International Consultant – Care Specialist (Retainer)

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. 

The Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division develops and implements UN Women’s programme of work across its normative, coordination, and operational triple mandate and provides policy advice and guidance and technical support to intergovernmental processes, UN system, and UN Women regional and country offices, among other partners and stakeholders. The Division is organized in thematic sections, which undertake policy research; analyze data on country, regional and global trends; and propose evidence-based options for global policy, norms and standards as well as for UN Women’s policy advocacy and global programme strategies, including flagship programme initiatives. With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN Women is supporting the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) towards achieving gender equality and women's economic empowerment by 2030 to benefit all women and girls.

Economic empowerment is one of the priority areas of UN Women. UN Women works with governments, UN agencies, civil society organizations, regional economic commissions, academic and research institutions, and multilateral partners (World Bank, to promote women’s economic empowerment and increase their access to economic opportunities, especially for those who are most vulnerable and excluded.  In 2024, UN Women has launched its new Women’s Economic Empowerment Strategy, which articulates UN Women’s vision for enabling women’s economic agency, autonomy and well-being. Anchored in UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2022–2025 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, its objective is to provide a framework that galvanizes internal and external stakeholders to work together at the local, the national and international level. The strategy highlights three key priority areas, or Gender Equality Accelerators (GEAs), where UN Women can play a critical role:

(i)  Women in the world of Work

(ii) Transforming care systems, and

(iii) Gender-responsive climate action.

The GEA on Transforming the care economy is hosted in the Care and Macroeconomic team within the Economic Empowerment section. To implement the GEA, the TransformCare initiative was created, aimed at transforming the undervaluing and gendered division of care and improve the lives of women and girls across 30 countries and six regions. The programme complements existing successful UN Women programmes such as the 3R programme to recognize, reduce and redistribute women’s unpaid care and domestic workloads and overall time poverty, the UN Women-ILO Joint Programme “Promoting Decent employment for women through inclusive growth policies and investments in the care economy”, and the new UN Joint Programme on Unpaid Care, Disability, and Gender Transformative Approach. The Initiative also benefits from the support provided by Sida to UN Women’s Economic Empowerment Strategy through the expansion of the Strategic Partnership Framework (SPFIII).

To support the effective implementation of this GEA, UN Women seeks to hire two consultants with expertise in the field of care work, to provide technical assistance to the Care and Macroeconomic team in the implementation of global, regional and national initiatives on care. 

Description of Responsibilities /Scope of Work

The overall purpose of this consultancy is to provide technical assistance to UN Women in the field of care work, a priority area for the implementation of UN Women’s Economic Empowerment Strategy for Women and its GEA “Transforming care systems”. 

Under the supervision of the Policy Advisor, Macroeconomics and Global Lead on Care, and working closely with the Macroeconomics and Care Team in the Economic Empowerment Section at UN Women, the consultants will be expected to perform the following tasks:

• Provide technical advice for the development of global, regional and country care normative frameworks 
• Contribute to the development of context analysis, to inform the design of public policies, costings for care interventions and mappings of care services, including diagnoses and studies on supply and demand of care services.
• Provide technical advice to the development of care strategies at the local, national, regional and global levels. 
• Review and prepare recommendations for care