Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, UN Women 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 centre of all its efforts, UN Women’s mandate is tolead and coordinate the United Nations system’s efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It also provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.
UN Women’s work in the area of Women’s Leadership and Participation aligns with intergovernmental resolutions to promote and monitor participation in decision-making at all levels of governments, parliaments, councils and political parties, as well as women’s participation and influence in other areas of civic engagement. UN Women’s mandate also focuses on increasing opportunities for women’s leadership in front-line service delivery.
PNG remains one of the countries globally where women still face challenges to participate equally in political and administrative governance. This is despite the PNG Government developing and amending laws and policies to promote gender equality however, implementation has been slow. At the sub-national and local government levels also, although mandated by law; women representations on district and ward councils remains a challenge. Since the first post-independence election of 1977, PNG has never had more than three women MPs in parliament at once within any constituted legislative assembly.
In the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (ARB) in Papua New Guinea (PNG), UN Women has been working with demonstrable results, both the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) and civil society organisations to promote women’s participation in decision making and in, peace and security issues given the post-conflict context of Bougainville. In ARoB in 2015; a total of 34 women candidates contested the ABG election; making up approximately 10% of the total, the largest number of women candidates in any election.? Of these, 23 contested in the three reserved seats for women and for the first time, 11 women candidates ran in the open constituency seats. For these women, only one woman was successfully elected in the open seat.
In the recently concluded National General Election 2017, a record 167 women contested the elections against over 3,000 male candidates in PNG including ARoB. None of these women was successful including the three women MPS elected in 2012 NGE, who also lost their seats. Thus when the 10th Parliament sits in August, none of the 111 MPs will be female.
There are a number of associated factors towards women in leadership in PNG that includes; dominance of men in the political sphere, low levels of literacy, and high levels of corruption and gender-based violence. Slow legislative and policy reform to promote women leadership also remains one of the contributing factors along with limited capacity of women organisations to coordinate between other organisations to support women’s leadership roles. Negative perception of women in leadership also contributes towards women’s lack of electoral success in PNG and ARoB. On the other hand, while there are a good number of women leaders already present at the local and ward level, their need remains in increased skills and knowledge in areas such as literacy, public speaking, personal presentation, project planning and management, financial literacy and budgeting, computer skills, media and social media, campaigning, dialogue and listening, and community development amongst others.
Identify areas of collaboration with NCW, provincial/district/community governments to facilitate sub-national governance programming to address the existing gaps at this level.
Clarify institutional/governance structures and arrangements for facilitating women’s engagement at subnational levels .
Identify organisations or individuals that could oversee, manage and support the capacity assessment, planning process and implementation.
Draft WLP Project Design Document including Literature Review within 2 weeks of project completion (scoping study).
Finalized Project Design Document within 1 week of return of Draft.
Draft Concept Note using UN Women Concept Note template within 3 weeks of finalised project design document receipt (NB. The Concept Note will be the preliminary document submitted to donors in advance of a Design Document).
Final Concept Note within 4 working days of receipt of comments from UNW.
Final CSO/NGO/Government/Development partners mapping to accompany the Finalized Design Document.
8 Days write-up for PDD, Concept note, CSO/NGO/Government/Development partners mapping report.
Upon receipt of the deliverables and prior to the payment of the installment, the deliverables, related reports and documents will be reviewed and approved by UN Women within one week of submission.
UN Women will provide the Consultant with background materials for the home-based segment of the assignment .
The Consultant will be provided with all logistical support in PNG including the arrangements of accommodation, field sites with participants and all materials.
The Consultant is expected to submit a Financial Proposal (refer Annex 1) inclusive of cost of living in PNG, which shall not exceed UN daily subsistence allowance (DSA) rates. The rates are available upon request to UN Women.
The Financial Proposal should also include travelling costs from the Consultant’s home base to Port Moresby (e.g. visa, air tickets to Port Moresby only). UN Women can make bookings on behalf of the Consultant if requested.
Official travel at the duty station will be facilitated by UN Women who will pay directly for domestic airfares, all domestic travel and/or provide a driver on a pick up and drop off basis including from airports.
The Consultant will be required to provide her/his own local communications such as SIM cards and mobile Wi-Fi hotspot device. These costs should be included in the lump sum fee of the financial proposal. The Consultant will provide her/his own laptop and mobile phone.UN Women will provide a in order to enable internet access (which is highly limited). All printing will be provided by UN Women.
The Consultant will arrange private insurance the cost of which will be included in the Financial Proposal.
The Consultant will be provided with a UN security briefing and will be required to follow UN security rules and guidance.
The Consultant performance will be evaluated based on: timeliness, responsibility, initiative, communication, accuracy, and quality of the products delivered.
Ability to relate to external partners, including other international organizations and agencies, NGOs, grassroots community groups, etc.
Demonstrated ability to work successfully in remote, rural, hardship posts.
A Master’s Degree in a relevant area of expertise with additional qualifications in gender studies, policy, international law, jurisprudence or political science from an engendered focus is desirable.
At least 5 years of demonstrated experience in gender and women’s empowerment in governance related professional work; a comprehensive background in consultancy work with high level outputs especially around women in leadership and political leadership.
Strong background in strategic planning at government level and or policy development. Demonstrated facilitation skills and report and policy development.
Familiarity with experience in PNG is desirable especially in the area of women in leadership and political participation.
Demonstrated ability to produce well written, well researched and high quality reports is essential.
Interested candidates are requested to submit electronic application to UNDP Job site [link ] not later than August 10, 2017 COB.
Letter of Interest (2 pages max.) briefly highlighting the candidate’s most relevant experience for this evaluation consultancy and providing a brief outline of key methodological aspects/ approach for this evaluation that the candidate would like to highlight and that demonstrate understanding of the TORs.
Copy of one recent evaluation report or relevant written piece of work.
Incomplete applications will not be considered for further assessment.Only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.
Strong background in formulation/project design of WLP at country/community level.
If deemed necessary, top candidates may be invited to participate in a short interview, which will also be scored. If this is the case, the overall technical score will be divided 50/50 between the desk assessment, as explained above, and the interview assessment, to get the total technical score. Only the candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% of total points will be considered as technically-qualified candidate.
Only the financial proposal of candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation will be considered and evaluated for the financial proposal.