Afghanistan: Reporting Consultant

Duty Station :Homebased, AFGHANISTAN Languages Required : English Duration of Initial Contract :12 Months on a retainer basis Expected Duration of Assignment :12 Months Background:

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, UN Women will work 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 will lead and coordinate United Nations System efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.
The Afghanistan Country Office (ACO) has received contributions from a number of donors (Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Korea, Italy, Australia, Netherlands, Iceland and Finland) to deliver its programme. Timely submission of results focused report is essential for maintaining relations with the donors.
The reporting deadline for each of the donors mainly fall in June, December with a few informal reports being needed on a quarterly basis. The submission process involves the UN Women Regional Office and Headquarters for quality assurance which requires three to four months. Hence, ACO is usually faced with a number of reports that need to be prepared at the same time.
The ACO is expecting a number of competing deadlines and processes with equal priority and urgency in the coming months. Some posts were vacant for a number of months which has further added to the overlap of competing deadlines which are equally important.
In order to ensure timeliness and quality of reports the services of an international consultant with strong background on gender equality and women’s human rights, with good understanding of Results Based Reporting skills is needed. The consultant will support the UN Women Afghanistan Country office on a retainer basis during peak

Scope of work

The overall objective of the consultancy is to support the ACO in preparing results oriented reports for donors in a timely manner. Reports are either Progress reports or Final Narrative reports. The consultant is not expected to contribute to financial reporting.

Narrative reports in UN Women follow a fixed template and annual reports are usually a max of 20 pages including cover page, acronyms, and table of contents. A final report may be a little longer. Templates for the report will be shared by the ACO. Raw materials and information will also be shared by the ACO.**Description of Responsibilities :**

Review and revise the report to ensure:

• Correctness of language- grammatically correct language, spellings, politically correct language among others;
• Results based reporting: where activities are reported, they are accompanied by strong results statements. Reporting follows the logic model and results are reported at the correct level in terms of RBM- outputs are reported at output level and outcomes are reported at outcome level;
• Reporting includes results reporting as well as indicator reporting;
• Completeness of documents, including complete information included in all sections of the narrative report and annexes are in place;
• Ensure consistency with previous reports submitted under the project to the same donor. ACO will provide the previous reports to the consultant. The consultant is expected to request the office for the previous reports;
• Include context and deepen analysis where needed in consultation with ACO to make the report analytical;
• Revise the document when comments are received from RO or HQ;
• Its expected the consultant will be proactive and work closely with ACO identified staff on the report.

Deliverables:

Draft Progress or Final Report, briefs from donor report, any other documents specifically requested by donors, that has been assigned that meets the following criteria:

• Strong RBM language;
• Comprehensive and concis;
• Researched (A folder of documents substantiating the information mentioned in the report should be prepared);

• Revised final version of the progress or final report, briefs from donor, other documents (as the case might be) incorporating comments/queries during Quality Assurance process of the Regional Office and Headquarters.**Competencies :**

• Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain good working relationships and communicate constructively with different levels of management and staff;

• Ability to work remotely in an effective and constructive manner with UN Women Afghanistan Country Office (ACO) staff;

• Being proactive in seeking clarifications, resourceful, solution-oriented;

• Availability especially between October- December and April- July;

• Ability to communicate clearly both orally and in writing; flexibility in accepting work additional related assignments.**Qualifications :**

Education:

• University degree in Gender Studies, Women’s Rights, Public Administration, Social Sciences, International Relations, Political Sciences, Development Studies or related field.

Experience:

• Minimum of 5 years of progressive relevant professional work experience on gender, women’s rights, project management (project implementation), monitoring and evaluation, and resource mobilization;
• Strong background and understanding of RBM based reporting;
• Prior relevant work experience with UN Women / UNDP is a plus;
• Knowledge and understanding of the social, cultural and political context of Afghanistan and womens rights situation and work in the country will be an asset.

Language:

• Excellent command of English, including analytical writing skills and presentation skills;
• Knowledge of local language, Dari and/or Pashto, will be considered as an asset.

How to Apply:

• Interested candidates are encouraged to submit an updated UN Women P11, letter of interest containing the statement on candidate’s experience in the field of recruitment, a sample of the report written by the consultant- ideally a donor/results based reporting sample;
• Financial proposal. The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount breaking down a daily professional fee.
• Please click on the following link to submit your application: http://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=68588