Antecedentes

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) became operational in January 2011 with the goal of contributing to the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment. The work of UN Women is framed by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which is often called the “international bill of women’s rights”, and the Beijing Platform for Action, which sets forth governments’ commitments to enhance women’s rights. The spirit of these agreements has been affirmed by the Sustainable Development Goals; UN Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security and on sexual violence in conflict; Economic and Social Council agreed conclusions 1997/2 and resolution 2011/5; and the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination policy on gender equality and women’s empowerment and its corresponding system-wide action plan. UN Women has an integrated mandate focused on:

Normative work: to support inter-governmental bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and the General Assembly, in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms, as well as the translation of these norms at country level;

Operational work: to help Member States to implement international standards and to forge effective partnerships with civil society; and

Coordination work: to promote the accountability of the United Nations system on gender equality and empowerment of women (GEEW), including regular monitoring of system-wide progress, and more broadly to mobilize and convene key stakeholders to ensure greater coherence and gender mainstreaming across the UN.

The General Assembly reform effort will include a comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development as well as the general guidelines and principles of the UN system. Resolution 72/279 intends to identify opportunities for UN operational activities to better support countries in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

UN Women programming in Papua New Guinea

The government of Papua New Guinea made efforts to root the values and norms of gender equality at a national level. It established a Parliamentary Committee on Gender Equality as well as the Office of Gender Equality in the President’s Office. These two bodies are supporting the implementation of the Policy for Women’s Empowerment, Gender Equality, Peace and Security which was informed by the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 for Women, Peace and Security. In addition, the PNG Government passed several laws to respond to gender-based violence, the most recent being the National Strategy on Gender Based Violence 2016-2025. The national GBV strategy is aimed at institutionalising and harmonising coordination between stakeholders at national and provincial level, to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls. Crucially, PNG’s constitutional goals and directives acknowledge that gender inequality remains a significant concern for the country. The need for participation and empowerment of women is being addressed in the Papua New Guinea Vision 2050 under the first Strategic Focus Area “Human Capital Development, Gender, Youth and People Empowerment”.

Nevertheless, Papua New Guinea ranks 159th out of 160 countries in the 2017 Gender Inequality Index and 153rd out of 189 countries in the Human Development Index (2017).  The PNG government has made progress in the areas of education, health and infrastructure as part of its National Strategy for Responsible, Sustainable Development (STARS). However, since 85% of its population lives in highly dispersed rural areas over 600 islands, ensuring access to service provision, rule of law, markets and communication has proven to be a challenge. The country’s deteriorating economy lead to budget cuts of over 30% in the key development areas of health, infrastructure and education.  Women and girls are disproportionately affected by the destabilising economy, not only as their economic opportunities decrease, but as tensions and violence increases in both public and private spaces.

Mining activities in the Bougainville Copper Ltd. (BCL) mine co-owned by an Australian mining company and the PNG government became the basis of conflict in 1989. New Zealand-hosted the Lincoln Peace Meeting in January 1998, which resulted in the 2001 Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA).  The BPA established the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) with a wide range of functions, powers and access to resources within the framework of the PNG Constitution, including the firm assurance of a referendum among Bougainvilleans on their political future. Three women were also appointed to participate in the formation of the constitution as members of the Bougainville Constitutional Commission, following which, Bougainville Constituent Assembly adopted a constitution on 12th Nov. 2004, with clear commitments for inclusivity of women in political processes. Women participated in all decision-making processes in public and political life, while the Council of Elders Act enabled women to participate and be represented at the Council of Elders (COE) Assemblies. With the establishment of a Parliamentary Committee on Gender Equality; creation of the Office for Gender Equality in the President’s Office; implementing of the Policy for Women’s Empowerment, Gender Equality, Peace and Security (which localizes UN Resolution 1325); as well as achievement of the Bougainville Community Government Act provision of 50% female representation, there is a clear commitment at the highest levels to promote GEEW in AROB.

The most pressing issue for women in Papua New Guinea is the alarming level of gender-based violence that persists despite the numerous policy attempts aimed at eradicating it. Two in three women experience GBV and 85% of men report to have perpetrated physical, sexual, economic or emotional violence against a partner.  Women rarely report these crimes to the police, and when they do, the rate of arrests is very low. Physical and sexual violence impairs women beyond their physical and emotional health; it impedes their participation in the community, education and labour market. 

It is within this context that the Country Portfolio Evaluation (CPE) will be undertaken. The CPE will consider the past Strategic Note (SN) cycle spanning 2014-2017 as well as the current SN cycle covering 2018-2022. The PNG Country Office focused on the following UN Women global impact areas:

Impact Area 1: Women lead and participate in decision making at all levels

Impact Area 2: Women, especially the poorest and most excluded, are economically empowered and benefit from development

Impact Area 3: Women and girls live a life free from violence

Impact Area 4: Peace and security and humanitarian action are shaped by women leadership and participation

Impact Area 5: Governance and national planning fully reflect accountability for gender equality commitments and priorities

The PNG CO priorities build across thematic areas to feed into the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), Sustainable Development Goals and several crosscutting UN Women flagship programmes.

Women, Peace and Security (WPS) programming in PNG is split in two main strands and geographical areas: government capacity building and referendum preparations with the Autonomous Government of Bougainville, and conflict prevention and humanitarian response in the Highlands region.

UN Women’s concerns and strategy for action here is therefore two-fold. On the one hand, it seeks to support the ABG to adopt normative reforms that would implement CEDAW recommendations, involving women and the marginalised in political leadership and decision-making. Secondly, there are fears that the upcoming referendum currently scheduled for October 2019 will reignite old tensions and lead to violence. Work in Bougainville was thus carried out at government level, in influencing legislation and building capacity. Interventions have also been carried out at a more grassroots level through the Planim Save project. Planim Save was directed at creating conversations and systems of support within the community to manage the unrecognised the trauma of past violence.

PNG CO’s work on crisis response and recovery in the Highlands region is more recent, having started in 2018 because of a WPS scoping study carried out in anticipation of the new SN. The PNG Highlands are showing a spike in weaponized inter-group conflict and has also been severely affected by the February 2018 earthquake. Therefore, UN Women focused on a humanitarian intervention, mobilizing communities and volunteers into a network of peace builders. The action groups helped extend life-saving protection services, while also involving women in decision making groups. New programming is being formed under the Peace Building Program that will work across tribal zones to try and prevent further escalation of conflict. The theory of change present in this project reflects that in ABG, namely that if women participate in leadership, community decision making processes and are empowered agents of change, they can help mediate conflict and maintain peace.

Considering that WPS interventions now extend in two geographical areas, and that they have been allocated a significant portion of PNG CO funds, it is essential to explore this thematic area rigorously, in a way that is forward-looking and can help inform future programming.

Evaluation Purpose and Use

Evaluation in UN Women is guided by key normative agreements to be gender-responsive and utilizes the entity’s strategic plan as a starting point for identifying the expected outcomes and impacts of its work and for measuring progress towards the achievement of results. The UN Women Evaluation Policy and the UN Women Evaluation Strategic Plan 2018-2021 are the main guiding documents that set forth the principles and organizational framework for evaluation planning, conduct, and follow-up in UN Women. These principles are aligned with the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Norms and Standards for Evaluation and Ethical Guidelines.

The key principles for gender-responsive evaluation at UN Women are: 1) National ownership and leadership; 2) UN system coordination and coherence with regard to gender equality and the empowerment of women; 3) Innovation; 4) Fair power relations and empowerment; 5) Participation and inclusion; 6) Independence and impartiality; 7) Transparency; 8) Quality and credibility; 9) Intentionality and use of evaluation; and 10) Ethics.

This Country Portfolio Evaluation is a systematic assessment of the contributions made by UN Women to development results with respect to gender equality at the country level.  However, given that the Country Office will be in initial stage of implementation of its current Strategic Note 2018-2022, the Independent Evaluation and Audit Service (IEAS) is conducting this CPE primarily as a formative (forward-looking) evaluation to support the CO’s strategic learning, and to support decision-making for the continuation of the current SN and positioning for the next Strategic Note. The evaluation will have a secondary summative (backwards looking) perspective, to support enhanced accountability for development effectiveness and learning from experience based on the implementation of the CO previous SN cycle 2014-2017. The evaluation also seeks to provide insights on the strategic direction for UN Women CO within the context of the repositioning of the UN development system as adopted by the General Assembly resolution 72/279 on 31 May 2018.

Considering that an evaluation of the Safe Cities and Safe Public Transport Flagship Programme in Port Moresby is being finalized in Q2 2019, the CPE will leverage this evaluation as input to the EVAW area of work and the CPE will thus focus on the other major area of work of Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action as a case study.

It is a priority for UN Women that the CPE will be gender-responsive and will actively support the achievement of gender equality and empowerment of women.

The primary intended users of this evaluation are the Papua New Guinea country office staff and their key stakeholders, including the UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. IEAS may also be interested in reviewing the evaluation as input to the evaluation of the UN Women Strategic Plan.

Primary intended uses of this evaluation are:

1. Learning and improved decision-making to support adjustments to the implementation of the current SN 2018-2022 and provide insights for development of the next SN;
2. Accountability for the development effectiveness of UN Women’s contribution to gender equality and women’s empowerment; and
3. Capacity development and mobilisation of national stakeholders to advance gender equality and the empowerment of women.

Through this CPE, IEAS is piloting engagement of the IEAS staff as the team leader of the evaluation. Thus, IEAS will use insights based on this experience as input to decisions around its approach to CPEs and for possibly adapting evaluation guidance.

Evaluation Objectives

The evaluation has the following specific objectives:

1. Assess the relevance of UN Women contribution through at national levels and alignment with international and regional agreements and conventions on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
2. Assess effectiveness and organizational efficiency in progressing towards the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment results.
3. Assess the added value of UN Women presence in country, and support UN Women to improve its strategic positioning to better support the achievement of sustained gender equality and women’s empowerment within the region.
4. Analyse how a human rights approach and gender equality principles are integrated in the design and implementation of UN women’s work.
5. Identify and validate lessons learned, good practices and examples of innovation that supports gender equality and human rights.
6. Provide actionable recommendations.

Management of the evaluation:

This evaluation will have the following structures:

1. Regional Evaluation Specialist of the Independent Evaluation and Audit Service will manage the coordination and day-to-day management and serve as the team leader, leading methodological approach, collection of data, analysis and writing;
2. Evaluation team: evaluation team members may include an evaluation analyst responsible for key analytical tasks, systematization of information and contribution to analysis and report preparation; thematic expert/s to provide substantive feedback on the key thematic areas of UN Women PNG; National evaluator to support the data collection in country and provide key contextual information; and potentially a UN Women staff from another CO in the region to provide insights from a CO perspective.
3. Evaluation Management Group for administrative support and accountability: Country Representative, Assigned Evaluation Focal Point, Deputy Country Representative;
4. Evaluation Reference Group for substantive technical support: UN Women programme, National government partners, Civil Society representatives, Development partners/donors, UNCT representatives.
5. Peer Review for methodological guidance and feedback: 1-2 IEAS staff will be engaged as peer reviewers of the CPE.

Deberes y responsabilidades

UN Women is seeking to appoint one National Evaluation Consultant to support the conduct of the evaluation, in particular the data collection in-country. The National Evaluation Consultant will be responsible for ensuring that contextual information on Papua New Guinea has been well understood and articulated, through the use of adequate tools, methodological design, and engagement with data and stakeholders.

The National Evaluation Consultant will be contracted between April and September 2019. Ideally the preliminary findings will be ready to feed into the CO AWP 2020, which will be finalized in October.

The National Evaluation Consultant is expected to support the following:

1. Skype Interview (Submission by April 2019): Approximately 4 key informant scoping interviews to inform the evaluation approach.
2. Data Collection (Submission by May 2019): Support the data collection in Papua New Guinea with the Team Leader including interviews, focus groups and site visits/observations. This may require translation. 
3. Review evaluation products (May - July 2019): Review all key products of the evaluation and provide feedback to ensure Papua New Guinea contextual information is accurately captured and appropriately tailored approaches are employed:

• Inception presentation, including Theory of change and stakeholder analysis
• Data collection tools
• Preliminary findings PPT
• Draft report 

All data collected by the National Evaluation 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. The Evaluation Report will also need to follow the United Nations Editorial Manual, which can be found here. The Evaluation Manager (Regional Evaluation Specialist) will quality assure the evaluation report against UN Women Evaluation Report Quality Assurance (See Annex 1). All products are subject to quality review; the draft and final evaluation report will be shared with the evaluation reference group, and the evaluation management group for quality review.

Competencias

• Cultural and gender sensitivity and ability to work with people from different backgrounds.
• Ability to work both independently and in a team and ability to deliver high quality work on time.
• Ability to liaise with stakeholders and partners, research institutions, civil society.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

1. Bachelor’s degree in a field of relevance for the evaluation (i.e. Social Sciences, Evaluation, political science, international affairs, peace and security, human rights, gender studies).
2. At least 5 years of demonstrated experience in research, monitoring and/or evaluation.
3. Proven work experience in data collection including interviews and/or focus group discussions.
4. Experience in contributing to gender-responsive evaluation or experience in gender analysis and human-rights based approaches an asset.
5. Excellent ability to communicate with stakeholders.
6. Added asset is knowledge of the role of UN Women or the UN system and its programming, coordination and normative roles at the country level.
7. Proven work experience and knowledge of Papua New Guinea is required and preferably experience in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (ARoB) and/or Highlands region.
8. Papua New Guinea National candidates only.
9. Language proficiency in English and Tok Pisin required.

Ethical code of conduct:

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 and Code of Conduct. These documents will be annexed to the contract. The UNEG guidelines note the importance of ethical conduct for the following reasons:

1. Responsible use of power: All those engaged in evaluation processes are responsible for upholding the proper conduct of the evaluation.
2. Ensuring credibility: With a fair, impartial and complete assessment, stake- holders are more likely to have faith in the results of an evaluation and to take note of the recommendations.
3. Responsible use of resources: Ethical conduct in evaluation increases the chances of acceptance by the parties to the evaluation and therefore the likelihood that the investment in the evaluation will result in improved outcomes.

?The evaluation’s value added is its impartial and systematic assessment of the programme or intervention. As with the other stages of the evaluation, involvement of stakeholders should not interfere with the impartiality of the evaluation.

The evaluator(s) have the final judgment on the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the evaluation report, and the evaluator(s) must be protected from pressures to change information in the report.

Additionally, if the evaluator(s) identify issues of wrongdoing, fraud or other unethical conduct, UN Women 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. The UN Women Legal Framework for Addressing Non-Compliance with UN Standards of Conduct defines misconduct and the mechanisms within UN Women for reporting and investigating it.