parliamentarians is expected to result in the following objectives:

• Expanded awareness and understanding of gender mainstreaming principles among MPs.
• Increased engagement of MPs at the constituency level, demonstrating a proactive approach to advancing the welfare and rights of girls and women.
• Amplified media visibility through increased coverage of MPs advocating for the rights of women and girls.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide a workplan and budget for the meetings and trainings to be conducted in the period.
• Develop capacity building module, gender report card and media products (social medial posts and op-eds).
• Bring in relevant stakeholders for effective engagements and gender equality advocacy in the parliament.
• The Consultant is expected to use their own equipment and resources (research assistants/personal assistants/IT equipment) for analysis and report writing work.

The deliverables are detailed below:

Reporting to the Programme Manager- Intergovernmental Processes Unit and working in close collaboration with the programme team, the consultant will be responsible for ensuring delivery of the following key outputs over the duration of this assignment:

A. Stakeholder Partnerships

The consultant is expected to build strong collaborations and develop context-specific engagement strategies to target three primary stakeholders:

•  Elected and appointed members of Rajya Sabha;
•  Elected members of Lok Sabha from target states/constituencies as noted in the UN Women  India Country Strategic Note 2023-2025;
• Research staff and legislative assistants for Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha members.
• The Consultant will also support UN Women with identifying programmatic partners for policy information, data collection, knowledge products, forums and stakeholder consultations. The types of partners anticipated include:
• Research organisations, including field research partners;
• Civil society organisations, including women’s groups;
• Other government authorities (such as line ministries/departments)

B.  Activities & Outputs

While the specific activities undertaken as part of the engagement with parliamentarians and their teams may be expected to evolve based on a variety of factors, the consultant will be required to ensure that the broad scope of engagement falls under 3 strategic areas as noted below. The consultant will be expected to design, plan, implement, and manage activities under each of these strategic areas:

B1.  Gender Report Cards (Constituency-level)

Key Output 1: Develop a gender report card / scorecard based on key metrics of gender equality as aligned with SDGs and which offer parliamentarians insights into possible development priorities for women-led development in their constituencies, based on a combination of primary data and secondary data, focusing on the following areas:

• Parliamentary constituencies in target states for UN Women India (2023-27);
• Additional parliamentary constituencies as identified.

Key Output 2: Plan, coordinate, and facilitate engagement with parliamentarians based on discussion of constituency-level gender report cards, including planning any follow-up engagement such as sharing the report card results with local civil society organisations or women’s groups.

B2.   National Forum for Parliamentarians

Key Output 3: A minimum of 2 formal gatherings (public forums / closed door meetings) of national parliamentarians to conduct policy dialogues that advance specific issues of gender equality, at least one of which includes UN Women’s Generation Equality Feminist leaders and focuses on the intersection of youth and gender issues.

B3.  Training – Research & Legislative Staff

Key Output 4: Develop training modules and implement training for the research staff / legislative assistants of target parliamentarians in partnership with external organizations such as PRIDE, Swaniti and PRS Legislative Research, that focus on:

• Status quo of gender policies, gaps, and opportunities in India;
• How to research constituency-level gender issues and identify key areas;
• How to convert research insights into gender-responsive constituency-level interventions, including through utilization of MPLAD funds.

Deliverables and Timeline:

• Workplan for the assignment with details of stakeholders and meetings with timelines and Gender report cards of 10 constituencies submitted and approved by UN Women – 31 May 2024 – 15%
• Capacity Building Module for Research Assistants (RAs) developed and a training session for RAs organised – 31 July 2024 – 20%
• Meetings conducted with 10 Parliamentarians and follow up action report prepared and submitted. Social media posts & Op-eds (at least 4) with interested MPs – 15th November 2024- 25%
• Two meetings with Parliamentarians on Policy Dialogues completed and report submitted – 31st December 2024 – 25%
• A completion report on actions, results and way forward prepared and submitted – 31 December 2024 – 15%

Competencies

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.

Required Skills and Experience

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 10 years of experience at the national/state level policy work, preferably on Gender Equality and Women’s Rights;
• Experience on policy analysis, statistics and quantitative and qualitative research is required;
• Experience of working with national/ state governments; particularly including working with Parliamentarians.

Language:

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

Application:

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

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 from
• 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;
• Expertise and Experience relevant to the assignment;
• Demonstrable experience on policy advocacy with the government and other stakeholders.

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

• Interview (100 points)

Please Note:

• For an assignment requiring travel, consultants of 65 years or more require full medical examination and statement of fitness to work to engage in the consultancy.
• 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.

Note:

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.