The OECD Development Centre is committed to producing policy-relevant tools, evidence and data that can advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. Through its gender programme, the OECD Development Centre is supporting governments and the development community at the global, regional and national levels to track progress and design evidence-based policies to promote sustainable and transformative change for women and girls.

The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) is a cross-country measure of the discriminatory social institutions that drive and underpin gender inequality. Discriminatory social institutions are the formal and informal laws, attitudes and practices that shape and determine equality between women and men in all spheres of public and private life, such as education, health and employment. Its five dimensions assess gender equality in the law and in practice in the following five areas: the family, physical autonomy (including violence against women), son bias, access to land and productive resources, and civil liberties. This life course approach to development aims to capture how discrimination against women and girls adversely impacts their development pathways and ability to benefit from empowerment opportunities.

The Development Centre is now in the process of updating the SIGI for 2018. This includes the preparation of 193 country profiles.  The overall objective of this consultancy will be to contribute to the revision of SIGI by updating the country analysis on discriminatory laws, social norms and practices related to gender inequality, following an established template and questionnaire prepared by the Development Centre. The revised country profiles will be published on the SIGI website (www.genderindex.org).  Each country profile author will be fully acknowledged on the website and any related publication.

We are looking for enthusiastic consultants with a background in gender, law, women’s rights and development who meets the following criteria:

Excellent research and writing skills in English.

  • Ability to absorb and synthesize complex information quickly.
  • Expert knowledge of key sources and literature on women’s rights and gender equality. Specialist knowledge of the African and/or the Asia-Pacific region would be an asset.
  • Proven experience in writing articles, papers or reports on women’s rights and gender equality in developing countries.
  • Ability to work independently and meet deadlines.

Key tasks

The key tasks of the consultant in relation to this assignment will be:

  • Draft country profiles according to the template provided by the Development Centre. Each country profile will be verified by the OECD Development Centre as part of a two-step quality control check. The consultant will be expected to address any comments from the Development Centre. Full acknowledgment of each profile author will be to reflect recent legal reforms, policy changes, political developments and other changes related to social institutions.
  • Compile references and full sources for all requested information points in each country note

Expected deliverables

  • Updated and verified qualitative analysis and references contained within country profiles designated by the OECD Development Centre. The consultant will prepare two drafts of each country profile, responding to one round of comments from the Development Centre. These profiles will be delivered according to a schedule agreed between the consultant and the OECD Development Centre at the beginning of the contract.

Working mode

The consultant will carry out this work in close collaboration with the OECD Development Centre. Regular communication by email and phone, to update and feedback on the progress made on the assignment will be expected from the consultant. Each country profile is expected to take at least 4 full time days.

Payment

The consultant will be paid a lump sum based on the number of country profiles undertaken. To apply, please submit a resume and cover letter to Keiko.Nowacka@oecd.org .