Background:
The Gender Equality and Women and Girls Empowerment Inter Agency Group (GEWGE IAG) serves as the Gender Theme Group that is defined as an interagency coordination group that “provide(s) strategic support and advice to United Nations country teams in enhancing their gender mainstreaming efforts.”
Gender equality and empowerment of women and girls is crucial to progress across all the Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda, the GEWGE IAG aims to promote gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls. There is the need for gender-responsive performance management and strategic planning, sex-disaggregated data, reporting and resource tracking, while drawing on gender expertise to mainstream gender equality in the preparation of the Cooperation Framework. The IAG plays a central role in provision of strategic support and advice to UNCT collaboration with Governments to achieve SDG 5 and the gender equality dimensions of other SDGs (SDG 8, 10 and 16 in particular) throughout the Cooperation Framework, the provision policy advice and joint programmes.
Promotion of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment through the process of gender mainstreaming is part of the mandate of all UN agencies, funds and programmes. Agencies are required to strengthen efforts to mainstream gender in all programmatic spheres and to strengthen the capabilities of the United Nations system as a whole in the area of gender equality. The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) requests the United Nations System, including its agencies, funds and programmes, within their respective mandates, to continue mainstreaming the issue of gender in accordance with previous resolutions of the ECOSOC , in particular resolution 2008/34 titled “Mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system”, and the General Assembly resolution 64/289 namely the “System-wide coherence”, including mainstreaming a gender perspective into all operational mechanisms, inter alia the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework and other Development Frameworks. These also call upon managers to provide leadership and support, within the United Nations system, to advance gender mainstreaming, to strengthen planning, implementation, monitoring, reporting and evaluation to allow system-wide assessment of progress in gender mainstreaming. Using existing training resources, including institutions and infrastructure, Agencies are to assist in the development and application of unified training modules and tools on gender mainstreaming and to promote the collection, analysis and use of accurate, reliable, comparable and relevant data, disaggregated by sex and age, during programme development and the evaluation of gender mainstreaming in order to assess progress towards achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women.
The United Nations Country Team (UNCT) in Pakistan is required to develop its Gender Strategy in line with the country’s United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) and the UN priorities for gender mainstreaming that increasingly recognize the importance of inter-agency collaboration at the country level to achieve gender equality goals. The strategy will be designed to strengthen and expand UNCT efforts on gender equality and women’s empowerment in Pakistan.
Purpose of consultancy:
The UNCT Gender Strategy (2023-2027) will be based on an overarching vision of employing mainstreaming strategies to each UN agency as well as focusing coordinated efforts on strategically targeted areas to help promote gender equality in Pakistan. The United Nations agencies in Pakistan must work collectively to achieve this vision by implementing individual agency policies to support the Government in meeting its commitments to gender equality and women’s empowerment. In this light, the new strategy shall outline the roles and priorities of the UNCT to target areas of inequality and to mainstream transformative approach from a gender perspective into each organization’s area of specialization. The strategy will thus include specific actions, outcomes and responsibilities. The monitoring and evaluation framework of the strategy will also include targets and indicators to help ensure implementation is kept on track.
The UNCT Gender Strategy will aim to:
- Enhance UNCT gender responsive programming and operational quality, effectiveness and efficiency;
- Identify priority areas for coordinated UNCT programming to address critical gender inequalities, ensure inclusiveness of the vulnerable and Leaving No One Behind;
- Inform Operationalization of the action-plan under the UNSDCF
- Set standards for gender sensitive monitoring and quality assurance
- Set standards for outreach and inclusion
- Support gender capacity development; and
- Institute accountability mechanisms.
The UNCT Gender Strategy objective is to strengthen programme and operational management systems (through planning for results, monitoring, and strengthening accountability mechanisms); ensuring an enabling policy framework (by strengthening norms and guidelines for programme and operations management and ensuring workplace equality); enhance the availability of financial, technical and knowledge resources for gender mainstreaming; build human resources (strengthening capacities, expanding access to opportunities and building commitment); and expand alliances and partnerships (within the UN and with non-UN development partners as well as civil society, women rights organizations, private sector and the government).
The GTG will act as an advisory body to contribute in the formulation and operationalization of the Gender Strategy under the guidance of UNRC. The UNSDCF annual review will be an integral process which will include the evaluation/review of the strategy. This will help to strengthen all the UN Agencies commitments on achieving programme and institutional gender equality goals .
Scope of work:
Specific tasks:
In this context, a National Consultant will work closely with the Heads of Agencies, the GTG, the RCO, the OMT and other relevant UNCT coordination mechanisms and Working groups for the preparation of the strategy.
The Consultant will deliver concrete outputs as follows:
o Facilitate a session to obtain insights from member agencies and prepare an outline.
o Desk review of UN key global strategic documents on gender mainstreaming, GEWE, sustainable development (ECOSOC Resolutions, General Assembly Resolutions, Secretary General Reports and Action Plans, etc.), country strategic documents such as UNSDCF and previous UNDAF, the Gender Score Card exercise, UN Women Country Strategic Plan and other UN agencies’ relevant/similar document on highlighting Gender Equality Strategies. In addition, a review of national documents etc. will be undertaken.
o Analyzing existing best practices, international standards, tools, available on gender mainstreaming to inform the new strategy.
o Develop practical recommendations for institutional arrangement for operationalization of GEWE policies and tools at all areas of programming such as management systems, enabling policy framework, availability of financial, technical and knowledge resources; gender balanced human resources, alliances and partnerships. The special focus should be given for external/internal communication, institutional capacity development and gender-sensitive organizational culture and informal norms as a critical determinant of the gender capability of the UN agencies.
o Develop a methodology and tools (such as focus group discussion, one to one interview, etc.) for engagement with UNCT/GTG//OMT members and key national stakeholders for the formulation of the outline of the UNCT Gender Strategy (2023-2027).
o Present the first draft of the UNCT Gender Strategy (2023-2027) to all the UN coordination mechanism (i.e. UNGTG, OMT, etc.) and incorporate feedback received. Present the revised draft to the UNCT, receive inputs from UNCT and submit the revised draft incorporating the feedback from the UNCT to UN Women Country Office for finalization with the GTG.
Duration and working schedule:
Key Deliverables Payment Schedule
o Session to obtain insights from member agencies and prepare an outline.
o Desk review and analysis of UN key global strategic documents on gender mainstreaming, GEWE, sustainable development (ECOSOC Resolutions, General Assembly Resolutions, Secretary General Reports and Action Plans, etc.), country strategic documents such as UNSDCF and previous UNDAF, the Gender Score Card exercise, UN Women Country Strategic Plan and other UN agencies’ relevant/similar document on highlighting Gender Equality Strategies. In addition, a review of national documents etc. completed.
o Develop a methodology (such as focus group discussion, one to one interview, etc.) for engagement/consultations with UNCT/GTG//OMT members and key/relevant national stakeholders for the formulation of the outline of the UNCT Gender Strategy (2023-2027).
o Practical recommendations developed for institutional arrangement for operationalization of GEWE policies and tools at all areas of programming such as management systems, enabling policy framework, availability of financial, technical and knowledge resources; human resources, alliances and partnerships. The special focus should be given for external/internal communication, institutional capacity development and gender-sensitive organizational culture and informal norms as a critical determinant of the gender capability of the UN agencies.
o Present the first draft of the UNCT Gender Strategy (2023-2027) to all the UN coordination mechanism (i.e. UNGTG, OMT, etc.) and incorporate feedback received.
o Present the revised draft to the UNCT, receive inputs from UNCT and submit the revised draft incorporating the feedback from the UNCT to UN Women Country Office for finalization with the GTG. 50%
35 days Spread over three months
Place where services are to be delivered. Islamabad
Monitoring and progress control, including reporting requirements, periodicity format and deadline: All deliverables will be subject to quality assurance by the Gender Thematic Group Task team.
Supervisory arrangements: Consultant (national) on the development of the Gender Strategy (2023-2027) for United Nations Country Team Pakistan will report to Deputy Representative UNFPA and will present all deliverables to Gender Task Team (representative of GTG)
Expected travel: none
Required expertise, qualifications and competencies, including language requirements: Technical and Professional Skills:
o Master’s degree in the area of Gender Studies, International Development or relevant Social Sciences.
o Significant prior experience in developing Gender Mainstreaming Strategy will be an asset.
o Significant work experience and good understanding of various methodologies such as surveys, record reviews, focus groups and case studies;
o Required competency to collect reliable, valid and accurate information in an objective way;
o Masters effective interviewing skills and conduct interviews independently;
o Good understanding of questionnaire design and is able to develop questionnaires and other review instruments.
o Other:
o Experience in working with multi-stakeholders essential: governments, civil society/ community-based and women’s rights organizations, and international actors such as UN/multilateral/bilateral;
o Theoretical and practical experience in gender participatory approaches is a must as well as facilitation skills and ability to manage diversity of views in different cultural contexts;
o Familiarity with the political, economic and social situation
o Competencies: Core Competencies:
o Ethics and Values: Demonstrate safeguard ethics and integrity
o Organizational Awareness: Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment
o Development and Innovation: Take charge of self-development and take initiative
o 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.
o Communicating and Information Sharing: Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication
o Self-management and Emotional Intelligence: Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others
o Conflict Management: Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.
o Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing: Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge
o Transparent Decision Making: Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making
