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. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, the UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world.

The Independent Evaluation Service (IES) of the Independent Evaluation and Audit Services (IEAS) conducts and managers corporate and selected decentralized evaluations to assess UN Women’s contribution to gender equality and women’s empowerment at global, regional and country levels.  IES is seeking for an evaluation consultant to support the conduct of a planned Mid-term Evaluation of Promoting Productive Employment and Decent Work for Women in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine: Joint Programme of ILO and UN Women. Access the detailed MTE ToR and supportive Annexes here JP MTE ToR & Annexes.

The Joint Programme is a four-year (2019 -2022), multi-country Programme to promote decent employment opportunities for women in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine by addressing the structural causes of inequalities that women face in the region.  The JP aims to address the underlying, structural causes of inequalities that hinder women from entering and progressing in the workplace on an equal footing to men.

Evaluation purpose and objectives

The purpose of this mid-term evaluation is twofold- a) accountability, to assess the overall performance of the programme and achievement against the planned results; b) learning, by studying the nature and processes of interventions to determine which strategies and elements are working well and in which context for replicating or scaling-up the successful interventions and innovations. Learning will also be focused on identifying what is not working so well and why in order to guide the JP’s mid-course correction and future programming to ensure that the programmatic results are met. The evaluation is primarily formative in nature but will include summative elements within the scope.

Specifically, the objectives of this evaluation are to:

• Analyze the relevance of the programme objectives, intervention logic, strategy, and approach at the national and regional level as well as UN Women and ILO’s collaborative comparative advantage/added value in this area;
• Assess the programme effectiveness in achieving the planned programme outputs and outcomes; including unexpected results and factors affecting programme implementation and results (positively and negatively);
• Assess the joint programme management efficiency, partnerships, governance, and  coordination mechanisms including the regional-level Joint Programme Strategic Coordination Committee (JPSCC) and the National Joint Programme Steering Committees (NJPSC) in progressing towards the achievement of the programme results;
• Review the strategies and mechanisms for outcomes’ sustainability in the target countries as well as at the regional level;
• Assess the extent to which the programme is informed of gender and human rights-based approach and is contributing towards gender transformative changes to advance and sustain Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE);
• Assess the coherence of the Joint programme with other interventions at the country and regional level- complementarity, coordination, and harmonisation with other sector players, institutions, and programmes to add value while avoiding duplication of effort;
• Identify and document lessons learned, good practices and innovations, success stories, and challenges within the programme, to inform mid-course correction and future programmes; and
• Provide strategic recommendations for the different key stakeholders to improve implementation of the project activities and attainment of project objectives.

The evaluation will follow and apply UNEG gender equality-related Norms and Standards for evaluation, and UNEG Guidance on Integrating Human Rights and Gender Equality in Evaluation during all phases of the evaluation. The evaluation is to be conducted in line with the UNEG Code of Conduct for Evaluations in the UN System,  UN Women evaluation guidelines on “How To Manage Gender-Responsive Evaluation” handbook, and Pocket tool for managing gender responsive evaluation during Covid 19.  The evaluation will be required to adhere to the UN Women GERAAS evaluation report quality checklist.

Duties and Responsibilities

The evaluation will be led by the UN Women Regional Evaluation Specialist (RES) of the UN Women Arab States Regional Office (ROAS) and the team members will include a senior evaluation expert to support the evaluation lead in designing and delivering the evaluation products; three national evaluators to provide key contextual knowledge and support in-country data collection and analysis; a research assistant for supporting overall data collection, analysis, report and presentation preparation.

Under the supervision of the Regional Evaluation Specialist, the national evaluation experts will perform the following responsibilities:

• Support inception phase through initial desk review, analysis of available reference material, and in-depth stakeholder analysis based on agreed criteria;
• Assist in the country data collection;
• Conduct interviews and collect data as advised by the team leader;
• Attend and support the preparation of all meetings and presentations;
• Support the analysis of the evidence at the country level for the report and lead the drafting of the country reports.

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: https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf?la=en&vs=637

Functional Competencies:

• Strong technical knowledge of the different components of evaluation, including evaluation design, data collection and analysis, and reporting;
• Ability to use analytical software such as Nvivo;
• Substantive knowledge of gender-responsive evaluation, respective methodological approaches;
• Ability to synthesize evaluative information and to write clear, concise, and logical evaluation reports;
• Excellent ability to communicate with a diverse range of stakeholders;
• Ability to plan, manage tasks and meet deadlines;
• Excellent oral skills and written communication skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

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

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years experience of evaluations;
• Proven professional experience of working on Gender and economic empowerment and decent work programmes/interventions;
• Technical experience of gender-responsive and human rights-based approaches to evaluation and/or applied research, utilizing a wide range of approaches and methods;
• Data collection and analysis skills, including proven knowledge of, and experience in applying, qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods and use of data analysis software such as Nvivo;
• Knowledge and experience of results-based management;
• Ability to produce well-written reports;
• Demonstrated process management skills, including facilitation and communication skills with stakeholders; ability to negotiate amongst a wide range of stakeholders is highly desirable; and
• Experience within the United Nations system is highly desirable.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English and Arabic is required;
• Working knowledge of another official UN language is an asset.

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.

Criteria Weight Technical: 70% (70 points)

The candidates will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Education Qualification (15%)
• Experience (40%)
• Quality of 2 written sample demonstrating candidates’ report writing skills (15%)

Financial: 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:

• A cover letter with a brief presentation of your consultancy explaining your suitability for the work and link to the portfolio of work;
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment;
• Personal CV; and Financial proposal; Proposed inclusive daily rate;
• Two relevant writing sample;
• Two professional references can be contacted.

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.

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW, and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.