Background

The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action were crafted and adopted at a time of high expectations for the realization of gender equality and women’s empowerment at the threshold of a new millennium. 25 years later, while progress for women and girls has been and continues to be made, there is also a stronger sense of resistance to, and even reversal of, gains in many parts of the world. 

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) command unprecedented mobilization and action around the world. Its core principles of universalism, of a human rights-based approach and of a commitment to leave no one behind can be driving forces for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.  

UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2018-2021 positions the Entity in a clear, focused and targeted manner as a global driver for gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE), in supporting governments and national women’s machineries, in coordinating the United Nations System (UNS), in mobilizing civil society, the private sector, and all other stakeholders, at all levels. Evaluation is also identified as one of the key accountability and learning vehicles to accelerate GEWE.

Against this context, UN Women has a clear objective for the Beijing+25 process: To achieve irreversible progress towards gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, everywhere.

The way UN Women can achieve this is by focusing on leveraging proven drivers of change, emanated from evidence and lessons learned, including through the previous review of the Beijing Platform for Action in 2015 and the global synthesis report to be prepared by UN Women on the Beijing Platform for Action +25 along the following lines:  

• Stronger laws and policies
• Increased support for gender equality mechanisms at all levels
• Transformed social norms and attitudes and an end to gender stereotypes
• Significantly increased resources for gender equality
• Strengthened accountability for the implementation of commitments
• Better data, monitoring and evaluation
• Revitalized public debate, social mobilization and awareness-raising
• The next generation of gender equality advocates
• A strengthened feminist movement

As part of the Beijing +25 National Review processes, states have already started undertaking comprehensive national-level reviews of the progress on GEWE. This is undertaken through extensive consultations with relevant stakeholders. The outcome of these intergovernmental review processes will feed into the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW64) in March 2020. The CSW64 will take a stock of: 

• assessment of current challenges that affect the implementation of the Platform for Action and the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women, and
• assessment of the contributions to the gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Within this context, UN Women Independent Evaluation and Internal Audit Services (IEAS), under its national capacity development pillar, is providing extensive capacity development support to help countries maximize progress in implementing the 2030 Agenda with a particular emphasis on gender equality. In collaboration with EvalGender+[1] and EvalSDGs[2], UN Women IEAS led analysis of the Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) with a gender-lens in 2018, which resulted in a published brief titled ‘Equity-focused, gender-responsive evidence: a blind spot in VNR’. The analysis revealed the gaps on the use of evaluation evidence, limited access and use of gender-sensitive data.  In 2017, the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) developed a document on Good practices for integrating gender equality and human rights in evaluation which looks specifically at the UN System.

Building and expanding on this work, IEAS has a strong conviction that the Beijing +25 provides an opportune moment to further promote gender responsive evaluations (GRE) for strengthened review processes.  To better achieve this, a knowledge product highlighting good practices on how evaluations with gender-lens are impactful in tackling the entrenched structural barriers and social norms for gender equality will be produced. The product will also feature the results captured in the body of the evaluation reports in relation to transformative gender results. In addition to UN Women evaluations, good practices and innovative initiatives from other UN system entities, national partners and broader evaluation communities will be highlighted. Having a mix of lessons and examples from different partners will give a richer perspective of how gender-responsive evaluation can drive the implementation of the SDGs. 

All these insights will be packaged and featured in a very accessible, web-based communications product as part of the IEAS flagship Transform magazine – Special Edition for  Beijing +25 review process  series and a video. These will be widely disseminated through various channels to potentially inform ongoing discussions around the Beijing +25.

[1] EvalGender+ is an EvalPartners initiative aiming to promote and strengthen national capacities for equity-focused and gender-responsive evaluation (https://evalpartners.org/evalgender)

[2] EvalSDGs is a network of policymakers, institutions and practitioners who advocate for effective evaluation for the SDGs (https://www.evalpartners.org/evalsdgs/about)

Duties and Responsibilities

Methodology:

• The primary method for codification of good practices on gender-responsive evaluations is a desk review with a focus on methods, approach and tools as well as gender-transformative change/results.
• Virtual interviews with selected stakeholders will also be conducted to enrich the product. Consultant is expected to develop and conduct interviews with key informants from UN Women and other entities (by phone/skype) on evaluation practices in the context of the Beijing Platform for Action, 2030 Agenda, and the national and regional reviews of the progress, to understand challenges and collect suggestions and good evaluation practices. 
• The paper on the good practices and lessons learned will be developed based on the analysis (min. 15 page paper) All collected evaluations will be stored to the UN Women Gender Responsive Evaluation Portal.

1.Deliverables and timeline

[1] How evaluations or evidence were used to inform the Beijing +25, SDG national voluntary reviews and gender transformative results captured in evaluation reports.

Competencies

UN Women IEAS will be responsible for the overall management of the consultancy. The consultant will be solely responsible for producing the draft and final products as per the requirements set out in this ToR.

Functional Competencies : 

Strong gender background and analytical skills, familiarity with SDGs and Beijing Platform for Action. The consultant also should have ability to rapidly analyze and integrate diverse information with a discerning sense for quality of data; good mastery of information technology required for organized presentation of information; and strong oral and written communication skills.

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling UN values and ethical standards, including UNEG norms;
• Acts as a team player and exercises diplomacy, tact and politeness; and
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: Post graduate degree in Sociology, Political Science, Anthropology, or other Social Science degree. 

Professional Experience: The consultant must have at least 10 years of evaluation experience applying human rights and gender equality-based approaches to evaluation. Must have demonstrated experience implementing both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods and triangulation of data. 

Language :

Fluency in written and spoken English is required.

Working knowledge of other UN language would be an asset.

Application Instructions

Applicants are invited to upload as one combined document the following documents to the UNDP Jobs site:

• Personal CV or P11 indicating all experience from similar projects including two samples of previous work;
• A brief cover letter (250-400 words) explaining your interest in this assignment and a lumpsum amount to carry out this consultancy (inclusive of all expenses). Please note this is a homebased assignment, thus no travel is required.