Senior Consultant: Gender Capacity Strengthening, New York

• Organization: UNICEF - United Nations Children's Fund
• Country: United States
• City: New York
• Office: UNICEF New York

UNICEF 633 3rd Avenue New York, NY (212) 497-0193

Closing date: Monday, 1 August 2016

---

Job no: 498120
Work type: Consultancy
Location: United States of America
Categories: Consultancy
If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.
For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.
Background & Rationale
UNICEF is in the process of implementing its Gender Action Plan (GAP) 2014-2017. The GAP elaborates the gender dimensions of the programmatic results across the seven outcome areas of the Strategic Plan along with the relevant indicators for measuring success. It also specifies the steps UNICEF is undertaking with regard to talent management, through commitment of resources and strengthening of staffing capacity and systems.
Effective staffing and talent acquisition along with capacity enhancement of the current workforce has been identified as a core means of improving institutional effectiveness to achieve gender results as articulated in UNICEF's Gender Action Plan (GAP). Appropriately skilled staffing is not only identified as a core means of achieving UNICEF's gender results, but is also well identified as a significant gap in achieving quality gender programming results across development and humanitarian settings. To address this gap, development is currently underway for the creation of an enhanced infrastructure capable of increasing the pipeline of international development practitioners with applied skills in the area of gender and development. UNICEF Gender Section is leading a dynamic process informed by key partners, resulting in the establishment and implementation of a credentialing system, as well as a series of modular training courses designed to equip a range of development colleagues with the skills and knowledge to earn their practical gender credential.
Purpose
The primary role for the Senior Consultant, Gender Capacity Strengthening is to undertake a strategic stocktake and assessment as well as shape the design of the gender credentialing and capacity-strengthening infrastructure, which has been determined by senior management as a high-priority need for UNICEF. S/he will work with key staff and additional consultants as part of the Gender Capacity Strengthening and Staffing Task Team.
Expected Results: (Measurable Results)
The overall expected result of this consultancy is the completion of a strategic stock-take/assessment and the design requirements of a gender credentialing and capacity strengthening infrastructure that can be used by UNICEF and other partners to further strengthen its staffing gender capacity and to provide an avenue for staff to be credentialed as dedicated or sectoral gender specialists.
More specifically, the work for this consultancy will focus on

• defining the competencies and skills needed in UNICEF (and the broader development field) gender architecture, including sectoral gender specialists and dedicated gender specialists to successfully implement the GAP or related gender programming strategies;
• determining the availability of courses and training programs (internally and externally) to meet these defined competencies and skills,
• determining the planned initiatives of key partners to develop courses and training programs;
• outlining the design requirements of the training courses and credentialing infrastructure,
• exploring the range of partners who are equipped to design and deliver gender training courses and credentialing, and
• developing, vetting, and designing a competitive vendor process to contract the development and creation of the gender training courses and credentialing infrastructure.

1. Strategic stock-take and assessment of existing and planned training courses and content
Compile and analyze current and planned gender and sector training processes, course content, methods, and delivery infrastructure to provide key features on successful training systems and shortcomings being addressed through existing and planned efforts, which will inform a proposed gender and capacity strengthening infrastructure to be vetted by experts by the completion of the following

• Review of selective external gender and development field's trainings, including interviews with institutions implementing the trainings;
• Review of selective external planned gender and development training development, including interviews with institutions;

Interviews with select leaders in the field of gender and development, and select sectors, to determine in their own institutional context the following

• • Types of sector/dedicated gender specialist training needs;
  • What they've done to meet these needs;
  • Types of training programs available, including content and modality;
  • Existing credentialing;
  • Lessons learned on what works and does not.
• Development of a list of candidate universities and training institutes with experience or potential to prepare gender training course content and/or credentialing;
• Development of a presentation outlining key findings from tasks listed above, along with findings from the needed staff competencies and skills outlined below, and a draft gender capacity strengthening and credentialing infrastructure that is linked to ongoing or planned efforts, and highlights what is necessary in terms of the development of new infrastructure components (e.g., additional training courses, credentialing systems).

2. Design requirements of a gender capacity strengthening and credentialing infrastructure
a. Determine needed staff competencies and skills of the gender credentialing infrastructure, which will be informed by the completion of the following tasks

• Analysis of the existing skills and profiles required for dedicated gender positions and select sector positions at UNICEF;
• Interviews with key colleagues at UNICEF and partners, with a focus on determining the core gender competencies needed to implement and deliver results on the Gender Action Plan, or other related gender programming strategies;
• Review of sector and job descriptions for staff with gender responsibilities.
• Presentation and vetting of a summary of needed staff competencies and skills of the gender-credentialing infrastructure, including draft competency and skill matrices, with UNICEF colleagues via regional gender network meetings and other forums and with Gender Capacity Strengthening and Staffing Task Team. This summary should also be included in the presentation in 1e above.

3. Design and implementation of an Experts' Workshop on Gender and Development Credentialing Infrastructure (full-day), with inclusion of the following tasks

• Define, obtain feedback and finalize workshop goal and objectives, content, methodology and expected outcomes;
• Identify gender technical experts within and outside the UN to attend, speak and participate in the meeting (up to 20 participants);
• Prepare and distribute workshop agenda and background materials (report, PPT, etc.);
• Hold Expert Workshop and obtain feedback on recommendations for proposed gender capacity strengthening and credentialing infrastructure (that will be in line with competencies and skills previously outlined).

4. Develop and carry through an RFP and robust selection process for a vendor to deliver the defined components of a gender capacity strengthening and credentialing infrastructure, which will include completion of the following

• Finalization of aforementioned presentation based on feedback obtained in Expert Workshop and via vetting by Gender Capacity Strengthening and Staffing Task Team;
• Preparation of a Scope of Work to be incorporated into the Request for Proposals;
• Development and implementation of the selection criteria for shortlisting and final selection, a preliminary review of proposals, recommendations to the Gender Capacity Strengthening and Staffing Task Team, and participation in the final selection of the vendor.

Duty Station: Remote-based
Timeframe: 6 Months START DATE: 8 August 2016 END DATE: 7 February 2017
Key competences, technical background, and experience required

• Advanced university degree (Masters or higher) in the social sciences (i.e. sociology, demography, psychology, political science, social policy, economics, etc.), international development, public policy, public health, or in other relevant health science areas;
• Academic, programming and management credentials in gender are required;
• A minimum of 15 years of relevant experience, expertise and leadership in research, programming policy, and capacity development related to and influencing the field of Gender and Development as senior level required;
• Significant experience and demonstrated track record with capacity development, trainings and assessments related to gender required;
• Experience and established credibility with gender professionals and organizations;
• Experience and demonstrated skills with project planning, management, implementation and monitoring, and ability to work across functional areas to deliver results;
• Proven skills in communication and negotiation, organization, research and analysis, and strategic planning and systems thinking;
• Excellent analytical skills and ability to synthesize complex information in written papers, reports, presentations;
• Excellent understanding of bilateral and multilateral systems and international development and gender issues;
• Responsiveness to deadlines and deliverables, and ability to work independently and flexibly;
• Fluency in English required;
• knowledge of another UN language a plus.

.
Please indicate your ability, availability and daily/monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference above (including travel and daily subsistence allowance, if applicable). Applications submitted without a daily/monthly rate will not be considered.
UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organisation.
Advertised: Jul 25 2016 Eastern Standard Time
Application close: Jul 31 2016 Eastern Standard Time