National Consultant to support the State Audit Office in North Macedonia to strengthen capacities on gender equality and gender performance audits

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.

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 and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women in the Republic of North Macedonia in line with its priorities set in the UN Women strategic plan and in the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework, supports the country on the normative commitments and is working in two thematic areas – governance and national planning and ending violence against women. In fulfilling its mandate, UN Women is cooperating with UN, the government and the CSOs to advocate for women’s empowerment and advancement of gender equality.

UN Women North Macedonia is implementing the project “Promoting Gender Responsive Policies and Budgets: Towards Transparent, Inclusive and Accountable Governance in Republic of North of Macedonia – phase 2” funded by Switzerland and the programme “Promoting Gender Responsive Governance in North Macedonia” funded by Sweden. The overall goal is to ensure that women and girls in North Macedonia benefit from accountable, transparent and gender responsive governance. It builds on UN Women’s past work and results achieved in promoting gender responsive policy making and budgeting, and the longstanding partnership established with the Government of North Macedonia to advance gender equality.

The interventions under these initiatives are aligned with the National priorities set in the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF 2021-2025), and directly contribute to gender equality commitments under the Government programme (2022-2024), which highlights among its priority areas the promotion of gender equality policies, women’s empowerment, and increased participation in all spheres of political, economic and public life.

Under the programmatic components on gender responsive budgeting, the interventions focus on strengthening the role of the National Gender Machinery in establishing an effective institutional capacity development on GRB and systematic integration of gender perspective in the Public Finance Management. At the local level, the project extends continued expert mentoring to LSGUs on gender responsive policy making and budgeting, which includes local administration and elected officials from 41 municipalities. Additionally, support is extended to strengthen oversight and accountability mechanisms and to increase engagement and capacities of key oversight institutions. Finally, part of the project interventions focus on strengthening the capacities of women to voice their needs and advocate for increased accountability and financing for gender equality, while CSOs will be supported to promote women’s leadership and undertake initiatives to increase participation of women at grassroots level in decision making and budgeting processes.

In North Macedonia, UN Women has established a longstanding cooperation with the State Audit Office (SAO), which is the lead institution on public sector auditing and plays an important role on strengthening the oversight and accountability towards gender equality commitments in the management of public funds. As part of the cooperation, the State Audit Office for the first time undertook the first Performance Audit on Gender Equality in the country as an important step for ensuring an independent oversight and accountability towards gender equality commitments. Furthermore, as part of SAO’s goals to enhance its capacities on GRB, a Methodological Guidance for mainstreaming gender in audit practices was developed which is a comprehensive guide to mainstream gender in the auditing practices. Currently, SAO is leading the regional cooperative performance audit on gender equality in cooperation with SAIs from Albania and Kosovo.

To further support the State Audit Office of the Republic of North Macedonia on gender performance audits and gender equality, UN Women is seeking to recruit a national consultant to support the State Audit Office in strengthening its capacities for mainstreaming gender perspective in the overall audit work, support in conducting gender audits focused on gender responsive policies and programmes implemented at central and local level in North Macedonia.

The consultant will be reporting to the GRB Programme Analyst, and will be supported by GRB Project Officers, who will be the points of contact on the contract and payment issues. In addition, the consultant is expected to coordinate closely with the gender focal point at SAO and the specific unit/team of auditors assigned to lead activities related to gender audits and continued capacity strengthening of SAO staff.

The national consultant will be expected to complete the below tasks within the indicative timeframe:

Tasks	Deliverables	Working days
Develop a detailed work plan for the assignment including timeline, tasks and activities (to be consulted with and approved by UN Women);	1. Work Plan and timeframe of the assignment (in English)	2 days (by 30 October 2024)
Assess and identify specific programmes for conducting gender specific performance audits focused on national sectoral programmes or selected local government programmes;	2. Desk review on identified programmes for conducting gender specific performance audits at central and local level	13 days (by 10 March 2025)
Develop curricula and deliver Training of Trainers (ToT) on gender performance audit for selected team of trainers/auditors within SAO;	3. Training agenda 4. ToT Training programme and PPTs 5. Curricula	10 days (by 30 November 2024)
Provide training and mentorship to SAO on integrating gender perspective in performance audits through development and delivery of tailored capacity building module;	6.Meetings/training agenda and minutes 7.Training programme and PPTs	50 days (by 31 August 2025)
Prepare audit programs for the implementation of the Law on Budgets and the Law on Equal Opportunities for Women and approaches to other relevant laws, introducing sectoral entities (eg: LSGUs, health, culture, public enterprises joint ventures and others)	8. Developed audit programs	15 days (by 10 March 2025)
Extend support to SAO in provision of trainings to internal auditors of budget users at central and local level on mainstreaming gender in audit practices;	9. Training agenda 10. Training programme and PPTs	25 days (by 31 January 2026)
Final report on the assignment to UN Women (English)	11. Final individual report	5 days (by 02 December 2025)
Total		120 working days

Duties and Responsibilities

Description of Responsibilities /Scope of Work

• Develop a detailed work plan for the assignment including timeline, tasks and activities (to be consulted with and approved by UN Women);
• Assess and identify specific programmes for conducting gender specific performance audits focused on national sectoral programmes or selected local government programmes;
• Develop curricula and deliver Training of Trainers (ToT) on gender performance audit for selected team of trainers/auditors within SAO;
• Provide training and mentorship to SAO on integrating gender perspective in performance audits through development and delivery of tailored capacity building module;
• Extend support to SAO in provision of trainings to internal auditors of budget users at central and local level on mainstreaming gender in audit practices;
• Prepare audit programs for the implementation of the Law on Budgets and the Law on Equal Opportunities for Women and approaches to other relevant laws, introducing sectoral entities (eg: LSGUs, health, culture, public enterprises joint ventures and others)
• Final report on the assignment to UN Women (English)

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is a home-based consultancy. The assignment requires intermittent presence on UN Women premises for coordinative purposes.

As part of this assignment, there are no expected tasks outside Skopje, North Macedonia. If such engagements are expected, UN Women will cover the transportation and DSA.  

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: 

• Knowledge Management and Learning
• Leadership and Self-Management
• Judgement/Decision-making
• Analytical Thinking
• Change Management

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in public administration, public policy, finance, gender studies, or a related field is required.

• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible work experience in gender equality with focus on gender responsive policy making is required.
• Experience on policy making and budgetary processes in the Republic of North Macedonia is required.
• Previous experience in designing and delivering training and/or mentoring programmes on gender equality and gender mainstreaming in policy making and budgeting is required.
• Demonstrated experience in public sector auditing procedures, practices and processes in the Republic of North Macedonia.
• Previous experience working with central level government institutions.

Languages:

• Fluency in Macedonian and English is required.
• Knowledge of Albanian is an asset.

How to Apply 

• Personal CV or P11 (P11 can be downloaded from: )
• A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page)
• Managers may ask (ad hoc) for any other materials relevant to pre-assessing the relevance of their experience, such as reports, presentations, publications, campaigns, or other materials.