Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination and violence 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 supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programs and services needed to implement these standards. UN Women’s mandate (GA resolution 64/289) is to lead, coordinate and promote accountability of the UN system to deliver on gender equality and the empowerment of women with the primary objective of enhancing country-level coherence, ensuring coordinated interventions and securing positive impacts on the lives of women and girls, including those living in rural areas.

For decades, the international conventions have acknowledged the critical contribution of women in agriculture and rural development. Reports on the role of women in rural areas converge on the fact that rural women are key agents for achieving the economic, social, and environmental changes required in the developing world. However, rural women`s rights and priorities remain insufficiently addressed in legal frameworks, national and local development policies, rural programmes, and investment strategies at all levels worldwide.

In BiH, rural women make up 28,6% of total population and 49.8% of the total rural population are women. About 20.5% of the female workforce in BiH is engaged in the agriculture sector and in 2016 around 18% of family farms were registered as being female headed, although this number has been gradually increasing (for instance in the Republika Srpska in 2017 this percentage was 22.7%). However, according to 2018 research published by the Sarajevo Economic Institute there is a deeply gendered division of labour with women being less engaged in processes that are higher along the value chains, such as dealing with marketing and are concentrated at levels that involve less decision-making about and control over income earned from agriculture. There is also a significant gap in land and property ownership in favour of men (for instance, in 2019 38.3% of land registry records indicated women as owners or co-owners. Additionally, women`s business ventures located in rural areas are less diverse and even smaller in size. The constraints that entrepreneurs face in doing business in BiH impact women to a greater degree due to underlying gender inequalities related to limited networking opportunities, gender roles, stereotypes, and discrimination in society at large.

To support women’s economic empowerment, rural women, agriculture, rural development, and agri-entrepreneurship, UN Women in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), initiated the project “Women Driving Resilience in Agriculture and Rural Areas”, supported by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). This Project aims at removing structural barriers, by introducing time and labour-saving technologies, innovative sources of financing, enabling women to be better prepared to cope with the challenges, improving their livelihoods and socio-economic position and the lives of their families in the rural areas. Addressing the structural barriers faced by women in agriculture and rural areas will require sustained engagement of all relevant stakeholders in BiH.

The project aims also at increasing the gender sensitivity of policies directed towards rural development and agriculture. It will focus on integrating gender responsive considerations into policy making and budgeting processes with the objectives to supporting women’s economic empowerment and including women and their needs in the processes of determining the priorities and steps for rural development. Also, it is important to examine the existing public subsidy mechanisms in agriculture which are currently not gender sensitive and do not recognize the need to engage more women into the formal economy. To address this, UN Women and FAQ will develop gender sensitive criteria for pilot investments funded through the public subsidy mechanisms extended through the entity Ministries of Agriculture.

Under the “Women Driving Resilience in Agriculture and Rural Areas” project, UN Women is seeking for a local consultant to support UN Women and FAO to produce needs assessment of regulatory framework under which financial institution (both public and private) provide support to women farmers, with the aim of increasing financial opportunities , improving living standards and enchasing the socio-economic position of families in rural Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The consultant will be reporting to the WEE Programme Coordinator and with overall supervision of the Programme Specialist.

Duties and Responsibilities

The overall objective of this consultancy is to support UN Women in identifying obstacles and potential solutions at increasing financial opportunities for women in rural areas in BiH.

The immediate objective is to support implementation of “Women Driving Resilience in Agriculture and Rural Areas” project by providing needs assessment of regulatory framework of public and private financial institutions to provide credit to women farmers.

Based on the above-described objectives of the assignment, under the direct supervision of UN Women’s WEE Programme Coordinator and overall supervision of UN Women’s Programme Specialist, the consultant is expected to undertake the following tasks and responsibilities:

• develop a methodology for assessment of financial institutions’ regulatory framework (both public and private) to provide credit to women farmers;
• identify the gender assessment gap of accessing credit for rural women, prescribed in the regulatory framework of public and private financial institutions;
• produce a report on identified structure of financial products in relation to the needs of rural women and associated to climate smart and sustainable agriculture production and rural entrepreneurship, using secondary and primary data sources;
• produce a report on analysis of non-financial services to support clients such as rural women, and identify the level of awareness of loan officers in relation to gender-sensitive lending and in relation to climate smart and sustainable agriculture and rural entrepreneurship business models;
• produce a report on analysis of the distribution channels and visibility of financial products from a gender perspective, and in relation to the available financial infrastructure of rural areas;
• develop training material and conduct training for credit officers in gender sensitive finance;
• present the analysis of the assessment results and perform the validation of the results in cooperation with the representatives of the project beneficiaries,
• develop recommendations for improving the access to finance for women in rural areas;

Deliverables

The consultant should in the development of the deliverables allow time for deliverables to be reviewed and commented by UN Women before their finalization.

All deliverables should be provided to the UN Women WEE Programme Coordinator and WEE Programme team in Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian. The final deliverable should be provided to UN Women in English and Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian.

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel
This is a home-based consultancy. If travel is required, the costs will be covered by UN Women.

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

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 Core Values and Competencies: https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment/application-process#_Values

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES:

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Shares knowledge and experience
• Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside UN Women
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills
• Development and Operational Effectiveness
• Demonstrates excellent written and oral communication skills. Communicates sensitively, effectively, and creatively across different constituencies
• Demonstrates very good understanding of and experience in communications and outreach/advocacy
• Ability to perform a variety of standard specialized and non-specialized tasks and work processes that are fully documented, researched, recorded and reported
• Ability to review a variety of data, identify and adjust discrepancies, identify and resolve operational problems
• Uses Information Technology effectively as a tool and resource

Leadership and Self-Management

• Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure
• Proven networking skills and ability to generate interest in UN Women’s mandate
• Identifies opportunities and builds strong partnerships with clients and partners.

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification:

• Postgraduate degree in finance or economics or agriculture economic studies or social policy or public policy or gender studies is required. SATISFACTORY/UNSATISFACTORY
• A PhD in similar fields will be considered as an asset. (10 pts)

Experience:

• At least 5 years in working on socio-economic issues in Bosnia and Herzegovina, recognized experience in economics or financial analysis or agriculture economics and related sectorial analysis; (30 pts)
• At least 3 years of experience in the field of socio-economic research methods including surveying, data processing and data presentation; (25 pts)
• Demonstrated ability to engage in socio-economic and/or gender assessment (supported by at least 2 studies developed); (20 pts)
• Preferred professional experience in working with diverse public and private actors on legislative or socio/economic cooperation, preferably in finance or gender or socio-economic empowerment and response will be considered as an asset; (10 pts)
• Excellent writing skills required, as demonstrated by previous high-quality research/analytical reports on relevant topics; (10 pts)
• Previous experience in working with UN agencies will be considered an advantage; (5 pts)

Languages:

• Fluency in English and Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian is required.

How to apply

• Personal CV or P11 (P11 can be downloaded from: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-P11-Personal-History-Form.doc )
• A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page)
• Candidates to provide certificate of English knowledge or sample of a part of study conducted in English (one to two pages maximum)