Background

The Multi-Country Office (MCO) Strategic Note (SN) is the main planning tool for UN Women’s support to normative, coordination and operational work in the South Africa Multi-Country Office (Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa). This evaluation will review the Strategic Note covering the period January 2017 – December 2022. The findings of the evaluation will inform the development of the new Strategic Note. The development will start in July 2022.

The Strategic Note includes: a Development Results Framework (DRF) with performance indicators and an Organizational Effectiveness and Efficiency Framework (OEEF) with performance indicators. The evaluation is expected to use this to assess organizational performance.

South Africa Multi-Country Office’s target impact of: A comprehensive and dynamic set of global norms, policies and standards on gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls is strengthened and implemented, contributes to the UN Women Strategic Plan Target outcome of Global normative frameworks, and gender-responsive laws, policies and institutions.

The work of UN Women is focused on responding to its three core mandates (normative, coordination and operational/programming). UN Women is a member of the UN Country Teams, supporting gender mainstreaming across thematic groups.

 South Africa Multi-Country Office delivers a range of interventions. Key interventions are:

Coordination (OEEF Output 1)

• In South Africa, UN Women chairs of the United Nations Gender Theme Group in South Africa, to develop joint programming and promote adherence to national normative and policy frameworks for gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• In other Southern African Customs Union countries, UN Women supports advocacy efforts and collaborates with sister UN agencies to support wider UN programs to ensure the integration of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, and focused interventions in collaboration with local partners.

Normative (DRF Impact 6)

• Delivers campaigns and events on the 25th Anniversary of the Adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and Generation Equality
• Delivers topical regional knowledge products
• Supports the development of national social security strategies and models and implementation plans and M&E frameworks for CSW resolution 60/2 on HIV/AIDS and gender equality

Women lead, participate in and benefit equally from governance systems (DRF – cross-cutting)

• Works with the SADC Parliamentary Forum to build capacity of Regional Women’s Caucus to advocate for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment including on ending child marriages.
• Supports and provides Technical Assistance to the South Africa Local Government Association (SALGA) to promote women’s leadership
• In Lesotho, works with the UNDP and UNFPA to build the capacity of Parliamentary Women’s Caucus to ensure gender responsive legislation and budgets and contribute to political reforms.
• Trains and supports women alongside men to actively lead and participate in community dialogues in Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa.
• Conducts mediation training for women with the aim of enlisting selected trainees with SADC, UN and AU rosters for mediation and long-term election observation.

Women have income security, decent work and economic autonomy (DRF Impact 2)

• Implements the UN Women Flagship Project Initiative on stimulating equal opportunities for women entrepreneurs, by identifying procurement opportunities and matching women owned enterprises to these opportunities, through a digital enterprise platform Buy from Women. Trains women entrepreneurs and procurement officers and supports corporate leadership around the women’s empowerment principles (WEPs).
• Implements the Accelerating Women Owned Micro-Enterprises (AWOME) program which aims to support women micro-entrepreneurs to build their businesses, create more jobs and generate more income, in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.
• Implements the Climate Smart Agriculture program, to support inclusive agricultural value chains aimed at commercializing 100 women owned agribusinesses.

Women and girls live a life free from violence (DRF Impact 3)

• Supports the SADC Secretariat and member countries to implement the two regional policy frameworks - the SADC Strategy and Program of Action for Gender Based Violence and SADC Regional Strategy on Women, Peace and Security.
• Supports countries to develop their National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security.
• In South Africa, provides technical and financial support for an enhanced integrated UN system, government and national stake-holders multi-sector coordination mechanism for responding to GBV.
• In South Africa, supports the implementation of the National Policy and Strategy Framework for addressing gender violence on campus and testing the Pheza Platform (a digital solution to prevent and respond to gender-based violence on South African Campuses) that is being developed by UN Women in partnership with HEAIDS.

  Objectives of the assignment:

  The Multi-Country Portfolio Evaluation (M-CPE) is a systematic assessment and a means to validate the contributions made by UN Women to development results with respect to gender equality and women’s empowerment across the five countries covered by the MCO strategic note. It focuses on the portfolio of interventions carried out by the Multi-Country Office to fulfil UN Women’s triple mandate and their overall success in advancing gender equality in the five countries. It is also an assessment of the MCO’s organizational effectiveness and efficiency in delivering the planned results. It uses the Strategic Note (including the DRF and OEEF) as the main point of reference and provides a comprehensive evidence-based picture of UN Women’s contributions to development results by moving away from project-level evaluations towards a more strategic country-level evaluation.

  As a high-level strategic evaluation, the M-CPE is primarily intended to be a formative, forward-looking evaluation to support the MCO when developing the new Strategic Note. It is also intended to support national stakeholders’ strategic learning and decision-making for programming, policy and advocacy work. The evaluation is expected to have a secondary summative (backward looking) perspective, to support accountability for development effectiveness. 

  The primary users of this evaluation are intended to be the UN Women  South Africa Multi-Country Office and East and Southern Africa regional offices, who will use the evaluation findings to inform the design of the new Strategic note, and also to UN Women Senior Management Team, UN Women HQ staff and national partners, to demonstrate accountability for the development effectiveness of the existing Strategic Note.

  The M-CPE has seven objectives:

• Assess the relevance of UN Women contribution to the intervention at national levels and alignment with international agreements and conventions on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Assess effectiveness, organizational efficiency and coherence in progressing towards the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment results as defined in the Strategic Note.
• Enable the UN Women MCO to improve its strategic positioning to better support the achievement of sustained gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Analyse how human rights approach and gender equality principles are integrated in the design and implementation of the Strategic Note.
• Identify and validate lessons learned, good practices and examples of innovation that can be scaled up and replicated to support gender equality and human rights.
• Provide insights into the extent to which the UN Women has realized synergies between its three mandates (normative, UN system coordination and operations).
• Provide actionable recommendations with respect to the development of the next Strategic Note.

Scope of Work:

• The evaluation will employ a non-experimental, theory-based approach. The performance of the multi-country portfolio will be assessed using contribution analysis, using the theory of change set out in the Strategic Note 2017 - 2022 as a basis. The evaluation will apply a mixed-method using qualitative and quantitative methods. The method will include a wide range of data sources (including documents, field information, institutional information systems, financial records, beneficiaries, staff, funders, experts, government officials, community groups etc.). Data should be triangulated to ensure valid findings.

  The evaluation will employ the following analyses and methods of data collection:

• Key document analyses undertaken primarily during the inception phase will inform the evaluation approach and help to contextualize findings, conclusions and recommendations:
• Interviews and Focus Group Discussions with key informants identified through the stakeholder analysis (across all stakeholder groups);
• Surveys of UN Women personnel and UNCT partners, including CSOs.

• Team Leader: The Regional Evaluation Specialist (RES) of IEAS will serve as the team leader, responsible for managing the coordination and day-to-day management of the M-CPE, leading the methodological approach, collection of data, analysis and report writing. As team leader, the RES will also be responsible for overseeing the work of the evaluation team members, managing the contracts and assuring quality of the work.  

  National evaluation expert: A national evaluation expert to support the Team leader in designing and conducting the CPE and to provide key contextual information and support data collection in country.   

   A theory based-design assesses the performance of the Strategic Note based upon its stated assumptions about how change happens. These assumptions can be challenged, validated or expanded upon by the evaluation.

Duties and Responsibilities

Duties and Responsibilities

The national expert is expected to provide key contextual information and perspective to support design of a robust utilisation-focused CPE. The national expert is also expected to support the in-country data collection process. 

1. Support the team lead to design the Evaluation methodology including evaluation data collection tools  
2. Support the team lead to facilitate participatory inception workshop and in drafting of the inception report  
3. Under the supervision of the team lead, deliver virtual/in-situ field visits and support on document review for data collection  
4. Coordinate and communicate with evaluation stakeholders, including for exit briefs and evaluation preliminary findings validation meetings etc.  
5. Support on analysis of all the data collected to develop preliminary findings and drafting of final report, including annexes.
6. Contribute towards the draft synthesis evaluation report and final evaluation report including annexes, ensuring all feedback from the ERG and EMG is integrated and tracked for transparency. 

Deliverables

1. Input into inception report
2. Data collection notes, support in data collection logistics and input into debrief sessions
3. Data analysis
4. Inputs into evaluation report and associated evaluation outputs

Work Schedule:

Competencies

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and  Competencies: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf

Functional Competencies

• Evaluation, monitoring and research expertise on gender equality and women’s empowerment
• Familiar with gender analysis and gender issues in the region
• Project management
•  

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

A degree in a field of relevance for the evaluation (i.e. Social Sciences, Gender Equality, Evaluation, international affairs or another related area). (A bachelor’s degree with 2 additional years may be accepted in lieu of a master’s degree).

Experience:

• At least 5 years of relevant work experience in the area of monitoring, evaluation or research on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Experience contributing to gender-responsive evaluation and/or or experience in gender analysis and human-rights based approaches in South Africa as well as across the region
• Process management skills, including facilitation and communication skills with stakeholders 

Desirable experience:

• Knowledge of the role of UN Women or the UN system and its programming, coordination, and normative roles at country level is an asset. 
• Experience contributing to gender-responsive evaluation and/or or experience in gender analysis and human-rights based approaches in Botswana / Eswatini / Lesotho / Namibia

Language Requirements:

Fluent in English, and Zulu, Xhosa and/or Sotho both written and spoken is mandatory.

Familiarity with other relevant languages, including Setswana / Swazi, would be advantageous.

Reservation:

UN Women reserves the right to discontinue the recruitment due to any unforeseen circumstances. The output of this assignment shall belong to UN Women and Partners.

Note:

Please note that applications without a completed and signed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment. UN Women Personal History form (P-11) can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment

Ethical code of conduct
UN Women has developed a UN Women Evaluation Consultants Agreement Form for evaluators that must be signed as part of the contracting process, which is based on the UNEG Ethical Guidelines and Code of Conduct. These documents will be annexed to the contract. The UNEG guidelines note the importance of ethical conduct for the following reasons:
1. Responsible use of power: All those engaged in evaluation processes are responsible for upholding the proper conduct of the evaluation.
2. Ensuring credibility: With a fair, impartial and complete assessment, stake- holders are more likely to have faith in the results of an evaluation and to take note of the recommendations. 
3. Responsible use of resources: Ethical conduct in evaluation increases the chances of acceptance by the parties to the evaluation and therefore the likelihood that the investment in the evaluation will result in improved outcomes. 

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, colour, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need. 

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.  At UN Women, we are commited to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutualrespect. UN Women recruits, employes, trained, compensate, and promotes regardless of race, religioen ,colour, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employement is decided on the basis ofqualification, competence, integrity and organizational needs.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)