UN WOMEN Jobs - 70897- Project Evaluation Consultant (Integrating Gender

Project Evaluation Consultant (Integrating Gender in Peace Support Operations)

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Nairobi, KENYA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

08-Mar-17 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

15 working days

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

UN Women is implementing a project “Integrating Gender in Peace Support Operations”. This project presents a systematic shift in the decision-making structures and the prioritization of the needs of women in Peace Support Operations Kenya and the East Africa Region. The project seeks to strengthen the role of women in peace support operations through supporting the development of gender responsive frameworks and accountability mechanisms to protect women’s rights in conflict and post conflict, capacity development, providing technical assistance, knowledge development, and evidence based advocacy and fostering strategic partnerships.

This project is implemented in partnership with IPSTC and includes capacity-building and training support to enhance the technical skills of women to better influence and participate in community, national and regional peace processes as negotiators and mediators, while also supporting women’s participation and leadership in security sector institutions in East Africa region. The project supports to enhanced leadership and skills of AU and AMISOM peace-keepers to respond and support victims of sexual violence in conflict-affected situations. At the policy level, UN Women and IPSTC provide support to address research gaps in the field of gender/women, peace and security, and support increased contribution of women to policy-based research activities to advance peace and security in Kenya and the region.

The overall objective of the project is that “Peace Support Operations (PSOs) in East Africa advance gender equality and promote participation of women”.

The project will target PSO institutions and create a collaborative network of active agents of change in the security sector and a cadre of women peace-builders through a three-pronged approach of influencing policy environment, strengthening institutional structures, and building capacities of the security sector and women peace-builders and evidence generation on the importance of gender integration in peace and security.

Outcome: IPSTC institutional capacity to integrate gender and promote women participation in peace support operations is strengthened.

Output 1- Applied research on gender/women, peace and security to generate evidence for policy and programme formulation conducted;
Output 2: Increase women’s capacity to participate in peace-building, negotiations and preventive diplomacy efforts at the community, national and regional level;
Output 3- IPSTC institutional capacity to comprehensively implement IPSTC gender policy and gender responsive programmes strengthened;
Output 4: Project coordination is efficient.

This project, with a total budget of USD 750,000 for 1 year was implemented directly by UN Women in partnership with International Peace Support Training Centre (IPSTC) as the Implementing Partner. The International Peace Support Training Center (IPSTC) is an International Center of Excellence (CoE) in the Eastern Africa region mandated to carry out capacity building in international peace support operations (PSO) to military, police, other uniformed and civilian personnel from the Member States of the Eastern Africa Standby Force (EASF) within the framework of African Union Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). IPSTC conducts research, training and education of military, police and civilian focusing on capacity building at the strategic, operational and tactical levels in PSO in order to help improve the effectiveness of the international response to complex emergencies.

Purpose and Use of the Evaluation:

The purpose of the evaluation is to determine the extent to which the “Integrating Gender in Peace Support Operations” project achieved its stated outcomes, document lessons learned and best practices with the view to scaling up activities. The overall goal of the project is that “Peace Support Operations (PSOs) in East Africa advance gender equality and promote participation of women”. The evaluation is a mandatory evaluation requested by the donor and included in the project design.

The findings of the evaluation will be used inform project learning and decision-making on future engagements in the field of advancing gender in Peace Support Operations (PSOs) in East Africa.

In line with UN Women Evaluation Policy, the final evaluation report together with the UN Women management response will be disclosed publicly on the UNW ‘Global Accountability and Tracking of Evaluation Use (GATE) System’ at http://gate.unwomen.org/.

Duties and Responsibilities

With this background and context in mind, the Project Evaluation has the following objectives:

Assess the relevance of UN Women contribution to Integrating Gender in Peace Support Operations in Kenya;
Assess effectiveness and organizational efficiency in progressing towards the achievement of Integrating Gender in Peace Support Operations in Kenya;
Assess the sustainability of the intervention in achieving sustained engagement of women in Pease Support Operations;
Analyze how human rights approach and gender equality principles are integrated in the implementation of the project;
Identify and validate lessons learned, good practices and examples and innovations of efforts that support Integration of Gender in Peace Support Operations in Kenya;
Provide actionable recommendations with respect to the UN Women intervention.

The key evaluation questions include:

Relevance:

To what extent is the intervention relevant to the needs and priorities as defined by beneficiaries;
How relevant and appropriate is the Theory of Change underlying the project to achieving the objectives;
To what extent is the UN Women’s strengthening rights-holders’ participation and duty-bearer’s accountability; ensuring that the most vulnerable populations know, demand and enjoy their human rights and reinforcing capacities of duty bearers to respect, protect and guarantee these rights.

Effectiveness:

To what extent were the expected outcomes achieved and how did UN Women contribute towards these;
To what extent have effective partnerships and strategic alliances been promoted.

Efficiency:

Have adequate financial resources been allocated into the realization of the project results:
Are the implementation mechanisms effective in managing the Programme;
How efficiently resources/inputs (funds, expertise, time, etc.) have been converted to strategic results.

Sustainability:

To what extent was capacity developed in order to ensure sustainability of efforts and benefits;
How will the benefits of the intervention be secured for rights holders (i.e. what accountability and oversights systems were established).

Gender Equality and Human Rights:

To what extent has gender and human rights considerations been integrated into the project design and implementation;
How has attention to integration of gender equality and human rights concerns advanced the integration of gender in peace support operations in Kenya.

Evaluation Design (Methods and process):

The evaluation will be an external, participatory, and iterative learning exercise, which should be completed within a timeframe of 15 working days. The Evaluation will be conducted under the guidance of the UN Women Kenya Deputy Country Director.

Internal arrangements - The Senior Management Team will constitute the Reference Committee for the Evaluation, signing off and providing direction at key milestones. The role of Senior Management will also include final approval authority on evaluation deliverables, and the Evaluation Reference Group (ERG).

The role of the ERG is to serve as consultative body and sounding board for the evaluation, allow stakeholders to express their information needs and enhance learning and ownership of evaluation findings. The ERG provides feedback on specific evaluation questions, on evaluation inception and draft report and helps with providing background information to the evaluation team as relevant. The ERG includes both UN Women staff and partners.

Methods to assess the project outcomes and impact will include open and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, a comprehensive review of documents, a synthesis and analysis of data from regular programme monitoring as well as field visits. Interviews with beneficiaries and local partners using participatory review and evaluation methodologies will be strongly encouraged.

The evaluation will be carried following UN Evaluation Group (UNEG) Norms and Standards (http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/accountability/evaluation/ ), UN Women Evaluation Policy as well as the Ethical Guidelines for evaluations in the UN system, see Annex to this TOR. Once finalized the evaluation report will be quality-assessed based on the UN Women Global Evaluation Reports Assessment and Analysis System (GERAAS). GERAAS standards and GERAAS rating matrix are available at http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/evaluation/decentralized-evaluations.

Deliverables:

The findings and recommendations of the evaluation will be thoroughly discussed with the UN Women and Partners.

The key deliverables of the evaluation are:

Inception report outlining the design- criteria, scope, methodology, data collection method and tools and time frame including a Draft Report Template: Submission of a draft report format containing Table of Contents for the final report for approval by UN Women;
The Draft and Final Reports: The report should address the contents specified in section IV and use a format that will be provided during inception phase. It should be logically structured, contain evidence-based findings, conclusions, lessons and recommendations, and should be free of information that is not relevant to the overall analysis. The report should respond in detail to the key focus areas described above. It should include a set of specific recommendations formulated for the project, and identify the necessary actions required to be undertaken, who should undertake those and possible time-lines (if any). Stakeholders will provide comments on the Draft Report, and the consultants will finalize the report in view of these comments;
Presentation: For presenting and discussing the draft final report interactively, the consultants will facilitate a one-day concluding workshop for the project stakeholders.

The Inception report should include an evaluation matrix with evaluation questions and -criteria, indicators, data sources and methods of data collection.

The Draft/ Final report should follow the following structure:

Title page, Table of Contents and Acronyms;
Executive Summary;
Background and purpose of the evaluation;
Programme description and context;
Evaluation methodology and limitations;
Findings;
Analysis and Conclusions;
Recommendations;
Lessons learned (if applicable);
Annexes: Terms of Reference, List of documents reviewed, list of agencies and partners interviewed (without direct reference to individuals), evaluation matrix and data collection instruments, any other relevant documents.

Competencies

Core Values/Guiding Principles:

Integrity:

Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

Professionalism:

Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity:

Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff;
Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies:

Ethics and Values:

Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.

Organizational Awareness:

Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Development and Innovation:

Take charge of self-development and take initiative.

Work in teams:

Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

Communicating and Information Sharing:

Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication.

Self-management and Emotional Intelligence:

Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others.

Conflict Management:

Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing:

Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making:

Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making.

Functional Competencies:

Excellent analytical and communication skills;
Demonstrated ability to produce high quality evaluation reports;
Understanding of the Kenyan context with specific regards to the gender priorities and role of UN Women;
Knowledge of issues concerning women’s human rights and gender equality including specifically in the area of gender based violence, ii) familiarity with the relevant context in Kenya will be an added advantage.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

At least a master’s degree in development studies, economics, political science, public policy /and or relevant field of social sciences.

Experience:

At least seven years of planning, reviews and/or evaluation experience, five years of which in planning/reviews in development programs related to human rights, gender and results-based evaluations;
Knowledge and experience with the national development frameworks, especially National Development Goals (MDGs), PRSP, SWAP, key legislation, etc.;
Extensive experience with UN programming, especially the UNDAF and delivering as one.

Language:

Fluent in English;
Knowledge of local language an asset.

Ethical code of conduct:

The evaluation of the project is to be carried out according to the following ethical principles and standards established by the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG), available at http://www.unevaluation.org/document/detail/102.

The consultant will sign the UN Women Evaluation Consultants Agreement Form available at https://unw-gate.azurewebsites.net/resources/docs/SiteDocuments/UNWomen%20-%20CodeofConductforEvaluationForm-Consultants.pdf.

Please follow the links below for further details to the UN Women Evaluation Consultants Agreement Form, UNEG Ethical Guidelines and Code of Conduct for Evaluation in the UN system.