Background
Background and Purpose of Evaluation
The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) was created in January 2011 with the goal of contributing to the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment[1]. UN Women has an integrated mandate focused on:
[1] http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us
- 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: entails 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, as well as more broadly mobilizing and convening key stakeholders to ensure greater coherence and gender mainstreaming across the UN.
The UN Women Independent Evaluation and Audit Service (IEAS) evaluates the work of UN women to enhance organizational accountability, provide evidence-based information for decision-making and to contribute to learning on gender equality and the empowerment of women. It is currently undertaking a Country Portfolio Evaluation of the UN Women Viet Nam Country Office that is expected to be initiated in February 2020 and completed by July 2020. Country Portfolio Evaluations (CPEs) are systematic assessments of the contributions made by UN Women to development results with respect to gender equality at the country level.
The UN Women Viet Nam Country Office (VCO) programme of work is guided by a Strategic Note 2017-2021, which is aligned to UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2018-2021[1] and the United Nations One Strategic Plan 2017-2021 in Viet Nam[2]. The office’s total planned budget for the SN period is $11.8 million (with $6.8 million to be mobilized). VCO’s key programmatic work is focused in two thematic areas: Ending Discrimination and Violence Against Women (EVAW) and Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE), the latter which focuses heavily on resilience to disasters and climate change (DRR). The office also coordinates gender equality efforts among UNCT agencies, government and development partners, and provides high-level policy advice and technical guidance for government bodies to implement and report on national and international gender equality commitments.
[1] https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2017/8/un-women-strategic-plan-2018-2021
[2] https://vietnam.un.org/en/4131-one-strategic-plan-2017-2021
The CPE will act primarily as a formative (forward-looking) evaluation to support the CO’s strategic learning, and to support decision-making and positioning for the subsequent SN (or its equivalent). Given UN Women’s Change Management outcome and the planned transition of the VCO into the Mekong Hub, the evaluation also seeks to specifically provide lessons learned regarding contributions to policy and insights regarding the strategic direction and organizational setup of the office. Finally, the evaluation will be completed in advance of the United Nations in VietNam One Strategic Plan evaluation so that it can serve as input. The scope of the evaluation is currently being finalized in consultation with the offices involved and may change.
An evaluation team is now being established to design and conduct this evaluation. The Independent Evaluation Service’s (IES) Regional Evaluation Specialist (RES) for Asia and the Pacific will be the Team Leader and manager for the evaluation. The RES will be supported by a consultant team, consisting of National/International Thematic Experts and an Evaluation Analyst Consultant. It is a priority for UN Women that the CPE will be gender-responsive and will actively support the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment. It will adhere to UN Women’s Evaluation Policy and UNEG Norms and Standards[1] and Ethical Guidelines[2].
[1] UNEG, “Norms and Standards for evaluation”, 2016, available online at: http://www.unevaluation.org/document/detail/1914
[2] UNEG, “Ethical guidelines”, 2008, available online at: http://www.unevaluation.org/document/detail/102
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
- https://genderevaluation.unwomen.org/en/evaluation-handbook
- https://genderevaluation.unwomen.org/en/evaluation-handbook/country-portfolio-evaluation-guidance
Duties and Responsibilities
Deliverables and schedule for payment
The Evaluation Analyst Consultant is an integral member of the team, and is expected to support the entire CPE process. The work of the consultant will be home-based and will thus need to connect with the team during Asia and the Pacific working hours via Skype. Payment will be made in three instalments of equal value made upon satisfactory receipt and approval of the following deliverables:
| Evaluation Stage | Deliverables | Proposed deadlinefor payment | |
| 1 | Inception phase |
| March 15 2020 |
| 2 | Data collection and analysis |
| May 15 2020 |
| 3 | Reporting phase |
| July 15 2020 |
All data collected by the 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 and should be in line with UN Women Policy on data management and security. The evaluation report will also need to follow the United Nations Editorial Manual, which can be found here. The Evaluation Manager (Regional Evaluation Specialist) and peer reviewers will quality assure the evaluation report against UN Women Evaluation Report Quality Assurance (See Annex 1). All products submitted by the consultant 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. All data collected through the evaluation is property of UN Women.
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
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 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. Additionally, if the evaluator(s) identify issues of wrongdoing, fraud or other unethical conduct, UN Women procedures must be followed and confidentiality be maintained.
Required Skills and Experience
The Evaluation Consultant will be responsible for key analytical and data visualization tasks in support of the evaluation and will be involved in skype interviews, data analysis and report drafting. The Evaluation Consultant is expected to be able to demonstrate evidence of the following experience and capabilities:
- Bachelor’s degree in a field of relevance for the evaluation (i.e. Social Sciences, Evaluation, international affairs); Masters preferred.
- At least 2 years of work experience in an audit, research, evaluation, reporting and/or monitoring area that required strong organizational skills.
- Knowledge of and experience in applying qualitative and quantitative research or evaluation methods (knowledge of NVIVO is an added asset) and producing data visualization an asset.
- Experience in contributing to gender-responsive evaluation or experience in gender analysis and human-rights based approaches an asset.
- Excellent ability to communicate with stakeholders.
- Demonstrated ability to synthesize data and write clearly and concisely in English is required.
- Added asset is knowledge of the role of UN Women and its programming, coordination and normative roles at the regional and/or country level.
- Language proficiency in English.
- Country or regional experience in Asia and the Pacific is desirable.
Application procedure
Interested consultants can apply online and/or submit the following documents to hr.bangkok@unwomen.org :
- CV and UN Women P11
- Letter of motivation with professional fee (daily or lump sum) based on the deliverables listed above
- 2 writing samples (must be a sample where the applicant was directly responsible for writing and demonstrating analytical skills)
- List of 3 professional references that can be contacted
Please be noted that the system only allows 1 attachment per application so please combined all files into one. In case that is not possible, you can submit the application again with different attachments.
Note:
In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.