Background

The promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women is central to the mandate of UNDP and intrinsic to its development approach. UNDP is leading strategic process in order to advance gender equality agenda in line with international frameworks (EU & UN) and development priorities of the country.

Montenegrin society, despite rapid developments in the process of EU accession, remains highly patriarchal. Even though Constitution, national legislation and internal obligations guarantee women in Montenegro the full enjoyment of their social, economic and political rights, traditional gender stereotypes, progress towards gender equality has been slow because of poor implementation of existing policies and commitments and lack of financial support to responsible institutions and agencies. A combination of structural gender inequality and cultural factors result in multiple forms of discrimination and continuously deprive women of their rights.

In order to address these complex issues systematically, the office implements a number of programmatic interventions, with the main areas of work being:

• Fighting violence against women
• Economic empowerment of women
• Political empowerment of women
• Capacity building for gender mainstreaming
• Women in peacebuilding and security

Violence against women is unacceptably high: according to our latest research, every second woman in Montenegro has experienced some form of violence in their life, while every fifth reported to have experienced in the last 12 months. At the same time, institutions are not well equipped with knowledge and capacities to address this issue, while legal framework still needs to be improved as well as judicial sanctioning. Consequently, victims` trust in the institutions remain low and the majority of cases end up unreported.  UNDP works systemically with all stakeholders including institutions at local and national levels and CSOs. We joint forces to raise awareness among both public and the professionals on why violence must be reported, properly treated and why victims must be in focus of coordinated institutional response. 

Montenegrin women, although well-educated, still face obstacles in the economy and entrepreneurship. Gender pay gap reaches 14% and there’s still less than 10% of women in business. As women present 50% of the country’s human capital and half of the labour force, it is obvious that the economic potential of women remains underutilized. Through our programme we intensively work on strengthening women’s entrepreneurship in terms of addressing policy level interventions, research and data collection, assessment of women’s needs and support through tailored capacity development support, creation of enabling environment at local level, advocating for affirmative measures to enable access to finances and markets and supporting women’s business networking and role modelling.

When it comes to political empowerment of women, we are led by the premise that empowerment of political parties, women’s leaders and local politicians is necessary in order to fulfil supreme goal of gender aware politics with adequate women’s representation. Our programmatic strategies have been directed towards: a) improved legal framework; b) capacity development of women in parties through trained trainers, establishment of women’s party wings, and c) cross-party networking and issue-based networking (thematic alliances around women’s quota, women’s entrepreneurship, violence against women and violence in family, women in media). Substantive part of the work on political empowerment was launch of Women’s Political Network in November 2017.The Network aims to set up new culture of political dialogue and new political values with principles of gender equality.

UNDP`s key institutional partner in gender equality is the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights-Department for Gender Equality. Nonetheless, important partners are other line ministries, such as Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In addition, UNDP cherishes strong cross-institutional partnerships and cooperation with CSOs, as well as the Parliament and its Committee for Gender Equality. Recent partnership surveys showed that our gender partners particularly value our work on awareness raising and on strengthening cooperation and communication between the public authorities and women's organizations.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objectives of the assignment:

The evaluation of the Programme Support to Anti-discrimination and Gender Equality Policies will specifically aim at the following:

• Based on the analyses of the documents produced by the Programme (reports, analyses, papers, etc.) and interviews with partners and major stakeholders, assess Programme results achieved against planned objectives, targets and indicators. It also includes assessment of effectiveness and efficiency of the intervention and sustainability of Programme benefits beyond its lifetime
• Identify and consolidate good practices, lessons learned and make recommendations on process, management, partnerships, transparency, stakeholders` participation and other aspects of project implementation that would benefit future engagement of UNDP in this area.

Job content:

The evaluation will be undertaken in close cooperation with the Gender Programme team throughout the process to ensure that the national ownership, transparency and mutual accountabilities are ensured.

The evaluation will be conducted in the following stages:

1. Desk review – the consultant will review all available documents related to the project, such as project document, progress reports, relevant national and international surveys (including the surveys that are developed under the Programme), policy and legal documents.
2. Finalization of evaluation methodology and work plan – In consultation with the Programme team, the consultant will finalize the appropriate methodology to address the 2 key objectives of the evaluation. The methodology will entail a participatory process for data collection, generating an evidence base to substantiate all findings while ensuring that data collection and data analyses are of a high quality, and that stakeholders are involved in data collection process and debriefed on regular bases to address any unforeseen challenges requiring support or clarification.
3. Field visit - the consultant will conduct field visit supported by UNDP to collect data using a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches. In close cooperation with the Programme team, the consultant will formulate questionnaire and identify the key stakeholders to be interviewed during the evaluation. Key stakeholders should include representatives of the Parliament, Government (Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Finance, Investment-Development Fund, Centers for Social Welfare, Police, local governments - pilot municipalities engaged within the component for economic empowerment of women, NGOs, women NGOs, political parties), Delegation of European Union in Montenegro and UNDP staff.
4. Preparation of the draft evaluation report and finalization of the report – The consultant will prepare the draft evaluation report; submit it to the Gender Programme Manager, who will gather comments from the Programme Steering Committee. Upon receiving the comments, the consultant will finalize the report.
5. Debriefing - the consultant will present the evaluation report to the Gender Programme. The final report will also be presented to the members of the Steering Committee.

The consultant is required to follow guidelines and standards developed by UNDP Evaluation office: UNDP Guidelines for Outcome Evaluators, UNEG Ethical standards for evaluation, UNEG norms and standards for evaluation, UNDP Report standards. These resources are available at http://erc.undp.org The consultant will be provided by these guidelines prior to starting the assignment with UNDP.

The expected results:

Under the supervision of the Programme Manager, the consultant is expected to deliver the following result:

• The final evaluation report, taking into account feedback given by partners, stakeholders and submit it to the Gender Programme Manager. The report should include executive summary, evaluation methodology, analyses and findings, good practices and lessons learned and recommendations.
• Developed Sustainability Strategy, as an Annex to the Final Evaluation Report.

Proposed evaluation schedule includes the following:

• Desk Review – 4 days
• Evaluation design, methodology and detailed work plan – 3 days
• Field visits, interviews, consultations – 10 days
• Preparation of draft report for debriefing – 4 days
• Finalization of the evaluation report – 2 days Debriefing – (on line)

Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of UN/UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Ability to lead strategic planning, results-based management and reporting;
• Builds strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Demonstrates good oral and written communication skills;
• Demonstrates ability to manage complexities and work under pressure, as well as conflict resolution skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• University degree in social sciences, Law, political sciences or other relevant discipline;
• At least 5 years of relevant professional experience in the field of gender equality;
• Proven expertise and experience in UNDP or EU project/programme evaluation;

Language:

• Fluency in English language;
• Knowledge of local language will be considered as an advantage.

Other

• Excellent social, communication and reporting skills;

Criteria for selection:

Combined Scoring method will be used. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as: (i) responsive, compliant, acceptable, and (ii) having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

• Technical criteria weight - 70% (Background and education 10%; Relevant previous experience 20%; Substantial knowledge/Required competencies 30%; Required language 10%);
• Financial criteria weight - 30%.

Only offerors obtaining a minimum 490 points for technical criteria will be considered for the financial evaluation. For more information on procurement methodology for Individual Contractors, please refer to Procurement Notice.

Application procedure:

Interested applicants are requested to submit their applications by July 30, 2019 by using the Apply now button. The application should contain CV or P11 that can be downloaded at http://www.me.undp.org/content/montenegro/en/home/operations/jobs.html. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file.

Only the short-listed applicants will be contacted and requested to submit a letter of interest including a price quotation indicating the lump sum (in EUR) requested for the work envisaged in the section "Description of Responsibilities".