National Consultant – Women’s Economic Empowerment and Entrepreneurship Skills in the Southern Border Provinces of Thailand

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, UN Women 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, UN Women leads and coordinates the efforts of the United Nations system to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. UN Women provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

The coronavirus pandemic has given rise to many forms of violence to exploit. Women and girls deeply affected by the pandemic. Economic uncertainties due to lockdowns have left many women and men vulnerable to violence. Likewise, a rise in hate speech targeted at women further heightens women’s vulnerability. Civil society and women’s groups, who have been on the frontlines of preventing violent extremism and promoting social cohesion in their communities in Asia, have now mobilized to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and to respond to the aftermath of lockdowns and related restrictions. With stretched capacity and limited financial support, they are still a lifeline in their communities but in dire need of support. These inherently regional problems of violent extremism, terrorism, as well as COVID-19 must consider a regional response, be gender-sensitive, and learn from best practices and lessons learned in a rapidly changing context. 

Since the re-emergence of conflict in 2004, women and other marginalized groups in the southern border provinces of Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and some districts of Songkhla of Thailand have suffered the heaviest casualties. Women have been made widows and heads of households but are deprived of their opportunities to earn the necessary income and raise their young families in a secure environment. Those who became widows or have lost their sons in the violent incidents are struggling to gain access to justice in the judiciary process and to reintegrate themselves into the communities. The violent conflict does not only bring threats to personal safety but also affects economic survival and the overall quality of life in the deep southern region. The impact of COVID-19 has proved to further reverse the limited progress that has been made on gender equality and women’s rights in the southern border provinces with social and economic consequences for women and girls. These include unemployment, increased unpaid care work, limited access to services such as education and health and increased risks of violence against women and girls. 

UN Women Thailand in partnership with governments, civil society, research institutes and think tanks will implement the project “PEACEBUILDING IN A PANDEMIC: Empowering Women to Promote Social Cohesion and Prevent Terrorism and Violent Extremism in the Context of COVID-19 in South and Southeast Asia” (“Empowered Women Peaceful Communities- Asia”) in Thailand with the aim to empower women in the Southern Border Provinces of Thailand to build resilient and peaceful communities and prevent extremist violence as well as to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. In realizing this goal, UN Women Thailand will focus on achieving the following two outputs: (i) Women have increased resources and capacity to lead efforts that build resilience and social cohesion in their communities, and (ii) Governments have increased access to the necessary gender expertise and women’s groups have increased capacities to influence the development of gender-sensitive policies to prevent and counter-terrorism, violent extremism and hate speech.  

In this regard, UN Women is seeking for a national consultant to develop and implement entrepreneurship activities for women affected by COVID-19 in the Southern Border Provinces to empower women to build resilient, cohesive and peaceful communities to prevent radicalisation and violent extremism to serve the output: Women have increased resources and capacity to lead efforts that build resilience and social cohesion in their communities in order to provide a package of business development services and productive asset transfer (e.g. to produce Personal Protective Equipment) for individual and collective entrepreneurship, with a focus on female-headed households, university students and women in vulnerable situations and heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic

Under the supervision of the Country Programme Coordinator for Thailand, the primary role of the national consultant includes:

• Conduct rapid assessment on entrepreneurship capacity of selected women entrepreneur groups in the Southern Border Provinces;
• Design entrepreneurship program focusing on the needs and COVID-19 impacts of women in the Southern Border Provinces;
• Provide technical support and monitoring of selected women entrepreneurs implementing the designed entrepreneurship program;
• Document best practices and lessons learned of entrepreneurship program for selected women entrepreneur groups in the Southern Border Provinces and provide recommendations on future interventions on women’s economic empowerment

Expected deliverables and timelines

Supervision
The consultant will work under the direct supervision of Country Programme Coordinator for Thailand, UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific who will be responsible for the quality assurance of the deliverables.

Contract period and work location
The time required for the consultancy is within the period from 15 September 2021 to 15 February 2022 (5 months). For upcountry assignments, UN Women will be responsible for the accommodation and travel expenses for any cost incurred during assignment period. The consultant can be located in any UN Member States.

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example

Functional Competencies:

• Excellent analytical skills
• Strong networking skills
• Strong inter-personal skills, communicate effectively with staff at all levels of the organization
• Ability to work in a highly pressured environment

Education:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, International Relations, Women Studies, Social Science, Economics, Business or other gender and development fields.

Experience:

• Minimum 3 years of relevant work experience, with demonstrable expertise in programmatic reporting on thematic areas of Women’s Economic Empowerment, gender equality and entrepreneurship.
• Familiarity with the Thai national context particularly Southern Border Provinces is considered as an asset.
• Experience in program implementation and training related to gender equality and entrepreneurship, is an advantage.
• Experience in liaising and coordinating with national counterparts, local authorities and civil society organizations in the southern border provinces of Thailand.
• Experience working with the UN Agencies or other international organizations is advantageous.

Language requirement and report writing skills:

• Proficiency in Thai.
• Proven experience in report writing and technical consultancy on thematic areas of Women’s Economic Empowerment, gender equality and entrepreneurship.

Evaluation
Applications will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis:

• Technical qualification (100 points); weight: (70%)
•  Financial proposal (100 points): weight (30%)

A two-stage procedure is utilized in evaluating the applications, with evaluation of the technical application being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. Only the price proposal of the candidates who passed the minimum technical score of 70% of the obtainable score of 100 points in the technical qualification evaluation will be evaluated.

Technical qualification evaluation criteria: 

Only the candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% of total points will be considered as technically qualified candidates who may be contacted for validation interview.

Financial/Price Proposal evaluation:

• Only the financial proposal of candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation will be considered and evaluated.
• The total number of points allocated for the price component is 100.
• The maximum number of points will be allotted to the lowest price proposal that is opened/ evaluated and compared among those technically qualified candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation. All other price proposals will receive points in inverse proportion to the lowest price.

Submission of application
Interested candidates are encouraged to submit electronic application to [email protected], with cc to [email protected], not later than 06/09/2021.

Submission package includes: 

• Cover letter outlining relevant work experience and updated CV;
• UN Women Personal History Form(P11);
• Minimum of one writing sample;
• Financial proposal which shall specify a total lump sum amount, breaking down the daily professional fee, proposed number of working days for each deliverable. Please see the financial proposal template as below: