Consultant – GRB Expert, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India (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, men and diverse genders as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

All human development and human rights issues involve gender dimensions. UN Women globally focuses on key priority areas that are fundamental to women’s equality, and that can unlock progress across the board. UN Women’s priority areas include increasing women’s leadership and participation in political spaces, ending violence against women, enhancing women’s economic empowerment, engaging in all aspects of women peace and security processes, making gender equality central to national planning and budgeting through Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) and advancing gender in intergovernmental processes.

UN Women’s work on Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) or Gender Budgeting (GB) involves ensuring that national planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation processes incorporate a gender perspective. UN Women’s GRB programmes at the regional and country level have made significant contribution towards this by building political support, developing technical resources and capacities, generating good practices for improving women’s access to services and increasing accountability for Gender Equality and Women’s empowerment (GEWE).  At the forefront of global, regional and local advocacy for application of GRB, UN Women has built partnerships with diverse government, inter-governmental and non-governmental partners to further efforts and demonstrate GRB’s relevance to sustainable development, aid effectiveness, public sector reform and financing for development.

UN Women’s India Country Office, based in New Delhi is implementing a project with the objective of strengthening institutional mechanisms for GRB resulting in an increase of gender perspective in budgets, improved availability of data, and tracking of progress on gender equality initiatives across ministries and select states/UTs. It will aim to create a conducive policy environment and enhance institutional capacities on gender budgeting at the national and State/UT level.  It will identify strategies and operational approaches to strengthen on-going efforts in the area of GRB. Insights generated from this project will enable key stakeholders at the national and state level to accelerate their efforts to ensure that women’s priorities are adequately reflected in national and state budgeting processes, and to make concrete changes for adequate resource allocation towards women’s priorities.

UN Women through this programme will work with national ministries including Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), Ministry of Finance and line ministries to deepen anchoring of GB across union ministries and sectors. It will create and strengthen institutional mechanisms for GRB and institute methodological changes in Planning-Budgeting and Auditing (PBA) systems for enabling gender responsive actions. The project will aim to enhance capacities of government officials and other stakeholders to implement the gender responsive PBA measures, and leverage technology to advance gender budgeting including through and e-governance tool.

Within this context, UN Women seeks the services of GRB Expert- MWCD to be embedded in Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India in New Delhi. Reporting to the Program Analyst- GRB, UN Women India and working closely with the nodal official in MWCD, the GRB Expert- MWCD will be responsible for coordinating and implementing programme activities with MWCD on Gender Budgeting.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall guidance of Team Lead- Gender Budgeting, and direct supervision of Program Analyst- GRB, the GRB Expert- MWCD will support in strengthening the efforts of the national government on gender responsive planning and budgeting.

The GRB Expert- MWCD will work closely with the nodal official in MWCD, and have the following tasks:

Strengthening GB initiatives by Government of India:

• Lead overall work of GRB unit and technical assistance to MWCD on expansion of GB to central ministries/ departments and states/ UTs;
• Develop national action plan on GB and liaise with MWCD, MoF and line ministries on GRB;
• Streamline uptake of GB framework by ministries/ departments;
• Provide inputs to various Ministries/Departments on gender issues, particularly for existing and new policies, programmes and legislations;
• Develop methodology for undertaking assessment of Ministries/Departments and States on their progress on GRB and supporting in the development of the Ministry wise and State wise Action Plans on GRB;
• Ensure roll out and implementation of self-assessment tool on GB and support to ministries/ departments to undertake and update tool periodically;
• Maintain information and data received from Ministries/gender Budgeting Cells on Gender Budgeting;
• Coordination with Ministry of Finance and other line departments and CSOs for revision of the Gender Budget Statement;
• Analysis of the Gender Budget Statement and coordination with Ministries/ Departments with regards to the same;
• Conduct a pre-budget consultation with MWCD, MoF and women’s group and civil society to enable participation and inclusion of women in budget-making processes;
• Provide technical assistance to MWCD in developing guidelines on Gender Auditing and taking gender audit forward;
• Provide technical assistance to MWCD in developing guidelines on deepening gender budgeting at panchayat/ urban ward levels, including undertaking a pilot initiative in select Panchayats.

Knowledge management of relevant GRB Resources:

• Contribute substantively to the analysis and research of the political, social and economic situation in the country on gender responsive governance/ GRB and prepare substantive inputs;
• Ensure documentation and dissemination of resources on GRB, such as case studies and best practices;
• Develop sectoral policy briefs to institutionalize GRB;
• Support MWCD in implementation of Gender Budgeting Scheme;
• Support in monitoring data on progress of state action plans through development and implementation of monitoring tools;
• Provide inputs for review meetings with Secretary and Ministers, including resource materials, agenda papers, minutes, talking points etc;
• Roll out and implementation of e governance tool on gender budgeting in coordination with IT Specialist and MWCD.

Capacity Development of various stakeholders on GRB:

• Developing and taking forward an action plan for expansion of the scope of GB trainings across the country by developing partnerships with various National and State level training   institutions;
• Develop a capacity development strategy and framework on GB, and advocate for integration in existing training mechanisms for union government officials, for. E.g. Karmyogi Bharat iGOT platform etc.;
• Facilitate trainings and orientation programmes on Gender Budgeting for (i) Union Government, (ii) State Governments, (iii) District level officers, (iv) PRI members, (v) Training Institutes and (vi) NGO and others;
• Collaborate with training institutions/organizations engaged in training activities with a view to furthering the aims and objectives of Gender Budgeting and providing technical inputs on Gender Budgeting;
• Developing training tools, manual, and other IEC materials on GRB, as required.

Key Deliverables:

• National action plan on gender budgeting developed.
• Guidelines on gender auditing developed.
• Substantive positioning of gender budgeting in government policies and strategy.
• Effective implementation of gender budgeting in 30 Ministries and select States in coordination with MWCD.

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 different national and cultural 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;
• Demonstrates good oral and written communication skills;
• 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/Economics/Social Work /Gender Studies/Public Administration/Policy or related fields.

Experience:

• Minimum of 7 years of relevant experience at the national/state level working with development projects preferably on Gender Responsive Governance, Gender Equality and Women Empowerment; with hands-on experience of design, implementation and monitoring/evaluation of projects.
• At least 2 years of experience of working with national/ state governments on gender issues, preferable gender responsive budgeting.
• Some Experience of undertaking budgetary/ policy analysis and capacity building of government officials.
• Proficiency in the use of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.).

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 should be submitted along with latest CV and statement of purpose/cover letter stating your interest in this role;
• 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 Qualification (5 points);
• Minimum Experience relevant to the assignment (5 points);
• Experience working for the Government and/ or United Nations on Gender Responsive Budgeting is an advantage. (5 points).

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

• Interview (80 points)
• Writing Samples Assessment (20 points)

Please Note:

• For an assignment requiring travel, consultants of 65 years or more require full medical examination and statement of fitness to work prior to engagement in the consultancy.
• Due to large number of potential applicants only competitively selected candidates will be contacted for remaining steps of the selection process.
• 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 the course of 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.