Result of Service

The consultant is expected to provide inputs to planned outputs including knowledge products and meetings under the women’s economic empowerment project to support the achievement of its set objectives.

Work Location

UN-House ESCWA

Expected duration

12 Months

Duties and Responsibilities

Background: Arab region continues to register one of the largest gender gaps. Women’s labor force participation in the region remains low. Various factors can be attributed to the low economic participation of women in the Arab region most important of which are the high involvement of women in unpaid care work and their weak involvement in entrepreneurship. From one side, the uneven distribution of unpaid care work between men and women is particularly marked in the Arab States where women carry out 80 to 90 percent of all unpaid care tasks and spend an average of 4.7 times more time than men on unpaid care tasks. The uneven distribution of unpaid care work constitutes a root cause of women’s social and economic disempowerment in the Arab States, and contributes to the world’s widest gender employment gap, horizontal and vertical job segregation, as well as large gender gaps in earnings, wealth, political representation and decision-making. If current patterns endure and women continue to bear the brunt of unpaid care work, there is a serious risk that gender gaps widen and hard-won achievements in women’s socioeconomic empowerment are reversed. These prevailing large gender gaps are closely linked to the policy and legal frameworks that highly influence the structure of the care economy in the Arab States; the benefits provided to caregivers; and the entrepreneurship environment. Addressing the available policies and legal frameworks is thus crucial to promote women’s economic empowerment in the region and build the resilience of women to future shocks. Against this backdrop, ESCWA started in 2020 implementing a project to promote women’s economic empowerment. The latter focuses on women’s economic empowerment and targets mainly policy and legal frameworks. It seeks to prepare necessary knowledge products to serve as basis to support member States in their efforts to reform and develop sound policy and legal frameworks, strengthen member States’ capacities and provide them with necessary technical assistance to reform existing policies and develop new ones to promote women’s economic empowerment with a particular focus on care related policies. In the context of its work stream on women’s economic empowerment, ESCWA, in addition to its work on the regional level on the topic, already started various initiatives in several countries including Lebanon, Oman, Morocco and Sudan and foresee to expand to additional countries following an approach comprising the preparation of knowledge products and organization of capacity building workshops. A Development Account project is planned to be initiated early 2024 to continue carrying on the efforts mainly on women’s economic empowerment and the care economy. In light of the above ESCWA seeks to hire a consultant to contribute to its work to achieve the implementation of the women’s economic empowerment project. Duties and Responsibilities: The consultant is expected to provide inputs and contributions to support the successful completion of the project’s outputs including: • National case studies mainly on unpaid care work and care economy; • National dialogues and meetings as well as capacity building workshops targeting various governmental entities in Arab States to support the reforms and development of policies related to women’s economic empowerment; • Papers and knowledge products to explore concepts related to women’s economic empowerment in the region; • Regional meetings, consultations, and capacity building workshops to exchange experience and knowledge, disseminate the results and findings of prepared knowledge products and advocate for needed legal and policy reforms. The consultant is thus expected to undertake the following activities: • Undertake necessary research and desk reviews; • Prepare necessary data collection tools including questionnaires for surveys and guides for interviews and focus groups; • Undertake analysis; • Draft inputs following the set outlines for various outputs. The outputs requested by the consultants as inputs to the project’s outputs consist of: • Data collection tools including questionnaires and guides; and tabulation of data collected; • Literature review reports; • Concepts notes for knowledge products and meetings and workshops; • Sections/chapters of studies; • Write-ups on specific issues; • Presentations.

Qualifications/special skills

A Master’s degree in social or economic or gender or anthropology studies or related area is required. All candidates must submit a copy of the required educational degree. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed. A minimum of 6 years of professional work experience in working on socio-economic issues is required. An experience in preparing and reviewing publications or reports is required. Experience in working in the Arab region is required. Experience in working on gender issues and women’s economic empowerment is desirable. Experience in working on childcare, care issues to older persons or persons with disabilities is desirable. Experience in working with government entities is desirable.

Languages

English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat; and Arabic is a working language of ESCWA. For this position, fluency in English and Arabic is required. Knowledge of French is desirable. Note: “Fluency” equals a rating of ‘fluent’ in all four areas (speak, read, write, and understand) and “Knowledge of” equals a rating of ‘confident’ in two of the four areas.

Additional Information

Recruitment for this position is on a local basis. The incumbent is required to have the legal right to live and work in the specified working location.

No Fee

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.