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.

UN Women Regional Office for the Arab States (ROAS) adopted its strategic plan for 2022-2025 in March 2022. In the strategic plan, it is highlighted that one of the key priorities to achieve gender equality in the Arab States is the speedy acceleration of women’s employment throughout the region, which has hovered around 21% since the 1990s; UN Women is embarking on a large-scale multi-country program to surge women’s employment in 7 countries (3 in North Africa, 2 in the Levante and 2 in the Gulf).

The initial phase of this work was concluded in May 2022. It was dedicated to the analysis of the factors behind the stagnated levels of women’s employment in the Arab States, with a focus on not only challenges but, more specifically, on distinct opportunities that could accelerate women’s employment in the region. The analysis established the need for a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing together efforts to shift social norms, reduce the burden of care work, improve laws and policies, and strategically use social and mass media to bring about these changes. The strategy strongly emphasizes the private sector’s role, focusing on three sectors, with distinct business cases in each.  Lastly, the approach seeks to guarantee sustainable finance to deliver on this agenda through a shift to gender-responsive budgeting and blended finance.

The regional program will be implemented across several countries, with Iraq being one of them. The UN Women’s Country Office for Iraq engages national stakeholders to contextualize the program to national priorities and local context. This will be done through national consultations and analytical work on relevant themes and economic sectors. To support this process, UN Women CO Iraq is In line with this is looking to engage the services of a National Consultant on Women’s Economic Empowerment to support:

• Support stakeholder mapping consultation and facilitate co-creation of the employment program.
• Lead the development of the country’s profile on women’s economic empowerment and contribute to employment projections.
• Support work on creating an enabling environment for women’s employment (policy and legal reforms and a shift in social norms).
• Lead sector assessments to support women’s employment.
• Base developing a sustainable finance component to advance women’s employment.

Under the overall guidance of the UN Women CO Iraq Representative, the consultant will be reporting to Program Management Specialist, as part of a regional initiative, the role will complement some activities at the UN Women ROAS.

Description of Responsibilities/ Scope of Work

Develop a national roadmap. 

• Develop a roadmap for the contextualized employment program’s development and inception, following the guidelines and outlines established in the Surging Women’s Employment Program.
• Undertake a desk review and develop a country context analysis aligned to the themes and sectors of interest to complement the employment projections, particularly referring to the employment program’s accelerators and enablers.

Support the development of a multi-disciplinary program

• In collaboration with the UN Women regional office (advisors and consultants), support mapping of key national and sectoral-level stakeholders, civil society organizations, and businesses, particularly related to the program’s amplifiers.
• Support introductory workshops to sensitize stakeholders to the design processes and the envisaged employment program.
• Contribute to developing workshop outcomes and conducting a desk review to prepare a set of baseline and target indicators for Phase 2 overall and per country.
• Conduct detailed key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and sector-level / member-based organizations workshops to consult on the design of the women’s employment program. Use these engagements to:

a) Ideate and conceptualize possible interventions.

b) Identify international best practices to introduce and national aspects to scale up.

c) Map the ecosystem players (as aligned to the program’s multidisciplinary approach)

and their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

d) Seek validation of ideas from other leading experts.

Data Gathering and country consultations

• Co-facilitate the respective in-country missions and work sessions (supported by UN Women staff).
• Lead the preparation of meeting materials, such as PowerPoint presentations, including an executive summary of the meeting discussions, results, and proposed actions.
• Contribute to the documentation of the different workshops and engagements and detailed documentation of methodologies.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as necessary for developing and delivering the employment strategy.

Deliverables

Activities	Deliverables		Expected completion time (due day)	Payment Schedule
Planning for the assignment Prepare an implementation plan outlining the methodology and overarching approach (aligned with the broad outline)	Inception report		5 Jan 2025	10%
Contribute to the country context analysis (desk review).	UN Women validated report		30 Jan 2025	20%
Support country-level consultations. Mapping relevant actors and designing a suitable engagement approach. Document the outcomes, agreements, and next steps taken from the stakeholder engagement. Outline emerging lessons from engagements to inform the design of a program.	Endorsed mapping profile		20 Feb 2025	20%
Contribute to the drafting of a national women’s employment strategy containing: An overview of the situation and the proposed response Aspects to incorporate include policies and laws, social norms, private sector, and blended finance, accompanied by three country-level annexes (care, STEM, and green jobs).	The progress report that includes a draft strategy		2 Mar 2025	10%
Lead the drafting of a high-quality program document in line with UN Women’s program and policy guidance.	Validated program by UN Women		23 Mar 2025	30%
Support the implementation plan development and lead the rollout of program inception activities.	Endorsed plan		31 Mar 2025	10%

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is a home-based consultancy/ Baghdad, Iraq. As part of this assignment, there will be a possibility to travel to governorates and all travel costs will be covered by UNW ICO in accordance with UN Women’s rules and regulations.

Competencies:

Core Values:

• Integrity;
• Professionalism;
• Respect for Diversity.

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 Values and Competencies Framework:

Functional Competencies:

• Strong knowledge of women’s economic empowerment, especially in private sector development.
• Strong program formulation, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation skills.
• Strong analytical skills.
• Ability to synthesize program performance data and produce analytical reports for management and strategic decision-making.
• Strong networking skills.
• Ability to identify and analyze trends, opportunities, and threats to fundraising.
• Strong knowledge of the region.
• Ability to write policy papers, speeches, and briefings.

IV. Required Qualifications

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in Economics, Finance, Law, Gender, or a related field is required.
• A first-level university degree, in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience, may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• A project/program management certification would be an added advantage.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of experience developing and managing large-scale national programs is required.
• Demonstrated experience in Women Economic Empowerment and Employment Creation is required.
• Experience using computers, office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.), spreadsheets, and database packages, as well as handling web-based management systems, is required.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills is required.

Languages:

• Fluency in English and Arabic is required.

Statements :

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.

Diversity and inclusion:

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)

Level of Education: Bachelor Degree

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: No requirements