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.

A key area of concern for UN Women is women’s economic empowerment (WEE) as expressed in UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2022-2025 as well as in the targets and indicators of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 for gender equality and women’s empowerment and of several other SDGs relating to inclusive growth, decent work, ending poverty, and reducing inequality, and revitalizing the global partnership for sustainable development. Aligned with the global SP (2022-2025), the ROAP SN (2023-2025) will focus on six SP cross-thematic outcomes to drive results across the ROAP’s thematic areas i.e., Inclusive governance, Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG), Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE), Women Peace and Security (WPS), Climate Change, Humanitarian Action (HA) and DRR. It will also seek to enhance key areas of expertise in response to demand from country presences in the areas of economic planning, climate change and Knowledge Management (KM). Further, the ROAP’s thematic and functional activities will be geared towards effective and targeted support for country presences.

 

The work of UN Women is based on a triple mandate: A normative mandate to support the formulation of global and regional standards and norms for gender equality; an operational mandate to support UN member states in implementing these standards; and finally, a mandate to coordinate the UN system’s efforts to deliver on its gender equality commitment.

The Women’s Economic Empowerment & Migration at the Regional Office for the Asia Pacific operates with the key overarching objective: Women have income security, decent work, and economic autonomy as articulated in the SN ROAP Women’s Economic Empowerment & Migration: 2023-2025. The WEE portfolio is expanding focusing on the four key strategic priorities:

1. Advancing Gender-Responsive Business Conduct and Creating More Decent Work Opportunities (WEPs)
2. Transforming the Care Economy
3. Accelerating Gender-Responsive Entrepreneurship for (M)SMEs (i.e. Gender-Responsive Procurement, Women’s entrepreneurship etc.)
4. Progressing Safe Migration to Decent Employment

These thematic areas are not operating in isolation and are strongly inter-connected and under-pinned by cross-cutting principles, such as: sector-agnostic work (across the Green & Blue -, care, fintech and digital economy); embracing an intersectional and conscious social norms lens into programming, and nexus to thematic areas such as Climate Change, Ending Violence Against Women, Humanitarian and Women Peace and Security (WPS).

The increased importance of Women’s Economic Empowerment across the region and the numerous RO-led WEE initiatives has resulted in an increased demand for the Regional Office in Asia Pacific (ROAP) to expand and strengthen its work on its normative mandate, to ensure gender-responsive laws and policies for women’s economic empowerment in a manner that is closely aligned with WEE ROAP programmes and results frameworks. This includes a growing need for research and knowledge production for the region. The Junior Consultant will act as an important support in the production of knowledge products aimed at enhancing evidence-informed decision making in the relevant areas for WEE.

The objective of this consultancy is to provide specialized support in conducting gender analysis and supporting assessments pertaining to women’s economic empowerment in countries in Asia and the Pacific region. The consultant will focus on advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment within the transforming care systems discourse by conducting context-specific assessments on gendered rooted causes of inequalities in the world of work, including identifying policy areas as critical domains of change where evidence-enhanced decision making can be enhanced. Furthermore, the consultant’s work will support the construction of a database for Asia and the Pacific for simulation of costing Sustainable Development Goals.

Under the supervision and guidance of Gender Statistics Specialist in the WEE Team, this consultant seeks to gain experience in internationally agreed indicators and national sources of relevant data women’s economic empowerment to conduct context-specific analysis to enhance evidence-informed decision making in the care economy and SDGs costing.

 

Duties and Responsibilities

Below is a list of a wider range of skillsets relevant to women’s economic empowerment research and data portfolio. We encourage applicants with relevant experience in any of the mentioned areas to apply. If you possess a subset of these skillsets, we would still be interested in considering your application.

• Provide up-to-date information on policies and actions in Asia-Pacific aimed at recognizing, redistributing, and reducing unpaid care work as well as representing and rewarding paid care workers.
• Assist in conducting empirical analysis of relevant and timely gender indicators.
• Assist in constructing a database for Asia-Pacific for SDG costing

Deliverable Expected Completion timeline and Payment Schedule Identify countries for gender analysis of transforming care systems based on criteria set up in close coordination with UN Women. Review data availability and conduct a desk review of relevant policies and action to transform care systems in select countries. Prepare a first draft template for country factsheet on WEE. Prepare a first draft of the dataset on public spending for SDG costing. 18 October 2024 Draft country factsheets as per agreed template and select countries. Refine the dataset on public spending with additional available data on public spending and select SDGs. Conduct desk review on WEE relevant topics for SDG costing 19 November 2024 Finalize country factsheets and database for SDG costing simulation. Finalize desk review on WEE relevant topics for SDG costing. 20 December 2024

Competencies

In addition to aforementioned requirements and qualifications, it is important that the consultants share the core values and core competencies of the organization.

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

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment/application-process#_Values

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES

• Good technical knowledge in the field of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment
• Adaptability and commitment to continuous learning

• Good analytical skills
• Strong communication and presentation skills
• Good knowledge of internationally agreed indicators, such as Sustainable Development Goals
• Strong project management support skills
• Good networking and partnership building skills

Required Skills and Experience

 

Education and Certification

Master’s degree in Gender and Development, Economics, Political Science, or other relevant disciplines. (A first-level university degree in similar fields in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.)

Experience

• A minimum of 1 year of relevant progressively responsible experience in conducting empirical research from a gender lens, with a focus on advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Demonstrated experience working with gender data to advance evidence on persistent roots of gender inequality in the world of work, particularly within the Asia and Pacific region is required.
• Experience in leveraging gender data for enhancing evidence-informed decision making, especially in the context of monitoring commitments to gender-relevant framework through internationally agreed gender indicators is desirable.
• Having UN experience and international organization will be an advantage.

Languages

• Fluency in English is required.
• Knowledge of other language spoken in the Asia-Pacific region, or any UN official language is an asset.