To contract the services of an Economist and Senior Social Protection Expert

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.

The UN Sub-Regional Team for the OECS will be implementing the project “Enhancing Resilience and Acceleration of the SDGs in the Eastern Caribbean: Universal adaptive social protection modelled at the community, national and sub-regional levels” form January 2020 to January 2022. The project, which is funded by the SDG Fund, is co-led by UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP), with ILO, UNDP and UN Women as the other UN agencies to jointly implement the project.

The Joint Programme will contribute to creating an enabling environment for poor and vulnerable people to have predictable access to universal and adaptive social protection. This will support the ultimate goal of reducing structural inequality, reducing poverty and building resilience. Predictable access to universal and adaptive social protection will be promoted through an approach that spans and connects national, community and regional levels. At the national level, the Joint Programme’s interventions will focus on two countries (Barbados and St. Lucia) and will contribute to strengthening national social protection systems to support integrated service delivery by improving institutional capacities and through evidence-based, gender-responsive social and disaster risk management policies and legislation. It will also strengthen these systems through improved management and operational tools. The Joint Programme will support the introduction of innovative financing strategies to ensure fiscal sustainability and expanded coverage of the social protection system. At the community level, the Joint Programme will support the design of innovative community-based adaptive and shock responsive services within existing national programmes to generate evidence for social protection reform and strengthen the targeted communities’ ability to anticipate, absorb and recover from major shocks. At the regional level, legal and policy coherence will be supported by strengthening regional capacities, inter-institutional engagement and South-South cooperation in the Eastern Caribbean.

Through a multi-country approach, the Joint Programme is expected to enable partner governments to accelerate progress towards the implementation of SDGs in support of national commitments and reflective of the significant vulnerabilities of SIDs to external shocks, including climate-related events and impacts. Three key targets will be addressed through Joint Programme interventions to increase the adaptability of social protection to prepare for and respond to shocks and stresses by strengthening its linkages to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation. Specifically, the Joint Programme is expected to contribute to strengthening institutional capacities to expand coverage and adequate social protection through vulnerability analysis and identification of at risk people on this basis, promoting a national social protection floor and sustainable and risk-informed financing (1.3); promoting and monitoring equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sex (5.1) and increasing regional capacity to recognize unpaid care work (5.4); as well as improving service delivery to boost people’s resilience and risk-management capacities (13.1) through evidence-generation and regional cooperation and knowledge sharing.  At the end of the Joint Programme, the universal adaptive social protection model should be scalable to become an accepted framework for implementation in most, if not all 11 OECS countries and territories. Working with IFIs will be key not only to ensure sustainable results in Saint Lucia and Barbados but also in replicating the model to other countries.  

UN Women’s role in the project is to support OECS Member States with working towards further strengthening national capacity to monitor commitments to global gender equality norms and commitments specified in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the SDGs. UN Women will deploy its technical expertise to address the structural inequalities that exist, and which undermine resilience to economic and climate-related shocks from a gender perspective; as well as the relationships between gender, unpaid care work and resilience to climate-related and economic shocks. The Joint Programme will leverage the strategic partnership in place between UN Women and the CARICOM Secretariat on Gender Statistics for measuring unpaid care and domestic work. From 2016 to 2017 Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Barbados Statistical Service conducted a Survey of Living conditions, which provided data on consumption-based poverty rates. Data from the survey and others will inform the application of, by the United Nations, two inter-agency social protection assessments tools in Barbados. The first tool is the Core Diagnostic Tool (CODI); and the second is the Assessment-Based National Dialogue (ABND) on social protection. As a contribution to this effort, UN Women will undertake a gender analysis of the data from the Survey of Living Conditions: 2018, with a view to analysing the differential impacts of poverty on women and the implications for national policy and programme development/strengthening. UN Women will contribute the results of this analysis to the conduct of the CODI and the ABND, to be led by ILO and UNICEF, within the Joint Programme.

UN Women will rely on the results of past and recent analytical work on gender and social protection in CARICOM. This includes the conduct of a Gender Aware Beneficiary Analysis of the St. Lucia Public Assistance Programme, the results of which led to recommendations for reform at the policy, operational, institutional and services dimensions. With regard to the latter, recommendations included the following:

• The need to establish Early Childhood and Day Care services/centres in areas without access.
• Adult education: For those persons, particularly women who may have dropped out of school, work with relevant agencies to provide access to study support to obtain their CXC and/or CAPE/community college certification.
• The need to establish a rental subsidy programme for women with children/dependents
• Provision of skills training, certification and job attachments in areas with income earning potential. Women with children should be on a priority list to participate in active labour market programmes, along with unemployed youth.

UN Women’s interventions in the Joint Programme will be guided by the abovementioned recommendations. Given the agency’s focus on recognising and reducing unpaid care work in the Joint Programme, pilot approaches for optimizing social protection service delivery to connect the most vulnerable families with high care burdens - the majority of which are headed by women - to services and support to reduce unpaid care work will be prioritised.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objective of the assignment

Under the overall supervision of the UN Women MCO - Caribbean Representative, the Economist and Senior Social Protection Expert will undertake the following:

1. A Gender Analysis of the Barbados Survey of Living Conditions: 2018. The analysis should include the following:

• The differential impact of poverty (including time poverty) on women and men;
• Further to the above, an analysis of care responsibilities from a gender perspective, taking into account the limitations of the survey dataset;
• Recommendations for policy and programme development/implementation.

2. Provide Expert Input and Advice on the Conduct of the Fiscal Space Analysis for Universal Access to Day Care Services in St. Lucia to include:

• Written feedback on methodology and approach;
• Written feedback on the scenarios recommended for financing universal access to day care services;
• Written feedback on draft report on the Fiscal Space Analysis for Universal Access to Day Care Services in St. Lucia;
• Written feedback on the Fiscal Space Analysis for Universal Access to Day Care Services in St. Lucia.

3. Provide Expert Input and Advice on the pilot initiative in St. Lucia on priority access by the country’s Public Assistance Programme (PAP) beneficiaries (a cohort of single women-headed households with children) to Housing, Day Care, Health Care including family planning, School Feeding Programme and Transportation subsidies to include:

• Written feedback on methodology and approach;
• Written feedback on the Draft Report on the Pilot;
• Written feedback on Final Report on the Pilot.

Scope of Work and Deliverables

The Economist and Senior Social Protection Expert will be based in their country of residence. If residing outside of Barbados, travel will not be required as tasks can be completed remotely. The Economist and Senior Social Protection Expert will be expected to deliver the following results:

1. Document methodology and approach for the Gender Analysis of the dataset from the Barbados Survey of Living Conditions: 2018 (Timeframe: April 2020);
2. Review of the dataset from the “Barbados Survey of Living Conditions: 2018” (Timeframe: April 2020);
3. Report “A Gender Analysis of the Barbados Survey of Living Conditions: 2018” (Timeframe: April 2020 – May 2020);
4. Provide Expert Input and Advice on the pilot initiative in St. Lucia on priority access by the country’s Public Assistance Programme (PAP) beneficiaries to include:

• Written feedback on methodology and approach;
• Written feedback on the Draft Report on the Pilot;
• Written feedback on Final Report on the Pilot (Timeframe: May 2020 – November 2020).

     5. Provide Expert Input and Advice on the Conduct of the Fiscal Space Analysis for Universal Access to Day Care Services in St.      

         Lucia to include:

• Written feedback on methodology and approach;
• Written feedback on the scenarios recommended for financing universal access to day care services;
• Written feedback on draft report on the Fiscal Space Analysis for Universal Access to Day Care Services in St. Lucia;
• Written feedback on the final report on Fiscal Space Analysis for Universal Access to Day Care Services in St. Lucia (Timeframe: May 2020 – November 2020).

Reporting Requirements

The consultant will work under the overall supervision of the UN Women MCO-Caribbean Representative, with direct reporting to UN Women Programme Specialist for Economic Empowerment and Statistics.

Competencies

Core Values / Guiding Principles:

• 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/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf?la=en&vs=637

Functional Competencies:

• Strong gender responsive budgeting, economic analysis, social research and analytical skills;
• Excellent written and oral communications skills including the conveying complex concepts and recommendations, in a clear and persuasive style tailored to match different audiences;
• Ability to interact independently as part of a team;
• Ability to multi-task and operate effectively in stressful situations.

Required Skills and Experience

The Economist and Senior Social Protection Expert should meet the following criteria:

Required skills and experience:

Education:

The Economist and Senior Social Protection Expert should herself/himself meet the following criteria:

• A Master’s Degree in any of the following areas Economics, Econometrics, Statistics, Public Policy, Social Policy.

Experience:

• A minimum of fifteen years’ experience on gender and social research, statistical analysis, and economic analysis;
• A minimum of fifteen years’ experience working on gender equality and/or human rights is required;
• Experience working within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is an asset but not required.

Languages:

• Fluency in oral and written English is required.

References:

• Minimum of three client references that include the name of the contact person, title and contact information.

Remuneration:

• The consultancy fee will be negotiated before contracting. Each payment will be based on a predefined and formal agreement between UN Women and the consultant and will be disbursed based on satisfactory completion of agreed deliverables.

Hardware, Software and Communication:

• The consultant must be equipped with a fully-functional laptop, which must run at least Windows 7. The consultant must be reasonably accessible by email and telephone (preferably mobile). The use of reliable, internet-based telecommunications application software (Skype or equivalent) is required.

Location and Duration:

• The consultant will be based in their country of residence (no travel is required);
• The consultant will be engaged for a maximum of 40 working days during the period 1 April 2020 – 30 November 2020

Other:

• Interviews will be conducted with the shortlisted applicants;
• The consultant contracted will be required to sign a statement of confidentiality and freedom from any conflict of interest with potential future contractors with respect to the TORs and work that they will be delivering;
• The consultant should submit, along with his/her application, the curriculum vitae of team members.

Note:

Submissions to UNDP Jobs are limited to a maximum of 10 MB, virus-free or corrupted contents to avoid rejection, and no more than 1 email transmission.   As such, all application materials must be scanned into one document and submitted.

All applications must be submitted through UNDP jobs.  Please do not send applications to UN Women staff as they will not be accepted.