Gender Specialist Consultant 

Heifer Project International Nepal (HPIN) is looking for suitable candidate for Gender Specialist Consultant for “Bridging the Gender Digital Gap in Nepal” Project. The project is funded by USAID’s Center for Digital Development in partnership with DAI. The project aims at bridging smallholder women farmers’ and agriculture entrepreneurs’ digital gap and strengthen their economic empowerment. For this purpose, HPIN will partner with Pathway Technologies to establish 600+ community-based digital hubs called ‘e-Chautari’ across Nepal and will utilize their agriculture and livestock data-driven platform called ‘GeoKrishi’. 

Position Title: Consultant - Gender Specialist

Duty Station: Kathmandu with a frequent field visit

Objectives:

The major objective of this assignment is to help HPIN align the project activities with USAID Gender Principles and Guidelines.

Duties and Responsibilities: 

• Review the USAID, Government of Nepal and Heifer’s Gender policies, guidelines, and other related documents, and recommend procedure in implementation of current project activities aligning with the USAID’s gender guidelines and framework.
• Conduct field study in project sites to document current situation of smallholder women farmers in terms of use of digital platforms and mobile application from gender perspective and critically analyze the gaps and make recommendations for the project. 
• Review of implementation plan and interface of e-Chautari digital hub and Geokrishi mobile application and recommend adaptations to make them gender friendly.
• Conduct mid-term and end of project field visit to evaluate use of e-Chautari digital hub and Geokrishi mobile application by smallholder women farmers and recommend iteration to the hub, the application and project implementation plan for improving the impact of project and its sustainability.
• Provide periodic consultation to project partners to mainstream gender equality/justice and women empowerment issues in all components of the project throughout the project cycle, from planning through evaluation.
• Act as resource person in capacity building, knowledge sharing events and other relevant activities on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the projects.
• Assist in developing indicators to monitor the gender impact of projects.
• Consult with internal and external stakeholders on key gender issues and opportunities to advance women empowerment in access to digital technology use.
• Prepare and submit reports on progress made in mainstreaming gender issues into the project
• Work with the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team to ensure that periodic project reports identify gender gaps and reflect gender-related project success and learning experience.

Duration: Periodic engagement throughout 18 months to achieve the responsibilities mentioned in the TOR.

• Demonstrated capacity to lead the collection, analysis, and utilization of data and information from a wide range of sources to ensure effective integration of GESI aspects in project implementation.
• Demonstrated capacity to conduct effective field visits and interviews with smallholder women farmers in rural parts of Nepal.
• Demonstrated capacity to prepare professional reports and presentation to inform the project implementation team. 
• Professional level fluency in verbal and written English and Nepali.

• Must have a Master’s Degree in gender studies, economics or other relevant social science. PHD preferred. 
• At least 7 years of academic and professional experience in the field of livelihood development, agriculture-based enterprises, and cooperatives focused on women’s economic empowerment.