Local Consultant – Research and Gender Statistics Expert (Office Based)

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. UN Women provides support to the Government of Mozambique in meeting its gender equality goals and in building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts in Mozambique to ensure commitment to gender equality. Therefore, consolidating the institutional capacity of the Country Office is one of the enablers to increase delivery.

In September 2015, governments united behind the ambitious 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which features 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets that aim to end poverty, combat inequalities and promote prosperity by 2030 while protecting the environment. The 2030 Agenda sets out a historic and unprecedented level of ambition to “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030” (SDG 5) as well as including 37 gender-related targets in 10 other SDGs. It commits to addressing core issues of gender equality such as eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls, eradicating discriminatory laws and constraints on sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, recognizing and valuing unpaid care and domestic work and increasing women’s participation in decision-making.

The absence of adequate data can impede progress in creating informed and effective policies. Gender data gaps can be linked to three challenges, namely:

Weak policy space, and legal and financial environments, are barriers to progress. In many countries, the production of gender statistics is not specified in statistics laws and policies, and as a result the sector is under-prioritized and under-funded in national budgets.

Technical and financial challenges limit the production of gender statistics. Areas such as violence against women, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and unpaid care and domestic work, are important to measure but are under-resourced. Also at risk are emerging areas, such as gender and poverty, gender pay gaps and women’s participation in decision-making, where a lot more methodological work is needed.

 Lack of access to data and limited capacity of users to use gender statistics to inform polices. Where data is available it is not made accessible or shared in user-friendly formats, impeding their use in informing evidence-based advocacy in decision-making. When data is not used to inform policy and advocacy, it leads to low demand, which in turn reduces the incentive to produce gender statistics.

To successfully track the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, a robust and equally ambitious monitoring framework is needed. Significant investments in gender statistics are necessary to ensure that evidence-based policies are devised, the impacts of these policies are assessed and the accountability of policymakers and governments to deliver on these commitments is promoted.

Robust indicators and quality data are of critical importance and will determine whether policy efforts are marshalled and whether the goals and targets are achieved or missed.

To support member states in implementing the 2030 Agenda, UN Women’s Flagship Programme Initiative, “Making Every Woman and Girl Count (MEWGC)” aims to affect a radical shift in the availability, accessibility and use of data and statistics on key aspects of gender equality and women’s empowerment. The regional and national components of the MEWGC Programme include a multi-year scope of work with focus on implementing and supporting regional and country activities in East and Southern Africa.

This includes enhancing the linkages between normative and technical work on gender statistics at the regional and national levels in Mozambique in the three inter-related key areas of work:

• Contribute with inputs for the ongoing and upcoming UN Women research, assessments and data collection exercises including the reinforcement of methodological aspects.
• Provide substantive inputs to CO strategic planning documents, studies as well as  national reports supported by UN Women including ensuring use of the latest  available gender statistics
• Contribute to the collaborative research and data work with other UN entities  (UNICEF, UNU-WIDER and UNFPA and gender data and statistics work of the UNCT in Mozambique.
• Participate in and support work of regional entities in Mozambique (e.g. UN ECA and AfDB)
• Assemble briefing materials and prepare power-point and other presentations
• Identify sources, and gather and compile data and information for the preparation of documents, guidelines, and other material as required;
• Act as a Focal Point for the newly established Gender Statistic Task Force (UN, Government and UNECA);
• Provide technical support to gender statistics work in the ESA region as required by the Regional Statistics Specialist Gender.  
• Provide technical support to at least one country in the region with improved data governance as part of the ESA-RO Women Count project;
• Any other tasks as assigned by the office.

 Administrative Support

• Organize events, meetings and workshops;
• Draft non-substantive correspondence;
• Maintain and organize up-to-date hard and electronic files for easy access and retrieval. Ensure safekeeping of confidential materials;
• Create and maintain files of correspondence/documents and electronically received information, and ensure up-to-date filing (Sharepoint and OneDrive).
• Maintain both hardcopies and electronic copies of the office records and reference files on various subjects; 
• Prepare presentation material/slides in Power-point for presentations for the meetings/workshops and keep all papers ready for meetings; 

 Partnership building and resource mobilization

• Identify emerging programming and resource mobilization opportunities related with gender statistics and lead resource mobilization efforts related to gender data and statistics (including through communication of UN Women’s work).
• Participate in and provide inputs to project proposals for resource mobilization in all areas ensuring use of the latest available gender statistics in particular.
• Participate in the multistakeholder coordination group on statistics  led by UNFPA
• Provide inputs to relevant documentation such as project summaries, conference papers, briefing notes, speeches, relevant research reports  in all areas of UN Women’s CO work  ensuring use of the latest available statistics in general and on gender in particular.

• Building a supportive policy and institutional environment for the localization and effective monitoring of the SDGs and national indicator frameworks.
• Expanding the statistical capacity and supporting gender statistics production of the National Institute of Statistics of Mozambique (INE)
• Increasing the quality, comparability and regularity of gender statistics to address national data gaps and meet national regional and global reporting commitments.
• Ensuring that gender statistics are accessible to users in governments, civil society, academia and the private sector, to strengthen adequate demand for their production.

In this context, UN Women is seeking the services of a highly qualified consultant to support the entity’s research and data work. The successful consultant will work under direct supervision of the Programme Specialist and Head of Programme,  technical guidance of the  Gender Statistics Specialist based in Nairobi, and closely collaborate with  all Programme Thematic Leads of UN Women Country Office  as well as the gender machinery and National Statistics Office in Mozambique where he/she will be physically located.

Duties and Responsibilities

Description of Responsibilities /Scope of Work

Under overall guidance of the Country Representative, the Consultant will work under direct supervision of the Programme Specialist and Head of Programme ,  collaborate with all Programme Team Leads.  The Programme Specialist/Head of Programme and the ESARO Regional Gender Statistics Specialist will coordinate in providing technical advises and guidance to the consultant for delivery and reporting.

The incumbent will contribute to the achievement of the UN Women’s Mozambique’s Strategic Note “Output 6.1.3 National Capacity is strengthened to produce, analyze, and use gender statistics for policy formulation, planning, monitoring, and reporting on gender equality and women empowerment” and others closely related to or benefitting from gender statistics and research work as a cross-cutting function.

The work of the consultant will also contribute towards the ESA regional office strategic note Outcome 4 (Outcome 2.2 in BWP) ‘Gender statistics, sex-disaggregated data and knowledge products are timeously produced, communicated/disseminated and used to inform policy making, advocacy and accountability for delivering results on gender equality and empowerment of women and girls in ESA region)’.Specific duties are described below.

Language Requirements

Fluency in English and Portuguese (written and spoken) is required.

Duties and responsibilities

Technical Expertise on Gender Statistics  

• Work to promote the integration of UN Women in existing coordination mechanisms and statistics platforms.
• Strengthen   the capacity of INE and MGCAS on gender statistics in line with the gender statistics assessment.
• Contribute to Mainstream gender in the National Strategy for the National Statistics (and relevant statistics processes) in line with the national  gender statistics assessment

Deliverables

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is an office-based consultancy.

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:  

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES: 

• Good understanding of national context including the development plans; social protection mechanism and the gender equality situation
• Strong analytical skills on gender and economic policy and women’s economic empowerment.
• Strong communications skills in spoken and written English
• Strong drafting skills and ability to produce a variety of knowledge products for different audiences and purposes.
• Ability to produce impactful communications materials and knowledge products.
• Strong commitment to knowledge-sharing within a multicultural environment
• Ability to design and deliver training and other capacity building strategies in the area of gender and economics to a variety of audiences
• Basic project management skill

Required Skills and Experience

Required Qualifications

Education:

Master’s degree or equivalent in Statistics, Demography, Econometrics, Development Economics, International Development or any other relevant field. A first level university degree with a combination of two additional years of experience can be accepted in lieu of advanced degree.

Experience:

• 5 years of progressively responsible experience with research and data collection, processing and analysis preferably gender related
• Experience in working in a computer environment using multiple office software packages.
• Work experience in administrative support of development programme/project is an advantage.
• Expert knowledge on gender equality  and women´s empowerment

• Proven experience with socioeconomic policy analysis and mastery of quantitative and qualitative analysis and methods
• Experience in drafting quality and timely research reports, policy briefs, and position papers
• Work experience within UN Women and or the UN system is an asset.
• Experience in working with ATLAS/Quantum/PRIMAVERA is an advantage.

How to Apply

• Personal CV or P11 (P11 can be downloaded from: )
• A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page)