UNWOMEN National Consultant to review the programme for targeted support to women owned businesses

Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination and violence 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. UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programs and services needed to implement these standards. UN Women’s mandate (GA resolution 64/289) is to lead, coordinate and promote accountability of the UN system to deliver on gender equality and the empowerment of women with the primary objective of enhancing country-level coherence, ensuring coordinated interventions and securing positive impacts on the lives of women and girls, including those living in rural areas.

One of the key focus areas in the UN Women Strategic Note 2021 – 2025 is aimed at women’s economic empowerment. In this impact area UN Women utilizes a two-pronged approach of influencing the major players and implementing targeted interventions aimed at influencing policies, programmes and funds relevant for women’s economic empowerment, covering issues of income security, decent work and economic autonomy. UN Women’s key focus in this area of work is in the production of knowledge, programming and policy recommendations on key areas of women’s economic empowerment as well as piloting targeted support to policy makers, businesses, and key categories of women that need economic activation. Building on previous investments in support of gender responsive policies and budgets, UN Women supports the development and resilience of women owned business and women entrepreneurs and supports improvement of the socio-economic position of rural women and their cooperatives.

In Republika Srpska women own 27.3% and co-own 1.9% of all economic entities. The majority (97,23%) of women-owned entities, belong to the category of micro-entities. Activities in which women operate the most include trade, catering and hospitality/ hotel industry, other services, processing industries, and professional, scientific and technical activities. Women co-owners are active mostly in the wholesale and retail trade activities, processing industry and in agriculture, forestry and fishing. It is estimated that women own around 27% of the enterprises in FBiH. According to the available data the pandemic has had a devastating impact on women owned businesses and women’s livelihoods in general – in BIH 73.3% women-owned businesses said that the crisis had a very negative impact on their business and revenues, 68.4% of women-owned entities in FBIH  and 76.3% in Republika Srpska completely stopped their activities, and 76.4% of women business owners estimate that there is high probability that they will be forced to close their business, as a result of the pandemic.

Overall, women have fewer resources that provide fallback options. Women’s enterprises are particularly susceptible to economic shocks. Women-owned businesses are more reliant on self-financing thus increasing their risk of closure during extended periods of significantly reduced or no revenue. Without a deliberately gendered response, the COVID-19 crisis risks rolling back gains in women’s financial inclusion and access to social protection, constraining women’s ability to support themselves and their families.

Over the past years, UN Women has provided support to national and local stakeholders in advancing women’s rights through initiatives aimed at mainstreaming gender in policy planning and budgeting, and through provision of technical and financial support.Targeted tailor-made technical and financial support provided directly to micro and small women-led businesses has shown to be even more important with the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. UN Women supported realization of first COVID-response and business resilience program for women-led businesses which combined elements of personalized advisory and financial support in the key business areas, helping women to overcome specific challenges and experience growth.

Following previous research and programmatic investments in the direct support to women owned businesses and in order to strengthen the work of ecosystem stakeholders implementing business resilience programs and technical support to women-led businesses, UN Women is seeking to recruit National Consultant to review the programme for targeted support to women owned businesses and provide relevant tools, materials and guidelines.

DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVE

The overall objective of this consultancy is to contribute to the resilience and viability of the women owned businesses in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

IMMEDIATE OBJECTIVE

The immediate objective of this consultancy is to provide expert review of the existing programme of targeted support to women owned businesses provide the necessary adjustments and additions with the view of making the programme replicable across Bosnia and Herzegovina. The consultancy will contribute to development of local expertise among ecosystem stakeholders delivering technical and financial support to women-led businesses, through development of relevant tools, guidelines and methodologies, and their transfer to the stakeholders in the form of trainings.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of UN Women GRB Coordinator and overall supervision of UN Women Programme Specialist, the consultant is expected to:

• Based on internal consultations with UN Women and its partners, as well as based on the relevant expertise of consultants, they are expected to develop tools, guidelines and methodology (further on: Business Smart Toolkit & Guidelines) for business resilience program for women entrepreneurs which will be delivered by local ecosystem stakeholders.
• Business Smart Toolkit & Guidelines should include:

a) Standardization of business diagnostic process with women-led businesses, which would give detailed overview of business performance (business model, financial performance, pricing, market position, branding, human resources, strategy and organization, operations, managing risks) providing baseline allowing simple comparison before and after support provided to women entrepreneurs.b) Development of standardized templates and tools to be used by mentors/advisors/facilitators providing direct support to women entrepreneurs, but also by women entrepreneurs themselves, in minimum four main areas: business development (covering mainly business model, strategy and organization of businesses), financial performance & pricing, marketing and branding, and digitalization/digital transformation. Each segment should have outline of various items which entrepreneurs might encounter, develop and work on within given area. Further on, tools, guidelines and templates for hands-on work on these items should be provided with examples for production and service companies (i.e. template for pricing calculations including break-even point, guideline and template for planning of marketing strategy, template for digital promotion activities etc.). c) Development of evaluations tools for assessment of impact of provided support onto women-led business.

• The workplan is to cover at least following:

a) One-day preparatory session with selected stakeholder which delivers support programs to women entrepreneursb) Grid of business areas and topics relevant for women-led businessesc) Selection of 4 most on-demand areas including finance and pricing, business development, marketing and branding, and digitalization.d) Tools, templates and guidelines for 4 business areas, which shall be used by mentors/advisers and women entrepreneurse) Guideline and template for business diagnostics processf) Tools for evaluation and assessment of impact of provided support to women entrepreneurs. g) Three-days training to ensure quality utilization of delivery of developed tools and guidelines.

DELIVERABLES AND TIMEFRAME

REPORTING

All deliverables should be submitted in English, to the UN Women GRB Coordinator:

• Consultancy work plan, submitted to and approved by UN Women (in English);
• Agenda and report on the Preparation and delivery of the preparatory session with selected stakeholder which delivers support programs to women entrepreneurs, submitted to and approved by UN Women;
• Brief review of the existing business support programmes, submitted to and approved by UN Women;
• Draft tools, templates and guidelines for advisory support in the four key business areas (finance and pricing, business development, marketing and branding, and digitalization), submitted and approved to UN Women;
• Draft Guidelines and template for business diagnostics process, submitted to and approved by UN Women;
• Draft Tools for evaluation and assessment of impact of provided support to women entrepreneurs, submitted to and approved by UN Women;
• Prepare and deliver training to ensure quality utilization of delivery of developed tools and guidelines (training materials and trainer notes);
• Incorporate comments and provide final training materials, tools and guidelines, approved by UN Women;
• Brief consultancy report not to exceeed 3 pages, approved 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: http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf Functional Competencies:Knowledge Management and Learning

• Shares knowledge and experience
• Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside UN Women
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills
• Development and Operational Effectiveness
• Demonstrates excellent written and oral communication skills. Communicates sensitively, effectively and creatively across different constituencies
• Demonstrates very good understanding of and experience in communications and outreach/advocacy
• Ability to perform a variety of standard specialized and non-specialized tasks and work processes that are fully documented, researched, recorded and reported
• Ability to review a variety of data, identify and adjust discrepancies, identify and resolve operational problems
• Uses Information Technology effectively as a tool and resource

 Leadership and Self-Management

• Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure
• Proven networking skills and ability to generate interest in UN Women’s mandate
• Identifies opportunities and builds strong partnerships with clients and partners

Required Skills and Experience

Academic Qualifications:

• Bachelor degree in economics, business, social studies, or related area of study. Masters degree will be considered as an asset.

Skills and Experience:

• At least 5 years of demonstrated experience in business advisory;
• Proven background and experience at the national and/or international level in research or academic experience in the field of women’s economic empowerment
• Demonstrated interest in the field of gender equality and women’s rights
• Working experience with international organizations and/or UN System will be considered an asset
• Good analytical and communication skills with a high level of proficiency in both written and oral English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian.

  EVALUATION OF OFFERS UN Women applies a fair and transparent selection process that takes into account both the technical qualification of potential consultants as well as the financial proposals submitted in support of consultant applications. Candidate applications will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of applicant qualifications and financial proposal. The contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as: 

• responsive/compliant/acceptable, and 
• having received the highest score out of below defined technical and financial criteria. 

 Candidates receiving over 50 points during desk review will be contacted for a validation interview.Criteria: Technical Evaluation (70%), Financial Evaluation (30%)Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula: S = Fmin / F * 30S - score received on financial evaluation;Fmin - the lowest financial offer out of all the submitted offers qualified over the technical evaluation round;F - financial offer under the consideration. Please note that travel costs should be covered by the consultant.  Qualified women and men and members of minorities are encouraged to apply. UN Women applies fair and transparent selection process that would take into account the competencies/skills of the applicants as well as their financial proposals.  Due to large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process. DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents:

1. Expression of interest and confirmation of immediate availability
2. Detailed financial proposal inclusive of all costs (which includes consultancy fees, travel, accommodation 
3. Completed UN Women Personal History (P11) form, that can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment

 Please note that travel and accommodation costs should be covered by the consultant.  For any additional information, please contact unwomen.bih@unwomen.org How to Submit the Application: To submit your application online, please follow the steps below:

• Download and complete the UN Women Personal History Form (P11)- http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment
• Merge your UN Women Personal History Form (P11), the Financial Proposal, and Expression of Interest into a single file. The system does not allow for more than one attachment to be uploaded;
• Click on the Job Title (job vacancy announcement);
• Click 'Apply Now' button, fill in necessary information on the first page, and then click 'Submit Application;'
• Upload your application/single file as indicated above with the merged documents (underlined above);
• You will receive an automatic response to your email confirming receipt of your application by the system.