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; 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 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.

Over the past years, UN Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina has provided support to national and local stakeholders in strengthening democratic governance and advancing women’s rights through initiatives aimed at mainstreaming gender in policy planning and budgeting. Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) has been identified as an important approach for advancing gender equality in key national documents, in accordance with the existing BiH national policy documents on social inclusion and gender equality. In accordance with government priorities stated in the national and local plans and strategies, UN Women has been supporting government efforts in using GRB as a tool to advance gender equality and ensure that women’s needs are incorporated in policies and related budgets. The expected long-term result of these initiatives is the incorporation of gender equality principles, perspectives and priorities not only in policy making, but also in budgeting at the national and local levels, leading to greater accountability and transparency of public finances.

In order to strengthen the work hitherto done and ensure sustainability of the interventions on GRB, UN Women is implementing a regional programme with participation of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Serbia and North Macedonia on “Transformative Financing for Gender Equality towards more Transparent, Inclusive and Accountable Governance in the Western Balkans” (2020-2024) funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation. The main programme approach is transformative financing as an enabling factor for policy and financing actions to accelerate implementation of existing national and international commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

In this context, UN Women seeks to recruit a National Gender Responsive Budgeting Expert to provide direct support to relevant institutions in integrating gender responsive budgeting in public finance management, incorporate gender analytical data in budget plans, implement trainings in programme based budgeting, GRB and M&E across sectors to develop more socially and gender responsive policies and legislation, and contribute to capacity building of members of parliaments, parliamentary administration, and supreme audit institutions on gender and GRB, and support future GRB programming in BiH.

Application instruction:

Apply online through this website and submit following documents:

• 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)

Duties and Responsibilities

The overall objective of this consultancy is to contribute to integrating gender responsive budgeting in public finance management. The immediate objective of this consultancy to provide direct support to relevant institutions in integrating gender responsive budgeting in public finance management, incorporate gender analytical data in budget plans, deliver trainings on programme budgeting, GRB and M&E across sectors to develop more socially responsive policies and legislation, contribute to capacity building of members of parliaments, parliamentary administration, and supreme audit institutions on gender equality and GRB, and support future GRB programming in BiH.

Deliverables

Under the supervision of the UN Women Governance Coordinator, overall supervision of UN Women Programme Specialist, and in consultation with the Regional GRB Programme Specialist, the selected consultant is expected to deliver the following results:

• Develop a detailed workplan with timeline, outline and methodology to conduct the tasks outlined in this TOR, and revise the workplan in early 2025 by also outlining challenges and opportunities in implementation of the tasks;
• Continuously support ministries of finance (MOFs) and line ministries to mainstream gender in budgetary processes and to integrate gender considerations into the core of their work and provide continuous technical assistance and advise the MOFs on the overall implementation of gender equality commitments in the public expenditures by line ministries;
• Continuously follow up with MOFs and line ministries on further developing Gender Budget Statements (GBS), provide continuous support to conducting expenditure tracking and submission of GBS, for information to the parliaments and discussion with the parliamentary committees;
• Prepare and facilitate 1 basic and 1 advanced GRB trainings across sectors, to include MOFs and line ministries on cantonal, entity and state level based on UN Women standardize training curricula; Facilitate ex-ante and ex-post training evaluation aligned with measurable indicators in consultations with the Governance Coordinator;
• Prepare and facilitate 1 joint GRB workshop with MPs, audit teams, MOFs, line ministries;
• Provide technical support in defining future GRB interventions in BiH through UN Women programming;
• Provide regular updates, reports and social media messages (in English) to UN Women on the implementation of activities as it will be specified in the consultancy workplan;

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel
This is a home-based consultancy. As part of this assignment, the selected consultant is expected to occasionally travel to Banja Luka and Mostar to facilitate consultations with FBiH and RS institutions. All travel costs will be processed and covered separately 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:

• Sound expertise in gender equality, gender responsive budgeting, public finance management
• Sound knowledge of training techniques and tools and expertise in training curriculum design and development
• Demonstrated leadership and personal examples of promoting knowledge management and professional learning environment
• Outstanding networking, team building, organizational and communication skills
• Ability to work effectively and harmoniously with people from varied cultures and professional backgrounds
• Ability to produce well-written documents demonstrating excellent interpersonal communication skills
• Fluent in Microsoft Word, Excel, e-mail, web-based applications, and databases

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree in economics, public finance or other relevant field – pass/fail

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience with public finance management – 30 points
• Specific expertise related to government public finance policies and processes – including budgetary process and gender responsive budgeting methodologies and approaches, and familiarity with program-based budgeting and budget laws (demonstrated through at least 4 similar assignments) – 40 points
• Demonstrated interest and/or experience in gender equality and gender mainstreaming (demonstrated through at least 2 relevant assignments) – 20 points
• Working/consulting experience with government institutions and international organizations/projects will be considered an asset – 10 points

Languages:

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