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Consultant to conduct a regional study on innovative financing for care systems in Eastern and Southern Africa

United Nations Development Programme
22 hours ago
Full-time
Remote
Web Development
Description

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.

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.  UN Women Eastern and Southern Africa region encompasses 25 countries[1], which will define the scope of this study. 

The region faces a profound and persistent care deficit. Transforming care systems is critical for economic growth, gender equality, and social well-being as women in sub-Saharan Africa spend on average 3.4 times more time on unpaid care and domestic work than men. This unequal distribution of care responsibilities limits women’s access to education, decent employment, and participation in public life.[2] If unpaid care work were assigned a monetary value, it would constitute 7.2% of GDP in Ethiopia, 7.9% in Tanzania, and 8.8% in South Africa.[3] As such, unpaid care work remains a major structural driver of gender inequality, constraining women’s time, choices, and economic opportunities across the region.

Investing in care presents a transformative opportunity to redistribute unpaid care responsibility, improve working conditions, and create millions of formal jobs making economies more inclusive, productive, and resilient. For example, in in Tanzania it could generate over 7 million formal jobs.[4] Care investments also include time saving and labour reducing infrastructure and technologies that directly reduce women’s unpaid care burden. This includes clean and affordable cooking solutions, energy saving household technologies, climate smart agricultural and water technologies alongside improved access to energy, water and transport. Such investments can also strengthen social protection systems and improve resilience, particularly in rural and underserved areas where care responsibilities are intensified by limited access to water, energy, transport, and basic services as well as exposure to climate related shocks. Integrating investment in care with climate considerations like clean energy and climate technologies is important for the dual dividend for gender equality and climate resilience.

While many countries in the region have made commitments to gender equality and social protection, investments in care remain chronically underfunded. Financing care systems in Africa requires a coherent public-led model that combines domestic public finance, gender responsive budgeting, social protection, and leveraging innovative and blended financing through a well-regulated public-private partnerships (PPPs). All these models should be anchored by the 5R+ framework (Recognize, Reduce, Redistribute, Reward, Represent + Resource) in order to treat care as essential economic and social infrastructure. While, gender responsive budgeting has gained positive traction, it is often insufficient to close financing gaps, particularly in contexts of constrained fiscal space and rising development demands. In this regard, expanding the investments in care  requires innovative financing instruments to complement traditional public expenditure. 

Gender bonds, social bonds, and sustainability linked bonds are examples of instruments that earmark proceeds for projects with explicit gender equality or social objectives, and can be issued by sovereigns, sub sovereign entities, development finance institutions and/or private sector. When aligned with robust gender responsive budgeting frameworks and care policies, such instruments offer an opportunity to mobilize both public and private capital to finance care systems. This includes investments in care services, care workforce development, and enabling infrastructure and technologies that reduce time spent on unpaid care work, such as water infrastructure, clean cooking solutions and climate resilient technologies. The emergence of gender bonds in Sub-Saharan Africa reflects a growing shift toward gender-lens investing, where capital markets are used to finance women’s economic empowerment, inclusive growth, and social infrastructure.

Against this backdrop, UN Women is commissioning a regional consultancy to examine the feasibility, design options, and policy implications of using blended financing instruments and gender bonds to finance care systems in Eastern and Southern Africa. While the study will take a regional perspective, it will draw on illustrative country examples to explore how public and private actors can structure, issue, and govern bonds and other instruments in ways that support care investments and generate lessons applicable across the wider region. Expanding on what has already been documented by UN Women[5],[6], the study will generate robust analytical evidence, while also including a practical applied component to inform blended finance implementation and gender bond issuances as part of broader strategies to finance care systems.

Objective of the assignment 

The overall objective of this consultancy is to lead and deliver a comprehensive regional study on how gender bonds and other blended finance models are being used to support the financing of care systems in Eastern and Southern Africa. Specifically, the assignment aims to document how gender bonds and blended finance instruments can be designed, structured, and governed to mobilize resources for care related investments, including care infrastructure, services, and workforce development, and time saving and labour reducing technologies that alleviate women’s unpaid care burden. The study will examine how such instruments have complemented existing public financing strategies. While the study will take a regional perspective, it will draw on selected illustrative country examples from within and outside the region, including countries where gender bonds and gender focused blended finance instruments have successfully been launched, to deepen the analysis and demonstrate how innovative financing for care could be operationalized in practice. 

Scope of Work

Under the guidance and direct supervisions of the Women’s Economic Empowerment Policy Specialist at UN Women East and Southern Regional Office (ESARO), the consultant will be responsible for the following

  1. Inception Report
    1. Conduct a desk review of relevant global and regional literature on financing care systems, , blended finance instruments and thematic bond instruments, with a focus on gender, social and sustainability-linked bonds. 
    2. Develop an inception report outlining the analytical framework, methodology, work plan, and proposed structure of the study, including the selection of illustrative country examples covering a variety of instruments with a gender focus.
  2. Data Collection and Analysis
    1. Map by country the existing and emerging use of blended financing instruments including gender, social, or sustainability-linked bonds, using examples from the region and beyond, with particular attention to their relevance for financing care systems.
    2. Map the availability of regulatory frameworks for blended finance and bond issuances in the 25 countries in the region.
    3. For each country, analyze the potential roles of public and private sector actors in mobilising capital for care systems through various instruments.
  3. Synthesis and Report Writing
    1. Prepare a comprehensive regional analytical report that combines region wide analysis with illustrative country examples, and includes an applied section outlining indicative pathways and key design considerations for financing care systems through gender bonds and other blended financing instruments.
  4. Validation and Dissemination support
    1. Prepare and deliver a presentation of key findings for a validation workshop or internal consultation convened by UN Women.
    2. Revise and finalise the report based on feedback received and support UN Women in the dissemination of findings, including through the preparation of presentation materials or summary inputs as required.

Deliverables

Deliverable Description  Timeline Payment Schedule 
  1. Inception report
 Inception report outlining analytical framework, methodology, work plan, and proposed structure of the study. Within 3 weeks of contract start date 30%
  1. Data collection and analysis report
 Summary of data, approaches and initial findings Within 6 weeks of contract start date
  1. 1st Draft report – for Internal UN Women review 
 Draft regional report including analysis, policy review, results and recommendations  Within 16 weeks of contract start date 40%
  1. 2nd Draft report to be presented at the Validation Workshop 
 Presentation of key findings and proposed pathways for a validation workshop Within 18 weeks of contract start date
  1. Final Report 
 Final revised and proofread regional report incorporating feedback from the validation process and ready for dissemination. Within 20 weeks of contract start date 30%

 

[1] Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

[2] Addati, Laura, Umberto Cattaneo, Valeria Esquivel, and Isabel Valarino (2018). Care Work and Care Jobs for the Future of Decent Work. Geneva: International Labour Organisation.

[3] UN Women. (2021). Investing in free universal childcare in sub-Saharan Africa: A case for bold action to achieve sustainable development.

[5] UN Women (2023), Case study series: Innovative financing for gender equality via bonds, https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2023/05/case-study-series-innovative-financing-for-gender-equality-via-bonds

[6] UN Women (2025), Scaling up innovative finance for gender equality and women’s empowerment, https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2025/10/scaling-up-innovative-finance-for-gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment

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.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Values and Competencies Framework: 

Functional Competencies:

  • Technical credibility in drafting reports and guidelines 
  • Excellent research, analysis, and report and study writing skills
  • Ability to gather and interpret data, draw logical conclusions and present results and recommendations
  • Excellent analytical skills with strong drive for results and capacity to work independently. 
  • Excellent English communication and writing skills

Required Qualifications

Education and Certification:

  • Master’s degree in economics, finance, gender studies, public policy, or a related field. A PhD is an asset.
  • A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

  • Minimum of 5 years of progressively responsible experience in research and policy analysis on sustainable finance and/or the care economy 
  • Proven experience in working with governments, international organizations and/or civil society, private sector on developing strategies for  innovative financing 
  • Demonstrated experience in producing high-quality quantitative research reports, policy briefs, or academic publications.
  • Experience working in East and Southern Africa or in similar socio-economic contexts.

Languages:

  • Fluency in English is required.
  • Knowledge of another official UN language is desirable (French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish).

Statements :

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.

Diversity and inclusion:

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.)

 

Note: Applicants must ensure that all sections of the application form, including the sections on education and employment history, are completed. If all sections are not completed the application may be disqualified from the recruitment and selection process.