Antecedentes

1. Background

UN Women regularly evaluates its work to enhance accountability, inform decision making, and contribute to learning. UN Women’s Independent Evaluation Service (IES), part of the Independent Evaluation and Audit Service (IEAS), will conduct evaluations and may require expertise related to social norms change. For example, a Global Feminist Developmental Evaluation (FDE) will take place during 2023 to support innovation and real-time insights to feed into decision-making for the social norms outcome area.  

UN Women’s work on achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is guided by its Strategic Plan, which articulates how UN Women will leverage its triple mandate, encompassing normative support, UN System coordination and operational activities. In its integrated approach to address the root causes of inequality and affect broader systems change, supporting positive social norms is a critical area.  UN Women’s new Strategic Plan 2022-2025, both, identifies discriminatory social norms as a structural barrier to gender equality and women’s empowerment, and positions positive social norms as a high-leverage mechanism to advance UN Women’s vision.[1] Supporting positive social norms has been identified as one of the seven systemic outcomes in the UN Women global Strategic Plan (2022-2025).[2]

While the inclusion of social norms as a specific outcome has been a recent development, UN Women programming has addressed social norms change directly or indirectly in its broader advocacy on gender equality and specifically in its work within thematic areas that require behavioural and attitudinal change, such as ending violence against women and girls and promoting women in leadership. UN Women adopts an integrated approach to transform the unequal power relations and discriminatory social norms, behaviours and practices and promote those that advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. This includes engaging men and boys as allies to promote respectful, equitable and non-violent relationships, contribute to transforming negative stereotypes constraining women’s participation in public and private life, addressing social norms that prevent women and girls’ access to humanitarian assistance, and increase the acceptance of women as leaders and agents of change. Social norms work is also relevant in cross cutting areas such as education, health, sports and peace, humanitarian action and disaster risk reduction.

Although programmatic efforts on changing social norms have been prevalent in UN Women’s efforts at the global, regional and country level; an explicit recognition of this area of work marks a shift in the organizations philosophy of embedding and advancing social norms work across the four thematic impact areas.[3]  Thus, UN Women HQ has begun work defining the social norms outcome area of work to streamline and better inform future programming directions.

With the significant amount of programming across countries and regions on promoting positive social norms, and the strengthened commitment from UN Women highlighted in the new SP it is important for these interventions to be reflective of a common definition and direction, as well as streamline the measurement of progress to inform present and future work as well as to determine the positioning and comparative advantage of UN Women in social norms work. In this regard, the Independent Evaluation Service is initiating a formative evaluation to feed into ongoing developments. The Feminist Collaborative Evaluation will facilitate an in-depth regional approach to provide comprehensive analysis and evidence based on experiences with social norms change programming at the field level across Eastern and Southern Africa, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and Asia and the Pacific regions. 

 

[1] UN Women.  Strategic Plan (2022-2025). Accessed from: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N21/186/22/PDF/N2118622.pdf?OpenElement

[2] UN Women.  Strategic Plan (2022-2025). Accessed from: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N21/186/22/PDF/N2118622.pdf?OpenElement

[3] (i) governance and participation in public life; (ii) women ’s economic empowerment; (iii) ending violence against women and girls; and (iv) women, peace and security, humanitarian action and disaster risk reduction.

Deberes y responsabilidades

2. Duties and Responsibilities

The work of the expert consultant will be home-based and they will need to connect with the teams primarily during Asia and the Pacific working hours via online platforms; however, workshops will be undertaken in other regions and thus, the expert will need to be flexible and adjust to the working hours of the relevant region.  Approximately 100 days of work for the social norms expert are estimated over the period from June 2023 – May, 2026. However, the first task will be supporting the Feminist Collaborative Evaluation which entails approximately 45 days.  The consultant may be requested to travel to support case studies, the costs of which will be covered by UN Women. Under the overall oversight of the IES team leader, the consultant may be requested to contribute to the following:

  • Provide technical inputs on social norms change to evaluative processes.
  • Provide substantive inputs by facilitating sensemaking workshops with key stakeholders.
  • Provide technical advice on the country case studies through feminist inquiry, provide guidance on harvesting local measurement frameworks on social norms change that will be documented in the case studies. Lead the case study summaries (brief case study reports). Support UN Women in translating the case study findings into programmatic lessons learned for social norms change.
  • Map approaches of external stakeholders on social norms.
  • Conduct interviews with internal and external stakeholders and triangulate information with other sources to provide substantive inputs to evaluative processes.
  • Contribute to discussions on of the next steps for corporate requirements and tools related to moving the social norms work forward in the organization.
  • Synthesize findings and recommendations for UN Women by contributing to the final synthesis report, and short briefing notes or presentations.
  • Other tasks as assigned by the supervisor.

3. Duration of Assignment

From 1 June 2024 to 31 May 2026 (Maximum 90 days of assignment period; UN Women does not warrant that the maximum of 90 days. The service will be purchased during the term of the Agreement). The consultant will be engaged under a retainer contract, which facilitates direct engagement of the consultant depending on need and availability within the contract period for a pre-agreed fee.

 

4. Management and Quality Assurance

The IES Regional Evaluation Specialist for Asia and the Pacific will be the supervisor of this consultant.  The consultant will also interact and receive guidance from UN Women personnel working on the social norms outcome area and other Evaluation Specialists, national consultants, evaluation analysts and/or interns that may be engaged to support different tasks.  The Chief of Independent Evaluation Service and the Director Independent Evaluation and Audit Services have oversight over all evaluation activities at UN Women.

 

5. Ethical Code of Conduct

The social norms expert should abide by the principle of UN Evaluation Group’s Ethical Guideline and Code of Conduct for Evaluation in UN System and follow the UN Women Evaluation Handbook. UN Women has developed a UN Women Evaluation Consultants Agreement Form for evaluators that must be signed as part of the contracting process, which is based on the UNEG Ethical Guidelines.

 

All data collected through evaluations are subject to the UN Women Information Security Policy that sets out the basis for UN Women in protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of its data to protect these assets against unauthorized usage, access, modification, destruction, disclosure, loss or transfer of data, whether accidental or intentional. All UN Women staff and other authorized individuals or entities are responsible for maintaining appropriate control over information in their care and for bringing any potential threats to the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of that information to the attention of the appropriate management. Compliance with this Policy is a condition of employment for all UN Women staff and a condition of contract for all other authorized individuals or entities, unless a prior (temporary) waiver is obtained. Failure to comply with this Policy without obtaining a prior waiver shall be dealt with in accordance with Staff Regulations and Rules, or as appropriate, the contractual terms of UN Women’s engagement of the authorized individual or entity. Data Management Plan outlining key aspects of data protection during this DE, namely collection of data and study materials; treatment of consulted populations and observed topics; storage, security and backups; archiving, preservation and curation. The data may be requested and would be property of UN Women.

 

6. Payments

 

Payments for this consultancy will be based on the achievement of each deliverable and certification that each has been satisfactorily completed. Payments will not be based on the number of days worked but on the completion of each stated deliverable within the indicated timeframes on satisfactory completion of task.

 

Payment will be made upon submission of deliverables with approval of the IES Team leader.

All deliverables should be written and generated in English. All data collected is property of UN Women and should be provided upon request.

Competencias

7. Competencies

 

Core Values:

  • Respect for Diversity
  • Integrity
  • Professionalism

 

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

 

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

8. Qualifications, skills and experience

Academic Qualifications

  • Master’s degree in relevant subjects: social sciences, monitoring and evaluation, international relations and/or development, or other relevant areas is required;
  • A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree;

 

Experience and Skills

  • At least 10 years’ proven experience and technical expertise on research or evaluation related to social norms change in the field of gender equality and women’s empowerment is required.
  • Proven experience utilizing feminist inquiry approaches, most significant change, storytelling, outcome harvesting, and other empowerment methods is required.
  • Proven experience in facilitating workshops on topics related to social norms change is required.
  • Experience working with UN Women or the UN system and a solid understanding of its programming, coordination, and normative roles at the regional and/or country level is an asset.
  • Excellent drafting and analytical skills to produce and present concise reports.
  • Experience in contributing to gender-responsive evaluation or experience in gender analysis and human-rights based approaches will be considered as an asset.

Languages

  • Demonstrated abilities of writing high quality English-language reports. 

 

9. Evaluation Criteria for proposals

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.

 

Criteria

Points

A) Education

  • Master’s degree in relevant subjects: social sciences, monitoring and evaluation, international relations and/or development, or other relevant areas is required.
  • A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree;

10

B) Experience and skills

  • At least 10 years’ proven experience and technical expertise on research or evaluation related to social norms change in the field of gender equality and women’s empowerment is required.
  • Proven experience utilizing feminist inquiry approaches, most significant change, storytelling, outcome harvesting, and other empowerment methods is required.
  • Proven experience in facilitating workshops on topics related to social norms change is required.
  • Experience working with UN Women or the UN system and a solid understanding of its programming, coordination, and normative roles at the regional and/or country level is an asset.
  • Excellent drafting and analytical skills to produce and present concise reports.
  • Experience in contributing to gender-responsive evaluation or experience in gender analysis and human-rights based approaches will be considered as an asset.

70

C) Language and report writing skills

  • Demonstrated abilities of writing high quality English-language reports. 

20

Total

100

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

10.  Submission of application

Interested candidates are requested to submit the following documents to hr.bangkok@unwomen.org   and copy to suwanna.sangsuwan@unwomen.org, by 14 May 2023, midnight (New York’s time):

1. Completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from

P_11_form_UNwomen -JUL 2021.docx (live.com)

2. Letter of motivation with key summary of the relevant experiences.

3. At least 2 report(s) where the candidate was responsible for drafting the report.

4. List of 3 professional references that can be contacted.

5. Copy of passport

6. Copy of the highest Education certificate

 

*Applicants without the completed UN Women P-11 form as per the format to the link mentioned above will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

 

 

11.  UN Women statement

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need. 

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application. 

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination.  All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.) 

 

 

 

Annexes

Annex 1 UN Women GERAAS evaluation quality assessment checklist

 

Annex 2 UN Women Evaluation Consultants Agreement Form

 

Annex 3 UNEG Norms and Standards for evaluation

 

Annex 4 UN Women Evaluation Handbook