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 centre of all its efforts, the UN Women leads and coordinates the 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 plays an innovative and catalytic role in the State of Palestine since its inception in 1997. UN Women Palestine Office focuses its activities on one overarching goal, namely, to support the implementation at the national level of existing international commitments to advance gender equality in line with the national priorities. In support of this goal, and thoroughly taking into consideration the specificities of the Palestinian context, UN Women concentrates its efforts and interventions toward the realization of following strategic goals:  Mainstreaming gender in governance, peace and security; Supporting women's economic security and rights; and Promoting women’s rights and protection against violence.

In relation to ending violence against women, UN Women supports the Palestinian Government and civil society actors in strengthening their capacities to prevent violence and to deliver quality, accessible and coordinated multisectoral services for victims and survivors of violence.   To that end, UN Women UN-Habitat, UNODC and UNFPA jointly are currently implementing HAYA Eliminating Violence Against Women in the West Bank and Gaza. 

“HAYA: Eliminating Violence Against Women in the West Bank and Gaza” Joint Programme:

Generously funded by the Government of Canada, the HAYA Joint Programme aims to ending violence against women and girls with an ultimate outcome of reducing the vulnerability of women and girls in the West Bank and Gaza to all forms of violence and from the threat of such violence.  Implemented by a consortium composed of UN Women, UN-Habitat, UNODC and UNFPA, HAYA contributes to eliminating all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the elimination of violence against women, and significantly reduce all forms of violence against women and girls. 

Across the three pillars of prevention, protection, and policy development (the intermediate outcome areas as outlined below, the HAYA Joint Programme builds its interventions from a holistic approach as follows:

Intermediate Outcome I (Prevention):  The programme addresses attitudinal and behavioral change through focused interventions that are designed from a proven evidence base. The interventions are targeted at different levels (the individual, the relationship between partners, the family, the community, including the physical environment, the society, local government, national government, grassroots civil society).  As such, the HAYA joint Programme has been working intensively in 24 communities addressing and targeting different segments including: school pupils and teachers, parents, men and women, journalists as well as public spheres.  Throughout its work in the 24 communities, HAYA has measured yearly improvement in attitudes and behaviours as these targeted communities expressed an increase in their level of support to eliminating harmful practices and attitudes that perpetuate and validate violence against women and girls. 

Intermediate Outcome II: (Protection): HAYA addresses access to multi-sectoral quality GBV services through a comprehensive and holistic approach.  The Programme has been intensively supporting and building the capacities national and civil society service providers to be more effective and accountable.  Additionally. The Programme support women survivors and victims of violence to demand quality services.  As a leading programme in the chain of essential GBV services, HAYA has been working with survivors and victims of violence, partner national governmental and non-governmental organizations as well as service providers to increase women access to quality gender- responsive services.  Throughout the intensive interventions, HAYA measures more women victims and survivors of violence in the participating communities are seeking help through the partner CSOs and reporting victimization to authorities. 

Intermediate Outcome III (Policy/ Legal Framework):  The programme draws on the process of harmonizing legislation and regulations with international standards related to preventing and combating violence against women.   HAYA works with national institutions on building their capacities to develop and implement legal and policy frameworks that promote and protect women’s and girls’ rights with regards to violence against women.  The HAYA Joint Programme continues working on promoting the development and modification of policies and plans that protect the rights of women and eliminate violence against women and girls.  This includes evidence-based advocacy, sensitization of government officials and staff, and policy dialogue. 

As the Joint Programme is approaching the end of its current cycle, the programme partners are interested to conduct a review of the programme implementation to inform the final programme evaluation, provide guiding recommendations for the subsequent implementation duration of the programme, and to document lessons learnt and best practices and approaches.

To execute the review, HAYA Joint Programme is seeing to engage a national consultant to carry out a review to the implementation of HAYA Joint Programme (2018- 2021).  This review will serve as the key input document for the full-fledged evaluation of the programme that will be conducted upon the completion of the programme. 

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall guidance of UN Women Special Representative, and the direct supervision of the HAYA Joint Programme Manager, the consultant, will utilize her/his expertise to conduct the review, in coordination with HAYA Joint Programme Partners. The review will:

1. Take stock of progress, challenges and opportunities
2. Verify the continued relevance of the programme and the sustainability of its results
3. Make recommendations on how to improve programme performance, identify areas for upscaling

Key tasks:

• Develop a comprehensive workplan (key actions, steps, timeline, deliverables, etc.) with a detailed methodology including consultations plan and tools that will be used.
• Conduct a review of programme documents and relevant documentation such as context updates/ national strategy updates, new policies, services, etc.
• Carry out key informant interviews with the Programme stakeholders and others
• Facilitate at least two roundtable discussions with the stakeholders on the Programme’s priorities and key achievements up to date.
• Document the results of the consultations and Programme documentation review including monitoring and donor reports, partners reports, among all other relevant documents. 
• Review and validate the Programme’s Result Framework and provide an assessment of the progress made against the indicators and targets in the programme’s results framework, including alignment with national priorities.
• Provide broader analysis and input into the Programme’s positioning and priorities on the agenda for eliminating violence against women.
• Document lessons learned, best practices and, strategies for replication and provide actionable recommendations for the design and implementation of future interventions including with a view toward ensuring sustainability.
• Identify and validate innovative approaches in all aspects of the programme.
• Provide a final report of the review including key actionable recommendations to inform the implementation of the next programme implementation.  The final report shall be structured as follows:

1. Executive Summary
2. Introduction including Programme’s objectives and summary of outcomes
3. Review the Programme Logical Framework and PMF
4. Methodology used
5. Consultations and review results
6. Lessons Learned: effective VAWG interventions
7. Practical examples of innovative approaches
8. Recommendations and Way Foreword (including overcoming common challenges to VAWG programmes)
9. Annexes: Key resources

Deliverables:

The consultant is expected to provide the key deliverables as follows:

Competencies

Required Skills and Experience

Evaluation Criteria: