Antecedentes

Women’s leadership and participation is one of UN Women’s primary areas of work as mandated in its inception, recognizing the integral role of women in strong and stable democratic processes. In order to promote the leadership and participation of women in decision-making processes, UN Women works to promote gender equality in parliaments, electoral bodies, political parties, media and other institutions.

UN Women has a proven track-record in supporting women’s political participation through its programmes across various regions, under the guidance of UN Women’s founding resolution (GA resolution 64/289) and its Strategic Plan. UN Women is increasingly being called upon by UN partners, civil society partners, donors and governments to provide specific and often short-term gender expertise for capacity building and policy support on women’s political rights, participation and leadership.

However, despite all these positive steps towards promoting women’s leadership and political participation, women still experience considerable challenges in being able to fully and meaningfully participate in political life. In particular, women remain underrepresented in political leadership positions and misperceptions regarding their right to contest open seats persist.

Taking steps towards addressing the challenges, the PNG government has demonstrated its commitment through a number of national and global policy frameworks including, Vision 2050, the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policy, Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Convention Against All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the new Medium-Term Development Plan (MTDP).MTDP3. Those frameworks and policies will guide interventions aimed at addressing the leadership and political vacuum for women in PNG.

In 2016, UN Women conducted a joint consultation on women’s national leadership with the Department for Community Development and Religion. Findings from that exercise led to the design of the Women Make the Change programme (2019 – 2022) on women’s leadership and political participation with a budget of AUS$ 5,116,889 received from Australian government, DFAT 71% and New Zealand government MFAT 29%. The programme was a national programme being implemented in PNG and Bougainville.

This programme focuses on four critical outcomes     :

1. Legal frameworks strengthened to promote gender balance throughout the political processes;

2. A cadre of interested, diverse and capable women political leaders supported at national and sub-national level;

3. Women are perceived as equally legitimate and effective political leaders as men; and

4. Women are promoted as leaders in gender sensitive political institutions.

Deberes y responsabilidades

1.1 Direct Beneficiaries

The programme targeted women in leadership positions, aspiring women leaders, young women and community members, (women men and youth). Sitting parliamentarians, political parties and selected government institutions were also targeted by the programme.  

1.2 Programme Governance and management arrangements

The Programme was implemented through the UN System’s One UN Fund modality and coordinated closely with the One UN People Priority Working Group, to ensure a harmonised and coordinated approach to planning implementation and monitoring. In the spirit of ensuring national ownership and inclusive participation, programme implementation was done in close partnership with a cross-section of government partners, the National Parliament, civil society and community organizations and other relevant development actors. The programme had a board responsible for strategic oversight of the programme, including recommendations to endorse programme plans, revisions and budgets. The main role of the Programme Board was to ensure the programme remains on track vis-à-vis the goals, objectives, results defined in the programme document, endorse the programme annual work plans and to provide strategic guidance to the programme implementation.

 2. Purpose of the Assignment

The UN Women PNG Country Office is seeking the services of an international consultant to conduct the end of programme evaluation. The evaluation should follow the United Nations Evaluation Group guiding principles and the UN Women Evaluation Policy and corresponding guidance[1]. The overall purpose of this evaluation is to provide information for decision-making regarding the next phase of the Programme and to support learning and accountability from the results thus far. The evaluation will examine who benefited, how resources were utilized and how partnerships contributed to the programme achievements. The findings from the evaluation will be used by UN Women, UNDP and government institutions. Women Make the Change Phase 2 programme design and implementation will be informed by this evaluation.  

Objectives of the end of Programme Evaluation

The main objectives of the end of programme evaluation are      to:    

1. Assess the relevance and coherence of     Women Make the Change programme with respect to UN Women and broader UN system programmes.
2. Assess effectiveness of the programme      intervention in achieving the 4 Programme outcomes.
3. Assess the sustainability of the intervention in achieving women’ participation in politics and decision-making leadership roles.
4. Collect a number of impact stories from beneficiaries (both females and males), key government partners and stakeholders
5. Identify and validate lessons learned, good practices, challenges, examples, and innovations of efforts that support gender equality, human rights and youth empowerment.
6. Provide actionable recommendations for UN Women, Women Make the Change programme

3. Evaluation Criteria

In accordance with the evaluation objectives and guided by the OECD-DAC evaluation criteria, the following key areas will be examined as indicated below. The below questions are an overview – the consultant is expected to refine the evaluation questions and develop the evaluation matrix as part of the inception phase to ensure feasibility

3.1 Relevance:

Assess the  relevance of the programme objectives, outcomes, and design in addressing the problems faced by women and their needs and priorities, adaptability to COVID – 19 in participating in politics and leadership positions.

• Was the programme relevant vis-à-vis the causes/factors of gender inequalities in political participation and leadership positions?
• Were  the programme objectives valid over the course of the programme?
• what   adjustments were made given the COVID-19 pandemic and other social disruptions?

3.2 Coherence:

Assess the compatibility of the intervention with other interventions, whether the objectives remained valid over the course of the programme, and whether , and how, adjustments were made.

• How did the partnership approach work and what were its benefits?
• To what extent were the different stakeholders’ efforts coherent with each other and the overall aim of the programme?
• To what extent was the programme coherent with other UN efforts, Government of PNG, Donors in the area and internally with UN Women programmes?

3.3 Effectiveness:

Assess the achievement of programme objectives

• What progress has been made towards achieving the anticipated programme outcomes and outputs as articulated by the indicators in the results framework?

• What were the major factors influencing the achievement or non-achievement of the programme objectives?
• Were there any unplanned positive or negative results? Did these unplanned results affect the programme?
• To what extent did the external environment affect the achievement of the programme objectives and outcomes and how?

3.4 Efficiency:

Assess the efficiency of planning and implementation.

• Were plans used, implemented and adapted as necessary?
• To what extent was the project management structure, as outlined in the project document, efficient in generating the expected results?
• Were project funds, resources and activities adequate and t what extent were they delivered in a timely manner?

3.5 Contributions towards Impact:

Assess the contribution of the intervention to the voice and agency of women in political processes, women participation in politics and leadership position.

• Did the programme make a difference in terms of women’s participation in political and leadership positions, and if so how?
• To what extent did the intervention increase women’s empowerment and voice in political processes and decision making?

3.6 Sustainability:

Assess the key factors affecting sustainability of the programme.

• What is the extent to which the net benefits of the intervention continue, or are likely to continue?
• Will the benefits of the programme last focusing on national ownership/buy in from government and CSOs?
• What is the potential for sustainability, replication, and expansion?

3.7 Gender equality and human rights.

• To what extent were the most marginalized groups (i.e. women, youths, persons with disability, LGBTQI) engaged in the programme?

 4. Evaluation Methodology

The evaluation will use non-experimental, theory-based and gender responsive approaches; mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative data collection methods and analytical approaches) will be utilized to account for the complexity of gender relations in PNG and to ensure participatory and inclusive processes that are culturally appropriate.  The consultant will reconstruct the Theory of Change as necessary to ensure a robust analytical framework for assessing contributions to outcomes at the time of evaluation, ensuring any changes to the original TOC are taken into account. The consultant will use various data collection methods to provide evidence-based information that is credible, reliable, and useful. The methods to be used include a review of programme documents, key informant interviews, focus group discussions and individual interviews. The evaluation will engage the UN Women programme team, government counterparts, implementing partners, direct beneficiaries and other stakeholders. The evaluation methodology should enable achievement of the evaluation purpose, be aligned with the evaluation approach, and be designed to address the evaluation criteria and answer the key questions through credible techniques for data collection and analysis. Because of COVID and other external  constraints, the evaluation may need to be conducted virtually.

To ensure maximum validity, reliability of data (quality) and promote use, the evaluation will ensure triangulation of the various data sources collected using various participatory methods listed below.    The entire evaluation will be undertaken as per UNEG guidelines and consider a human-rights-based and gender empowerment approach[2]. The evaluation experts and all their direct collaborators will follow UN Women’s Evaluation Handbook and are bound by the UN Women report assessment criteria (GERAAS), which will be provided upon initiation.[3]

Evaluation approaches:

4.1 Desktop review/documents review:

The consultant      is  expected to review programme documents which will be supplied by UN Women for a deeper understanding of the programme before finalizing the tools. Thedocuments available for review include programme documents, baseline reports, activity reports, quarterly reports, biannual and annual reports, monitoring reports that might be relevant. The consultant      is       also expected to review other external secondary data such as national strategic and legal documents.

4.2 Key Informant Interviews:

The consultant is expected to engage executing agencies, senior government officials and key experts. The evaluation team will therefore hold interviews with programme team (both from UN Women, UNDP) who were involved in implementing the programme. This will be complemented by programme Board, academia, local government and CSOs and community leaders who understand and involved in programme implementation.

4.3 Focus group discussions:

The consultant is expected to hold several discussions with different groups of community members (women, men, young people, persons with disability, LGBTIQ) to elicit  qualitative insights into the programme’s successes and challenges?with regards to the programme successes and underlying issues and contributions to impact. The focus group discussions will be expected to be conducted in select locations throughout PNG, specifically in areas where the baseline survey was conducted. A most significant change or outcome mapping approach may be proposed by the consultant

4.4 Individual Interviews:

The consultant is expected to hold individual interviews with direct beneficiaries, women leaders who participated in Women Make the Change programme capacity building activities. The information will be used to measure the achievement of the programme in improving knowledge, understanding and confidence of women on political participation and leadership roles.

The final evaluation report must describe the full evaluation approach taken and the rationale for the approach, making explicit the underlying assumptions, limitations, challenges, strengths and weaknesses about the methods and approach used.

4.5 Ethical Considerations

UN Women has developed a UN Women Evaluation Consultant Agreement Form for evaluator that must be signed as part of the contracting process, which is based on the UNEG Ethical Guidelines and Code of Conduct. All data collected by the consultant must be submitted to the evaluation manager in Word, PowerPoint or Excel formats and is the property of UN Women.  Proper storage of data is essential for ensuring confidentiality and a data protection plan will be developed during the inception phase. The evaluation’s value added is its impartial and systematic assessment of the programme. As with the other stages of the evaluation, involvement of stakeholders should not interfere with the impartiality of the evaluation. The evaluators have the final judgment on the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the evaluation report, and the evaluator must be protected from pressures to change information in the report. Proper procedures for data collection with rights holders who may have been affected by violence must be adhered to as outlined in the WHO Ethical and Safety Recommendations for research on violence against women. Additionally, if the evaluator(s) identify issues of wrongdoing, fraud or other unethical conduct, UN Women and UNDP procedures must be followed and confidentiality be maintained. The UN Women Legal Framework for Addressing Non-Compliance with UN Standards of Conduct, and accompanying policies protecting against retaliation and prohibiting harassment and abuse of authority, provide a cohesive framework aimed at creating and maintaining a harmonious working environment, ensuring that staff members do not engage in any wrongdoing and that all allegations of wrongdoing are reported promptly, investigated and appropriate action taken to achieve accountability.

4.6 Limitations

Given that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and incoming government may affect the use of participatory methods, such as in-person data collection UN Women will monitor the situation and will determine the way forward during the inception phase. The consultant will rely on the accuracy and completeness of the provided documents by the offices, with independent verification of the information provided, where possible. To avoid biases raised, the information will be triangulated and validated with the UN Womenteam, the Evaluation Management team and Reference Groups.

5. Evaluation Management

Women Make the Change End-of-Programme Evaluation will be executed under the direct supervision of the UN Women Monitoring Evaluation and Reporting Specialist with the support of Women Make the Change Programme Team and UNDP. Further support will be given by the Women Make the Change Reference Group/ Community of Practice Technical team throughout the duration of the evaluation.

An evaluation reference group will be established comprising representatives from the key stakeholders and representing the different types of stakeholders (e.g. government. UN, CSO’s, donors).The ERG will be consulted throughout the evaluation process: they will approve the evaluation ToC, the tools for the process, the inception report, preliminary findings and final report to ensure it is participatory and has the ownership of the key programme stakeholders. They (? who, the ERG?) will participate in the inception meeting, and presentation of preliminarfindings to provide feedback and validation.findings,

The Evaluation Management Group will be comprised of the UN Women and UNDP programme focal points, and the UN Women Deputy Representative and the UN Women Regional Evaluation Specialist. The EMG will provide quality assurance to the entire evaluation process and approve all deliverables.

The evaluator hired will report directly to the Monitoring Evaluation and Reporting Specialist with support from Women Make Change Programme Technical Specialist. They will report progress on a weekly basis. The UN Women Regional Evaluation Specialist will be included in the Evaluation Management/Reference Groups and will quality assure all products of the evaluation in line with UN Women GERAAS criteria.

6. Evaluation composition

 The international consultant will be responsible for  local logistics, consolidating existing documentation, conducting interviews with stakeholders, participating in the field mission and completion of a good quality report in line with UN Women GERAAS standards for evaluations. The consultant can subcontract some parts of this assignment to a national person.  In this case, S/he will have to manage the work between himself/herself and the national person.  UN Women has no liability towards that subcontractor.  The UN Women PNG Country office will assist in identifying stakeholders and organizing bilateral and group consultations with stakeholders.            

7. Evaluation Process

The duration of the assignment/consultancy is 50 working days after signing of contract. Days are

inclusive of travelling, field work and reporting. Below are the evaluation phases

7.1 Preparation phase

The preparation of the evaluation will include TOR approval and consultant selection, compiling          documents for the evaluation

7.2 Inception phase

• Conduct a desk review of past reports, the programme results framework, programme activity documentation produced by UN Women and UNDP programme team and other documents including the baseline and the monitoring mission reports.
• Develop a methodology for the evaluation, , evaluation matrix , data collection tools and ethical protocol.
• Finalize the stakeholder map.
• Review the TOC and revise if needed (based on consultations with the programme staff).
• Develop relevant qualitative and quantitative data collection tools.
• Conduct an inception workshop/consultation with the Evaluation Reference Group (key programme stakeholders) (powerpoint presentation).
• Prepare a draft inception report to be shared with the EMG and ERG and finalize upon receiving feedback.

7.3 Data collection and analysis phase

• Data Collection and preliminary analyses.
• Debriefing with PNG CO after field visit.
• Preliminary findings - validation meeting with Evaluation Reference Group (key stakeholders) on preliminary findings, conclusions and recommendations (powerpoint presentation).

7.4 Reporting phase

• Develop a draft report as per UN Women GERAAS quality checklist for evaluation reports and UN-SWAP. evaluation performance indicators.
• Finalize the report with feedback from key stakeholders (minimum 2-3 rounds of review will be required).
• Track all comments received and the evaluation team response for transparency.

7.5 Dissemination phase (UN Women responsible)

• Develop a 2 page brief
• UN Women to produce the evaluation management response and post on GATE website for public access.
• The final report will the shared with UN Women, UNDP and relevant government institutions.  

Tentative timeframe

Evaluation Deliverables:

Note:

• Options for site visits should be provided in the evaluation Inception Report.
• Payment will be made upon submission of deliverables with an approval of the (insert supervisor).
• All deliverables should be in line with the UN Women Editorial Style Guide.
• All deliverables should be written and generated in English.
• If requested, all data collected by the evaluation consultant must be submitted to the supervisor in Word, PowerPoint or Excel format.  Proper storage of data is essential for ensuring confidentiality and should be in line with UN Women Policy on data management and security.
• All deliverables submitted by the consultant are subject to quality review in line with the UN Women Evaluation Report Quality Assurance. The report will only be considered final when it meets the UN Women GERAAS quality standards.

UN Women Evaluation Policy (2020: https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/08/evaluation-policy-of-the-united-nations-entity-for-gender-equality-and-the-empowerment-of-women  and the UN Women Evaluation Handbook: https://genderevaluation.unwomen.org/en/evaluation-handbook

UNEG Norms and Standards for Evaluation (2016): https://www.betterevaluation.org/en/resources/example/UNEG-evaluation-standards-2016; UNEG Ethical Guidelines for Evaluations (2020): http://www.unevaluation.org/document/detail/2866; Integrating Human Rights and Gender Equality in Evaluation (2014): http://www.uneval.org/document/detail/1616

UN Women’s Evaluation Handbook https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2022/05/un-women-evaluation-handbook-2022

https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Evaluation/Evaluation-GERAASMethodologyMatrix-en.xlsx 

Competencias

Core Competencies

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies:  https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf

Core values:

• Integrity: Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.
• Professionalism: Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.
• Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity: Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity

1. Functional Competencies:

• Excellent ability to communicate in english and tok pisin and to  write in English

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

• An advanced degree in political sciences, gender studies, international development, social sciences or a related field.
• Minimum of 10 years international experience in conducting evaluations, reviews, assessments, research studies or M&E work in the field of development, including in humanitarian contexts.
• Advanced knowledge of women’s political participation, governance, gender-responsive legislation and policy.
• Good knowledge of development strategies, policies, frameworks and international law.
• Work experience in/good knowledge of PNG context and the region situation. but should have had no involvement in the design and/or implementation of UN Women-supported interventions during the period covered by the evaluation;
• Ability to ensure ethics and integrity of the evaluation process, including confidentiality and the principle of do no harm.
• Ability to consistently integrate human rights and gender perspectives, and disability inclusion in all phases of the evaluation process.
• Solid knowledge of evaluation approaches and methodology and demonstrated ability to apply both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods.
• Familiarity with UN Women or other United Nations organizations’ mandates and activities will be an advantage.

Evaluation Criteria

Applications will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis.

• Technical Qualification (100 points) weight; [70%]
• Financial Proposal (100 points) weight; [30%]

• A two-stage procedure is utilized in evaluating the applications, with evaluation of the technical application being completed prior to any price proposal being compared. The total number of points allocated for the technical qualification component is 100.  Only the price proposal of the candidates who passed the minimum technical score of 70% of the obtainable score of 100 points in the technical qualification evaluation will be evaluated.

Financial/Price Proposal evaluation

• Only the financial proposal of candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation will be considered and evaluated.
• The total number of points allocated for the price component is 100.
• The maximum number of points will be allotted to the lowest price proposal that is opened/ evaluated and compared among those technical qualified candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% score in the technical evaluation. All other price proposals will receive points in inverse proportion to the lowest price.

Submission of application

Interested candidates are encouraged to submit an electronic application to UNDP website not later than 14 August 2022.

The submission package includes:

• Cover letter
• Two writing samples, preferably of evaluation reports that the applicant was responsible for drafting
• List of 3 references

• Personal History Form, using UN Women Personal History Form (P11) https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-P11-Personal-History-Form.doc

• Financial proposal: the financial proposal shall specify a lump sum amount breaking down the professional fee for each deliverable and travel related costs. Interested candidates are encouraged to use the suggested template attached. (IMPORTANT: all travel costs within the country* to be included in the daily fee.)

* Due to the COVID pandemic, the option of travelling or doing virtual consultations will be discussed during the inception phase and consider the latest development on the pandemic.

Annexes

• UN Women GERAAS evaluation quality assessment checklist. https://gate.unwomen.org/Evaluation/Download?evaluationId=4918
• UN Women Evaluation Consultant Agreement Form. https://gate.unwomen.org/resources/docs/SiteDocuments/UNWomen%20-%20CodeofConductforEvaluationForm-Consultant.pdf
• UNEG Norms and Standards for evaluation. http://www.unevaluation.org/document/download/2787
• UN Women Evaluation Handbook. https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2015/4/un-women-evaluation-handbook-how-to-manage-gender-responsive-evaluation

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