GRB Technical Advisor

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. 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 are translated into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts while building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. UN Women focuses on five priority areas that are fundamental to women’s equality and that can promote more broad-based progress: increasing women’s leadership and participation; ending violence against women; promoting women’s involvement in peace and security processes; enhancing women’s economic empowerment; and highlighting the importance of a gender perspective in national development planning and budgeting.In the recent past, Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) has emerged as one of the most pragmatic and effective tools for mainstreaming gender concerns into public policy.  Simply put, GRB refers to a method of looking at the budget formulation process, budget outlays and outputs from a gender lens. As a tool GRB seeks to attain the larger goal of gender mainstreaming in public policy. It tries to reveal its gender-differentiated impact and advocate for greater priorities for addressing the gender-based disadvantages faced by women.

In 2007, Government officially adopted Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) as one of its key gender mainstreaming strategies. Despite its adoption GRB has not been firmly institutionalized in the legal, policy framework and in practice within the national budget planning process and cycle. Financing for gender equality and enhancing Government’s technical expertise to plan and budget for the eradication of VAWG, SGBV and HPs is one of the specific focus areas of the Spotlight Initiative. In line with international best practise, the Ministry of Finance is a key stakeholder in ensuring that this is achieved.

UN Women through the Spotlight Initiative seeks to leverage Government’s commitment to GRB and strengthen the capacity of key Government Ministries to institutionalize financing for gender equality and promote investment in the eradication of EVAW, SGBV and HPs. This will be positioned as a priority strategy for Zimbabwe to achieve the SDG 5 targets: Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation; and Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriages and female genital mutilation.

In this context, UN Women Zimbabwe is seeking the services of a consultant to provide technical support towards the integration of gender into Government policy planning and budgeting processes.

Objectives of Assignment:

The overall objective of the partnership is to support government partners identified as responsible parties in the Annual Workplan to strengthen their knowledge of gender responsive budgeting tools and their capacity to apply these tools to sector budgeting.

Scope of the Assignment:Under the overall supervision of the UN Women Deputy Country Representative, Zimbabwe and the guidance of the UN Women Country Representative, the technical advisor will provide support to the Ministry of Finance around mainstreaming gender in programming and budgeting. Based at the Ministry of Finance, the Technical Advisor will work closely with the Programmes and Budget Division.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of Key Functions:

• Programme Development and partnership building
• Technical Support
• Monitoring and Reporting
• Knowledge and capacity development

• Programme Development and partnership building focusing on achievement of the following results:
  • Strategically position the GRB work in national contexts in line with the reform agendas in public sector, budgeting;
  • Identify innovative approaches and opportunities to address gaps in relation to planning and budgeting;
  • Build strategic partnerships in support of GRB efforts at country national and regional institution;
  • Foster dialogue amongst multi-stakeholders. 
• Technical Support focusing on achievement of the following results:
  • Provide technical guidance to Ministry of Finance staff in the implementation of GRB;
  • Design and implement capacity building activities for selected Line Ministries Ministry Health, Justice, Women Affairs, Labour, Home Affairs, Primary and Secondary Education, Agriculture NPA key Government Ministries;
  • Elaborate a multi stakeholder, multi level approach for GRB programming at national, sectoral and local levels);
  • Develop partnerships with experts, academic institutions, civil society for sustainable capacity building.

• Ensures Monitoring and Reporting focusing on achievement of the following results:
  • Set up and maintain a mechanism for tracking progress on GRB related indicators;
  • Support development of a mechanism for tracking progress on GRB related indicators (to track allocation, disbursement and expenditure of budgets for the following, Health , Labour, Educating, Agriculture and Justice) with special emphasis on SGBV, SRHR, HP;
  • Oversee tracking of annual indicators in relation to (budget call circulars, changes in budget allocations for gender equality, parliament debates);
  • Generate technical and progress reports as necessary . 
• Knowledge and capacity development focusing on achievement of the following results:
  • Carry out an assessment of policy assumptions underlying the national budget and their impact on gender equality and women empowerment as it relates to SGBV, HP, SRHR and produce a policy brief and devise innovative ways to share outcome of the assessment;
  • Conducting gender analysis of the Health, labour, Agriculture Justice and Education sector 2020 Budgets and produce a comprehensive sector specific reports and policy briefs;
  • Document approaches and lessons learnt through GRB initiatives;
  • Build and support a network of institutions and experts that are leading the GRB work within the country;
  • Maintain a database of GRB tools that are tailored for the country.
  • Ensure the visibility of the programme through contribution to UN Women reports and publications and relevant global, regional and sub regional meetings 

Expected outputs/deliverables from the consultancy:

The key deliverables of this consultancy will be:

• Gender assessment report of the budget policy assumption
• Policy brief on Gender Assessment of budget
• A comprehensive report on the GRB training
• 2020 Budget sector specific gender analysis reports for the Health, Education, Labour and Social Welfare, Agriculture and Justice and policy briefs:
• Gender Budget Tracking and monitoring system

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: http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf.

Technical/Functional Competencies: 

• Substantive knowledge and understanding of gender equality issues and more broadly, human rights issues and economic governance;
• Technical expertise of GRB;
• Leadership - Strong leadership and advocacy skills;
• Knowledge Management- support documentation of lessons learnt and development of tools;
• Teamwork - Ability to work effectively in a multi-cultural environment with sensitivity and respect for diversity.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

Advanced degree in Economics, Gender Studies, Social Sciences, Public Administration or any other related field

Experience:

• At least 10 years of direct experience in programmes on gender equality and women's rights;
• Demonstrated work experience in the reform of public administration, preferably public finance reform, or GRB introduction;
• Excellent knowledge of gender issues and women’s empowerment issues in Zimbabwe;
• Experience in development of GRB tool/guideline and gender mainstreaming strategies is required;
• Experience in results-based and rights-based programming and management;
• Ten or more years of experience with training, facilitation and capacity development for Government
• Experience working within the Zimbabwe Government Public Finance System understanding of how the system works;
• Ability to influence decision making within the government high level and within the Ministry of Finance;
• Ability to establish, build and sustain effective relationships with clients, demonstrating understanding of client’s perspective;
• Experience with UN work highly desirable.