UN Women International Consultant - Implementation of UNCT-SWAP Gender Equality Scorecard Assessment - Homebased

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 its efforts, UN Women is mandated to lead and coordinate United Nations’ system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming are translated into action. It is also mandated to provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2023 - 2027 guides the collective work of the United Nations (UN) in India. The Cooperation Framework (CF) is structured around six interlinked Outcome Groups (OGs): (1) Health and wellbeing; (2) Nutrition and food security; (3) Quality education; (4) Economic growth and decent work; (5) Environment, climate, WASH, and resilience; and (6) Empowering people, communities, and institutions. These outcomes are organized under three strategic priorities: People, Prosperity, and Planet. The framework is guided by the principles of gender equality, youth empowerment, resilience and risk mitigation, sustainability, and solidarity. 

Gender equality is a cross-cutting priority across all Outcome Groups. The UN system supports the Government of India and stakeholders through capacity development, policy advice, and technical assistance to advance gender-responsive governance and inclusive service delivery. This includes addressing structural barriers and intersectional discrimination linked to caste, class, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, geographic location, and urban–rural divides, in line with India’s national priorities and global commitments to gender equality.

The UN System Coordination Unit leads the efforts to develop and oversee the implementation of the strategy for UN Women’s role to “lead, coordinate and promote the accountability of the United Nations system in its work on gender equality and the empowerment of women”. This includes leading UN System efforts to implement the United Nation Country Team System-wide Action Plan for Gender Equality Scorecard (known as the UNCT-SWAP GE Scorecard), launched in June 2018 and updated in 2023. This accountability framework embodies a harmonized vision for mainstreaming gender into institutional functions, programming and reporting on results in conformity with the 2030 Agenda, and its implementation is mandated by the Secretary General and Member States in the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR) resolution (A/RES/75/233) and ECOSOC (E/RES/2019/2). 

To this end, reporting on the UNCT-SWAP GE Scorecard is integral to tracking progress on UNCT commitment to gender-responsive performance management, strategic planning, and budgeting. 

With that context, UN Women India Office seeks to hire an International Consultant to implement the comprehensive UNCT-SWAP GE Scorecard, including data collection, trend analysis, and related knowledge development; to compile UNCT results. The work of the consultant will be overseen by the interagency Coordination Officer for Gender Equality, under the supervision of Country Programme Manager, Inter Governmental Processes (IGP). 

The UNCT SWAP GE Scorecard methodology has been designed for in-country self-assessment as a means of fostering deeper understanding and ownership of results. The primary objective of this consultancy is to coordinate and complete the comprehensive gender scorecard assessment as well as to provide a set of actions to address gaps identified by the Scorecard exercise, with the support of UN Women and the UN System Coordination Team. Under the supervision of Country Programme Manager, Inter Governmental Processes (IGP), the following tasks are to be undertaken: 

Planning - Develop a work plan for consultancy. (Deliverable: Workplan discussed and approved by UN Women and RCO.)

Self-Assessment of the gender scorecard Indicators - Support to the UN Women and RCO with the in-country comprehensive assessment of the gender scorecard indicators including:

• Convening the briefing meeting for the core Team constituted for SWAP within UNCT; 
• Establishing indicator groups;
• Support the collection of data and evidence to score indicators;
• Facilitating working sessions and technical support with key stakeholders such as the Resident Coordinator; Heads of Agencies; key programme staff; M&E teams, partners, etc. to discuss and score areas of performance;
• Convening a preliminary feedback me