Background

UN Women Pakistan under its new Vision 2022-2026 is diversifying its Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) portfolio and supporting women home based workers. Its long-term investment with WHBWs continues with efforts focused on graduating WHBWs to become owners of their own small businesses. Recommendations from the end-term project evaluation of the UN Women’s WHBWs project states that there is ample evidence of the significant results achieved in working with WHBWs. Evidence suggests that many of the issues faced by Pakistani Women wanting to work, such as lack of mobility and access to finance can be addressed through technology-based solutions. Access to opportunities and learning financial literacy can be a strong force to increase Women Economic Empowerment for the intended rural women in the project target sites.

The project in focus is supporting 1800 rural women farmers of KP-MDs at Khyber, Momand and Bajaur and engaging them in on & off farm income generating activities as their means of livelihoods. The project has already identified and grouped them into farm commodity clusters for bulk production and aggregation to benefit from economy of scale at times of sales in the market. Similar initiatives may also be endeavored in off farm entrepreneurial activities by the rural women to work both as individuals & marketing collectives to help build and continue productively with means of livelihoods, resources including cash and assets and skills they must empower through inclusion and capacity to be at par with males socially and economically.

UNWOMEN requires services of a consultant to support enhancing the skills of rural women and women farmers in district Khyber, Mohmand and Bajour around financial literacy, savings, financial concerns, microfinance products, investment planning and collective market actions. The consultant will be doing initial assessment to determine the base line for informed planning and execution of the work assigned.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall guidance of UN Women's Deputy Country Representative and in direct supervisionof the Head of Sub Office KP, the Consultant will be responsible to contribute towards enhancing the skills of 1800 rural women and women farmers in district Khyber, Mohmand and Bajour around community financial literacy, savings, financial concerns, microfinance products, investment planning and collective market actions.

• Conduct assessment of the target audience to determine the financial literacy needs, current practices, methods of financial management, access to finance and identify gaps. Based on the assessment make an informed plan for achieving objectives of the assignment.
• Through strategic steps in advancing women economic empowerment; plan capacity development of target population in coverage area. Capacity development should include financial knowhow to work out simple arithmetic & calculation-oriented tasks, calculating cost of production in Inputs & services costing, Gross, and Net Profits after deducting liabilities, Profit and Loss statements with determination of net profits at individual or gross terms, Inventory & Stock positioning for available stocks after supplies etc.
• Support understanding on use of savings, investments, profit & loss, and financial opportunities, arrange groups for community savings and adoption of basic investment at community level, individual’s share and share in profit & losses, planning for individual and collective investments, roles & responsibilities to shoulder by nominated members in the collective bargaining/marketing structure.
• Provide guidance and facilitation in case of need to register & link marketing collectives with appropriate authorities.
• Facilitate access to micro financial products through commercial and state-owned banks and institutions.
• Enhance leadership qualities and skills to muster women members to gather for collective action in response to market demands and trends etc.
• To encourage and support rural women to embrace leadership roles in businesses and day to day domestic life matters.

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

Functional Competencies

Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity - Demonstrate an appreciation of the organization’s multicultural nature and its staff's diversity. Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Required Skills and Experience

• Master`s Degree in finance, business, economics, management sciences or relevant fields.
• Trainings undertaken relevant to the assignment are an asset.
• A minimum of 7 years’ experience in financial development, financial literacy, community development and facilitation to train and support rural women /female framers at field level.
• Demonstrated experience in conducting research and assessments and developing modules and plans as per the results achieved from the research reports.
• Must have work experience at KP/FATA level and familiarity of the local context, challenges, and opportunities with respect to supporting women economic and social empowerment.
• Must have access to and good working relations with centers having ample learning and expertise resources to main and sub sectors in thematic areas of the assignment.
• Demonstrated experience of leading women groups in agriculture, livestock and farm enterprises/businesses.
• Demonstrated experience in capacity development and support roles to help rural women and female farmers.
• Adequate knowledge of gender issues, legislations, human rights issues specifically in the context of rural areas of KP including merged districts.
• Good liaison and working relations with women networking forums, public & private sector office bearers etc. for access to technical and support services etc.
• Proved good report writing skills in English.
• Excellent communication skills in local languages, to communicate sensitively, effectively, and creatively.
• Experience of working with the Government, Academia, NGOs and/ or international organizations.
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Submission Package Details:

Evaluation Methodology: Applications will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis:

• Technical qualification (100 points); weight: (70%)
• Financial proposal (100 points): weight (30%)

Two-stage procedure will be adapted in evaluating the applications, with evaluation of the technical application being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. Only the price proposal of the candidates who passed the minimum technical score of 70% of the obtainable score of 100 points in the technical qualification evaluation will be evaluated.

The submission package must include:

• Updated CV.
• UN Women Personal History Form(P11) which can be downloaded from https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-07/UN-Women-P11-Personal-History-Form-en.doc.
• Technical proposal: Summary of the proposed work with some information and methodology giving references to resources and available data for the technical review exercise (3-6 pages).
• At least three sample reports/research from relevant work that the consultant has conducted (all samples will be kept confidential) or links to website where reports can be retrieved (highly recommended).

Financial proposal: The financial proposal shall specify a lump sum of total fees with deliverable rate (as per TORs), specifying the time as per mentioned in TORs. Please see the financial proposal template as below Items:

• Amount (PKR)
• Lump Sum fee (with information for per deliverables). Cost for Deliverable 1, 2,3,4 and 5.
• Cost for the training logistics eg venue, training material etc.
• Travel Cost to be mentioned separately.

All applicants must include (as an attachment) the CV, P11, technical and financial proposals, and sample reports. Incomplete applications will not be considered for further assessment.

The above-mentioned documents should be merged in a standalone file including all them, since the online application submission does only permit to upload one file per application. Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification.

HEC Attested degrees are a prerequisite for employment at UN. During the recruitment process candidates may be required to present HEC attested degrees. Foreign Qualified Candidates: Foreign degree holders shall be required to (i) Present a verification/certification letter from the university verifying the degree & student enrollment, or (ii) Foreign degree Equivalence Letter from HEC.

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law.

Accessibility:

All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need. If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application. UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.) If you are experiencing difficulties with online job applications, please contact the eRecruit Helpdesk.