Background

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women was created in 2010 by unanimous decision of the UN general Assembly. It was established to accelerate progress on 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.

Among its major responsibilities, UN Women supports Member States as they set global standards for gender equality and women’s empowerment, and works with governments and civil society organizations to design laws, policies, programmes and services needed to implement these standards as a strategy for promoting human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. The main roles of UN Women are:

• To support inter-governmental bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms.
• To help Member States to implement these standards, standing ready to provide suitable technical and financial support to those countries that request it, and to forge effective partnerships with civil society.

To lead and coordinate the UN system’s work on gender equality as well as promote accountability, including through regular monitoring of system-wide progress.

UN Women Malawi Country Office was established in October 2012 and is committed to enhancing the integration of gender equality across all aspects of development and humanitarian processes in Malawi. The Malawi CO is currently supporting interventions under the following main areas:

• Women’s leadership and decision making
• Women’s economic empowerment
• Elimination of violence against women and girls
• National budgeting and planning
• Peace, Security and Humanitarian Action

Since its establishment, UN Women has been working with a variety of stakeholders in the government (lead by the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare), Constitutional bodies, Parliament, Civil Society Organisations, international development partners and the private sector to meet its strategic goals and objectives. To date, the organisation has supported different advocacy initiatives, capacity building activities and other actions to promote and advance women’s rights and gender equality.

Strategic Note (SN) and Country Portfolio Evaluation (CPE)

For UN Women, Country Office (CO) Strategic Note (SN) is the main planning tool for the agency’s support to normative, coordination and operational work. The Malawi CO is in the process of developing its SN. The SN will be aligned to the UN Women Global Strategic Plan 2018-2022, the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy and other national development plans and the country-level UNDAF.

The Malawi CO seeks a Consultant to lead the Country Portfolio Evaluation that will, among other primary purposes, inform the development of the CO SN.

Duties and Responsibilities

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.

UN Women Malawi is seeking to appoint one (1) qualified individual to undertake the Country Evaluation Programme, (CPEs) in Malawi.

The consultant selected for the CPE in the Malawi CO may be asked to undertake further CPEs at a later stage for UNW offices in the ESA region that are ending their Strategic Notes in 2017. Offices with Strategic Notes ending in 2017 include the ESA Regional Office, South Africa MCO, DR Congo and South Sudan.

The international evaluation consultant will work with a national consultant who will be recruited separately, and with 1 evaluation staff from the UN Women Independent Evaluation Office/ Regional Office for Eastern & Southern Africa.

The international consultant will have the following duties and responsibilities:

• Coordinate the work of team members during all phases of the evaluation process;
• Ensuring the quality of outputs and application of methodology as well as timely delivery of all products;
• Lead the conceptualization and design of the evaluation, the coordination and conduct of the country visit and the shaping of the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the final report;
• Develop an inception report outlining the design, methodology and required resources and indicative work plan of the evaluation team;
• Assign and coordinate team tasks within the framework of the TORs;
• Direct and supervise national consultant on research and analysis of secondary evidence, project documents, databases and all relevant documentation;
• Coordinate the conduct of data collection, present preliminary findings and prepare draft and final reports.

Deliverables:

• Conduct desk review
• Drafting and presentation of evaluation inception report, data collection tools and instruments
• Field work including presentation and validation of evaluation findings to stakeholders [number of field work days may be adjusted depending on country context]
• Prepare draft evaluation report
• Finalize evaluation report

Competencies

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 the 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 behaviour 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

• Ability to evaluate development programmes and projects
• Extensive knowledge of, and experience in applying qualitative ?and quantitative evaluation methods including data analysis skills
• Knowledge of international normative standards on women’s rights and gender mainstreaming processes
• Excellent ability to communicate with stakeholders including process management and facilitation skills

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in gender studies, public policy, political science, public administration, economics, regional planning, or other relevant fields.

Experience:

• At least 10 years of experience in conducting evaluations; A minimum of 5 years as evaluation team leader
• Documented previous experience in conducting gender-responsive evaluations
• Extensive knowledge of, and experience in applying qualitative ?and quantitative evaluation methods incl. data analysis skills
• Knowledge of international normative standards on women’s rights and gender mainstreaming processes
• A strong record in designing and leading evaluations
• Technical competence in the thematic areas to be evaluated
• Knowledge of the role of UN Women and its programming, coordination and normative roles at the regional and country level;
• Country or regional experience in Eastern and Southern Africa incl. fragile state experience.

Language:

• Language proficiency in English