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” (Women Count) 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. The Programme envisions a multi-year and multi-country programme of work, supported by global and regional activities linking normative and technical work on gender statistics at the global level to the regional and national levels 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 programme 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 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 organize a Mid-Term Review (MTR) in fall 2019 to assess progress achieved towards results, validate and adjust if necessary, priority programming areas and identify early indications of the sustainability of the program’s approach. The emphasis of the MTR will be on supportive recommendations to inform the overall programme’s direction.

Objectives and scope:

• Assess and validate the effectiveness of the programme’s approach and strategy, including its alignment with global best practices in statistical capacity building, as recommended by the UN Statistical Commission, The Cape Town Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data.
• Assess the progress of programme implementation to date and make proposals for how to improve overall programme performance and identify areas which require specific attention to achieve its intended results.
• Identify good practices, challenges and lessons learnt to inform the remaining programme period as well as future programmes on gender statistics.   
• Reflect on the key strengths and weaknesses of the programme and identify any corrective actions that need to be taken.
• Review the strategy and risks to sustainability beyond the duration of the current programme.

Based on these objectives, the MTR will assess and reflect on the following areas:

1. Programme approach and strategy

• Whether the programme’s strategy – to improve the NSS via addressing three outcomes – and approach (global, regional and national levels) is in line with global best practices in statistical capacity building?  
• Is the Women Count programme contributing to strengthening institutional capacity (Outcome 1) and to the use of gender data and statistics (Outcome 3)? What does the programme gain by focusing on these outcomes rather than just a pure focus on increasing data production (Outcome 2).  
• To what extent does passive technical support (through guidance accessible to all countries) and direct technical and financial support help countries to advance GS work. Is the current scale of this support (technical and financial) enough to respond to countries’ needs?
• Is the expected feedback mechanism between global, regional and country levels materializing? How is the programme addressing demand for support, particularly coming from countries?
• How effectively is the Women Count Programme linked with the Centre of Excellence on Gender Statistics and VAW Data Joint Programme.

Programme performance

• Assess progress made towards outcomes and make recommendations for those aspects off-track or with delayed implementation.
• Look at barriers to achieving programme objectives and whether effective mitigation measures to overcome them have been developed and implemented.
• Is the Women Count programme informing/influencing critical Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment agendas – SDGs monitoring, Beijing etc., national policies, etc. at any levels (country, regional and global)? What are some early gains? What are the key factors contributing to such gains? Where can there be improvements?
• Has the Women Count programme impacted/informed UN Women’s work in general, including work on gender statistics as a whole (UN Women Strategic Plan 2018-2021, Output Area 6) and how it is linked to other areas of UN Women’s work (i.e. Peace and Security, Ending Violence Against Women, Women’s Economic Empowerment, Leadership and Governance etc.)? If so: how? If not: what are some of the barriers?
• Has this programme strategically positioned UN Women in the statistical and/or policy communities? If so: how? If not: what are some of the barriers?

Programme management

• Review overall management of programme, identify challenges and propose additional measures to support more efficient and effective programme implementation at all levels.
• Assess programme governance structure (incl. project Steering Committees at country level) and implementation arrangements with NSO and other partners.
• Appropriate finance controls including reporting and planning allowing timely flow of funds and informed decisions on annual budgets.
• M&E: current tools and processes provide the necessary information to adequately monitor and evaluate the programme.
• How to support projects starting in 2019 and continue beyond end date of current programme (Feb 2021).
• Are reporting requirements fulfilled and is reporting effective enough to provide adequate and timely information about the programme?
• Work planning: are there any delays in project set-up and implementation? Examine the use of project’s results framework and identify if work-planning processes are results-based. 

Partnerships and stakeholder engagement

• How is the programme leveraging strategic partnerships at all levels?
• Whether we have advanced in our coordination mandate with other partners working on the same area- ILO, P21, UNSD, Data 2X, WB, CCSA, CCS-UN, IAEG-GS, ISWGHS etc.
• Which partnerships are effective and are worth investing in and which are not?

Communications, outreach and advocacy

• Do the Women Count programme’s communications, outreach and advocacy activities (through the programme and through our strategic partners and donors) position gender data in global, regional and national policy agendas (external)?
• Has the Women count stakeholder engagement been effective so far?

Resource Mobilization

• Is the approach to resource mobilization adequate – is there a need to modify the current mix of private/public funding and why?

Knowledge management

• Are knowledge products that are being produced as part of the programme are easily accessible and used by the stakeholders.
• What are good practices and opportunities for replication/upscaling?

Methodology:

The MTR will provide evidence-based information that is credible, reliable and useful. To this end, a robust methods approach is envisaged to collect data on the different areas to be assessed. This approach is expected to include a desk review of key programme documents followed by a series of Key Informant Interviews (KII), Focus Group Discussions (FGD), and a survey if appropriate. It is expected to yield insights from all of the Women Count projects.

Details on the methodology will be developed by the team of consultants in an Inception Report and shared with all relevant stakeholders for input and comments.

After the data collection, that will be conducted by the consultants, the initial findings will be presented during MTR meeting scheduled to take place in New York in mid-November 2019. This will be followed by an in-depth analysis and the formulation of recommendations. These recommendations should focus on necessary adjustments for the programme’s final year in 2020/21, as well as recommendations for the next phase which will start in 2021. A draft of the final report will be shared with UN Women and the programmes Steering Committee for comments before being finalized. 

Duties and Responsibilities

Duties and Responsibilities

• Conducting a thorough desk review of key programme documents.
• Development of a robust methodology (including sample design, the overall research design, etc), including the respective data collection tools for each method anticipated (i.e. KIIs, FGDs, survey, etc).
• Delivery of draft and final inception reports that document the findings from the desk review as well as the anticipated research design (incl. sample design), methodology, tools and timing.
• Conducting and documenting of all research activity (i.e. interviews).
• Data analysis.
• Development of recommendations to focus on the programme’s final year in 2020/21 as well as recommendations for strategically positioning the programme beyond 2021.
• Drafting of a draft MTR report and presentation of preliminary findings at the MTR meeting at UN Women’s HQ in New York.
• Delivery of the final MTR report.

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 logframes;
• Demonstrated grasp and understanding of gender issues, in general, and preferably in the UN system;
• Strong research and analytical skills;
• Ability to work with multidisciplinary and multicultural teams;
• Creativity, innovation and initiative;
• Result oriented;
• 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 10 years of experience in the area of monitoring and evaluation in the UN and/or international development;
• Experience with result-based management strategies is required;
• Experience conducting MTRs or evaluations within the UN system within the last 5 years; 
• Experience related to gender statistics is highly desirable.

Languages:

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