The demand for gender statistics has been increasingly recognized as being an essential element to the process of achieving the sustainable development the world envisioned to reach by 2030. Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can only be a reality where adequate emphasis is given to gender equality considerations. In such regards, the role gender statistics plays in supporting evidence-based decision making in promoting and protecting the rights of women and girls is undeniable.  Gender statistics is about identifying, producing, disseminating and analyzing statistics to understand how gender issues affect individuals and society. Thus, data is critical and essential to determine and track progress and guide implementations in the direction we want. However, the situation of gender statistics in Ethiopia is relatively in its infant stage where the data available on gender fails to meet the data need to deliver on the broader GEWE agenda of the SDGs. This challenge in relation to gender statistics is only part of the bigger challenge the National Statistical System (NSS) faces in producing statistics to fill data gaps in national, regional and global SDGs indicator frameworks.

As a global champion of gender equality and women’s empowerment UN Women launched a global Flagship Programme Initiative (FPI) titled “Making Every Woman and Girl Count: Supporting the monitoring and implementation of the SDGs through better production and use of gender statistics” (MEWGC). Launched in September 2016 during the 71st Session of United Nations General Assembly, the FPI aims to address the following: (i) Weak policy space and legal and financial environments due to limited political will and understanding of the importance of quality gender statistics; (ii) Technical challenges, particularly with regard to sensitive, methodologically demanding or emerging areas; and (iii) A confluence of limited data dissemination and communication capacities of National Statistical Systems (NSS) and limited ability of governments and other stakeholders to utilize and advocate for gender statistics to inform decisions, research, advocacy, policies and programs. The idea is to affect a radical shift in the production, availability, accessibility and use of quality data and statistics on key aspects of gender equality and women’s empowerment. UN Women Ethiopia Office has adopted the FPI to its context and is implementing the stated program since January 2019 together with the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) of Ethiopia

Un Women and CSA has a longstanding partnership that has contributed to the production of gender statistics in Ethiopia. In 2013, CSA conducted the Ethiopian Time Use Survey for the first time with financial from support from of UN Women, that showed the full extent of the work women do and their contributions to the national economy including unpaid domestic work. The Survey was aimed at measuring and analysing the time spent on paid and unpaid work and non-productive/leisure activities by women and men, girls and boys. Ethiopia over time has produced four Demographic and Health Surveys, the last EDHS (2016) has included gender specific data on topics such as maternal mortality, violence against women, women’s empowerment, and Female Genital Mutilation, in addition to sex-disaggregated data in other areas. UN Women strongly supported and advocated for the inclusion of a VAWG module in the EDHS.

In 2017, CSA in partnership with UN Women, Statistics Sweden and the Swedish International Development Agency, prepared and published a gender statistics report which addresses data gap for women and men in Ethiopia. A first-of-its-kind, the national report offers systematically organised up-to-date data mined from various household surveys and administrative sources across many sectors and topics including health, education, agriculture, and time use for the period 2003-2016. The report is a useful tool in availing data on the status of women and men, girls and boys and women’s empowerment to data users.

While these efforts contributed and will continue to support evidence-based decision making and the implementation of the SDGs aligned to the Growth and Transformation Plan II, making gender statistics the key component of the National Statistical System (NSS) and mainstreaming gender variables and indicators into ongoing surveys and census will have a far-reaching impact in filling gender data gaps. Therefore, efforts should be directed towards making the entire statistical system gender-responsive going beyond disaggregating data by sex .

With this background, CSA and UN Women had signed a Letter of Agreement (LoA) in June 2019 on “Supporting the monitoring and implementation of the SDGs through better production and use of gender statistics” with the overall goal of “making gender statistics available, accessible, and analysed to inform policy making, advocacy and accountability for delivering on gender equality and women’s empowerment commitments” in line with the global flagship Programme on MEWGC. The Programme has the following outcomes:

• Supportive policy environment is in place to mainstream gender in the national statistical system;
• Quality, comparable, and regular gender statistics are available to address national data gaps and meet policy and reporting obligations on national and international commitments; and
• Gender statistics are accessible to all users (including governments, civil society, academia, and private sector) and can be analysed to inform research, advocacy, policies, and programmes and promote accountability.

One of the key outputs of the LoA under the outcome of supporting the policy environment that mainstreams gender in the NSS, is to conduct an assessment on the extent of mainstreaming gender in the NSS and the regular surveys and assessments to ensure institutionalization of gender statistics.  

In this context, UN Women is seeking to engage a consultant to conduct the assessment on the mainstreaming of gender in the national statistical system of Ethiopia which will examine the gender responsiveness of the legal framework and practices, identify gaps and issue recommendations that will identify priority needs and areas for technical support to be provided to CSA to improve the production and production of gender statistics  in a regular manner. The consultant will undertake the task with the direct supervision of UN Women in collaboration with CSA.

The Consultant will be responsible for: conducting “an assessment on the mainstreaming of gender in the national statistical system of Ethiopia”; convening validation meetings with UN Women, CSA and concerned stakeholders to discuss findings and recommendations; and producing a final assessment report of the findings and recommendations based on the inputs received from UN Women, CSA and concerned stakeholder. The Consultant will be responsible for the following tasks:

Preparation of the Inception Report

Complete an inception report and submit to UN Women with proposed methodology for conducting the assessment including timeframes. The inception report should have the following components:

• Desk Review: An initial desk review shall be conducted on the (a) National and international legal framework governing statistics, in general, and gender statistics, in particular, including the establishment proclamation of the CSA and its mandate and power, National Statistical Development Strategy II, United Nations Statistical Commission under UN General Assembly guidelines and indicators; (b) Institutional frameworks for the administration of statistics; and (c) the availability and regularity of data of gender statistics in the country to date and identification of missing data.
• Proposed outline for the assessment: Proposed structure of the assessment report including a description on what each section and sub-section is going to discuss which will include
• Proposed methodology to conduct the assessment: This includes: (a) the methodology to be employed for data collection (b) draft data collection tool (both in Amharic and English); (c) list of key stakeholders for data collection; and (d) proposed data analysis tools and an action plan to guide the delivery of the identified tasks .

Data collection and preparation of a draft assessment report

Once the inception report is endorsed with its proposed methodology, the consultant is responsible to collect and analyze the data and to prepare a draft assessment report on the mainstreaming of gender in the NSS. The report shall include an analysis of the legal and institutional framework governing gender statistics, a comprehensive mapping of the data sources for gender statistics in the Country including official and alternative data sources; and the potential of this data sources to meet the SDG data need with focus on the gender-related indicators. The assignment also entails the identification of missing indicators and the preparation of a metadata for each of the gender-related indicators. The report shall clearly stipulate the major challenges and gaps in the NSS that affect the gender responsiveness of the system, if any, and provide a recommendation in the form of an action plan for addressing the identified gaps. The assessment report should be drafted in English.

Validating the draft assessment report and finalization

The Consultant is responsible to facilitate the validation of the assessment of the validation report with UN Women, CSA and other stakeholders. The validation will be conducted in two phases whereby the first round of feedback will be collected from UN Women and CSA on the draft and upon incorporation of these inputs the revised draft will be presented to all stakeholders via a validation workshop. UN Women will be responsible to facilitate the validation workshop. The Consultant will be responsible to present the draft report on the workshop, document the outcomes of the validation workshop and prepare the final report based on the feedbacks from the workshop.

DELIVERABLES

• Inception report with methodology for conducting the assessment, data collection tools and action plan for delivery.
• Summary report of interviews and names/designation of all those interviewed where it is used as one data source.
• Comprehensive mapping of data sources for gender statistics in the country.
• A final report on the assessment of gender mainstreaming in the NSS.
• Follow up Action Plan/Matrix.
• A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the process, results, lessons learned, key findings and recommendations based on a draft report. 

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism;
• Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Educational 

• Advanced University degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in statistics, social sciences, economics gender studies, or related field.

Expierence 

• At least 8 years of professional experience in the area of statistics, research, gender and/or other social science fields.
• Knowledge of gender issues and analytical work in international development;
• Understanding of international and national development frameworks;
• Similar experience on data  generation, analysis and conducting national assessments of the same nature;
• Strong knowledge on gender mainstreaming, gender analysis, gender responsive planning and budgeting;
• Experience in research and compilation of information to show results desired;
• Background on statistics and gender statistics is an advantage 
• Excellent communication, writing skills, and analytical skills;

Language and other skills

• Excellent knowledge of written and oral communication in English and Amharic is required.
• Computer skills: full command of Microsoft applications (word, excel, PowerPoint) and other relevant software based on the assignment.  

NOTE

In addtion to your online application, Interested applicants must submit the following documents demonstrating their interest and qualification to conduct the assignment through email to: Esete Berile at esete.berile@unwomen.org CC: Yodit Hailemichael at yodit.hailemichael@unwomen.org.

• Technical Proposal: A two-page methodology for the assessment which will be considered as part of the inception report if selected.
• Financial Proposal: The prospective consultant will indicate all-inclusive:- lump sum contract amount for 50 Working days in USD.