Description of the Assignment: Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in ensuring a more equitable society, but there is work that remains to be done. While all stakeholders have been pushing for women’s equal footing with men in all spheres of life, and the digital space still largely remains an arena where women are underrepresented and are far from being a safe space for women. Cyberspaces are becoming increasingly unsafe, and women and girls are facing online harassment, bullying and blackmailing mostly for women and young people from all contexts in Bangladesh. Online abuse and harassment have been driving women to quit social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, with nearly 60 per cent experiencing harassment, a global study has shown. Considering the context in Bangladesh, UNDP Bangladesh in coordination with Bangladesh Police is going to implement a project on combating cyber violence against women and girls to address the challenges and opportunities in creating adequate awareness of building cyber smart women and young people. Bangladesh Police introduced dedicated support to address cyber violence against women by Establishing "Police Cyber Support for Women" (PCSW) under the Lawful Interception Centre (LIC) at the Police Headquarters in November 2020. This dedicated unit of Bangladesh police has been reluctantly addressing complaints about Cyber violence is being faced by women and girls. This unit is relatively new, but after establishing the Cell Bangladesh Police have been receiving an average of 200 complaints per day and a total of 19,290 complaints were registered, of which 12,435 complaints were solved and 705 complaints are under investigation since the inception of the centre. However, PCSW is currently running with its in-house capacity and home-grown skills while addressing complaints from social media, email, and hotline numbers and also while delivering psycho-social Counselling and advising on the legal process to access justice and legal aid services. Observing the increasing number of complaints and the complexity of cyber violence that is being created in the context of Bangladesh, UNDP and PCSW unit of Bangladesh Police has agreed to build advanced institutional and professional services towards combating cyber violence against women and girls. Within the scope of the project, it is crucial to understand the opportunities towards developing the PCSW’s institutional capacity and police officials’ professional skills through capacity and training needs assessment.
Period of assignment/service (if applicable): The contract will be for 4 months (45 working days) from 1st May 2023 to 30 September 2023. (Tentative).
UNDP Bangladesh is seeking proposals from individual consultants for the provision of hiring IC Consultants as described in the above-mentioned subject. Please note that this procurement process is being conducted through the new online tendering system of UNDP. Applicants who wish to submit a proposal must be registered in the system. Kindly register by visiting the link below and following the instructions provided in the user guide in the document attached: http://supplier.quantum.partneragencies.org/ using the profile you may have in the Quantum portal. If you have never registered before, follow the Supplier Portal Registration Link to register a profile in the system. The Supplier User Guide has been uploaded to the following link: Do not create a new profile if you already have one. Use the forgot password feature in case you do not remember the password or the username from the previous registration. The supplier webinar is now available at the following link: https://www.undp.
Please note that all required documents can be found on the UNDP Quantum Platform under negotiation reference: UNDP-BGD-00108
Interested experts with questions/challenges regarding the registration in Quantum should send them in writing to: ebidbox.bd@undp.org and copy the reference UNDP-BGD-00108 in the subject line. Please note: Proposals will not be received through email. Once any applicant is registered in the system, any request for clarification must be sent in writing via messaging functionality in the portal. UNDP will respond in writing, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of the inquiry.
Regards,
UNDP Procurement
Bangladesh Country Office
