Background

Background:

UN 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 United Nations system in Lebanon 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.

Lebanon’s current financial and political crises, the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic, and the harrowing Beirut Port explosion (4 August 2020), has made for a challenging operational environment. These overwhelming and devastating conditions across the country have made Lebanese and Syrian women as well as women from different nationalities living in the country to negative coping strategies affecting their ability to negotiate equal treatment, rights and protections from violence.

UN Women works to empower diverse women and girls in Lebanon, at micro, meso, and macro levels. Since 2016, UN Women established its office presence in Lebanon, the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) programme has predominantly focused on increasing the resilience of vulnerable women and girls in Lebanon through the provision of the economic opportunities and improving their access to protection services from violence. UN Women, in partnership with local actors providing protection services, has been supporting vulnerable women and women at increased risk of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). The protection pillar focuses on enhancing women’s safe access to critical protection related services for their full and effective participation in public life, including civil registration, essential services for the survivors of violence against women (VAW), self-defense training.

Due to a rise in the rate of abuse and an increase in the cases of domestic violence as well as an increase in the need for protection of vulnerable women, UN Women is planning to offer multi-pronged approach to strengthening Lebanon’s protection response through scaling up direct services, increasing the capacity of government social development centres (SDCs) and protection actors across the humanitarian sector, and scaling-up information and outreach to women, with a focus in hard-to-reach areas. Scaling-up protection services is urgently needed to meet the growing protection needs in the country. Women and girls will be targeted with different types of protection services, such as GBV case management, legal counseling and legal representation, mental health services and psychological assistance services. Over the last decade, there has been significant investment in studying and improving protection services for women and girls. However, there remains an information gap on protection and GBV trends of women and girls with disabilities and how to best meet their needs; particularly in response to the recent crisis: pandemic, Beirut explosion and economic crisis. 

UN Women is looking for a consultant to conduct an evaluation to assess the extent to which the protection services have achieved (or lack thereof) intended results and/or unintended results regarding improved response to violence against women and an increased sense of safety.

Financial portfolio of the program:

The project to be evaluated is funded by the government of Japan, the overall project amount is 786,909 USD, out of which 154,000 USD are dedicated to the protection services in 2021/2022 and are to be evaluated under this ToR, along with a past intervention on protection conducted in 2020/2021 for an amount of 400,000 USD.

The protection component of 2021/2022 is implemented with KAFA (a women led/ women’s rights organization specialist in protection), and last year protection component was implemented with CARE international (an INGO) in partnership with ABAAD (a women led/ women’s rights organization specialist in protection).

Donor profile:

Since 2011 the Government of Japan has been championing UN Women’s resilience and recovery response project, ‘Women’s Leadership, Empowerment, Access and Protection in Crisis Response’ (LEAP) to support women’s resilience as a strategy for community resilience in a crisis context. In Lebanon, UN Women has been receiving funding from the Government of Japan since 2015. The projects aimed at responding to the impact of the Syria crisis through the empowerment of vulnerable women and girls.

Theory of Change:

In all its livelihood programming, UN Women links its livelihoods interventions with the provision of proper protection information, awareness and referrals when needed to the targeted women. The overall theory of change of the WEE program at UN Women in Lebanon is as follow:

“If women are well equipped with market-based skills and resources,

If women are supported in accessing the local labour market

If women are provided with information and access to protection services and practical skills on self-protection

Then there will be a more protective and enabling environment for women’s economic participation

Then women will be more resilient amidst the economic crisis and protected refugee crisis because women will be more engaged in public life and better able to access decent work.”

Logical framework and alignment to UN Women’s AWP and SN:

The below project output is to be evaluated and the full logical framework can be found in Annex A.

Output 1.4: Women and girls are more protected and more aware of different types of possible protection interventions (including PSS, PSEA, GBV case management, legal aid, GBV awareness, first aid, and referral services through government SDC spaces and women’s centers)

Activities:

1.4.1. Provide protection services and awareness raising for women and girls affected by the Blast and the economic crisis including case management, mental health, PSEA and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services, GBV, and comprehensive legal assistance, including legal representation

1.4.2. Rehabilitate two social development centers to become safe spaces

Indicators:

# of women and girls reached through protection services and awareness raising. Baseline: 0. Target: 500 beneficiaries

# of SDCs rehabilitated. Baseline: 0. Target: 2

The program’s contribution towards UN Women CO Strategic note, UN Women Strategic Plan as well as its contribution towards (or alignment with) the international, regional and national treaties or conventions

The project component we are looking to evaluate is directly linked to the theory of change that was developed in support of the development results of UNW strategic plan (2018-2021), outcome 4 that states the following: “Outcome 4: All women and girls live a life free from all forms of violence”.

This project also aligns with the below output from UN Women Lebanon’s 2021 Annual Work Plan:

Impact 2: SP Outcome 3: Women have income security, decent work, and economic autonomy

Outcome 2.3: National authorities, private sector and CSOs are engaged in and actively support gender equality and women’s economic empowerment and protection

Output 2.3.5: Women and girls are supported with essential protection services, including to respond to increased needs as a result of the Covid-19 epidemic.

Partners:

NGO partners:

CARE International Lebanon is an international humanitarian and development agency with a strong technical expertise in gender and gender-based violence. UN Women partnered with them to deliver protection services in Lebanon under the Japan project 2020/2021.

ABAAD is a nation women’s rights organization with a mandate to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment. Under the project (2020/2021), CARE and UN Women are building the capacity of ABAAD in order to strengthen national ownership of the protection response and service delivery.

KAFA (enough) Violence & Exploitation is a Lebanese civil, non-governmental, non-profit, feminist, and secular organization seeking to create a society that is free of social, economic, and legal patriarchal structures that discriminate against women. UN Women partnered with them to deliver protection services in Lebanon under the Japan project 2021/2022.

Government partners:

Ministry of Social Affairs (MOSA) is the leading governmental agency to oversee the implementation of the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan. UN Women is working to support the delivery of protection services through MOSA-managed Social Development Centres across the country.

Duties and Responsibilities

Purpose of the Evaluation

The evaluation aims to support UN Women Lebanon’s strategic learning, and decision-making and positioning for future work and programming on the protection intervention of the WEE programme in Lebanon. The evaluation will follow a participatory approach that will include consultations with beneficiaries and key stakeholders, including the Ministry of Social Affairs and key NGO partners. The evaluation will draw lessons learned and recommendations for future work and programming on the protection component of the WEE programming in Lebanon.

The evaluation will also have a forward looking or formative focus and will aim to provide key recommendations for the implementation and scaling up opportunities of future work, based on the lessons learned identified through this evaluation and will also provide forward looking recommendation on the roles of all key stakeholders to ensure linkages and mutual synergies of the different stakeholders.

The main users of the evaluation are UN Women Lebanon Country Office and project stakeholders, who will use the finding of the evaluation to feed into the new planning cycle for the next period and in formulating new WEE programming in Lebanon.      

The evaluation has the following specific objectives:

• Provide a detailed assessment of the extent to which the protection services achieved their intended results in line with the past and ongoing project’s results indicators
• Identify and validate lessons learned, promising practices and innovations of protection work supported by WEE Program within the context of the aid effectiveness agenda.
• Provide actionable recommendations with respect to the development of the protection component of the next WEE’s programme.
• Support the UN Women CO to improve its strategic positioning to better support the achievement of sustained gender equality and EVAW.

Scope of the Evaluation:

The selected consultant will evaluate the protection components of two UN Women projects funded by Japan (2020/2021 and 2021/2022), with focus on lessons and evidence of the achieved outputs and activities.

The geographical scope of the evaluation will focus on the project three implementation areas (Beirut, Akkar and Tripoli). The evaluation will reach out to all principal stakeholders, i.e. the NGOs implementing the protection intervention (KAFA, Care International and ABAAD), the Ministry of Social Affairs, and other stakeholders working on protection in Lebanon, including international and national NGO’s.  The evaluation will reach out to women, girls, benefiting from the services provided under this component. The evaluation will include a stakeholder analysis map.

The evaluation should specifically look at how the project adapted its activities to the COVID-19 pandemic and evaluate the online awareness raising session and services provision.

Limitations: The COVID-19 pandemic as well as the current fuel crisis might restrict travel and in-person interviews and focus group discussions. Therefore, some of the meetings will need to be hold online.   However, if meeting will be organized online, the evaluator will need to take into consideration the lack of stable internet connection. Furthermore, in case beneficiaries need to join online meetings, they will need to be supported with internet bundles. The evaluation needs to take this into account and plan for a methodology that uses innovative tools for engaging with the different stakeholders.  

Evaluation criteria and Key Questions:

Questions under OCDE/DAC evaluation criteria, including relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence as well as sustainability will be answered by the evaluation. Considering the mandates to incorporate human rights and gender equality in all its work and the UN Women Evaluation Policy, which promotes the integration of women’s rights and gender equality principles, one of the key criteria and related questions will be around the Gender Equality and Human Rights perspectives

At inception stage, the evaluation expert is expected to develop an evaluation matrix summarizing key questions, indicators, sources of information and methodology to guide the analysis and triangulation. Final evaluation matrix will be validated by the evaluation management group. The below questions will be refined by the consultant in the evaluation matrix.

Relevance:

• To what extent did the projects reach out and respond to the needs and priorities of the beneficiaries?
• To what extent was the design and implementation strategy and approaches relevant to the needs and priorities in Lebanon?

Effectiveness

• To what extent did the project increase the protection and awareness of the targeted women?
• What were the main successes of the project interventions?
• What are the limiting factors that might hinder the achievement of the intended results and what needs to be done to overcome these limiting factors?
• How effective was the online interventions that replaced the face-to-face interventions during COVID?

Efficiency

• To what extent did UN Women’s allocated resources (human and financial) enable the effective implementation of the project interventions?
• What is UN Women’s comparative advantage for the implementation of protection services in Lebanon?
• What improvement in resources, institutional setup and arrangements is required for the efficient implementation and the achievement of results? 

Coherence

• To what extent were the project interventions coherent with UN Women’s Theory of Change?
• To what extent were the project interventions coherent with interventions with similar objectives of other stakeholders?

Sustainability

• To what extent did the project interventions contribute to the creation of sustainable results (both on the individual and the institutional level)

Human rights & Gender Equality

• To what extent was the human rights-based approach and gender equality incorporated in the design and implementation?
• To what extent has UN Women been able to address the challenges in addressing gender equality within the framework of the project?

Evaluation Ethics and Norms:

The evaluation is to be conducted in line with UNEG Norms and Standards for evaluation, the UNEG Code of Conduct for Evaluations in the UN System, UN Women evaluation guidelines including Evaluation Policy[1], GERAAS evaluation report quality checklist[2], and the UN Women “How To Manage Gender-Responsive Evaluation” handbook[3]. 

The evaluation shall also be guided by the UN Women Pocket tool for managing gender responsive evaluation during Covid 19.

[1] https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2012/10/evaluation-policy-of-the-united-nations-entity-for-gender-equality-and-the-empowerment-of-women

[2] https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/evaluation/evaluation-geraas-guidance-en.pdf?la=en&vs=408

[3] https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2015/4/un-women-evaluation-handbook-how-to-manage-gender-responsive-evaluation

Evaluation Methodology:

This will be a utilization focused evaluation and the evaluation methodology will deploy mixed methods. This should include quantitative and qualitative data collection methods and gender and human rights based analytical approaches to ensure participatory, inclusiveness processes as described below:

A theory-based approach and contribution analysis methodology will be followed for the evaluation. Thus, the existing Theory of Change (ToC) will be examined to gain an understanding of the conditions that affect results, to identify those strategies that are effective and to collect information that helped adaptation or lack thereof. In case the desired results did not materialize, the evaluation should ascertain whether this was because of programme design, implementation or external factors beyond the control of the programme. The ToC may be reconstructed to elaborate on the objectives and articulation of the assumptions that stakeholders use to explain the change process represented by the change framework that the Action Plan considered.

Document reviews, content analysis, online or onsite Interviews and focus group discussions with all key stakeholders involved in the project implementation, including but not limited to UN Women team, local and international NGO partners, target beneficiaries, government partners, etc. will also take place.

Interested bidders are requested to include in their proposal the best possible approach from a methodological standpoint.     

Evaluation Management and Phases:

The evaluation will be a consultative, inclusive, and participatory process and will include a twofold management structure consists of an Evaluation Steering Committee, an Evaluation Management Group and Evaluation Reference Group. UN Women will form an Evaluation Management Group (EMG) to support the Evaluation Task Manager (ETM) 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 the EMG and the Evaluation Task Manager (ETM), the evaluation will be carried out by an external consultant recruited by UN women for this specific evaluation. The planning and coordination analyst at UN Women Lebanon office, will be the ETM and the evaluation consultant will report directly to the 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.

ERG - 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 of UN Women Staff, key humanitarian stakeholders in Lebanon, duty bearers and right holders.  The reference group is an integral part of the evaluation management structure 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.

An evaluation Steering Committee, ESC, will be established as the key accountable body that will ultimately endorse the evaluation report and will be responsible for the development of an evaluation Management Response (MR) to address the recommendations included in the report.  The specific functions of the ESC will include the following:

• Be informed by EMG during the entire evaluation process.
• Revise and endorse the different evaluation deliverables: inception report and final evaluation report.
• Lead in the development of the evaluation Management Response (MR) in coordination with relevant staff.

Endorse the MR, which will be made publicly available in the UN Women Global Accountability and Tracking of Evaluation (GATE) system.

The phases of the evaluation will be as follow:

• Inception phase: Develop the methodology in consultation with WEE team.
• Data collection and analysis: Desk review of relevant documents. Interviews with the stakeholders, including UN Women staff and partners (government, UN, civil society, academic), beneficiaries and donors. Learning sessions for the UN Women office.
• Reporting phase: Analyze data, draft evaluation and learning report, host closing learning session (open to externals outside of UN Women, as identified by UN Women).

Deliverables:

[1] The Evaluation Report shall follow the structure detailed in the UN Women Evaluation Handbook (Box 18 Outline of Evaluation Report)

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.

Functional Competencies

• Proven ability to monitor and document GBV/SGBV, with an understanding of gender-specific protection concerns, and experience interviewing vulnerable witnesses;
• Experience undertaking corporate learning exercises and evaluations;
• Strong communication and negotiation skills;
• Excellent analytical capacity;
• Strong Knowledge in witness and victim protection and data protection;
• Ability to speak and write in a clear and gender-sensitive language;
• Ability to lead development of clear strategies and to provide strategic advice to senior management;
• Ability to communicate effectively both in written and oral.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in International Affairs/Development, Sociology, Law, Gender and Women’s Studies, and/or with strong knowledge of gender issues, or related discipline.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• PHD is an asset.

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years of experience working in human rights, in particularly in the area of gender-based violence.
• At least five years of prior experience of working on programs evaluations, preferably in the thematic area of gender-based violence.
• Past experience of conducting gender responsive evaluations is an asset.
• Track record of expertise on issues of women’s rights is an asset.
• Strong expertise on organizational learning and development processes is an asset.
• Solid understanding of the Lebanese context is an asset.
• Exposure to country situations of political risk, crisis, or change is an asset.
• Computer skills, Qualitative and quantitative software analysis skills,
• Internet communication and command of MS Office.

Language:

• Proficiency in written and oral English and Arabic is a must.

Evaluation Criteria:

Consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology: Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for the financial evaluation.

Criteria Weight Technical: 70% (70 points)

Criteria 1: Education: (20 points)

Criteria 2: Minimum 7 years of experience working in human rights, in particularly in the area of gender-based violence: (30 points)

Criteria 3: Prior experience working on programs evaluations (20 points)

Financial: Lowest Financial Proposal: 30% (30 points)

The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:

• Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical).
• The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula: (Lowest Bid Offered*)/ (Bid of the Consultant) x 30.
• 'Lowest Bid Offered' refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 49 points in the technical evaluation.

Application:

Interested individuals must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• A cover letter explaining your suitability for the work and previous work portfolio, and ability to meet the requirements, method of engagement based on but not mutually exclusive to the above recommended methodology and tools and other relevant information.
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment;
• Personal CV; and financial proposal; Proposed inclusive daily and lump-sum rate, which should include all costs associated with data collection and analysis.

The above-mentioned documents should be submitted together, incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification.

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.)

Annex 1