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.

Economic empowerment is one of the priority areas of UN Women. UN Women works with governments, UN sister agencies, civil society organizations, regional economic commissions, academic and research institutions, and multilateral partners (World Bank, IMF, regional development banks, etc.) to promote women’s economic empowerment and increase their access to economic opportunities, especially for those who are most vulnerable and excluded.

The current global economic trends that have engulfed the world economy makes it more urgent than ever to continue the work of generating and sharing knowledge for the formulation of gender-responsive economic programming.

Participation of gender advocates in National Policy Dialogues is of some urgency, however in many cases gender advocates require more capacity to engage effectively with economic debates. Hence, emphasis will be placed during the programme on exploring the current global and regional economic trends, its “gendered” paths of transmission, and how policy responses can be gender aware so as to safeguard the progress made so far in promoting gender equitable objectives.

To respond to these pressing demands, UN Women developed a training manual on gender and economics in 2017. The manual has since been used to deliver several global, regional, and country trainings for the past 7 years. The manual has been translated in French, Spanish, Turkish, and Georgian. However, recognizing that new knowledge continues to be generated at a relatively fast pace, UN Women has decided to update/revamp the training manual. This will help UN Women strengthen its capacity development efforts, to meet the current challenges. The aim is to facilitate the integration of a gender perspective into research, policy and programme formulation, and sharing existing knowledge, tools and skills but also contributing to much needed new knowledge in today’s fast changing social and economic environment.

 Description of Responsibilities/ Scope of Work

The objective of this consultancy is to update/revamp the content of UN Women’s Training Manual on Gender and Economics, aligned with UN Women’s new strategy on women’s economic empowerment, as well as UN Women’s emerging priority areas.  The goal is to review/restructure the current content, update it with more recent research/data, including recent papers and policy tools developed by UN Women, and propose revised version of the modules that fit the current state of gender and economics discourse and well as emerging UN Women’s priorities. The consultancy is open to either an individual or a team of several individuals.

1. Current Outline of the training manual on gender and economics

UN Women’s training manual on gender and economics contains 9 modules, structured as follow:

• Module 1: Introduction to Economics
• Module 2: Introduction to Gender-Aware Economics and Methods of Analysis 
• Module 3: Gender and Macroeconomics
• Module 4: Unpaid Work
• Module 5: Employment, Decent Work and Social Protection 
• Module 6: Gender, Income Inequality and Poverty
• Module 7: Gender, Public Finance and Investing for Gender Equality
• Module 8: Gender, Trade, and Value Chains
• Module 9: Economic Policymaking and the SDGs: How to Reach the Goals

Under the supervision of the Policy Advisor, Macroeconomics and Global Lead on Care, and working closely with the Macroeconomics and Care Team in the Economic Empowerment Section at UN Women, the consultant (or team of consultants) will be expected to perform the following tasks

      1. Conduct a desk review and summarize existing training offering of similar topics

• Review the current UN Women training on gender and economics, as well as existing training materials on similar topics, new documents, including those produced by UN Women.

      2. Develop the training manual

• Develop an annotated outline of the training manual, complete with module purpose, learning outcomes, activities, timing, and key sections and sub-section of each of the modules of the course.
• Based on the above-mentioned detailed outline of the training manual, review, update and develop content based on existing materials and identify and select additional resources per the following steps:
  • Update and adapt content already developed by UN Women and develop the newly proposed content;
  • Identify and select additional resources;
  • Provide suggestions for instructional design and packaging process as needed;
  • Prepare sessions (PowerPoint presentations, reading lists, study cases and discussion sessions) for each module.

      3. Coordinate peer review process and training piloting

• Establish a reference group of expert feminist economists to take part in the peer review process of the completed draft of the training manual.
• Organize and facilitate an online peer review meeting with the reference group, to gather feedback on the content of the draft of the training manual.
• Deliver report with consolidated comments and recommendations received from Peer Review Group.
• Organize an online pilot of the training for an internal UN Women audience.

       4.Deliver final version of the training and slide deck of the content of the manual

• Based on the feedback from the peer review process and the pilot training, finalize the training manual
• Based on the final version of training manual prepare a set of PowerPoint presentations under each module, including inputs and feedback from the peer review meeting, facilitator’s manual with methodology and facilitator’s notes

Deliverables

Deliverables Expected completion time (due day)Payment Schedule

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is an 8-month consultancy, beginning on 5^th January 2025 and ending on the 4^th of September 2025. The consultancy is home-based. No travel is expected for this assignment.

Competencies :

Core Values:

• Integrity;
• Professionalism;
• Respect for Diversity.

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 Values and Competencies Framework:

Functional Competencies:

• Excellent communication skills.
• Ability to gather and interpret data, reach logical conclusions and present findings and recommendations.
• Good knowledge of gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Ability to translate complex economic concepts into simple understandable language for non-experts.
• Prior experience in developing material to deliver capacity development activities

IV. Required Qualifications

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in gender and economics or another 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.
• A PhD in economics would be an asset.

Experience:

• Minimum of 10 years of demonstrated extensive experience that combines research and capacity development in the areas of gender and economics and women’s economic empowerment at the national and international levels is required.
• A proven record of developing training manuals or packages to deliver training on gender and economics is required.
• A proven record of publications on economics and gender, including publications on this topic in English with renowned institutions, is required.
• Demonstrated experience in facilitating multi-cultural training for adults.

Languages:

• Excellent command of written and spoken English.
• Knowledge of French, Spanish or Arabic or any other UN official language is an asset.

How to Apply

• Examples of knowledge products or training materials developed or coordinated will be an asset.
• As part of the selection process, shortlisted candidates may be invited to submit a technical proposal (template will be provided), outlining their methodology, approach and workplan for the assignment, and may also be invited for an interview.

Statements :

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Diversity and inclusion:

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)

Level of Education: Bachelor Degree

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: No requirements