National consultant to extend expert, training and mentoring services on gender responsive budgeting (GRB)

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; the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development; human rights; as well as 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.

UN Women Programme Office in the Republic of North Macedonia in line with its priorities set in the UN Women strategic plan and in the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework, supports the country on the normative commitments and is working in two thematic areas – governance and national planning and ending violence against women. In fulfilling its mandate, UN Women is cooperating with UN, the government and the CSOs to advocate for women’s empowerment and advancement of gender equality.

UN Women North Macedonia is implementing the project “Promoting Gender Responsive Policies and Budgets: Towards Transparent, Inclusive and Accountable Governance in Republic of North of Macedonia – phase 2” funded by Switzerland and the programme “Promoting Gender responsive governance in North Macedonia” funded by Sweden. Both initiatives are aimed towards more accountable, transparent and inclusive governance, which would improve the lives of women and girls and advance gender equality in North Macedonia.

Programme/project interventions focus on strengthening the role of the National Gender Mechanisms in establishing an effective institutional capacity development on Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) and systematic integration of gender perspective in Public Finance Management. At the local level, capacity development and mentoring support on gender responsive policy making and budgeting are provided to forty-one (41) Local Self-Government Units (LSGUs), which include local administration and elected officials from partner municipalities. Ten of these LSGUs are newly selected and supporting them includes, but not limited to, processes through comprehensive training and mentoring programme. Additionally, extensive support is extended to strengthen oversight and accountability mechanisms in the country, through increased capacities and engagement of key oversight institutions. Finally, part of the interventions focuses on strengthening the capacities of women to voice their needs and advocate for increased accountability and financing for gender equality, while CSOs are supported to promote women’s leadership and participation in decision making and budgeting processes.

To support the capacity strengthening of the new 10 LSGUs to mainstream gender in sectoral programmes and to introduce gender specific objectives and measures and to continue the mentoring support to the 31 LSGUs, UN Women is seeking to recruit one consultant to work as part of a team of experts and jointly coordinate and deliver the training and mentoring programme at local level.

The national consultant will be expected to complete the below tasks within the indicative timeframe:

Tasks

Deliverables

Working days

• Prepare a detailed plan for the assignment
  1. Work plan for the assignment

     1 day (by 5 October 2024)

     • Develop detailed training and mentoring plan tailored to the needs of 8 LSGUs, under guidance of UN Women Programme Team and based on the recommendations for capacity development training module on gender mainstreaming and GRB
       1. Training and mentoring plan for 8 LSGUs with specified activity timetable and expected results

          3 days (by 30 October 2024)

          • Deliver standard orientation programme to local administration and members of municipal councils and commission for equal opportunities from newly selected LSGUs to introduce the objectives of the local level training and mentoring on GRB
            1. Workshop reports including agenda and list of participants

               6 days (by 30 October 2024)

               • Extend mentoring support to LSGUs, through tailored interventions based on the needs and capacities of each municipality, provide support in mainstreaming gender in local programming develop local action plans and/or strategies on gender equality
                 1. Quarterly progress updates on the mentoring work and results

                    40 days (by 10 December 2025)

                    • Extend training support to public administration from targeted departments of the LSGUs, local Commissions for equal opportunities between women and men and Commissions for budget and finance on gender mainstreaming and gender responsive budgeting
                      1. Training reports
                      2. Training Agenda, detailed training and mentoring programme with exercises and handouts
                      3. Pre/post training evaluation questionnaires, final analysis of the evaluations

                         15 days (by 10 December 2025)

                         • Monitor and track progress in engendering local level programs and/or development of new action plans/local strategies
                           1. Consolidated inputs to team leader on the results of the mentoring work
                           2. Inputs to tracking matrix on local engendered programmes

                              15 days (10 December 2025)

                              • Facilitate exchange of good practices and lessons learned among LSGUs on GRB
                                1. Workshop agenda and materials
                                2. Workshop reports

                                   15 days (by 15 October 2025)

                                   • Conduct relevant gender analyses for the local component of GRB program and support the cooperation with other UN entities and partners
                                     1. Reports, analyses, documents tracking inputs

                                        15 days (by 15 October 2025)

                                        Reporting

                                        1. Quarterly individual progress reports
                                        2. Consolidated inputs to the progress reports and the final joint report of the team of experts (In English)
                                        3. Final individual report with specific information on the results achieved, challenges and opportunities in English (max. 3 pages)

                                           10 days (by 15 December 2025)

                                           Total

                                           120 working days

                                           📚 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗮 𝗝𝗼𝗯 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗡 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯! 🌍🤝 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗡 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗨𝗡𝗛𝗖𝗥, 𝗪𝗙𝗣, 𝗨𝗡𝗜𝗖𝗘𝗙, 𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗦𝗦, 𝗨𝗡𝗙𝗣𝗔, 𝗜𝗢𝗠 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀! 🌐

                                           ⚠️ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐰: 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐚 𝐣𝐨𝐛 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐍𝐎𝐖!

                                           Duties and Responsibilities

                                           The objective of the assignment is to provide expert, training and mentoring support on gender responsive programme planning and budgeting to LSGUs. More specifically, the aim is to build capacities and skills of the local administration and councillors to mainstream gender in policies and programmes. The support will be provided through assisting the local administration to analyse specific local programmes and budgets and develop gender specific measures and indicators, delivering GRB related trainings, as well as by mentoring the local councillors to review local policies from a gender perspective.

                                           With this ToR, UN Women is seeking to hire one (1) Local Consultant to provide expert, training and mentoring services on gender responsive budgeting to 8 municipalities.

                                           The expert will work under guidance of the UN Women Programme team that coordinates the overall training and mentoring process in the municipalities and ensure the work between the experts is synchronized and well-coordinated.

                                           Based on the above-described objectives of the assignment, under the supervision of the Programme Analyst at UN Women Skopje Office, the local consultant is expected to undertake the following tasks and responsibilities:

                                        4. Desk-review of findings of relevant programme analyses conducted in the framework of the project, training evaluations and other materials on gender mainstreaming and gender responsive budgeting to inform their work on the assignment;
                                     2. Develop detailed training and mentoring plan tailored to the needs of 8 LSGUs, under guidance of UN Women Programme Team and based on the recommendations for capacity development training module on gender mainstreaming and GRB;
                                   • Deliver standard orientation programme to local administration and members of municipal councils and commission for equal opportunities from the newly selected LSGUs to introduce the objectives of the local level training and mentoring on GRB;
                                3. Extend mentoring support to LSGUs, through tailored interventions based on the needs and capacities of each municipality, provide support in mainstreaming gender in local programming, develop local action plans and/or strategies on gender equality;
                              • Deliver capacity building support trough mentoring of public administration from targeted departments of the LSGUs, local Commissions for equal opportunities between women and men and Commissions for budget and finance on gender mainstreaming and gender responsive budgeting;
                           3. Facilitate exchange of good practices and lessons learned among LSGUs on GRB;
                         • Monitor and track progress in engendering local level programs and/or development of new action plans/local strategies;
                      4. Conduct relevant gender analyses for the local component of GRB program and support the cooperation with other UN entities and partners
                    • Participate in regular planning and coordination meetings with UN Women and other consultants throughout the assignment;
                 2. Provide the UN Women team with regular updates on the progress with implementation of the assignment;
               • Submit monthly time sheets for recording the time spent on each activity;
            2. Prepare quarterly progress reports summarizing results (changes in capacities, engendered local progammes and budgets, lessons learned, recommendations and pictures from the activities);
          • Collect data and provide inputs to the tracking matrix for monitoring the engendered sectoral programmes on semi-annual basis;
       2. Prepare individual reports on the assignment.

          Reporting

          Under the overall supervision of the Programme Analyst at UN Women Skopje Office, the Local consultant will develop and deliver the above listed deliverables in accordance with the indicative timeframe, along with a timesheet, report, and other relevant materials.

          All deliverables of an acceptable standard and quality should be submitted to UN Women and in languages as specified above.

          Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

          This is a home-based consultancy. The assignment requires intermittent presence on UN Women premises for coordinative purposes.

          As part of this assignment, there are expected travels outside Skopje, North Macedonia. If such engagements are expected, UN Women will cover the transportation and DSA.

          Competencies

          Core Values:

       3. Respect for Diversity
     • Integrity
  2. Professionalism

     Core Competencies:

  3. Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability

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:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in public administration, public policy, finance, gender studies, 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.

Experience:

Languages:

How to Apply