UN WOMEN Jobs - 83380- Consultant: Midterm Review of the Strategic Partne

Consultant: Midterm Review of the Strategic Partnership Framework 2017-2020 (SPFII)

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Home based

Type of Contract :

Other

Starting Date :

11-Mar-2019

Application Deadline :

21-Feb-19 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

Other

Duration of Initial Contract :

30 days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

30 days

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

Since 2000 and the adoption of Security Council resolution 1325, remarkable normative progress has been made at the global, regional and national levels to further advance and operationalize the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda. There is also increasing recognition that placing women’s agency at the center of the transition from crisis to sustainable development offers enormous potential for leveraging transformative change. The Secretary-General’s 2015 Report to the Security Council on Women and Peace and Security confirms that the capacity of countries to prevent violence, negotiate peace, boost economic recovery and protect populations hinges on women’s participation. Women’s meaningful participation in peace and security increases by 50 per cent the likelihood that peace will be sustained. Women can play a critical role in conflict prevention by creating early warning networks (including for violent extremism and radicalization), and bridging divides across communities. Research shows that women can greatly facilitate mediation efforts and peace negotiations by opening new avenues for dialogue between different factions. Furthermore, women’s active participation in economic re-vitalization makes peacebuilding and recovery efforts more sustainable, as women are more likely to invest their income in family and community welfare. Similarly, recent evaluations and mounting good practices demonstrate that security and justice sector reforms are more likely to respond to the diverse needs of a post-conflict society and address effectively grievances if security and justice institutions are representative of the societies that they serve.

Despite recognition of the benefits that investing in women brings to improving conflict prevention, conflict resolution, protection, humanitarian action and peace consolidation efforts, their contribution continues to be undervalued, under-utilized and under-resourced. In 2012-2013 only 2 per cent of aid to the peace and security sector targeted gender equality as a principal objective. Similarly, in 2014, only 20 per cent of humanitarian projects were coded as making a significant contribution to gender equality, while 65 per cent of funding reported through UN OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service (FTS) simply did not use the gender marker introduced five years ago. Further, humanitarian, peace and security and development assistance continue to operate in silos. Each have different aims, follow different principles, operate over different special and temporal scales and are aligned with different budget lines and rules managed by different actors.

To address the financing gaps and create greater synergies between different sources of finance to meet the needs of women across the humanitarian-development divide, a Women, Peace and Security Financing Discussion Group (FDG) was established in June 2014. Composed of representatives from donors, conflict-affected Member States, United Nations entities and civil society, it recognized the urgent need to prioritize action and established the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund - a global pooled funding mechanism which aims to re-energize action and stimulate a significant shift in the financing of the women’s participation, leadership and empowerment in humanitarian response, and peace and security settings. The WPHF is a flexible and rapid financing mechanism. It supports quality interventions designed to enhance capacities to prevent conflict, respond to crises and emergencies, and seize key peacebuilding opportunities. Sustainability and national ownership are key principles of investments.

The WPHF has the following three main functions:

Breaking silos between humanitarian, peace, security and development finance by investing in enhancing women’s engagement, leadership and empowerment across all phases of the crisis, peace and security, and development contiguum.
Addressing structural funding gaps for women’s participation in key phases of the crisis, peace and security, and development contiguum by improving the timeliness, predictability and flexibility of international assistance.
Improving policy coherence and coordination by complementing existing financing instruments and promoting synergies across all actors: multi-lateral and bilateral entities, national governments’ women’s machineries; and local civil society organizations.

The WPHF complements and co-finances strategic interventions with other financing instruments, such as supporting the implementation of a country’s National Action Plan on WPS, or co-financing with the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF). In order to ensure complementarity with the PBF, the WPHF only support peace and security interventions by civil society organizations and Governmental institutions in countries where the PBF operates (with the bulk of the investment in CSOs). In countries where the PBF has a limited (below $2 million allocation) or no interventions, the WPHF supports interventions by UN organizations, Governmental institutions and civil society organizations. This coordination is facilitated by the representation of the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) on the Funding Board of the WPHF.

The Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund

The Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund was launched in February 2016 as a multi-partner trust fund hosted by the UN Multi-partner trust fund office, who acts as the Administrative agent for the Fund. A Funding Board at global level, comprised of 12 members (UN, donors, and civil society organizations) makes strategic decisions, including on countries’ eligibility and Fund’s investment. UN Women acts as the Secretariat for the Fund, provides technical support to the Board and manages the Fund on a day-to-day basis. At country level, National Steering Committees comprised of the UN, the Government, the civil society and the donor community manage the country allocation proposal on behalf of the Funding Board. A Management Entity for Civil Society Organizations manage the grants with the WPHF-supported Civil Society Organizations.

Since its establishment, the WPHF has identified 24 priority countries and invested in five countries: Burundi as a pilot investment in January 2016, Colombia, Jordan, the Pacific (a multi-country allocation including Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu) and, more recently, Iraq.

The Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund Mid Term Review (MTR) is intended to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the Fund, and to identify good practices as well as areas of improvement that can be explored to accelerate the Fund’s results by December 2020 (end date of the WPHF)

As the Secretariat of the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund, UN-Women is responsible for commissioning a mid-term review (MTR) of the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund

Duties and Responsibilities

Outputs and deliverables:

Inception report with proposed MTR methodology, work plan and structure of the MTR report;
A draft preliminary MTR report and presentation, to be presented at a debriefing meeting with UN-Women (SPFII Team);
Final report that should include the following in its structure:

Executive Summary;
Introduction (including context, scope, methodology and limitations);
Key Strategic Findings and Conclusions;
Recommendations (corrective actions for on-going or future work, not more than 10);
Summary on challenges, lessons learned and best practices;
Annexes (list of interviewees, list of documents reviewed, etc.)

Timeframe:

Proposed timeframes for each deliverable:

Desk review and inception report: 7 working days.
Field work and Preliminary Report: 15 working days
Final Report: 8 working days

The consultant cannot have participated in the programme preparation, formulation, and/or implementation and should not have a conflict of interest with programme related activities.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability
Highest standards of integrity, discretion and loyalty
Accountability
Creative Problem Solving
Effective Communication
Inclusive Collaboration
Stakeholder Engagement

Functional Competencies:

Excellent knowledge of principles and methods of evaluation, particularly in the context of international development
Demonstrated grasp and understanding of gender issues, in general, and preferably in the UN system
Strong analytical skills, including ability to rapidly analyze and integrate diverse information with a discerning sense for quality of data
Ability to work with multidisciplinary and multicultural teams
Creativity, innovation and initiative
Result oriented
Ability of facilitation

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master’s degree or equivalent in social sciences, human rights, gender/women's studies, international development, or a related field is required

Experience:

At least 10 years of experience in gender programming, monitoring and/or evaluation in the UN and/or international development.
Experience in gender sensitive evaluation.
Experience in reviewing a multi-partner trust fund preferred.

Language:

Full proficiency in English (written and spoken). French is an asset