Background

For UN Women, the Country Office (CO) Strategic Note (SN) is the main planning tool for the agency’s support to normative, coordination and operational work. The current UN Women Ethiopia Strategic Note is aligned with the UN Women Strategic Plan (2014-2017) [1], the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II) 2015/2016 to 2019/2020 [2] and UNDAF (20016-2020)[3]. Below is a brief summary of the Strategic Note in Ethiopia:

The UN Women Ethiopia Strategic Note (SN (2017-2020) is informed and guided by the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Africa Agenda 2063. Within this context, UN Women Ethiopia Strategic Note (SN) 2017-2020 outlines the overall strategy and plan of action for the UN Women Ethiopia Country Office for the years 2017-2020. Its content was updated after a thorough strategic mid-term review (MTR) in October 2018.

UN Women Ethiopia plays a dual role as the Country Office for Ethiopia and, as the Liaison Office to the Africa Union Commission (AUC) and Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). Therefore, this context analysis presents both: the country context for Ethiopia and the Africa context at continental level.  The Ethiopia CO contributes to all 17 SDGs through its impact areas. It coordinates interagency structures and processes towards the localisation and implementation, of global, regional and national commitments including the SDGs as part of its normative role. In addition, it leads and coordinates the UN system’s work on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE). The Country Office (CO) also promotes accountability, including the implementation of a regular monitoring system. 

The current SN (2017 – 2020) is aligned with the Ethiopia Growth and Transformation Plan II (2015 – 2020) and the UNDAF (2016 – 2020). It is informed by broad consultations with a broad range of partners at both the national and regional level, including consultations held with MoWCY and Sector Ministries at federal and regional levels, the CSO Advisory Group, implementing partners, the UN system, donor partners the AUC, Regional CSOs. In line with the UN Women Strategic Plan (2014-2017), UN Women Ethiopia’s vision is to become “a centre of excellence and knowledge hub for GEWE with capacity and clout to influence national and regional political, social and economic agenda“ by 2020. The Programme is divided into two parts, Ethiopia Country Programme and the Liaison to AU and ECA Programme

In 2018, a mid-term review was conducted on the SN whose key lesson learnt were the following:

• UN Women Mandate.  The majority of partners consulted including AUC, Ethiopia Government and CSOs (Regional and Ethiopia level) indicated that no other agency plays the brokering and coordination role better than UN Women.  In a context where there are many actors on GEWE with a lot more resources, UN Women needs to bring in high-level technical policy advice to its partners.
• Prioritisation and focus: In terms of its Liaison role, although partnership with AUC and other key stakeholder is opportunity based, the ECO will adopt a systematic prioritisation led by a strategy. It is imperative that UN Women unequivocally establishes itself as the frontline coordinator and thought leader that catalyses multi-stakeholder strategic partnerships for GEWE in Africa through clearly defined priorities, strategies and resources. 
• Value for money. UN Women needs to more effectively demonstrate its delivery of value for money, including through timely and quality donor reporting and strengthening its Knowledge Management and Communications.
• Internal capacity.  The small staff capacity within the Liaison function will not allow the ECO to meet the increasing demands for support from AUC and other partners. To strengthen delivery on UN Women’s normative and intergovernmental mandate, the ECO should also enhance the capacity of its staff to provide sound analysis of policies, decisions and good practices in supporting the CO’s advocacy and programmatic actions on GEWE priorities.   
• Synergies between regional and national programming and regional advocacy. The convening role of the ECO Liaison Unit of the Regional and International Inter-Governmental process (including the Africa Union Summits, the Africa Pre-CSW ministerial consultations and Beijing review processes) is a critical function, which will require further strengthening. Timely information sharing from the ECO to UN Women offices in Africa and vice-versa including through Country focal points arrangement will be critical to achieve a coherent approach to coordination of UN Women’s support to these processes.
• Addressing the root causes of inequalities. Targeting capacity building for women, without bringing men on board to address gender relations and patriarchal attitudes does not bring sustainable results. As such UN Women launched the HeforShe Campaign in December 2015 with the objective of expanding the reach to Male Champions for the cause of women’s rights and gender equality.
• Increased knowledge management role- UN Women needs to strengthen its capacity to generate quality, regular, comparable and reliable data to maintain its position as a knowledge hub and centre of excellence on GEWE.
• The high importance of institutionalised capacity building – There is a need for institutionalised capacity building programmes to ensure sustainability of programmes.  Having in place an integrated approach would help maximise impact. Equally, engaging stakeholders at all levels especially at grass root level.

[1] https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2014/6/strategic-plan-2014-2017-brochure

[2] https://www.greengrowthknowledge.org/sites/default/files/downloads/policy-database/ETHIOPIA%29%20Growth%20and%20Transformation%20Plan%20II%2C%20Vol%20I.%20%20%282015%2C16-2019%2C20%29.pdf

[3] https://ethiopia.un.org/en/15232-united-nations-development-assistance-framework-2016-2020

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of the evaluation

The period covered by the evaluation is from January 2017 to April 2020.

The evaluation team is expected to establish the boundaries for the evaluation, especially in terms of which stakeholders and relationships will be included or excluded from the evaluation. These will need to be discussed in the Inception Workshop.

UN Women organisational structures and systems outside of the Country Office (such as regional architecture) are not within the scope of this evaluation and should be referenced only where a there is a clear implication for the design and implement of the CO Strategic Note. Joint programmes and programming are within the scope of the evaluation. Where joint programmes are included in the analysis, the evaluation will consider both the specific contribution of UN Women, and the additional benefits and costs from working through a joint modality. The specificity of the Delivering as One (DaO) framework and UN Women’s contribution to national development results through the UNDAF will be part of the scope of the evaluation.

The evaluation is recommended to apply the Women’s Empowerment Framework developed by Sara Hlupekile Longwe as a way to conceptualize the process of empowerment. This will help frame progressive steps towards increasing equality, starting from meeting basic welfare needs to equality in the control over the means of production.

The national consultant will be part of an evaluation team led by an international consultant and the team  is expected to undertake a rapid evaluability assessment in the inception stage. This should include the following:

1. An assessment of the relevance, appropriateness and coherence of the implicit or explicit theory of change, strengthening or reconstructing it where necessary through a stakeholder workshop;
2. An assessment of the quality of performance indicators in the DRF and OEEF, and the accessibility and adequacy of relevant documents and secondary data;
3. A review of the conduciveness of the context for the evaluation;
4. Ensuring familiarity with accountability and management structures for the evaluation.

The evaluation team will need to undertake an initial assessment of the availability of secondary data necessary for the evaluation in each country. Additionally, in circumstances where constraints are faced such as limited travel or accessibility to project sites, these limitations should be understood and generalizing findings should be avoided where a strong sample has not been used. In addition, cultural aspects that could impact the collection of data should be analysed and integrated into data collection methods and tools. Evaluators are expected to include adequate time for testing data collection tools and also creative data collection tools in the eventual situation of having travel restrictions.

Evaluation design (process and methods)

UN Women has developed the Evaluation Handbook “How to manage gender-responsive evaluation” as well as detailed Guidance on Country Portfolio Evaluations (CPEs) to ensure greater rigor and consistency in CPEs while also providing flexibility to cater to varied contexts and country typologies. While the final evaluation methodology and questions will be adapted during the inception phase it is recommended that the evaluation use a theory-based[2] cluster design[3]. To achieve sufficient depth, the evaluation will cluster programming, coordination, and policy activities of the Country Office around the thematic areas stated in the UN Women Strategic Plan.

The evaluation will undertake a desk-based portfolio analysis that includes a synthesis of secondary results data for the Development Results Framework and the Organisational Effectiveness and Efficiency Framework of the Country Office. This will cover all activities undertaken by the Country Office.

The portfolio analysis will be triangulated through a mixed methods approach that will include:

1. Desk review of additional documentary evidence;
2. Consultation with all main stakeholder groups; and
3. An independent assessment of development effectiveness using Contribution Analysis.

The evaluation is expected to apply a gender responsive approach to assessing the contribution of UN Women to development effectiveness. They should identify expected and unexpected changes in target and affected groups. It is anticipated that the evaluation will apply process tracing to identify the mechanisms of change and the probable contributions of UN Women.

The evaluation is expected to assess the strategic position of UN Women. It is anticipated that mixed qualitative/quantitative cases of different target groups will be developed, compared and contrasted. The evaluation team will identify which factors, and which combinations of factors, are most frequently associated with a higher contribution of UN Women to expected and unexpected outcomes.

The methods should include a wide range of data sources (including documents, field information, institutional information systems, financial records, beneficiaries, staff, funders, experts, government officials and community groups). The evaluation is particularly encouraged to use participatory methods to ensure that all stakeholders are consulted as part of the evaluation process. At a minimum, this should include participatory tools for consultation with stakeholder groups and a plan for inclusion of women and individuals and groups who are vulnerable and/or discriminated against in the consultation process (see below for examples). Due to possible travel restrictions, it is expected that the methods include creative options for virtual/online participation and data collection.

The use of participatory analysis, video, photography or other methods are particularly encouraged as means to include rights holders as data collectors and interpreters. The evaluator should detail a plan on how protection of participants and respect for confidentiality will be guaranteed.

The evaluation is encouraged to use a wide range of relevant participatory data collection tools, with focus on collection tools on remote basis (please refer to the guidance note):

• (Group) Interviews
• Secondary document analysis
• Observation
• Multimedia (photography, drawing)
• Others [See UN Women CPE Guidance]

The evaluators should take measures to ensure data quality, reliability and validity of data collection tools and methods and their responsiveness to gender equality and human rights; for example, the limitations of the sample (representativeness) should be stated clearly and the data should be triangulated (cross-checked against other sources) to help ensure robust results.

The evaluation is expected to reconstruct the Theory of Change using a participatory process during the Inception Workshop. This should be critiqued based on feminist and institutional analysis. The evaluation will apply Contribution Analysis to assess the effectiveness of UN Women’s multi-country portfolio.

The evaluation is expected to apply a purposive sampling design based on the following minimum standards:

1. One or two projects per thematic cluster of operational work;
2. The most strategically important thematic interventions to the CO:
   1. Relevance of the subject. Is the project a socio-economic?or political priority of the mandate and role of UN Women? Is it a?key priority of the national plan, UN Women strategic note or the AWP? Is it a geographic priority of UN Women, e.g., levels of gender inequality and the situation of women in the country?
   2. Risk associated with the project. Are there political, economic, funding, structural or organizational factors that present potential high risk for the non-achievement of results or for which further evidence is needed for management decision-making?
   3. Significant investment. Is the intervention considered a significant investment in relation to the overall office portfolio (more than one-third)?
3. The richest learning opportunities.
   1. Potential for replication and scaling-up. Would the evaluation provide the information necessary to identify the factors required for the success in a thematic area and determine the feasibility of replication or scaling-up? Does the thematic area include a pilot and/or an innovative initiative?
   2. Knowledge gap. Will the evaluation help to fill a pressing knowledge gap in relation to achieving gender equality or the empowerment of women?

Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity and fairness by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards.
• Commitment to UN Women’s mission, vision, values and strategic goals.
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism.

Required Skills and Experience

• UN Women is seeking to appoint a national consultant to work with an international consultant to undertake the CPEs in Ethiopia. The national consultant will be under a SSA contract for a period of 55 days. (S)he will work in a team with an international consultant recruited by UN Women for the process

   

  The national consultant is expected to demonstrate evidence of the following competencies:

• Documented previous experience in conducting gender-responsive evaluations
• Knowledge of, and experience in applying qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods incl. data analysis skills
• Knowledge of international normative standards on women’s rights and gender mainstreaming processes
• Strong ability to communicate with stakeholders
• Technical competence in the thematic areas to be evaluated
• Knowledge of the role of UN Women and its programming, coordination and normative roles at the regional and country level is preferred
• Language proficiency in English and Amharic 

•         8.Extensive knowledge and experience in using ICT for research, including remote electronic/digital data collection, analysis and reporting.  

• Advanced Degree in Social Sciences, Development Studies, Law, Human rights, Politics, Gender, Women studies or other relevant field and with formal research skills.
• At least five years of experience in conducting evaluations
• High proficiency in English
• Fluent in Amharic / local language
•  
• Application process

• Interested candidates should apply online by latest 15th of September Candidates should submit (1) a letter of interest, (2) a personal CV, (3) availability during the months September to December 2020. Shortlisted candidates will be requested to take a short oral interview as part of the final selection process.

  Please share any additional document to ana.gomez@unwomen.org