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.

To support member states in implementing the 2030 Agenda, UN Women’s Flagship Programme Initiative “Making Every Woman and Girl Count” (MEWGC) aims to affect a radical shift in the availability, accessibility and use of data and statistics on key aspects of gender equality and women’s empowerment through three interlinked areas of work:

• Building a supportive policy and institutional environment for the localization and effective monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
• Increasing the quality, comparability and regularity of gender statistics to address national data gaps and meet reporting commitments under the SDGs; and
• Ensuring that gender statistics are accessible to users in governments, civil society, academia and the private sector, to strengthen adequate demand for their production.

The Programme duration is from August 2016 to February 2021 and is implemented at three levels through country and regional projects and a global project. While the MEWGC team at HQ oversees overall implementation of the Programme and links global normative and technical work to the regional and national levels, Regional Offices support pathfinder countries to implement their projects and provide technical and financial support to selected non-pathfinder countries in their regions. In addition, Regional Offices work closely with regional partners to improve regional coordination and collaboration on gender statistics.

As part of the Monitoring Learning and Evaluation (MLE) plan of the Programme, UN Women is planning to conduct an Annual Review Meeting (ARM) in spring 2019 and a Mid-Term Review (MTR) in fall 2019. The Interim Evaluation exercise builds on an initial “Lessons Learned” exercise conducted by UN Women. Besides from feeding into the overall MLE plan, the ARM and the MTR, findings from this exercise will be used to inform other pathfinder countries – or other countries interested in setting up similar projects – about the best ways to approach different phases and interventions throughout the project, so that they can build up upon these experiences.

UN Women is seeking the services of a consultant to conduct the interim evaluation of the Programme according to the objectives, scope and methodology detailed in the next section.

Duties and Responsibilities

The objective of the Interim Evaluation is to obtain an in-depth analysis of the Programme’s progress to date at the three implementing levels (Global, Regional and Country) as perceived from a variety of stakeholders. As such, the Interim Evaluation strives to: Obtain a deeper understanding of all aspects of the programme (i.e. planning, implementation, etc.); understand the programme’s progress and lessons learned to date; and provide solid evidence to inform the ARM and MTR in 2019.

Two-tiered approach: The Interim Evaluation will be conducted at different stages. At the first stage, all projects that have started implementation of the project in 2018 or before will undergo the first Interim Evaluation. These “first batch” projects are: Bangladesh, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Nepal, the Europe and Central Asia and Asia-Pacific regions as well as the global policy support project. For projects where implementation has not yet started -Morocco, Cameroon, Colombia, Jordan, Sierra Leone and Senegal and the UN Women regional offices in West and Central Africa and Eastern and Southern Africa (“second batch”)- the Interim Evaluation is expected to be conducted during the third quarter of 2019. The final set of countries in the “second batch” will be confirmed during the second quarter of 2019.

Methodology: The Interim Evaluation will adhere to the principles established in Evaluation Policies of UN Women and the UN Evaluation Group’s Norms and Standards for Evaluation. These should include but are not limited to: independence, impartiality, transparency, ethics, partnerships, credibility and utility. To guarantee an independent and impartial view of the Programme, the Interim Evaluation will be conducted by an external consultant. The anticipated methodology of the Interim Evaluation is the conduction of a desk review of key project documents followed by a series of Key Informant Interviews (KII) and/or Focus Group Discussions (FGD) with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.

The consultant, with guidance from the MEWGC team in HQ, will detail in an inception report a list with the institutions/persons that will be consulted. Due to the regional dispersion of the stakeholders, it is anticipated that most of the KII and/or FGD will be conducted telephonically or via Voice-Over-IP (e.g. Skype). In addition, the consultant will have the opportunity to attend the ARM (10-12 April, NY) to gather additional information from participating UN Women MEWGC teams that will then feed into the interim evaluation.

[1] The evaluation of the “second batch” projects is expected to take place during the third quarter of 2019. The exact timing will be discussed with the consultant and a short evaluation report of approximately 5 pages per project will be requested.

Details of deliverables:

1.1 Inception report: outlining the scope of the work and intended work plan of the Interim Evaluation. This report should consist of the proposed methodology, data sources data, collection procedures and approach to data analysis. It will be reviewed and verified by the MEWGC global team before the launch of any data collection activities.

2.1 Data collection instruments: upon finalization of the methodology outlined in the inception report, the consultant should provide qualitative (semi-structured) questionnaire(s) to obtain the necessary information from the different stakeholders’ groups.

4.1 Draft report (“first batch of projects”) for review by the MEWGC team that describes the main methodological parameters of the study as well as the data analysis and key findings per stakeholder group. It should also provide recommendations and strategic options for the programme on all levels.

5.1 Final report (“first batch of projects”).

Competencies

Core Values:

• Integrity
• Professionalism
• Respect for Diversity

Core Competencies:

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

Functional Competencies

• In-depth substantive knowledge of monitoring and evaluation and related development policy and programming issues, including knowledge of results-based management and log frames;
• Demonstrated grasp and understanding of gender issues, in general, and preferably in the UN system;
• Strong research and analytical skills;
• Proven experience in conducting semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from varying organisations and cultural backgrounds;
• Excellent coordination skills;
• Ability to work with multidisciplinary and multicultural teams;
• Creativity, innovation and initiative;
• Result oriented;
• Ability to organize and facilitate telephonic interviews with stakeholders without supervision;
• Comprehensive knowledge of information technology and ability to apply it in work assignments;
• Fully computer literate in using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in social sciences, human rights, gender/women's studies, international development, or a related field is required.

Experience

• At least 7 years of experience in monitoring and/or evaluation in the UN and/or international development. Familiarity with UN-Women and its programme evaluation a plus;
• Experience in gender statistics is highly desirable;
• Recent experience with result-based management evaluation methodologies;
• Involvement in at least 3 evaluation projects using qualitative methodology in the past 5 years.

Languages:

• Fluency in English is required;
• Knowledge of another UN official working language is an asset