China Gender Fund (CGF) Stock-take Review International Consultant

Beijing

Organization: UNWOMEN - United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
Location: Beijing
Grade: Consultancy - International Consultant - Internationally recruited Contractors Agreement
Occupational Groups:
- Logistics
- Women's Empowerment and Gender Mainstreaming
Closing Date: Closed

Background

The United Nations Theme Group on Gender (UNTGG) established the China Gender Fund for Research and Advocacy (CGF) in September 2004 with the objective of advancing gender equality and women's empowerment in China. The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) is the administering agency for the project under the overall coordination and guidance of the UNTGG and the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). The goal of the CGF is to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the reduction of gender inequalities in China in line with relevant international conventions and agreements.

The CGF is the only trust fund modality programme on gender equality being implemented in China. Under the CGF modality, donors to the CGF (UN agencies, bilateral donors and private sector donors) propose what they regard as newly emerging gender issues in China, and jointly decide which issues should be prioritized as themes under each Call for Proposals. Later, the donors jointly select the most catalytic and innovative proposals to be funded. Through this open and participatory process, the CGF has already funded more than 68 projects that have led to notable results in new or amendments of laws and policies that are to advance gender equality in China.

Since it began operation in 2004, the CGF has realized significant results by funding innovative projects, such as issuing of the first-ever “Regulations on How Police Officers Shall Deal with Domestic Violence Cases”, by the Hunan Provincial Public Security Bureau in 2013; the Science Times and Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2012 raising the age ceiling from 35 to 40 for women scientists to apply for the national Youth Science Fund, recognizing the career delays that women face as a result of maternity leave or time off to raise children; and issuance of the revised National Employment Promotion Law, which took effect in January 2008, making illegal the previously common “men only” job announcements. It is crucial that the CGF continue to work on such issues to ensure that the great progress that has already been made is not undone, and that new work can focus on the most up-to-date issues affecting women in China.

Three external evaluations of the CGF (conducted in 2007, 2011, and 2015) were of the uniform opinion that the CGF has done an outstanding job in using limited resources to advance gender equality and women's empowerment in China. Grantees feel that the CGF brought a new understanding of gender equality and women’s empowerment to them, their communities, and China. The centrality that the CGF gave these issues spurred grantees to look at their own work in a new and different light. The CGF is increasingly relevant to China’s national context etc. While the evaluation also mentioned the challenges that CGF faces such as resources mobilization, to transfer from traditional donors (bilateral and United Nations agencies) to private sectors etc.

Although the CGF has achieved significant results in changing policies/regulations and women’s life, there is no any consolidated document so far produced under the CGF to summarize all these achievements and lessons learned. There is no any strategy produced on which direction the CGF will go in the future as well. To address all these concerns, there is a need to do a stock-take review of the CGF.

Duties and Responsibilities

For purpose mentioned above, UN Women China office is seeking to recruit a short-term international consultant. Under the overall guidance of the Head of UN Women China Office and direct supervision of the CGF programme manager of UN Women China, the Stake-stock Review Consultant provides high quality and strategic technical support 1) to review and consolidate good practices and lessons learned of the CGF including opportunities and challenges to strengthen its relevance, alignment and add-value to UN Women priorities, national context and priorities and SDGs; 2) to develop CGF’s new strategy (2020-2023) including its vision, new strategic direction, recommended results and partnership framework and road-map for implementation; and 3) to produce a draft of CGF’s communication kit to be used for advocacy, branding and visibility.

Competencies

Deliverables and Timeline

Area of Work	Deliverable	Targeted Timeline
Conduct desk review, field visits, and interview of the stakeholders	Detailed outline of the stock-take report and summary documentation of data-collected including stories, key messages and list of partners met/interviewed/places visited	20 Dec 2019
Draft stock-take Review report	Draft stock-take report	13 January 2020
Collect review inputs/comments from stakeholders and submit the revised report	Revised stock-take report	30 January 2020
Facilitate stock-take review validation and CGF strategic plan development workshop and finalize stock take report	Draft agenda/concept note for the workshop in Beijing Final stock-take report	8 Feb 2020 28 Feb 2020 (stock-take report)
Based on the stock-take review report, develop CGF’s new strategy and its strategic plan	Draft strategy and strategic plan	12 March 2020
Finalize CGF’s new strategy (2020-2023)	Final version of the CGF’s new strategy	10 April 2020
Based on the stock-take review report, draft CGF’s Communication Kit including PPT slides	The draft of the communication kit and standard PPT slides	15 April 2020

Working arrangement and payment

The period of this consultancy is from 26 November 2019 to 30 April 2020. The consultant will fly to China two times, to undertake assignments as described above, working closely with UN Women China Office. The first visit to China will also involve visit to the CGF project sites in and outside of Beijing. For the rest time of the assignment, the consultant will work at home. The detailed arrangements are as the following:

For the first travel, the consultant will fly to Beijing 26 November 2019 and work in Beijing till 20 December 2019 for the desk review, field visits, and interview of the stakeholders. UN Women China will provide the consultant with a desk and workstation. During this period, the consultant will travel to three project sites (tentatively Gansu, Suzhou, and Yunnan) in China, for a maximum of 9 days total.
For the second travel, the consultant is expected to work in Beijing from 20 Feb to 28 Feb 2020. During this period, the consultant will work in UN Women China Office to finalize the Stock-take review report, facilitate the Stock-take review validation workshop, and kick-start the development of the CGF new strategy.
Consultant will take care of his/her travel to and from Beijing as per the financial proposal submitted and get reimbursed from UN Women China Office. Internal travel arrangement in China (i.e. visit to the project sites and meetings with stakeholders) will be directly prepared by UN Women China Office, in line with UN standard rates applied at the time and as per UN Women rules and regulations.
UN Women China will pay the consultant the agreed professional fee, living allowance and round-trip ticket between Beijing, China and home country, based on the financial proposal submitted. The consultant should also include any visa and communication related costs (if applied) in the financial proposal and will be paid on “actual-basis” as per the receipts submitted. All the other costs associated to travel within China will be directly arranged by UN Women China office in line with standard rules and regulations and paid to the consultants as required.

Payments for this consultancy will be based be deliverable based and paid in the following installments:

Deliverable 1 draft outline of the report and summary documentation: 25% of the total consultancy fee and reimbursement of travel (including DSA, air tickets, visa) to and back from Beijing
Deliverable 2 draft summary of the stock-take review: 20% of the total consultancy fee
Deliverable 3 final stock-take report and draft outline of the CGF strategy based on workshop: 20% of the total consultancy fee and reimbursement of travel (including DSA, air-tickets, and visa) to and back from Beijing
Deliverable 4 final draft of the CGF strategy and draft communication brief: 20% of the total consultancy fee
Deliverable 5 final CGF strategy and final draft communication brief including PPT slides: 15% of the total consultancy fee

Required Skills and Experience

A Master’s degree in the field of international development, gender studies or related area with at least 10 years of experience in gender programme review, monitoring and/or evaluation. Or Bachelor's degree in those fields with 12 years of the above-mentioned work experience.
Demonstrated abilities and track record in writing high quality English-language strategic documents and review reports. Programme review document and formulation of a new programme strategy related to grant-making modality is highly desirable
Ability to gather, distill, analyze and present complex information in concise and reader-friendly style is a requirement for this assignment.
Excellent understanding of and experience with gender-sensitive and results-based management, results-framework development, monitoring and reporting.
Knowledge and experience working in China will be an asset
Understanding of international development, resource mobilization, and the UN context is desirable.
Able to work independently, including with a large number of partners and under strict deadlines is necessary
Must be capable of effectively using MS Word and Excel.

Selection Criteria

Applications will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis.

Technical Qualification (100 points) weight; [70%]
Financial Proposal (100 points) weight; [30%]

A two-stage procedure is utilized in evaluating the applications, with evaluation of the technical application being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. The total number of points allocated for the technical qualification component is 100. Only the candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% of total points will be considered as technically qualified candidates who may be contacted for validation interview.

Financial/Price Proposal evaluation:

Only the financial proposal of candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation will be considered and evaluated.
The total number of points allocated for the price component is 100.
The maximum number of points will be allotted to the lowest price proposal that is opened/ evaluated and compared among those technical qualified candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation. All other price proposals will receive points in inverse proportion to the lowest price.

All interested candidates are required to submit two relevant writing samples they have authored or co-authored, preferably in the area of (gender programme) review reports, programme strategy development, etc.

How to apply

Interested candidates are requested to submit updated CV, short summary of your expertise and your experience, P11, Financial proposal for each deliverable breaking down into the daily consultancy rate, living allowance and round-trip ticket between Beijing, China and home country, and a few samples of the editing reports to gao.tao@unwomen.org with a subject line as “Application for China Gender Fund (CGF) Stock-take Review International Consultant” no later than 11:30 pm Beijing time, 13 November 2019.

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Area of Work

Deliverable

Targeted Timeline

Conduct desk review, field visits, and interview of the stakeholders

Detailed outline of the stock-take report and summary documentation of data-collected including stories, key messages and list of partners met/interviewed/places visited

20 Dec 2019

Draft stock-take Review report

Draft stock-take report

13 January 2020

Collect review inputs/comments from stakeholders and submit the revised report

Revised stock-take report

30 January 2020

Facilitate stock-take review validation and CGF strategic plan development workshop and finalize stock take report

Draft agenda/concept note for the workshop in Beijing

Final stock-take report

8 Feb 2020

28 Feb 2020 (stock-take report)