Retainer Consultant – 1 Position

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 center 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. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

In Nepal, UN Women Nepal Country Office (NCO) has embarked on the first year of its five-year Strategic Note (SN) 2023 – 2027 to support the national stakeholders in advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women in line with internationally agreed normative standards. The SN is aligned with and contributes to Nepal’s national priorities and commitments as described in the Nepal Constitution 2015 and the Fifteenth Periodic Plan, the needs of women’s organizations, and the UNSDCF with a commitment of leaving no one behind.

With an aim to tackling structural gender inequality and transforming social norms and ending harmful practices, one of the key approaches adopted by NCO is communication for development using storytelling to understand and implement interventions to support social norm change. NCO with support from the Government of Finland is implementing a multi-year initiative “Measuring social norms change through storytelling in Nepal: Advancing the transformative shift towards gender equality by 2030.” The initiative leverages the power of storytelling to measure and influence change in gendered power relations and social norms. It builds on the premise that women and girls are the best sources for self-identifying indicators for complex and hard to access dimensions of change in gendered power relations and social norms. The initiative aims to understand and measure the patterns of change in social norms and harmful practices through storytelling and find pathways to influence relations between individuals and across social institutions (household, community, market and state) for transformative programming for gender equality.

In this context, NCO seeks story writer/editor who will draft, review and copy-edit the human-interest stories and communication materials collected from the project partners. These story writer/editor will ensure the stories not only meet UN Women editorial guidelines and standards, aligning them with project accomplishments. These stories of change will be shared through UN Women’s web and social media channels upon consent from project participants. The consultant will work closely with the storytelling and comms team of UN Women Nepal. The consultant may need to collaborate with other national consultants to finalize the stories.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of UN Women Communications for Development Analyst, selected story writer/editor is expected to capture and reflect on the impact of UN Women’s interventions on women’s lives ensuring intersecting identities while highlighting the challenges and opportunities within context. The consultant is required to prepare stories of programme participants both in English languages as follows:

• Develop 20 human-interest or feature stories including inspiring quotes from Storytelling programme participants in English.  The stories and products should include good quality photographs.
• Develop 10 communication products including brochures, leaflets, briefs and social media posts to amplify stories of women and excluded groups and create visibility of actions taken against gendered social norms in project locations.
• Create, edit and revise various forms of communication products, including but not limited to correspondence and technical documentation such as speeches, human interest stories, factsheets, talking points, opinions, preface, foreword, web-articles and social media texts in a consistent and coherent manner.
• For the above, conduct desk research of materials, including the materials produced by UN Women and other relevant organizations.

Methodology and Scope of Work:

To complete the task effectively and efficiently, the consultants should:

• Literature review: review of relevant programmes’ documents (e.g., annual reports, terms of reference, partner progress reports, knowledge documentation, communication materials) as well as success stories and audio-video materials available, if any.
• Consultation meetings with relevant programme staff members, project partners and communication team to have better overview for the programmes and activities, list out the potential partners/participants to interview, as part of the story development process. This includes getting familiar with UN Women related communications policies and guidelines.
• Coordinate with project partners to refine stories collected from the field.
• Conduction of field visits and interviews: for meeting relevant project partners, individuals and stakeholders for the development of stories. The stories should capture how the individuals/communities have built on the achievements and learning based on each target group for Storytelling programme. The language of the story should be based on “impact on people’s lives, change in attitudes, mindsets, stereotypes, etc.” Stories should be supported with “high-resolution/quality” photos (Photos should be taken based on beneficiaries’ letter of consent for publication). The stories will ensure good coverage of women with intersecting identities.
• Submission draft stories for initial feedback.
• Submission of revised versions for the stories collected and receiving feedback from UN Women team for approval.
• Submission of final version of success stories along with quality photos for each story. This includes the consent forms/Recordings/photos/stories drafts.

Inputs:

• The consultant is expected to work remotely. UN Women can give access to the UN Women office for the printing of relevant documents during the assignment if required.
• It is the consultant’s responsibility to arrange private insurance.
• It is mandatory for the consultant to participate in a UN security briefing and to follow UN security rules and guidance.
• The consultant will be required to provide a Statement of Good Health, endorsed by a certified Medical Practitioner
• Selected candidates have to follow the UN Women policy and should submit documents request by Human Resource.

Duration of the assignment and duty station:

This is a home-based assignment under retainer contract modality for 2 years (15 February 2024- 14 February 2026) with a maximum of 100 working days.

UN Women will not be committed to purchasing any minimum quantity of the Services, and purchases will be made only if there is an actual requirement upon the issuance of a Purchase Order based on this retainer contract. UN Women shall not be liable for any cost in the event that no purchases are made under this retainer contract.

Schedule of payments:

Payment will be made on the basis of quality of the work actually delivered upon certification of satisfactory performance by the supervisor. A work plan for the service delivery will be discussed and reconfirmed upon the signing of a contract. The contractor’s performance will be evaluated against such criteria as: timeliness, responsibility, initiative, communications, accuracy, and quality of the products delivered.

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Good communication and interpersonal skills
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example

Required Skills and Experience

Required Qualifications, Experience and skills:

• A minimum of bachelor’s degree in journalism, gender studies, Mass Communications, Literature, Sociology, Economics or related studies, is required;
• Minimum 2 years of extensive experience in story writing, journalism and including strong editorial skills, is required in English.
• Experience in the field, interviewing and initiating conversations to document stories;
• Experience working with the UN System, preferably in a similar assignment, is an asset;
• Basic photography skills, is an asset;
• Fluency in written and oral English is required;
• Ability to handle documents and the information contained therein with strictest confidentiality is a non-negotiable requirement.

Travel:

• If consultants are required by UNWOMEN to travel beyond commuting distance from their usual place of residence, UNWOMEN will provide an airline ticket, or if not, the consultant will be entitled to reimbursement of airfare for UNWOMEN authorized travel, upon presentation of used airline stubs in an amount not to exceed the economy class fare or excursion fare, if applicable. For UNWOMEN authorized travel, the consultant will receive a daily subsistence allowance at United Nations authorized rates when traveling. Other necessary travel related expenses may be reimbursable on the basis of UNWOMEN’s current practice and authorized rates.

Evaluation and Selection Criteria

 If required, an interview will be conducted before making the final decision on selection of the consultant.

1. Technical qualification evaluation criteria:

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

• Criteria 1: A minimum of bachelor’s degree in journalism, gender studies, Mass Communications, Literature, Sociology, Economics or related studies. (15 points)
• Criteria 2: Demonstrated skills in the development of stories (consultant should submit samples of work showcasing experience in content development particularly for gender and development-related communications materials including photo). (25 points)
• Criteria 3: Additional certification in journalism is an asset. (5 points)
• Criteria 4: Minimum 2 years of extensive experience in content writing, journalism, including strong editorial skills. (20 points)
• Criteria 5: Experience working with the UN System, preferably in a similar assignment, is an asset. (5 points)

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

1. Financial/Price Proposal evaluation:

The financial proposal of candidates who meet the technical assessment threshold will be evaluated. The financial assessment will count as 30% of the total points.  In this methodology, the maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal. All other price proposals receive points in inverse proportion.

A formula is as follows:

p = y (µ/z)

Where:

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated

y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal

µ = price of the lowest priced proposal

z = price of the proposal being evaluated

Documents to be included when applying

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:

• Expression of interest
• Completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded:  
• At least one sample of original writing produced where the applicant is the author/co-author
• A separate page of financial proposal indicating per day (1 day = 8 hours) consultancy fees for the assignment period (100 working days)

The financial proposal shall specify the per day consultancy fee based on which the total contract value will be calculated. UN Women HR might request the candidate to share evidence of the per day consultancy fee of the previous assignment(s).

Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment, please combine all your documents into one single PDF document. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form and the written sample will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

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.