UN Women: Women's Economic Empowerment Specialist, Home-based, Jakarta, National Consultant

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.

In Indonesia, UN Women works with government, civil society organizations (CSOs), academia, the media, the public and private sectors to address national priorities of gender equality and women’s empowerment. Placing the advancement of women’s rights at the centre of our work and aligning with UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2021-2025, UN Women Indonesia focuses on:

• Inclusive human development through ending violence and discrimination against women and building women’s leadership to build sustainable peace;
• Advance value-added and transformative economy by supporting women’s economic empowerment;
• Gender-responsive approach to building climate resilience and disaster risk reduction;
• Using innovation and data to leverage gender-responsive governance.

One of the key areas of concern is the economic empowerment of women. UN Women programmes ultimately contribute to the achievement of gender equality through enabling women’s labour force participation, entrepreneurship, economic empowerment, and thus their full and equal participation in society.

About the role

Reporting to the Programme Manager for Women's Economic Empowerment, the Consultant will provide support for the following tasks under the Women’s Economic Empowerment pillar:

• Advancing Climate-Resilient Livelihoods and Care Economy through the EmPower II Programme
  UN Women is implementing the second phase of the EmPower: Women for Climate-Resilient Societies Programme (EmPower II), a regional initiative jointly implemented by UN Women and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with support from the Governments of Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and other development partners. The programme aims to strengthen gender-responsive climate action by enhancing women's leadership, promoting climate-resilient livelihoods, improving access to climate finance, and advancing enabling policies that integrate gender equality into climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction. In Indonesia, EmPower II supports women-led climate-resilient livelihoods through entrepreneurship development, financial inclusion, market access, policy advocacy, and institutional strengthening. Under this portfolio, UN Women is piloting innovative approaches such as the WeCare (Climate-Care Hub) initiative in East Nusa Tenggara, which seeks to recognize, reduce, and redistribute unpaid care work while strengthening women's climate resilience and economic empowerment. The programme also supports climate-smart entrepreneurship and women's economic recovery in disaster-prone areas, including Aceh, through integrated livelihood interventions that strengthen women's adaptive capacities and resilience. The Consultant will support the coordination and implementation of these initiatives by providing technical and operational assistance to implementing partners, government counterparts, and relevant stakeholders.
• Supporting Women's Economic Empowerment under BERANI: Better Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All in Indonesia
  UN Women is a participating UN agency in BERANI: Better Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All in Indonesia, a joint programme implemented together with UNFPA and UNICEF with support from the Government of Canada. The programme aims to prevent gender-based violence and child marriage while advancing the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and adolescents through integrated, gender-transformative approaches. Within BERANI, UN Women leads interventions on Women's Economic Empowerment (WEE) and Gender-Equitable Households, recognizing that women's access to economic opportunities, shared care responsibilities, and transformative social norms are critical pathways for preventing violence against women and girls and promoting gender equality. Programme interventions strengthen women's livelihoods, promote positive masculinities and equitable household relations, and enhance community capacity to support women's economic participation.

Responsibilities

• Partnership Development and Management
  • Provide support to the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Unit on building and maintaining partnerships and positioning with government, potential donors, and the private sector;
  • Support the management of activities and promotional events to engage government, donors, private sector, and civil society to expand and/or sustain interest and resources for UN Women’s WEE programmes and joint UN system programmes;
  • Prepare background documents and analysis for the WEE Unit to forge and implement strategic partnerships to increase outreach on UN Women’s work in the country.
• Implementation of EmPower: Women for Resilience Societies in Indonesia
  • Support coordination activities with local partners, women’s groups, and community-based organizations in NTB, NTT, West Sumatra, and other target provinces to ensure programme interventions on women’s climate resilience, climate-smart entrepreneurship, and gender-responsive climate policy are implemented effectively and on schedule;
  • Support capacity-building activities for women entrepreneurs, women leaders, and youth groups involved in EmPower, including assisting with logistics and liaising with trainers/facilitators;
  • Support the documentation of programme progress, including collecting human-interest stories, promising practices, lessons learned, and photo/video documentation for reporting, visibility, and advocacy purposes;
  • Assist with monitoring and reporting, including compiling activity reports, donor updates, and results monitoring against the EmPower Indonesia work plan. This includes contributing to quarterly, annual, and donor reports at national and regional levels;
  • Support the development of knowledge products and communication materials, such as briefs, case studies, social media content, and visibility materials that highlight the impact of EmPower interventions, particularly on women’s entrepreneurship, climate resilience, and leadership;
  • Assist with logistical and administrative arrangements related to EmPower events, missions, workshops, baseline/assessment exercises, stakeholder consultations, and field visits.
• Implementation of WeCare: Piloting Climate-Care Hub in East Nusa Tenggara
  • Provide day-to-day technical assistance to implementing partners to ensure activities are delivered in accordance with the approved workplan, results framework, budget, and UN Women quality standards;
  • Support programme coordination with government counterparts, local partners, women's organizations, private sector actors, and other relevant stakeholders to facilitate effective implementation and multi-stakeholder collaboration;
  • Review and provide technical feedback on workplans, training materials, knowledge products, communication materials, and technical deliverables produced by implementing partners;
  • Support monitoring of programme progress, identify implementation bottlenecks and risks, and recommend practical mitigation measures to ensure timely delivery of outputs;
  • Conduct regular follow-up with implementing partners to monitor implementation progress, budget utilization, and achievement of agreed milestones;
  • Support documentation of lessons learned, promising practices, innovation, and evidence generated through the Climate-Care Hub pilot to inform future scale-up and policy engagement;
  • Undertake field visits to monitor programme implementation and provide on-site technical support when necessary.
• Implementation of the Pilot Initiative on Women's Climate-Resilient Livelihood in Post-Disaster Areas under EmPower II
  • Provide technical assistance to implementing partners in planning, coordinating, and delivering climate-resilient livelihood activities in accordance with programme objectives;
  • Support implementation of women-led entrepreneurship, business incubation, climate-smart enterprise development, financial inclusion, and market linkage initiatives;
  • Assist in coordinating with relevant national and sub-national government institutions, development partners, private sector entities, financial institutions, and community organizations to strengthen programme implementation;
  • Monitor implementation progress against agreed indicators and workplans, identify implementation challenges, and recommend adaptive management actions;
  • Support collection and analysis of programme data, beneficiary information, success stories, and lessons learned to strengthen programme monitoring and reporting;
  • Support organization of learning events, stakeholder consultations, exposure visits, and dissemination activities related to climate-resilient livelihoods.
• Implementation of WEE components under Better Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All in Indonesia (BERANI) Project
  • Provide technical and coordination support for implementation of WEE-related activities under the BERANI programme in collaboration with the EVAW pillar and implementing partners;
  • Support development and implementation of activities promoting women's economic empowerment, gender-equitable households, positive masculinities, and social norms transformation;
  • Support preparation and quality assurance of training curricula, facilitation materials, technical guidance, and communication products related to programme implementation;
  • Assist in organizing capacity-building activities, workshops, consultations, learning exchanges, and stakeholder engagement events;
  • Monitor implementation progress, document achievements, challenges, and lessons learned, and contribute to adaptive programme management;
  • Prepare technical inputs for reports, briefing notes, presentations, donor updates, and knowledge products related to the programme.
• Cross-cutting Responsibilities
  • Integrate gender equality, human rights, disability inclusion, safeguarding, and the Leave No One Behind (LNOB) principles into programme activities;
  • Contribute to monitoring, evaluation, knowledge management, visibility, communication, and documentation of programme achievements;
  • Perform other programme-related duties assigned by the Programme Manager to support effective implementation of the Women's Economic Empowerment portfolio.

Deliverables

• 12-month workplan;
• Monthly reports supporting the WEE unit in line with requests and feedback from UN Women.

Workplace

This is a home-based consultancy, but the consultant is expected to be based in the Greater Jakarta area as some key in-person workshops and events will be held there.

Skills

• Core Values:
  • Integrity;
  • Professionalism;
  • Respect for Diversity.
• Core Competencies:
  • Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
  • Accountability;
  • Creative Problem Solving;
  • Effective Communication;
  • Inclusive Collaboration;
  • Stakeholder Engagement;
  • Leading by Example.