International Consultant – Care Brief Writer and Facilitator

Background

Background/Context

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.

Women’s economic empowerment is one of the priority areas of UN Women, 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.

UN Women in the Asia Pacific is driven by work at the regional level through the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific and country level through offices across the region. It focuses on the following approaches for women’s economic empowerment, including but not limited to seeking policy reform, supporting economic security and rights, and enhancing economic opportunities. At the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, the Women’s Economic Empowerment & Migration unit focuses on the key strategic priorities aligned with the SN ROAP Women’s Economic Empowerment & Migration for 2023-2025:

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). Further, the ROAP’s thematic and functional activities will be geared towards effective and targeted support for country presences.

In UN Women’s Strategic Note for Asia and the Pacific (2023 -2025) transforming the Care Economy has been identified as a key priority and multiple partnerships, programmes and future opportunities have been established to advance this work. UN Women in Asia-Pacific works to transform care systems, changing gender norms to make the economy work for women, enabling them to choose to enter and stay in the labour force and pursue newly created economic opportunities and decent jobs in the care sector and/or future-oriented economies (green and tech/digital). UN Women stands firmly by the principle of leave no one behind and its approach to transform the care economy is to ensure that women’s voices are center staged and care systems are designed gender-transformative embracing the 5Rs.

UN Women has been working in partnership with multiple organizations in the region to increase advocacy and awareness raising activities highlighting the spectrum of care delivery models in the region, the need for public and private investments in the care economy and the implementation of comprehensive care policies aligned to the 5R Framework. At the global level, UN Women convened the Global Alliance for Care together with the Government of Mexico in 2021. With a membership of more than 170 organizations, the Global Alliance for Care is the first global multi-stakeholder platform that facilitates and fosters spaces for collective action and advocacy, communication, and learning about care, its recognition as a need, as work, and as a right. Members contribute to and shape the Alliance's direction and activities, ensuring global and regional visibility and recognition in advancing the care economy and gender equality.

In Asia Pacific, UN Women has spearheaded the care agenda. Key regional dialogues such as the Bali Care Dialogue 2022 and the 2023 Asia-Pacific Care Economy Forum convened by UN Women and partners gave a call to action to create more accessible, affordable, quality care services with opportunities for decent paid work for care workers.4 Research conducted through UN Women’s 'Think Piece: Innovations in Childcare to Advance Women's Economic Empowerment' have mapped innovative delivery models including market-driven and blended solutions between the public and private sector such as employer-supported care solutions, those that are offered by small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as well as solutions leveraging digital technology. In partnership with innovative partners such as Bopinc and Seedstars, UN Women implemented the region's first-ever Care Accelerator, a 5-month program which took 13 Asia-Pacific care enterprises through a journey of business development, investment readiness support, and capacity building to become more gender-responsive businesses.

UN Women's research showed fast emerging digitally-enabled care enterprises can be a solution to provide more decent work opportunities in the care economy captured in the Pathways towards decent work in the digitally enabled care economy in Southeast Asia. Building further on the work to transform the care economy in the Asia-Pacific, in March 2023, UN Women joined forces with SAFEEM (part of the Seedstars Group) and Bopinc to launch the ‘Gender-inclusive Care Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Programme’ (GICEEP), which is supported by the Visa Foundation and IDRC. Over the course of 18 months, the programme seeks to strengthen a gender-inclusive care ecosystem through piloting innovative Base of the Pyramid models, running the Care Accelerator 2.0 and strengthening capacity of ecosystem players and policymakers to deliver an inclusive care economy. Forthcoming research in 2024 by UN Women is piloting, costing and mapping supply and demand for childcare models for low-income communities in India and Bangladesh, with a view to support existing government structures such as skills training programmes as well as local government infrastructure.

The purpose of this consultancy is to develop a Care Brief which captures UN Women’s approach to Transform the Care Economy in Asia Pacific.

Duties and Responsibilities

Description of Responsibilities/ Scope of Work

Building on existing documentation and including key pillars of UN Women’s work in the region including (i) working with government and private sector (investors, business, enterprises) to incorporate a gender lens, especially for financing & implementing accessible affordable and quality care provision in our region to reduce and redistribute the unpaid care burden, (ii) supporting women’s organizations including care workers, (iii) advocacy and communications for changing social norms, and (iv) generating knowledge and evidence, increasing multistakeholder awareness and action along the 5Rs for transforming the care economy, the Brief will be 2-5 pages maximum and capture UN Women’s approach in Asia Pacific while remaining aligned to UN Women’s corporate approach on Care. The assignment will involve sharing a first draft for review by the Regional Office and in consultation with Country Offices following which the Consultant will submit a final version of the Brief incorporating feedback received.

Under the supervision of Regional Lead, Women’s Economic Empowerment and Migration at UN Women Regional Office for Asia and Pacific, the consultant will be responsible for the following deliverables:

Deliverables

Tasks

Target Date

1. First Draft of Care Brief

Share first draft of Care Brief with Country Offices and Regional Office for review

5 June 2024

2. Final Draft of Care Brief

Submit revised draft of Care Brief incorporating comments from Country Offices and Regional Office for Asia Pacific

7 June 2024

3. Outline of learning series for Care Learning Series

Submit Outline of learning series for Care Learning Series - 5 sessions - identify the topics, recommend speakers, and build a session agenda in line with the Care Brief

10 June 2024

4.1 Full Agenda with list of speakers

4.2 Record of facilitated session of Care Learning Series

Facilitate (including curating) 1 session - develop agenda, identify speakers, host session. This does not include sending invitations and managing RSVPs.

No later than 31 December 2024 *Any 1 of the 5 sessions until December 2024 (specific target date to be discussed with UN Women)

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is a home-based consultancy but travel to a location in Asia and Pacific is required for facilitation of the Care Learning Sessions.

Competencies

Core Values:

Core Competencies:

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:

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification:

Experience:

Languages:

How to Apply

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