National Consultant on Women’s Economic Empowerment - Home Based

Background:

UN Women (UNW), 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 centre of all its efforts, the UN Women leads and coordinates the United Nations system 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’s triple mandate, along with its global network and deep policy and programming expertise, continues to endow the Entity with a unique capacity to: (i) support Member States to strengthen global norms and standards for gender equality and women’s empowerment, and mainstream gender perspectives in other thematic areas; (ii) promote coordination and coherence across the UN system to enhance accountability and results for gender equality and women’s empowerment; and (iii) undertake operational activities to support Member States, upon their request, in translating global norms and standards into legislation, policies and strategies at country level. 

UN Women plays an innovative and catalytic role in the State of Palestine since its inception in 1997 (as UNIFEM). In line with the national priorities, the work of UN Women for the period 2023-2025 is aligned with three of the Palestine United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework’s (UNSDCF) outcomes:

• Palestinians have greater access to economic opportunities that are inclusive, resilient, and sustainable, including decent employment and livelihoods opportunities in an empowered private sector.

• Palestinians, including the most vulnerable, have equal access to sustainable, inclusive, gender responsive and quality social services, social protection, and affordable utilities.

• Palestinian governance institutions, processes, and mechanisms at all levels are more democratic, rights-based, inclusive, and accountable.

Its three-year Strategic Note supports the efforts to achieve measurable results in country in terms of four UN Women global Strategic Plan impacts (2022-2025): (SP Impact 1). Governance and participation in public life; (SP Impact 2). Women’s Economic Empowerment; (SP Impact 3). Ending Violence Against Women and Girls and; SP Impact 4. Women peace and security, Humanitarian & Disaster Risk Reduction. 

The Arab States Flagship Initiative - Surging Women’s Employment by 5 Percentage points before 2030 

The “Arab States Flagship Initiative - Surging Women’s Employment by 5 Percentage points before 2030”, is the first regional program of its kind, as it converges nine programs towards one quantitative target – the5 percent increase in women employment before 2030. 

In line with the High Impact Accelerators to fasten progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, and in particular SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 1 (Poverty Reduction), this Flagship Initiative convenes Governments, Private Sector, International Financial Institutions, media and UN sister agencies towards ambitious yet feasible development solutions to address women labor force participation (WLFP) in the Arab States, which has stagnated at 21% since 1990. 

The Nine Pillars of the Flagship Initiative comprise of two enablers that support Sustainability, namely (i) high-level political leadership at the national level (Heads of State) and the regional level through the League of Arab States (Assistant Secretary General) and (ii) sustainable financing: meaning funding from official development assistance (ODA), financing from International Financial Institutions (IFI), and National Budgets (NB).  

Building on this foundation, the Flagship Initiative works on employment creation through three amplifiers for employment at Scale. These are high-growth economies where women possess an educational edge in the Arab States and would: (i) the Green Economy: Renewable Energy, Eco Friendly Tourism and Climate Smart Agriculture, (ii) Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Economy: by matching young female STEM graduates with employment in the growing digital industry, both domestically in their own countries as well as through transnational remote work modalities and (iii) the Care Economy: preschools, elderly care and health care.  

The Flagship Initiative then works through four accelerators, to support Speed