Senior National Consultant - Gender Responsive Budgeting

Background:

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.

All human development and human rights issues involve gender dimensions. UN Women globally focuses on key priority areas that are fundamental to women’s equality, and that can unlock progress across the board. UN Women’s priority areas include increasing women’s leadership and participation in political spaces, ending violence against women, enhancing women’s economic empowerment, engaging in all aspects of women peace and security processes, making gender equality central to national planning and budgeting through Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) and advancing gender in intergovernmental processes.

Achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment is an essential element of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – the roadmap to a more equal, just, peaceful, and sustainable world. However, ensuring adequate resources in terms of financing gender equality is fundamental to achieving the SDGs.

UN Women India is championing the cause of Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women towards achievement of the 2030 agenda by using Gender responsive budgeting as a macro-economic strategy to address gender disparities and promoting inclusive development. Gender responsive budgeting is a vital tool to ensure adequate budgetary provisions through gender-responsive planning and budgeting processes. Gender responsive budgeting promotes gender equality by identifying gender specific barriers across all sectors of development.

Gender responsive budgeting was adopted and introduced in India in 2005-2006 as a fiscal innovation strategy by the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to translate gender commitments into budgetary commitments. Ministry of Finance has been publishing “Gender Budget Statements”, mandated by Budget Call Circulars along with the Union Budget every year since then. The Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), Government of India is the nodal Ministry for Gender Budgeting, which has been undertaking various initiatives to strengthen gender responsive budgeting. This includes efforts to build capacities and institutionalize the concepts and application of gender responsive budgeting across the central and State levels. UN Women continues to provide technical support to the nodal Ministry, MWCD since its inception to institutionalize gender responsive budgeting in the country. 

UN Women India is considered a thought leader and highly regarded technical partner on gender-responsive budgeting through its consistent engagement with both government counterparts and civil society for over two decades. UNW efforts to enhance gender responsive budgeting as a tool in public finance management are proven by the continued scale-up and demand for technical expertise by national and state governments. India Country Office continues to work with national ministries/departments and states in India over the years resulting in increased allocations for women and improved mechanisms to track spending. 

UN Women India aims to capture the country office’s gender responsive budgeting journey of last one decade of intervention at the national and sub national levels to understand its impact and lesson learnt to inform the decision making at the policy level. While many Ministries and States are implementing a range of these GB initiatives, the status of institutionalization varies, gender responsive budgeting initiatives at the central and state level are often limited by a Gender budget reporting-centric approach. 

The overarching objective of this assignment is to document the process and impact of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) in India over the last decade (2015–2025).

The specific objectives are to:

• Assess how Gender Responsive Budgeting programs and policies have contributed to enabling government and non-government stakeholders to prioritize, monitor, and evaluate investments in Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) at the national level.
• Examine the impact of GRB as a tool for advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment through outcome-oriented advocacy and policy engagement, making a case at the state level with a specific focus on Madhya Pradesh. 
• Identify key gaps and propose strategic recommendations to accelerate progress toward gender equality at the national and state levels.
• Capture lessons learned and good practices to strengthen the design and implementation of GRB initiatives moving forward.

Within this context, UN Women seeks the services of a Senior Consultant- Gender Budgeting (GB), reporting to the Programme Coordinator-GRB, UN Women India, to collect and compile the data, engage with various stakeholders and deliver a comprehensive report in a stipulated time. The major stakeholders could be Union and State Governments, Women CSO’s, Gender Experts, Academic and Research Institutions working on gender responsive budgeting. 

Scope of work of the consultant 

• Reporting to the Programme Coordinator- Gender Responsive Budgeting Unit, the Consultant will be responsible for leading the following activities.
• Stakeholder mapping of relevant government departments, institutions, research organisations, civil society organisations, and gender experts working in the space of gender responsive budgeting.
• Conduct Key Informant Interviews with key stakeholders and actors in the journey of gender responsive budgeting in the last decade.
• Desk review of policies, programs/initiatives that allocated budgets to addressing GEWE at the national level and in Madhya Pradesh over the last decade.
• Documentation of success stories at the national and state levels (3-4)
• Assess the impact of the GRB program on the implementation of selected schemes/ programmes related to GEWE in Madhya Pradesh

Deliverables:

• An inception report with a detailed work plan for the assignment, along with the list of mapped government departments, institutions, research organizations, and other stakeholders - 15 November 2025
• Finalized Key Informant Interview (KII) tools and list of documents for desk review, approved by UN Women 30 November 2025
• Draft national report capturing the GRB journey, including success stories - 15 January 2025
• Draft state report capturing MP GRB story, including success stories - 15 January 2025
• Final national and state report incorporating UN Women’s suggestions - 30 January 2025
• A detailed presentation showcasing the assessment process and key results with actionable recommendations - 10 February 2026

Competencies :

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.

Functional Competencies:

• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Demonstrates good oral and written communication skills;
• Focuses on impact and result for the partners and responds positively to feedback;
• Sound understanding of development issues and gender;
• Adheres to deadlines and follows up on time-bound issues;
• Maintains diplomacy, tact and strict confidentiality with internal and external partners and clients.

 Education:

• Master’s Degree or equivalent in Economics, Social Sciences//Social Work /Gender Studies/Journalism/Public Administration/Policy or related fields.
• Substantial work experience in policy advocacy/gender-responsive budgeting in particular 

Experience:

• At least 10 years of experience at the national/state level working with the Government, UN agencies on Gender Responsive Budgeting, Gender Responsive Governance, Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.
• Experience working on gender-responsive budgeting with the government will be an added advantage.
• Experience in process documentation, strategic planning and development
• Proficiency in the use of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.).

Language:

• Proficiency in English; good command over Hindi and the state language in reading and writing.

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