Terms of Reference for a Senior Economist Consultant to Provide Technical Support to the Women’s Economic Empowerment Pillar

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1. 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 center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates the United Nations system’s 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 Rwanda works with the Government, UN Partners, Civil Society Organizations, the Private Sector, Development Partners, Academia, the youth, and other key partners to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in the country through its policy advisory support, UN Coordination and programmatic interventions.

In Rwanda, in addition to its normative and coordination interventions, UN Women focuses on three programmatic areas which include: Women`s leadership and governance, enabling them participate and equally benefit from governance systems; Women economic empowerment for income security, decent work and economic autonomy; as well as Ending violence against women and girls to live a life free from all forms of violence. 

UN Women seeks to advance women’s economic empowerment by mainstreaming gender and women empowerment in national policies, plans and strategies, promoting increased income security, better jobs and economic independence of women and girls, especially those from vulnerable groups. For this purpose, UN Women works towards enabling a gender responsive environment by addressing discriminatory social and economic norms, as well as structural barriers to ensure gender-responsiveness in the development and implementation of macroeconomic and sectoral policies, and to leverage women’s income generation capacity for advancing their empowerment and leadership.

The UN Women Rwanda CO seeks to step up its engagement in macro/micro-economic policy spaces, building on evidence generated through research on critical GEWE and WEE topics, past and on-going policy/public advocacy for transformational change in social and economic norms, and quality knowledge products on relevant issues such as women’s unpaid work and the care economy, gender gap in agricultural, financing gender equality, engaging development partnerships with local governments, civil society, development partners and other UN agencies. 

For this purpose, the UN Women Rwanda Country Office is seeking to engage a Senior Economist as Consultant to support the Country Office’s programming and policy work. In close collaboration with the programme team, the consultant will be responsible for analyzing relevant policies, socio-economic data and trends and providing analytical advisory services to the Country Representative and partners as need be. Additionally, the consultant will be expected to provide professional and technical inputs to the Country Office on development issues and policies, particularly related to gender responsive budgeting, financing for development, and other macro-economic policies to enhance the strategic impact of UN Women’s interventions in line with its strategic note, the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework, and government priorities under Rwanda’s vision 2050. 

2. Duties and Responsibilities 

Under the overall supervision of the Country Representative, and in close coordination with the programme team, the consultant will provide strategic and technical guidance and support to the development and implementation of UN Women’s new Strategic Note, and the thematic area of women economic empowerment. The detailed scope of work and responsibilities of the assignment are as follows: 

2.1.      High quality policy and technical inputs to UN Women Rwanda’s work on women’s economic empowerment 

UN Women Rwanda is continually updating its strategy note, programme documents and thematic papers to strengthen its strategic and operational engagement and relevance on GEWE, especially on women`s economic empowerment (WEE). UN Women and selected partners under the WEE portfolios require policy advisory services from thorough analysis of related policies on relevant issues, including but not limited to, social-economic rights, social security and accountability, private sector engagement, gender responsive supply chain and financial inclusion, gender responsive budgeting (GRB), public and green financing, climate change, unpaid care work, disaster/humanitarian response, etc. All these from a rights-based approach. 

The consultant is expected to collect, analyze, and synthesize relevant data and information with consideration of the changing economic landscape in Rwanda. This technical support is expected to assist the UN Women Rwanda Country Office to identify and work on the entry points for gender-responsive macroeconomic policy development, Gender Responsive Budgeting, and other issues related to comprehensive women’s economic empowerment. Finally, the consultant is also expected to provide technical support in the high-level policy dialogue on the issues discussed above, amongst others. 

2.2.        Contribution to the strategic partnership and resource mobilization efforts 

Building on the lessons from the implementation of UN Women Rwanda’s Strategic Note 2018-2023, the CO seeks to strengthen its strategic partnership with key stakeholders leveraging UN Women’s triple mandate to pursue Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment. With the lessons from the national implementation and global evidence, the Rwanda Country Office will continue to explore innovative approaches to GEWE. The Consultant is will support the CO’s Resource Mobilization efforts through developing substantive briefs, concept notes and proposals on possible areas of women’s economic empowerment in line with government priorities under its vision 2050, United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) and UN Women Strategic Note. 

3. Expected deliverables

Expected deliverables include:

• Provide policy and strategic advice to the CO on macro-economic issues from a critical analysis of the global and country context.
• Provide Technical leadership, inputs, and strategic advice to strengthen WEE programmatic approaches/interventions through review of Programme/project documents, UN Women’s new Strategic Note, draft reports, ToRs, thematic papers as well as key strategy papers.
• Preparation of policy briefs or policy papers to contribute to CO’s advisory services, knowledge building and knowledge hup.
• Quality assurance of Programme documents, Concept Notes/proposals, knowledge products, research studies, best practices and lessons learned from global and regional experiences on gender-responsive macroeconomic policy development, Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB), Unpaid care work, Climate Smart Agriculture, Green Financing, and other issues related to inclusive women’s economic empowerment.
• Design/convene/ participate in various thematic dialogues, consultations, expert group and multi-stakeholder meetings/workshops on policy debates on relevant issues for knowledge building and public advocacy related to inclusive women’s economic empowerment;
• Provide technical support to events and strengthen UN Women’s coordination with other stakeholders, including with the private sector, government, academia, UN, and others.
• Provide leadership for the development of substantive briefs, concept notes and proposals on possible areas of resource mobilization on women’s economic empowerment, including on unpaid care work, gender sensitive climate smart agriculture, women’s entrepreneurship and skills development, private sector engagement, Women and ICT, Decent jobs, and more.
• Design and conduct capacity development initiatives (including trainings and workshops) for UN Women staff, government officials, women representatives, civil society partners and/or development partners in Rwanda on issues related to GEWE and women’s economic empowerment. 

4. Duration of the assignment and duty station

The assignment is for 11 months (3rd Jan to 2nd Dec 2024) and the consultant will be based at UN Women Rwanda Country Office in Kigali. 

5. Qualification and experience

• Master’s degree in Economics, Gender and Development Studies, Political Science, Social Science, or any other related field of studies.
• A minimum of 10 years of professional experience in working with gender equality and women’s economic empowerment.
• Proven expertise in the area of gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Proven experience in developing high quality policy briefs and other strategic papers is required.
• Previous experience working with different levels of government, civil society, development partners and private sector. Experience working with the UN system is a considerable asset.  
• Proven experience in developing concept note and proposals for resource mobilization in the area of women’s economic empowerment.
• Ability to handle documents and the information contained therein with strictest confidentiality.
• Fluency in written and oral English is required. Working knowledge in French is an added advantage. 

6. Submission process.

All interested and qualified candidates may apply by downloading the UN Women Personal History form (P-11). https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-07/UN-Women-P11-Personal-History-Form-en.doc  and share it through rwanda.offers@unwomen.org not later than 6^th December 2023 at 5:00 pm Kigali Local Time.

COMPETENCIES

Core Values and Guiding Principles:

• Integrity:Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct
• Professionalism: Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work
• Cultural Sensitivity and Valuing Diversity: Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Corporate Competencies:

• Ethics and Values:Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.
• Development and Innovation:Take charge of self-development and can take initiative.
• Work in a team:Demonstrate the ability to work in a multicultural environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.
• Communicating and Information Sharing:Facilitate and encourage effective open communication.
• Self-management and Emotional Intelligence:Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others.
• Conflict management:Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.
• Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing:Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge.
• Time and Workload Management:Able to manage a large volume of work possibly under time constraints.