Background

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme is the UN organization that promotes volunteerism to support peace and development worldwide. UNV contributes to peace and development by mobilizing volunteers, advocating for volunteerism globally and encouraging partners to integrate volunteerism into development programming.

UNV’s vision is a world where volunteerism is recognized, within societies, as a way for all people and countries to achieve peace and development through the simultaneous eradication of poverty and significant reduction of inequalities and exclusion.

The UN Secretary-General (SG)’s 2010 report on women’s participation in peacebuilding presented a comprehensive Seven-Point Action Plan on Gender-responsive Peacebuilding outlining commitments in 7 areas, to ensure that women’s priorities are addressed, their participation is guaranteed, and a gender perspective is applied to all aspects of peacebuilding.

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme, in partnership with the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (UN Women), through the ‘UNV Support to UN Peacebuilding Fund’s Gender Promotion Initiatives (GPI) project’ with funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and UNV’s Special Voluntary Fund (SVF), is supporting gender-responsive peacebuilding projects in 5 to 6 countries eligible for UN Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) funding every year since the third round of the Gender Promotion Initiative (GPI). The project was signed on 1 March 2015, revised on 20 May 2018 and had a no-cost extension until 30 June 2020, agreed with BMZ.

UNV Support to UN Peacebuilding Fund (PBF)’s Gender Promotion Initiatives (GPI) project to support gender-responsive peacebuilding consists of the following:

• Deployment of one international UN Volunteer and one national UN Volunteer in five to six countries every year, in the lead UN Agency implementing the PBF approved gender-responsive peacebuilding project to strengthen the capacity of the UN system to coordinate the initiatives and to strengthen the interaction between UN and civil society at community level to help promote the role of women in local peacebuilding processes and strengthening local conflict resolutions mechanism.
• Organisation of a global learning and strategy workshop for the UN Volunteers serving through the GPI project and other relevant national and international UN Volunteers serving in the field of women, peace and security, to further strengthen capacities in coordinating and monitoring of the relevant gender responsive peacebuilding projects.

Evaluation Purpose, Scope and Objectives

• UNV is conducting a final external evaluation of UNV’s support to UN Peacebuilding Fund’s Gender Promotion Initiative (GPI) project as part of the project’s workplan, as approved by the GPI Project Board. The evaluation will provide accountability to both internal and external stakeholders related to the planning, implementation and results of the GPI project as well as learning for preparation of next generation UNV support to GPI and case studies on volunteering contribution to gender responsive peacebuilding.

  The primary objectives of evaluating UNV’s support to UN Peacebuilding Fund’s Gender Promotion Initiative (GPI) project are to:

• Assess the performance of and results achieved or expected to be achieved by the GPI project.

• Provide clear, actionable recommendations for putting in place effective and efficient implementation mechanisms for any next generation of UNV support to UN Peacebuilding Funds’ Gender responsive peacebuilding.
• Analyse and provide case studies on volunteering contribution to gender-responsive peacebuilding programming.The focus of the evaluation will be on the results achieved against the outcomes, outputs and indicators in the GPI project document. To address both accountability and learning needs related to the GPI, the scope of evaluation will be the GPI project period 2015-20, covering the countries where the national and international UN Volunteers were deployed through the GPI project. During the GPI project period, national and international UN Volunteers were deployed for GPI2 (2015 call) in Kyrgyzstan, Somalia, Guinea and Nepal; for GPI3 (2016 call) in Mali, Guatemala, Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia; for GPI4 (2017 call) in Sierra Leone, Guatemala, Liberia, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea and Kyrgyzstan; and for GPI5 (2018 call) in Central African Republic, Colombia, Niger, South Sudan and Sri Lanka. Two countries from the above will be selected for an in-depth analysis through field visits by the consultant.

Evaluation Criteria and key guiding questions

To provide the most benefit to the organisations, the evaluation will attempt to understand what worked and what didn’t work regarding planning and implementation of GPI vis-a-vis the expected outputs under the GPI project document. Some of the draft questions are given below that can be changed / refined during the consultation process of the inception report.

Relevance:

• To what extent were the objectives of the UNV support to UN peacebuilding fund’s GPI project consistent with the priorities of internal and external stakeholders and partners including member states and UN agencies as recipient of PBF grants?
• To what extent was the project in line with the UNV Strategic Framework, SG’s Seven Point Action Plan on Gender-Responsive Peacebuilding, SDGs and gender-responsive peacebuilding?

• To what extent was the engagement of UN Volunteers relevant to gender-responsive peacebuilding?

Efficiency

• To what extent was the project structure and approach efficient in generating the expected results?

• To what extent have resources been utilized efficiently in contributing to the outputs of GPI?

• How efficient is the coordination and collaboration mechanism for planning and implementation of the GPI project?

Effectiveness

• To what extent has the capacity of the UN System to coordinate initiatives and to engage civil society and local communities in gender-responsive peacebuilding in the GPI countries been strengthened through GPI UN Volunteers?

• In which peacebuilding areas does the project have the greatest achievements? Why and what have been the supporting factors? How can the project build on or expand these achievements?

• In which areas does the project have the fewest achievements? What have been the constraining factors and why? How can or could they be overcome?

• How effective has the GPI project been in building the capacities of UN Volunteers on gender responsive-peacebuilding?

Impact

• What have been the positive and negative changes produced by the GPI project, directly or indirectly, intended or unintended.

• What has been the main contribution or added value of UN Volunteers to the outcomes of PBF-funded GPI projects?

• What real difference did UN Volunteers’ involvement make to the beneficiaries? What were the most significant changes they helped to generate?

Sustainability

• What are the changes in knowledge and practices in the participating organizations that will be utilized beyond the scope of this project?

• To what extent are the stakeholders likely to continue engaging UN Volunteers and volunteer groups in their gender-responsive peacebuilding programming?

Gender and Social inclusion

• To what extent has the GPI project contributed to strengthen equal engagement of women in national or local dialogues and existing peacebuilding initiatives?

Evaluation methodology

• The evaluation should be independent, transparent, inclusive, participatory and utilization-focused. It is suggested that the consultant applies a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches for evaluation. The specific methodology will be determined by the consultant with full consultation of relevant stakeholders during the inception phase. To support a participatory approach, as part of the inception report the consultant will conduct a thorough stakeholder analysis as well as a plan to involve relevant stakeholders in the evaluation.

Core stakeholders

• For the purposes of this evaluation, stakeholders are defined as those individuals, groups, or entities which are directly involved in carrying out the work of the UNV support to UN Peacebuilding Fund’s Gender Promotion Initiative (GPI). In addition, relevant stakeholders also include those individuals, groups or entities which benefit from the work of UNV support to UN Peacebuilding Fund’s Gender Promotion Initiative (GPI) and would therefore have a stake in the success of UNV in carrying out and achieving the results of GPI. Currently identified core stakeholders of the evaluation include, but are not limited to:

• UN Volunteers deployed through the GPI project (national, international)

• UN Agencies, national governments and CSOs engaged in implementing PBF funded projects in which the UN Volunteers were deployed through the GPI project.

• UN Women Country Offices

• UN Resident Coordinators (UNRCs) / UNRC Offices (UNRCOs)

• Target beneficiaries of PBF funded gender-responsive peacebuilding projects imbibing do no harm and conflict sensitivity approach.

• Partner organizations of UNV support to UN Peacebuilding Fund’s Gender Promotion Initiative (GPI) (PBSO, UN Women at HQ level)

• Donors (BMZ)

Consultation process

Based on the stakeholder analysis, the consultant will develop a mechanism for stakeholder participation and consultation throughout the evaluation and at appropriate process points. This will be submitted as part of the inception report. To ensure the utilization of the evaluation, the consultant will hold thorough consultations with UNV Volunteer Advisory Services Section (VASS) as the evaluation client as well as with the GPI Project Board.

Data collection and analysis

To conduct the evaluation, following are the elements proposed for data collection and analysis:

Desk review of relevant documents (Project document, Cost-sharing agreements, UNV Strategic Framework, Annual Project Progress Reports, learning workshop reports, Evaluation reports of select PBF projects, PBF GPI guidelines, SG’s Seven Point Action Plan on Gender-Responsive Peacebuilding, etc.)

Online / remote semi-structured interviews, surveys and questionnaires including with key stakeholders referred above.

Field visits and on-site validation of key outputs and interventions in two countries where UN Volunteers have been deployed through GPI.

The final methodological approach including interview schedule, field visits and data to be used in the evaluation should be clearly outlined in the inception report and be fully discussed and agreed between UNV and GPI Project Board members. The evaluator is expected to follow a participatory and consultative approach that ensures close engagement with the evaluation managers, implementing partners and direct beneficiaries.

Duties and Responsibilities

5. Evaluation deliverables

Evaluation Management

Overall advisory role to the Evaluation will be through the GPI Project Board chaired by the UNV Deputy Executive Coordinator and consisting of representatives of the UN Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), UN Women, and BMZ. The Programme Specialist, Volunteer Infrastructure will provide overall management and coordination to the consultant.

Evaluation Ethics

This evaluation will be conducted in accordance with the principles outlined in the UNEG ‘Ethical Guidelines for Evaluation’. The consultant must safeguard the rights and confidentiality of information providers, interviewees and stakeholders through measures to ensure compliance with legal and other relevant codes governing collection of data and reporting on data. The consultant must also ensure security of collected information before and after the evaluation and protocols to ensure anonymity and confidentiality of sources of information where that is expected. The information knowledge and data gathered in the evaluation process must also be solely used for the evaluation and not for other uses with the express authorization of UNV/UNDP and partners.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards.
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.
• Analytical and strategic thinking;

Functional:

• Knowledge of peacebuilding, gender mainstreaming and gender-responsive programming
• Knowledge of volunteerism
• Strong application of results-based management ?
• Strong analytical, negotiation and communication skills, including ability to produce high-quality analytical reports.
• Strong ability to build strong relationship with clients, focus on impact and result for the client and respond positively to feedback.
• Ability to work independently, produce high-quality outputs.

Communications and Advocacy:

• Strong ability to write clearly and convincingly, adapting style and content to different audiences and speak clearly and convincingly.
• Strong presentation skills in meetings with the ability to adapt for different audiences.
• Strong analytical, research and writing skills with demonstrated ability to think strategically.
• Strong capacity to communicate clearly and quickly.
• Strong inter-personal, negotiation and liaison skills.
• Proven capacity to produce reports.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• Master’s degree or equivalent in international relations, political sciences, public administration, law, social sciences or other related fields.

Experience

• At least 7 years of demonstrable experience in conducting evaluation or impact assessment of large projects / programmes at national or international levels

• Demonstrable experience with project management related to peacebuilding and/or women’s empowerment

• Sound knowledge of and experience in results-based management (especially results-oriented monitoring and evaluation)

• Ability to write concise, readable and analytical reports

• Experience with conducting evaluations of projects / programmes implemented by the United Nations is an asset

• Knowledge of volunteerism is an asset

• Experience with implementing initiatives in the area of gender equality and human rights is an asset

• Experience with working in, or assessing, multi-country programmes is an asset

Language requirement.

• Fluency in English is necessary.
• Knowledge of other UN languages, especially French or Spanish, is desirable.

Criteria for Selection of the Best offer:

The selection of the best offer will be based on the combined scoring method – where the qualifications and methodology will be weighted 70% and combined with the price offer which will be weighted 30%.

Key selection criteria are:

1. Proven experience of conducting evaluations of large projects or programmes (25%)
2. Technical proposal methodology and approach on conducting evaluation of GPI project (25%)
3. Knowledge or experience on gender-responsive peacebuilding programmes (15%)
4. Knowledge and experience of volunteerism (5%)

Application procedure:

Applicants have to provide the following documents:

Cover letter and CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references.

A Technical Proposal (max 5 pages), shall describe the methodology and the approach on how to fulfill the required deliverables as well as outline the major components of its implementation as per key deliverables table above.

Financial proposal, shall consist of all-inclusive lump sum for the whole duration of the contract period, which shall include the consultancy fee, costs of living, costs for insurance, and cost of travel. The financial proposal shall contain a breakdown of these costs and indicate the number of off-days the consultant wants to take during the contract period (if any).  Please note: daily rate and fees should not include Mission Travel air tickets, visas and per diems.  Please include in your offer; 

• Initial visit to UNV HQ in Bonn, Germany (1 day)

• Africa: Bangui/Central African Republic (2 days)

• Asia Pacific: Colombo/Sri Lanka (2 days)

Please quote for  economy return travel tickets, per diems (2 days) and any other  expenses. Please note UNV will only pay for an economy priced ticket. The travel destinations are subject to final approval and maybe changed. 

Your financial proposal must be submitted using the duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability (COI) Link to COI template; https://popp.undp.org/_layouts/15/WopiFrame.aspx?sourcedoc=/UNDP_POPP_DOCUMENT_LIBRARY/Public/PSU_%20Individual%20Contract_Offerors%20Letter%20to%20UNDP%20Confirming%20Interest%20and%20Availability.docx&action=default

Your Financial Proposal must indicate the total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided. If an Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNV under Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNV

Please paste the cover letter into the "Resume and Motivation" section of the electronic application and ensure you have provided all requested materials. All supporting documents should be scanned and attached into one PDF format document. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Queries should be sent to:procurement@unv.org, att Marc Wharton clearly marking –

Terms and conditions, as well as contract samples can be found at this link:
http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/documents/procurement/documents/IC%20-%20General%20Conditions.pdf
as well as contract samples can be found at this link:http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/procurement/business/how-we-buy.html

Due to the large number of applications we receive, we are only able to inform the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.

Please make sure you provide all requested materials. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Applications sent by email will not be considered. Applications without the fully completed Confirmation of Interest Form, including financial costs will not be considered.

Note: UNDP/UNV reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this procurement notice. We may also retain applications and consider candidates applying to this post for other similar positions with UNDP/UNV with similar terms of reference, experience and educational requirements.