Antecedentes

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of 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, UN Women leads and coordinates the United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women has played an innovative and catalytic role in Palestine since its inception in 1997. UN Women Palestine Country Office focuses its activities on one overarching goal, namely to support the implementation at the national level of existing international commitments to advance gender equality in line with the national priorities. In support of this goal and thoroughly taking into consideration the specificities of the Palestinian context, UN Women concentrates its efforts and interventions towards the realization of the following strategic goals: (i) Engendering governance, peace and security; (ii) Supporting women's economic security and rights; and (iii) Promoting women’s rights and protection against violence.

UN Women is implementing the project “Holistic Approach to Sheltering Services for Women Victims and Survivors of Violence in Palestine” (December, 2016 - June, 2018) generously supported by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation in the framework of:

• UN Women’s strategic result (Impact Area 3) ”Preventing violence against women and girls and expanding access to services”: Outcome 3.2 “Specialized, quality, multi-sectoral survivors-based services available and accessible to women and girls victims of violence”;
• the National Strategy to Combat Violence Against Women 2011-2019, specifically referring to the need to “increase the number and develop services of safe homes and institutions offering legal and social protection services and ensure their wide geographic distribution throughout Palestine;
• the Cross Sectoral National Gender Strategy 2014-2016:Policy 5: “Developing social services for battered women and the most vulnerable to marginalization”; and
• SDG target 5.3 “Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation”“and building on its long time programmatic support to anti-violence centers (also shelters for women victims and survivors of violence) in Palestine.

The project includes a variety of interventions designed to provide holistic protection services to Gender Based Violence (GBV) victims.  These interventions involve increasing awareness of GBV issues and at the same time improve access to services for survivors, including case management and psychosocial support as well as improved access to legal services and security.

As the project approaches its end, UN Women is recruiting a consultant to undertake an end of project evaluation to assess progress towards the intended results, to compile lessons learned and best practices, and to generate knowledge to inform duty bearers at policy and intervention level. 

Project Description:

UN Women in partnership with local partners have designed this project to ensure local institutionalization of all actions including service provision, knowledge generation, capacity building, advocacy and media efforts.  Through the project, UN Women continues to support anti-violence centres services, anti-violence centres’ staff capacity building, development of minimum sheltering standards, and advocacy for the sustainability and effectiveness of sheltering services in Palestine. Through this project UN Women provides support to the anti-violence centres/shelters building on the achievements and lessons learnt in the West bank and the Gaza Strip. UN Women’s approach involves interventions that are designed to increase knowledge of VAW issues and change attitudes and behavior while at the same time improve access to services for survivors, including GBV case management, medical/healthcare psychosocial support and legal services. Awareness-raising initiatives are also implemented aiming at changing attitudes and behavior towards gender-based violence.

Project Outcomes:

The projects outcome and outputs as outlined in the project document are:

Outcome 1: Women and girls who experience violence are empowered to use available, accessible and quality essential services and recover from violence.

Output 1.1: Availability and accessibility of services to women and girls who were subject to violence improved

Output 1.2: Capacity of service providers to provide quality, coordinated anti- violence services is strengthened

Output 1.3.: Data and information on provision of sheltering services in Palestine is available for evidence based programming and policymaking

Output 1.4.: Evidence based advocacy to strengthen and support the work of anti-violence centers is carried out.

To achieve the outcome of the project, UN Women partnered with the Center for Women’s Legal Research and Consulting (CWLRC) and Women Health Centre (WHC) –Bureij (Responsible Parties) to provide holistic protection services to women and girl victims of gender based violence in Gaza with particular focus on internally displaced women and girls and/or women and girls living in overcrowded houses.

The following strategic interventions were applied throughout the project: 

Capacity building for service providers: UN Women provided and continues to provide full technical assistance and financial resources to support building the capacity of the responsible parties in delivering holistic and influential protection services for GBV victims and survivors.

Community Awareness: the responsible parties launched an awareness campaign to increase the public’s awareness of GBV issues and at the same time improve public awareness on access to services for survivors. The awareness-raising campaigns are aimed at changing attitudes and behaviour towards gender-based violence. The awareness campaign is providing opportunities for female victims to discuss and raise their voices and to advocate for social change to address norms and attitudes related to GBV. Through these awareness campaigns male and female participants publicly discuss social power relations, explore in detail the causes and contributing factors of gender-based violence, the various effects of gender-based violence on victims and their families and the society as a whole, as well as examine a variety of possible social responses.

Full Package of GBV Services: UN Women’s approach involves interventions that are designed to increase knowledge of VAWG issues and change attitudes and behavior while at the same time improving access to services for survivors, including GBV case management, medical/healthcare psychosocial support and legal services. Awareness-raising initiatives are also implemented aiming at changing attitudes and behavior towards gender-based violence. Through increasing the capacity of shelters’ staff to understand, coordinate and refer GBV/VAW survivors to relevant services, women will have increased access to holistic protection services.

Economic empowerment is a key mitigation tool to address protection risks and vulnerabilities, and serves as a powerful tool to support survivors of GBV. In this regard, through the project UN Women provides business start-up support coupled with GBV case management and awareness raising services to GBV survivors with a focus on the most vulnerable groups such as women in conflict with the law and women who recovered from drug-addiction. Economic empowerment supports the reintegration of women into society and the creation of positive family relations around them.

Deberes y responsabilidades

Purpose of the Evaluation:

In accordance with the UN Women Monitoring, Research and Evaluation Plan, a final evaluation is to be conducted for the “Holistic Approach to Sheltering Services for Women Victims and Survivors of Violence in Palestine” project. The evaluation is intended primarily for learning and decision-making. The main purpose of the evaluation is to provide evidence for up-scaling, replicating, and improving the future design and implementation mechanism for future similar interventions.  The primary intended users of the evaluation are UN Women and Responsible Parties.  The final evaluation of this project is intended to assess the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and inclusiveness of the project. It looks at signs of potential impact and sustainability of results, including the contribution to country and global UN Women objectives. The final evaluation also aims to identify/document lessons learned and make recommendations that UN Women and all other project stakeholders might use to capitalize on and guarantee the sustainability of services provided to victims and survivors of GBV in Gaza.

Objectives of the Evaluation:

The main objectives of the evaluation are to:

• Assess the relevance of the project at the national level and alignment with the needs of the intended beneficiaries and with international agreements and conventions on gender equality and women’s empowerment;
• Assess the organizational efficiency of the project in relation to delivering the desired results of the project;
• Assess the effectiveness related to the achievement of the project results as identified in the project document, as well as unintended outcomes;
• Assess the potential sustainability of the project’s results;
• Analyze how the human rights based approach and gender equality principles were integrated in the design and implementation of the project;
• Identify and validate lessons learned, good practices and innovations of efforts that support gender equality and human rights in this area of work; and
• Provide recommendations with respect to future work related to provision of holistic services including engaging boys and girls in promoting respectful relationships and gender equality.

The evaluation will apply the evaluation criteria below by addressing the following key questions (note that the questions are not comprehensive and the consultant is expected to build on them for a thorough evaluation):

Relevance:

• Did the project’s scope and focus create the best opportunity for UN Women to contribute to making essential services accessible to women survivors and victims of violence and to promote respectful relationships and gender equality?

Efficiency:

• To what extent were the project’s institutional mechanisms and arrangements efficient in delivering the results of the project?

Effectiveness:

• To what extent have the project outcomes and outputs been achieved as planned for the evaluated period? What facilitating and hindering factors affected the project’s realization of results thus far? Were there any unintended changes resulting from the program, and if so, which ones or for whom?
• Was the intervention successful in promoting a culture of participation and inclusion, in particular women and individuals/groups who are marginalized and/or discriminated against?
• Are there any signs that suggest that the project has contributed to gender equality and the empowerment of women in Palestine?

Sustainability:

• To what extent have the project interventions built individual and local collective/ organizational capacities that would likely continue to work for the benefit of women’s and girls’ survivors of violence?
• To what extent is gender mainstreamed in the humanitarian recovery and response work in the Palestine due to the project’s interventions?

Evaluation Scope:

The end of project evaluation will assess the collective performance and implementation of all project’s partners, including UN Women and the two responsible parties within the 18-month period of the project starting on 16 December, 2016 and ending on 15 June 15h 2018.  The evaluation will cover the entire geographical area targeted by the project which includes the entire Gaza Strip and will assess all aspects of the project including service provision to women, men and girl’s survivor of gender-based violence, as well as the work related to sheltering services assessment.

Evaluation Methodology:

The evaluation will be a transparent and participatory process involving relevant UN Women stakeholders and partners at country level. The evaluation will be based on gender and human rights principles, as defined in the UN Women Evaluation Policy (http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2012/10/evaluation-policy-of-the-united-nations-entity-for-gender-equality-and-the-empowerment-of-women.)and adhere to the United Nations Norms and Standards for Evaluation in the UN System ( http://www.unevaluation.org/document/download/2787).The evaluation methodology will employ mixed methods and an innovative approach for capturing results, to ensure that the views of a diverse group of participants are represented in the evaluation. The evaluation team is expected to collect both primary quantitative and qualitative data. Qualitative methods adopted should be highly participatory in nature, drawing on more non-traditional methods, e.g. most significant change, network analysis, mapping, video, etc. The analysis of the application of human rights and gender equality principles in the development and implementation of interventions will be an integral part of the final evaluation report.

The evaluation process has five phases:

1. Preparation: gathering and analyzing programme data, conceptualizing the evaluation approach, internal consultations on the approach, preparing the TOR, establishment of the reference group, and recruitment of the evaluation team (responsibility of UN Women);
2. Inception: consultations between the evaluation team and the Country Office, stakeholder mapping, inception meetings with the reference group, review of the results logic and other project documentation for the project, finalization of evaluation methodology and inception report;
3. Data collection and analysis: in-depth review of relevant frameworks and project documents, primary data collection;
4. Analysis and synthesis stage: analysis of data and interpretation of findings, and drafting of an evaluation report; and
5. Dissemination and follow-up: development of a Management Response, publishing of the evaluation report, uploading the published report on the GATE website, and production of other knowledge products and learning events, such as a webinar and an evaluation brief (responsibility of UN Women).

Stakeholders Participation:

In order to facilitate a comprehensive review of the evaluation products and to ensure the participation of key stakeholders in the evaluation, UN Women will establish an Evaluation Reference Group comprising UN Women, partner organizations, and the government.  The reference group is an integral part of the evaluation and is constituted to facilitate the participation of relevant stakeholders in the design and scope of the evaluation, raising awareness of the different information needs, quality assurance throughout the process and in disseminating the evaluation results.

Evaluation Timeframe and Deliverables:

The suggested timeframe to accomplish the evaluation is as follows:                       

• Initial Briefing for Evaluator:  01 day
• Inception Report: Desk review, inception interviews, methodology, tools, and workplan as identified in the evaluation methodology above (draft report, presentation to reference group, final Inception Report):  09 days
• Field work (meetings, interviews, focus groups, etc.):  15 days
• Debriefing Evaluation Management Group:  01 day
• Preparing draft report in English, presentation of draft report to reference group:  06 days
• Follow up/finalize report and receive the final edited copy:  05 days

Evaluation Management:

UN Women will form an Evaluation Management Group comprising the Special Representative, the National Programme Coordinator, to support the Evaluation Task Manager who will lead the day-to-day management of the process.  The management group is constituted to oversee the evaluation management, make key decisions and quality assure the different deliverables.

Under the overall guidance of UN Women Special Representative and the management of UN Women Evaluation Task manager (ETM), the evaluation will be carried out by an external consultant recruited by UN Women for this specific evaluation.  The evaluation consultant will report directly to UN Women ETM. The consultant will be responsible for all logistics (office space, administrative and secretarial support, telecommunications, printing documentation, travel. etc) and the development and dissemination of methodological tools.

The expected key deliverables of the consultant:

• A draft inception report, in accordance with UN Women guidance notes;
• A Final agreed Inception Report which describes the evaluation methodology, including the evaluation questions and detailed timeframe; in English with a comprehensive Executive Summary in Arabic;
• A Power Point Presentation of the  draft evaluation report, in accordance with UN Women approved template; in English with a comprehensive Executive Summary in Arabic; and
• The Final Evaluation Report, incorporating feedback from the Evaluation Management Group and the Evaluation Reference Group, including the following:
  • Executive Summary (2-3 pages);
  • Introduction including background information related to the project;
  • Development context under which the project was implemented;
  • Project strategy and interventions;
  • Purpose, objectives and scope of the evaluation;
  • The methodology used for the evaluation;
  • Assessments according to the criteria and questions defined;
  • Lessons learned;
  • Conclusions and recommendations
  • Evaluation tools (questionnaires and analysis reports);
  • Any other relevant document.

The Final Evaluation Report will be in English with a comprehensive executive summary in Arabic.

The report will form a basis for learning and reflection on future interventions and scale-up phase of the project.  The report will be disseminated by UN Women to national stakeholders and international donors, as relevant.  The report will not be considered final until reviewed by the Evaluation Reference Group and approved by the Evaluation Management Group. 

Competencias

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.offidocs.com/edit-pdfeditor.php?fileurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unwomen.org%2F-%2Fmedia%2Fheadquarters%2Fattachments%2Fsections%2Fabout%2520us%2Femployment%2Fun-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf&filename=1336337

Functional Competencies:

• Excellent training, facilitation and communication skills.
• Excellent research skills.
• Good understanding and practice of capacity development.
• Good understanding of the underlying issues related to gender-based violence in Gaza.
• Outstanding knowledge of gender, women’s rights, the different challenges in regards to gender equality and CEDAW.
• Good understanding of the humanitarian work and coordination mechanisms by different stakeholders in Palestine.
• Good understanding of the context of Palestine.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Education: 

• A master’s degree in social science, development, and/or related areas

Experience: 

• Seven years of working experience in evaluating development multi-sectoral projects/programmes including gender equality and humanitarian projects;
• A proven record of conducting gender responsive evaluations, utilizing mixed methods and participatory approaches, at least 3 evalutions
• Five years’ experience of working within the socio-political context of Palestine;
• A proven record of evaluating programmes with the UN, the EU, and International Organizations; at least 3 evaluations;
• Experience working with Palestinian Civil Society actors and Women CBOs, and grass roots organizations for a minimum of 5 years; and
• Three years of experience in working with  multi-sectoral service providers for women survivors and victims of violence.

Languages:

• Fluent in Arabic and English.

Ethical Code of Conduct

The evaluation will be conducted in line with the following:

• UNEG Ethical Guidelines (http://www.uneval.org/document/detail/102)
• Code of Conduct for Evaluation in the UN System (http://www.unevaluation.org/document/detail/100)

Application procedure

This SSA modality is governed by UN Women General Terms and Conditions. UN Women will only be able to respond to applicants who meet the minimum requirements.

Candidates should clearly indicate how they meet the above mentioned criteria in their applications.

The following documents should be submitted as part of the application. CV including a cover letter on how they meet the above mentioned qualifications

Candidates should have the ability to quickly submit degree certificates, three writing samples of reports for an evaluation led by the candidate in the field of gender equality and with a UN and/or International Organizations, and medical certification (of good health), should they be short-listed in consideration of this consultancy.

Evaluation of applicants

Candidates will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of the applicants’ qualifications mentioned above; and financial proposal. A contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer receives the highest score out of below defined technical and financial criteria. Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 50/70 points in the technical evaluation, writing sample and short interview will be considered for financial evaluation.

Technical Evaluation (60%) – max. 60points:

• A master’s degree in social science, development, and/or related areas; 5 points
• 7 years of working experience in evaluating development multi-sectoral projects/programmes including gender equality and humanitarian projects; 10 points
• A proven record of conducting gender responsive evaluations, utilizing mixed methods and participatory approaches, at least 3 evaluations; 10 points
• Five years’ experience of working within the socio-political context of Palestine; 10 points
• A proven record of evaluating programmes with the UN, the EU, and International Organizations; at least 3 evaluations; 5 points
• Experience working with Palestinian Civil Society actors and Women CBOs, and grass roots organizations for a minimum of 5 years; 10 points
• Three years of experience in working with  multi-sectoral service providers for women survivors and victims of violence; 10 points

Writing Sample (10%) – max 10 points:

Financial Evaluation (30%) – max. 30 points:

The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal. All other price proposals receive points in inverse proportion. A suggested formula is as follows:

p = 30 (µ/z)

Using the following values:

• p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated.
• µ = price of the lowest priced proposal.
• z = price of the proposal being evaluated.