Deadline: 23-Aug-21
UN Women has announced a call for applications that aim to deliver a set of interventions to support women and girls, with focus on the women and girls from excluded groups, to pursue STEM/IT-related education and jobs, and to launch innovative tech start-ups.
UN Women is providing technical assistance to national partners (governmental and non-governmental), including private sector, in the implementation of existing international and national commitments to women’s rights and gender equality, it facilitates networking and exchange of good practices and advocates for women’s rights and gender equality in all areas of life.
The UN Women Strategy for Moldova 2018-2022 focuses on three main areas where gender equality gaps are still present:
- Strengthening women’s participation in politics and decision making.
- Advancing the economic empowerment of women.
- Preventing and combating violence against women and girls.
To achieve progress under these areas, UN Women works with variety of national and international partners and as part of different national and regional initiatives.
Focus Areas
Indicative areas of intervention may include:
Education & Strengthening capacities
- Mobilize more women and girls to pursue education, training, decent jobs, and productive employment in male-dominated fields, particularly in STEM/ICT, through formal partnership with the Government (Ministry of Education and Culture) and private sector and academia (schools and universities).
- Raise awareness among parents and families, as well as teachers and peers of girls that are soon to choose a career, helping them understand the STEM/ICT careers and the skills required, as suggested in the UN Women study on “Motivations and barriers for girls and women in STEM and ICT domains”.
Jobs &Career
- Mobilize private sector actors to provide education, job shadowing and internship opportunities for women in STEM/ICT-related careers.
- Provide mentoring, peer support, capacity building and knowledge dissemination among women from various groups to access available economic opportunities.
- Leverage use of innovation to increase women’s and girls’ awareness and access to STEM/ICT skills and digital jobs.
- Support women’s groups and networks to undertake advocacy for targeted programmes and measures to increase women’s access to decent jobs, productive employment, and nontraditional occupations, with focus on categories of women with high level of inactivity/unemployment.
- Identify and promote the experience of champions/role models among private sector companies that promote women’s increased access to economic opportunities based on the global framework of the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs).
- Address systemic issues related to gender equality, especially in male-dominated sectors, ex ensuring equal remuneration, foster inclusive workplaces, support flexible working arrangements, etc.
Subgrating Scheme for CSOs
- To develop and implement a subgrating scheme to finance activities related to support the awareness and strengthening capacities in the field of STEM, as well as and to support innovative tech businesses.
Communication and Visibility
To implement the tasks, the Contractor should consider the following:
- The contractor, will be responsible to ensure effective promotion of the program and communication with public on the activities and the results.
- Ensure timely and efficient communication and visibility of the program, UN Women, and its partners.
- Enhance awareness of the importance of STEM education for girls and women Inspiration stories.
- Pilot a digital platform enabling women to access skills in STEM arear. The learning materials, e- courses, events, inspiration stories, etc. to be developed and tested with project participants.
Funding Information
The budget range for this proposal should fall between a minimum indicative amount of USD 100,000 and a maximum amount of 130,000 USD. The total budget available for this call for proposal is of up to USD 130,000.
Outputs
- Women’s access to income, through decent employment opportunities and social security are a foundation for women’s economic empowerment and the achievement of substantial equality.
- Access to personal income can help boost women’s self-esteem and bargaining power at home and within communities and reduce the likelihood that they will be exposed or will remain in abusive relationships.
- Women’s access to income has broader benefits: research shows that women tend to reinvest a large proportion of their earnings in children’s education and health.
Eligibility Criteria
- The mandatory requirements/pre-qualification criteria have been designed to assure that, to the degree possible in the initial phase of the CFP selection process, only those proponents with sufficient experience, the financial strength and stability, the demonstrable technical knowledge, the evident capacity to satisfy UNWOMEN requirements and superior customer references for supplying the services envisioned in this CFP will qualify for further consideration.
- UNWOMEN reserves the right to verify any information contained in proponent’s response or to request additional information after the proposal is received.
Technical/functional competencies required
- Documented successful track record in the area of work contained in this Terms of Reference
- Experience in implementing at least 3 external assistance projects. At least one project with similar size of the one submitted under this Call.
- Proven in-house expertise (human resources) in the country in working towards gender equality and women’s empowerment and delivering results in this area.
- At least 1 year of experience in establishing and nurturing partnerships with one of government, local authorities non-governmental, academia, business as towards the achieving of set goals.
For more information, visit https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/programme-implementation/2021/07/unw-eca-mda-cfp-2021-006