UN Women : National Business Statistics Analyst, Home-Based, National Consultant

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.

Placing women's rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. UN Women is mandated to lead, coordinate, and promote accountability for the implementation of gender equality commitments across the UN System.

One of the key areas of concern is the economic empowerment of women. It is expressed in targets and indicators of SDG 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls) and SDG 8 (Promote inclusive and sustainable development, decent work and employment for all). Progress toward it depends not only on the adoption of a set of public policies by governments, but also on the existence of an enabling environment and active engagement of the corporate sector. This is also relevant to the achievement of SDG 1 (Poverty Reduction), SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities) and SDG 17 (Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development).

The economic empowerment of women (WEE) – to succeed and advance economically and to make and act on economic decisions – is a prerequisite for realizing gender equality and empowering women in all areas of life. It is also a cornerstone for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda. UN Women’s global Economic Empowerment Strategy focuses on the key strategic priorities, namely:

1. Advancing Gender-Responsive Business Conduct and Creating More Decent Work Opportunities (WEPs)
2. Accelerating Gender-Responsive Entrepreneurship for (M)SMEs (i.e. Gender-Responsive Procurement & strengthening women’s entrepreneurship)
3. Progressing Safe Migration to Decent Employment
4. Transforming Care Systems

WE RISE Together (WRT) – Advancing gender-responsive procurement in the Mekong sub-region is a four-year Mekong-Australia Partnership (MAP) project developed by UN Women. It sits under MAP’s Economic Resilience Fund (MAP-ERF) and addresses its four drivers of resilience (including macroeconomic, household, business, and government resilience). The project responds to the prioritisation of women’s economic empowerment by expanding market access for Women-owned Businesses1 (WOBs) and Gender Responsive Enterprises1 (GREs) through procurement opportunities.

WRT tackles the structural gender inequities that exist within the global procurement market in which WOBs secure only one per cent of spending worldwide.2 By introducing and advancing increased market access through gender-responsive procurement1 (GRP), WRT operates with the overall objective to empower more women to equally access, lead, and benefit from expanded market opportunities in the Mekong subregion.

The project works across the Mekong subregion, namely in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam, leveraging the capacity, network and insights build during its phase 1 implementation. The project will work towards three interlinked outcomes:

Outcome 1: Increased awareness and commitment towards GRP at the ecosystem level & and more gender-responsive institutions through the collection of sex-disaggregated data & improved national data infrastructure

Outcome 2: Strengthened national policies and public procurement systems that are aligned with Mekong and ASEAN frameworks

Outcome 3: Increased market connections and opportunities for WOBs and GREs

A core objective of WE RISE Together (WRT), and UN Women’s broader Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) portfolio, is to strengthen enabling environments that expand women’s economic participation, including women with disabilities and other marginalized or underrepresented groups. Across the Mekong subregion, business registration/licensing systems are often a key administrative source for identifying formal enterprises and linking them to markets, government services, and procurement systems. However, these administrative registers typically do not collect sex-, disability-, or other intersectionally disaggregated characteristics at the enterprise or owner level, and data are frequently fragmented across multiple administrative agencies. As a result, statistical systems face limitations in reliably identifying women-owned and other inclusive enterprises, producing supplier-diversity indicators, and supporting the monitoring and evaluation of gender-responsive procurement (GRP) policies.

The National Business Statistics Analyst will be reporting to the Thailand Programme Coordinator, with a matrix coordination line to Gender Statistics Specialist in the Women’s Economic Empowerment Section at the UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. In close coordination with UN Women and national stakeholders, the National Business Statistics Analyst will assist with conducting a diagnostic assessment of data ecosystems, including data governance, for the production of business statistics in official statistics in Thailand. The diagnostic assessment will also include the identification of challenges and opportunities for integrating gender, disability and intersectionality in business statistics and gender-mainstreaming in the production of business statistics in contexts at different level of statistical maturity.

The work will support the development of an evidence-informed assessment of:

• Institutional and governance arrangements for the production of business statistics and related administrative data management.
• Administrative workflows and current processes for business registration, including complexity, duplication of steps/documentation, and resulting burdens on MSMEs;
• Interoperability and data exchange between business registration and adjacent systems (e.g., tax, licensing, statistics, SME support platforms, and procurement systems);
• Identification of current data sources for business statistics and the feasibility for sex-disaggregation, disability-disaggregation, and intersectionality analysis;
• Practical reform pathways aligned with global guidance and national priorities (e.g., GRP, SME development, digital government).

The mapping is intended as a diagnostic (not a full IT system redesign), producing actionable recommendations and country-level options to inform subsequent capacity development and guidance development under the WRT programme.

Further to that, UN Women in Thailand is planning to hold three workshops, and the assignment may require support and contributions to these workshops, including technical and statistical inputs, preparation and follow-up, where relevant to the Thailand workplan.

Description of Responsibilities/ Scope of Work

A. Review and system mapping:

• Assist with a desk review of relevant national documentation, including legal and regulatory frameworks for the production and use of business statistics, institutional mandates, public guidance on registration procedures, any existing registry modernization initiatives, and any other sources for producing business statistics in Thailand. The desk review should include a mapping of the current business registration workflow, including (as applicable) steps for registration, licensing, tax registration, renewal/updates, deregistration, and data-sharing arrangements.
• Assess whether and how registration systems capture sex-disaggregated and disability-related data.
• Assess interoperability and coordination across systems (registry–tax–licensing–statistics–procurement), including presence and use of UBIs or other unique identifiers; data exchange protocols and governance; and feasibility of linking registry data to procurement/supplier databases for GRP monitoring
• Contribute to stakeholder interviews (remote and/or in-country as agreed) with key national stakeholders, which may include: business registration authority, ministries of commerce/finance/planning/digital development, tax authority, national statistics office, procurement agency/platform administrators, SME promotion agencies, women’s machineries, business associations, WOB networks, civil society organizations, and organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs).
• Provide input to an assessment of the feasibility of the data ecosystem for using available data to set up gender-responsive digital business platforms.
• Provide interpretation to facilitate meetings and aid understanding of official documentation where necessary.

B. Validation of the assessment:

• Contribute to the production of a structured overview of the business registry data model, including core variables captured, metadata/definitions (where available), update frequency, and data governance considerations.
• Support the organization of, and facilitate, validation workshops of key findings through targeted check-ins with national focal points and UN Women country team; document points of agreement and contested issues.

C. Reporting, recommendations, and knowledge sharing:

• Identify gaps and practical options to strengthen data governance, interoperability, and administrative coordination, including quick wins and medium-term reforms.
• Contribute to the drafting of an action plan which will include diagnostic, prioritized recommendations, feasibility considerations, and proposed entry points linked to GRP, SME development, and digital government agendas.

Deliverables

The National Business Statistics Analyst is expected to deliver the outputs below to UN Women, in formats agreed at inception (Word + PPT; annexes in Excel/diagram formats as relevant). All deliverables should integrate GEDSI considerations throughout.

1. Country Mapping & Review
   • Contribute, as required, to desk research and stakeholder meetings to deliver overall mapping and review to include:
     • Governance, institutional and legal mapping
     • System map - workflow and administrative burden analysis
     • Assessment of the availability and quality of data sources following international recommendations, including the UN Guidelines on Statistical Business Registers, the UN National Quality Assurance Framework as well as more specific guidance on the quality assessment of administrative data sources.
     • GEDSI and accessibility assessment (sex/disability/intersectional visibility and barriers)
     • Interoperability assessment (registry–tax–licensing–statistics–procurement linkages)
     • Feasibility assessment of data uses for digital business platforms
     • Prioritized recommendations at country level (short-/medium-term) and feasibility notes
     • Identification of potential data uses for evidence-informed decision making

2. Draft Action Plan

• Provide input to draft action plan for Thailand, summarizing findings of mapping and review and recommendations producing and using business statistics to advance women’s economic empowerment.
• Support the organization and facilitation of validation workshops for the draft Country Action Plan, including coordination and engagement with key national stakeholders through consultations and meetings.

3. Final Action Plan

• Contribute to the development of technical sessions on business statistics and gender during a technical workshop, scheduled in Lao PDR, and, where relevant, for the three planned workshops in Thailand.
• Collaborate with UN Women and national stakeholders, to finalize action plan for Thailand.

Deliverable Expected completion time (due day)

• Contribution to desk research and stakeholder meetings to deliver overall mapping and review to include:
  • Governance, institutional and legal mapping
    • System map - workflow and administrative burden analysis
    • Assessment of the availability and quality of data sources following international recommendations, including the UN Guidelines on Statistical Business Registers, the UN National Quality Assurance Framework as well as more specific guidance on the quality assessment of administrative data sources.
    • GEDSI and accessibility assessment (sex/disability/intersectional visibility and barriers)
    • Interoperability assessment (registry–tax–licensing–statistics–procurement linkages)
    • Feasibility assessment of data uses for digital business platforms
    • Prioritized recommendations at country level (short-/medium-term) and feasibility notes
    • Identification of potential data uses for evidence-informed decision making