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.

UN Women's mandate (GA resolution 64/289) is to lead, coordinate and promote accountability of the UN system to deliver on gender equality and the empowerment of women with the primary objective of enhancing country-level coherence, ensuring coordinated interventions, and securing positive impacts on the lives of women and girls, including those living in rural areas. 

The UN Women Egypt Country Office (CO) Strategic Note covering the period 2018-2022 is the main planning tool for UN Women’s support to the normative, coordination, and operational work in Egypt. The Strategic Note focuses on the most vulnerable women and areas where the most impact can be achieved, according to Egypt’s Sustainable Development Strategy. It contributes to the achievement of three mutually reinforcing SN impact areas, namely an enhanced legislative and institutional environment, income security, decent work, and economic autonomy, and the achievement of a life free from all forms of violence for Egyptian women;   

UN Women’s engagement in Egypt is premised on the principle that only through the advancement of gender equality and the empowerment of women can Egypt’s full and vibrant growth and vision be realized. In close partnership with the Government of Egypt, and working with other national stakeholders such as academia, civil society, and the private sector, UN Women Egypt Country office programmes support national priorities in the areas of: (1) Women’s leadership and participation; (2) Advancing women’s financial inclusion and economic empowerment; (3) ending violence against women; and (4) increasing coordination among the UN and development partners in their commitments towards gender equality. Through its work, UN Women partners with the Government of Egypt to both implement and shape the global intergovernmental norms and standards on gender equality and women’s empowerment. Moreover, UN Women seeks to ensure that through its programmes women – including the most vulnerable – are supported to realize their full potential.

The UN Women Independent Evaluation Service (IES) evaluates the work of UN women to enhance organizational accountability, provide evidence-based information for decision-making, and contribute to learning on gender equality and the empowerment of women.  It is currently undertaking a Country Portfolio Evaluation (CPE) of the UN Women Egypt Country Office Strategic Note for 2018-2022.

The CPE is a systematic assessment of the contributions made by UN Women to development results with respect to gender equality at the country level. This CPE will use the Strategic Note as the main point of reference and is primarily intended to be a formative (forward-looking) evaluation to support the Country Office and national stakeholders’ strategic learning and decision-making for the next Strategic Note (2022-2025). The evaluation is expected to have a secondary summative (backward-looking) perspective, to support enhanced accountability for development effectiveness and learning from experience. 

The CPE will be gender-responsive and utilization-focused and will follow the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Norms for Evaluation in the UN System, Standards for Evaluation in the UN System, and Ethical Guidelines. For detailed Terms of Reference please read Annex 1 (Please check the below link).

https://gate.unwomen.org/Evaluation/Details?evaluationId=11513

The specific CPE evaluation objectives include: 

• Assess the relevance of UN Women’s strategy and contribution to the intervention at national levels and alignment with international agreements and conventions on gender equality and women’s empowerment; 
• Assess the effectiveness and organizational efficiency in progressing towards the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment results as defined in the Strategic Note; 
• Analyze the extent to which and how human rights approach and gender equality principles are integrated in the design and implementation of the Strategic Note; 
• Identify and validate lessons learned, good practices, and examples of innovation that supports gender equality and human rights; 
• Provide insights into the extent to which the UN Women CO has realized synergies between its three mandates (normative, coordination, and operations); 
• Provide actionable recommendations with respect to the development of the next UN Women CO Strategic Note. 

Objective of the Assignment:

Under the overall supervision of the UN Women Country Representative, and the day-to-day supervision of the Regional Evaluation Specialist (RES) for the Arab States region, who will act as the Team Leader for this CPE, UN Women Egypt country office is recruiting an International Consultant to support in the design and delivery of the CPE and its evaluation products.

The international consultant will work closely with an evaluation team that will include a national consultant on evaluation to provide key national contextual knowledge and support the data collection in Egypt as well as a Research Assistant.

In specific, the consultant will be expected to perform the following tasks:

• Provide technical and methodological support for scoping, designing, and delivering appropriate evaluation design and methodology; 
• Support evaluation preparatory phase, including facilitation of the inception workshop and preparation of the inception report with appropriate evaluation methodology and design, data collection tools, stakeholder mapping, etc; 
• Support the preparation of all evaluation deliverables, including data collection, data analyses and synthesis of evaluation evidence and the evaluation report drafting; 
• Support the validation meetings with various stakeholders at the country level;
• Support the preparation and development of evaluation knowledge and communication products.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Support and lead aspects of the evaluation design, including the inception report, through conducting desk review, portfolio analysis, preliminary data collection, stakeholder mapping, and analysis, and report writing;
• Support the preparation and organization of the stakeholder's inception workshop;
• Develop and use evaluation instruments, including online surveys, tailored to different stakeholder groups and other data collection tools;
• Conduct remote-data collection including interviews, focus group discussions, and other data collection methods;
• Maintain UNEG ethical code of conduct throughout the data collection stage and alert the Team Leader to any potential risks;
• Develop data coding and analysis process, including conceptualization and application through selected software/methods;
• Lead analysis of collected data and development of preliminary findings paper/PPT to be presented to stakeholders that meet IES quality standards; 
• Contribute to the drafting and editing of the Evaluation Report, including making necessary revisions based on comments received from the Team Leader; 
• Conduct any additional analysis required to address relevant comments received or gaps identified;
• Finalize Evaluation Report based on feedback received to meet IES quality standards (GERAAS);
• Produce contents of Evaluation Brief based on the Evaluation Report executive summary for publication and the final PPT;
• Support and present evaluation report where relevant.

Competencies

Core Values

• Respect for Diversity;
• Integrity;
• Professionalism.

Core Competencies

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf

Functional Competencies:

• Technological Awareness: Ability to work in a web-based environment. Fluency in office software, email, and web-based applications;
• Planning and Organizing: Ability to plan own work and manage conflicting priorities. Ability to develop clear goals that are consistent with agreed strategies. Identifies priority activities and assignments and adjusts priorities as required;
• Ability to organize, facilitate with outstanding networking, team-building, organizational, and communication skills. Capacity to work with diverse partners including governments, donors, and civil society;
• Interest and commitment to the empowerment of women with ample knowledge of gender issues;
• Ability to maintain networks and partnerships with key partners;
• Excellent analytical, facilitation, communications, and writing skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in international development, gender/women studies, social sciences, public policy, or related field.

Experience:

• At least 10-years practical experience in conducting gender-responsive evaluations of development strategies, country portfolios, policies, and programs; 
• Experience in conducting country (or multi-country) portfolio evaluations specifically with proven experience in assessment of relevant thematic areas of UN Women Egypt Country Office programming (women’s leadership, political participation, and governance, women’s economic empowerment, ending violence against women, gender, peace, security, and humanitarian response). 
• A strong record in designing and leading evaluations and proven experience in using the Theory of change evaluation approach, and approaches to evaluate normative, policy, and advocacy work; 
• Extensive knowledge of, and experience in applying, qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods and results-based management principles;  
• Proven knowledge of the role of UN Women and its programming, coordination, and normative roles at the regional and country-level; 
• Previous experience of working with UN agencies and the UN system is highly desirable; 
• Country or regional experience in the Arab States region will be considered a strong asset; 
• Excellent analytical, facilitation, communications, and writing skills.

Language Requirements:

• Language proficiency in English (written and spoken);
• Knowledge of Arabic would be an advantage.

Evaluation Criteria:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology: Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for the financial evaluation.

The Consultant will be responsible for any travel expenses associated with undertaking this assignment.

Technical Weight Criteria: 70% (70 points)

• Criteria 1: Master’s degree in international development, gender/women studies, social sciences, public policy, or related field. (10 points)
• Criteria 2: At least 10-years of practical experience in conducting gender-responsive evaluations of development strategies, country portfolios, policies, and programs related to the thematic areas of UN Women Egypt Country Office programming. (20 points)
• Criteria 3: A strong record in designing and leading evaluations and proven experience in using the Theory of change evaluation approach, and approaches to evaluate normative, policy, and advocacy work. (15 points)
• Criteria 4: Extensive knowledge of, and experience in applying, qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods and results-based management principles. (15 points)
• Criteria 5: Proven knowledge of the role of UN Women and its programming, coordination, and normative roles at the regional and country level. (10 points)

Financial Weight Criteria: Lowest Financial Proposal: 30% (30 points)

The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:

• Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical);
• The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula: (Lowest Bid Offered*)/ (Bid of the Consultant) x 30;
• 'Lowest Bid Offered' refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 49 points in the technical evaluation.

Application:

Interested Individual Consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• Financial offer in daily rate / covering all expenses to carry out the assignments detailed in this terms of reference.
• A letter of motivation and UNWomen Personal History form  (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment;
• Two evaluation reports where the consultant was directly responsible for conducting the evaluation and writing the report demonstrating analytical skills
• Two professional references can be contacted.
• Copies of credentials as per education requirements stated above.

The above-mentioned documents should be merged in a standalone file including all of them since the online application submission does only permit uploading one file per application. Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification.

Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification. Make sure that you provide a valid email address for future communications.