National Consultant for IT support for the Gender Statistics Platform

Background/Context

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. 

Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality (GE) and gender mainstreaming translate into action globally. 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 Office in North Macedonia is implementing the programme “Promoting Gender Responsive Governance in North Macedonia “funded by Sweden. The overall goal is to ensure that women and girls in North Macedonia benefit from accountable, transparent and gender responsive governance. It builds on UN Women’s past work and results achieved in promoting gender responsive policy making and budgeting and transposing the EU Gender Equality Acquis into national strategies, policies and actions and it grounded on the longstanding partnership established with the Government of North Macedonia to advance gender equality. 

The Programme in line with its priorities set in the UN Women Strategic Plan (2022-2025) and the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (2021-2025) envisages a complex set of interventions that aim to respond to the growing demand created for expertise, knowledge, and tools for mainstreaming gender in the strategic planning processes and public finance management and the implementation of the EU Gender Equality acquis. 

The intervention under Gender Equality Facility (GEF) focuses on comprehensive and synergetic approach with EU accession and IPA programming and implementation, creating synergies and enhancing collaboration between relevant stakeholders at national and regional level. It will provide gender mainstreaming expertise for the advancement of the national legislative strategic, policy and negotiation frameworks, in their alignment with the EU Gender Equality acquis, and support for capacity building within EU/IPA national structures and public administrations bodies to secure inter-institutional cooperation on gender equality. 

Gender data are important tools for advancing gender equality, but to achieve their maximum impact, investments in gender data systems must be strengthened, not just in production of statistics but in building institutional capacity and strengthening data sharing and use

The UN Women Office in North Macedonia is seeking the services of an experienced national consultant to provide IT support to the State Statistical Office related to the Gender Statistic Platform which was produced by the GEF portfolio. The gender statistics platform is a tool for interactive and easy to understand graphical viewing of gender-sensitive statistical indicators. The MakStat database of SSO contains a separate compartment on gender statistics and has sex-disaggregated data available in different areas of data collection and presentation. Some of the most relevant statistics have been selected for presentation on this platform.

The aim of this platform is to increase the level of understanding of the statistical indicators, through examples of interpretation of such indicators and graphical presentation of the data they express.

The consultant will be reporting to GEF Coordinator, under overall guidance of the UN Women Head of Office in the country. 

Description of Responsibilities/ Scope of Work

• Analyse and assess the ICT infrastructure and functionality of the Gender Statistics Platform 
• Develop and implement IT solutions: Provide technical expertise in the development, and implementation of innovative IT solutions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Gender Statistics Platform 
• Improve accessibility and utilization: Facilitate the accessibility and utilization of platform for evidence-based decision-making by developing user-friendly interfaces and improvement of the mobile version of the Gender Statistics Platform
• Provide IT support in the implementation and maintenance of Gender Statistics Platform, including troubleshooting, system upgrades, different system tools and data security measure
• Improving the connection to SSO database powered by a search engine, which will dynamically extract the most updated gender related data from internal database, using a variety of sources and methods;
• Preparation of a final report to be submitted to UN Women, with overview of activities, results, challenges, and recommendations.

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This mission is taking place in Skopje, North Macedonia. 

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 

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies:   https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment/application-process#_Values    FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES: 

• Proven record of advanced knowledge in the IT sector;
• Demonstrates very good understanding of and experience in communications and outreach/advocacy; 
• Excellent skills in graphical design, table preparations and digital publications;
•  Ability to perform a variety of standard specialized and non-specialized tasks and work processes that are fully documented, researched, recorded and reported ·
• Ability to review a variety of data, identify and adjust discrepancies, identify and resolve operational problems; 
• Excellent writing skills in English;
• Ability to lead and coordinate teams;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Excellent analytical skills and strong writing and editing skill (to be assessed based on sample/s submitted);

Education and Certification:

Specialist/Advisor levels:

• Advanced university degree in Information Technology/Computer Science, Graphic Design, or related field.  or related fields, is required.

Experience:

• A minimum 3 years of experience in the area of information technology and website development preferably statistics platform
• At least 2 years of experience with data visualization and digital infographics and experience with interactive data dashboards;
• At least 1 year of experience in design and develop IT solutions: design and develop customized IT solutions, including software applications, databases, and data exchange platforms etc. 
• Excellent understanding of data collection systems, data analytics and other strategies that optimize statistical efficiency and quality.
• Proven knowledge and work experience in the area of Quality Management.
• Previous experience in working with UN Women, other UN agencies, and other development actors will be considered as an advantage.

Languages:

•  Fluency in English is required; 

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)