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.

To support member states in implementing the 2030 Agenda, UN Women’s Flagship Programme Initiative “Making Every Woman and Girl Count” (Women Count) aims to affect a radical shift in the availability, accessibility and use of data and statistics on key aspects of gender equality and women’s empowerment. The Programme envisions a multi- year and multi-country programme of work, supported by global and regional activities linking normative and technical work on gender statistics at the global level to the regional and national levels through three interlinked areas of work:

• Building a supportive policy and institutional environment for the localization and effective monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);

• Increasing the quality, comparability and regularity of gender statistics to address national data gaps and meet reporting commitments under the SDGs; and

• Ensuring that gender statistics are accessible to users in governments, civil society, academia and the private sector, to strengthen adequate demand for their production.

The Programme duration is from August 2016 to February 2021 and is implemented at three levels through country and regional projects and a global project. While the programme team at HQ oversees overall implementation of the programme and links global normative and technical work to the regional and national levels, Regional Offices support pathfinder countries to implement their projects and provide technical and financial support to selected non- pathfinder countries in their regions. In addition, Regional Offices work closely with partners to improve regional coordination and collaboration on gender statistics.

As part of the Monitoring Learning and Evaluation (MLE) plan of the Programme, UN Women will recruit a consultant to document best practices and lessons learned from its country/regional projects through an initial set of 1-3 case studies. Therefore, an initial set of 3 multi-country/regional case studies will be commissioned that will aim to collect qualitative and quantitative data to better illustrate the impact of the programme on the ground. The 3 case studies will aim to highlight a few country and regional best practices that can effectively demonstrate the impact of Women Count programme across its 3 Outcome areas and distill critical lessons learned that can be applied, widely disseminated, and replicated within and beyond the Women Count programme.

The consultant will be supervised by the Women Count Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist and Programme Analyst in Coordination with the Chief Statistician.

Purpose and objectives: The main objective of this assignment is to document the Programme’s good practices, lessons learned and stories of change through a series of case studies that programme results from a qualitative lens while also supplementing results with quantitative data, where available to enhance learning and serve as a supplement to the annual donor reporting process. The case studies will also be adapted into feature stories for the Data hub to reach more diverse audiences.

Specific objectives include:

• To better illustrate the impact of the programme on the ground highlighting experiences of programme beneficiaries/partners etc. etc. through storytelling to be featured in the Women Count 2019 Annual Report.

• To produce a concrete knowledge product that showcases selected best practices and lessons learned coming from Women Count country/regional projects on how to improve the availability and use of gender data.

• To inform how Women Count programme can build on existing best practices captured through the case studies that can be replicates in other Women Count pathfinder countries and regions.

• To use the case studies as a tool to facilitate and promote greater knowledge sharing within and beyond the Women Count programme and encourage other UN Women offices and key stakeholders to replicate successful best practices.

Three case studies will focus on the following areas:

Case Study 1: Integrating gender in national strategies for the development of statistics (NSDS) in Africa

This case study will aim to answer the following questions: 

• Why is integrating gender in the NSDS important towards achieving national gender equality priorities and the 2030 Agenda on sustainable development?   
• What does it mean to integrate gender in the NSDS?  
• What approach, including holistic and system-wide, and essential steps were taken by the Women Count programme to integrate gender in the NSDS? What are the different modalities that have been used specifically in Women Count pathfinder countries in Africa? 
• Were there other activities (training, benchmarking, advocacy, change of policy) are necessary to accomplish the integration?  
• What was the result of the integration (e.g. change in the way countries work on gender statistics, paradigm shift on how producers and users of gender statistics engage and coordinate with each other, availability of more data, better and informed decision making, resource mobilization/allocation etc.)? 

• Are there any early indications around the overall sustainability of this process? 
• Are there any lessons learned that should or should not be applied that can further guide other countries interested in replicating this process? 

Case Study 2: Improving coordination within the National Statistical Systems (NSS) through establishing coordination mechanisms in Kenya

This case study will aim to answer the following questions:  

• Why is an interagency coordination mechanism an indispensable element towards a well-coordinated and supportive NSS? How has this been demonstrated in Kenya through the establishment of the Gender Statistics Technical Committee?  
• What is the relevance of the Gender Statistics Technical Committee (what value did it bring to already existing structures in Kenya)? Has there been any changes (positive/negative) in the ways in which the NSS has been functioning resulting from its establishment?  
• What was the approach and essential steps taken by the Women Count programme to establish coordination mechanism (including resources needs (human/financial), how long it takes, the role of training / capacity development at several stages?  

• What has been the influence of the Gender Statistics Technical Committee on institutionalizing decision making within the NSS (i.e. influencing changes to statistical policies, increase in national budget dedicated to statistics etc.), data production and data use?  
• Are there any early indications on the sustainability of the Gender Statistics Technical Committee beyond the Women Count project?  
• What are the benefits of establishing more formal mechanisms like the Gender Statistics Technical Committee for improving data user-producer dialogues? What are the challenges, if any?  
• Are there any lessons learned that should or should not be applied that can further guide other countries interested in replicating this process? 

Case Study 3: Bridging the gap between data production and use

This case study will aim to answer the following questions:  

• Why is bringing together data users and producers essential for driving change on gender equality and women’s empowerment? 
• What the benefits of including data users across the different stages of the data value chain? Are there any challenges? 
• What are some key factors that have contributed to promoting greater data use in each country (i.e. user-producer dialogues, training, media engagement, storytelling etc.)? 
• Can improving how gender data is communicated lead to greater uptake by data users (i.e. policymakers, CSOs etc.)? What are some best practices? What are some challenges?  
• Are there any lessons learned that should or should not be applied that can further guide other countries interested in replicating this process? 

Note, the selection of case studies to be undertaken by the consultant will be agreed upon in consultation with the Monitoring and Evaluation specialist and programme analyst once recruited.

Approach and methodology:

UN Women will recruit a consultant(s)?who will work?in close coordination with UN Women implementing offices and other?relevant?key stakeholders to develop 1, 2 or all 3 of the case studies. It is important to note that the assignment will be home-based, travel to the field will not be required, all correspondences with the field office will be organized with support from the Women Count team and data collection/interviews conducted remotely.  

The case study documentation is expected to employ mixed methods to meet the objectives. The process will include the use of both quantitative and qualitative techniques to review and document results from both the headquarters and the field offices. An elaborate methodology, outlining how to document the stories with the given circumstances will be expected to be included in an inception report. The case study development process is expected to cover the following stages: 

• Stage 1: Preparation - At this stage the focus of case study is made clear based on needs and expectations of the Women Count programme through the elaboration of a concept note and a Terms of Reference. Consultant(s) will then be recruited, and a kick-off meeting will be held with the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist and Programme Analyst, whom will be overseeing the process. The consultant(s) will undertake a desk review, present an inception report and data collection tools that will be reviewed by the Women Count team.  

• Stage 2: Data Collection and Analysis – At this stage, data will be collected using the tools developed at the preparatory stage. With the current context, the assignment will be home-based and the consultant will conduct Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) to collect data from stakeholders in 3-5 countries and other respondents by use virtual means (Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp etc.).  Preliminary data analysis and triangulation will also happen at this stage to prepare and present the first drafts of the case studies.  

• Stage 3: Review and finalization – At this stage the consultant produces first draft and is reviewed by the Women Count HQ team. This process might take several stages before final approval and will include validation with the field office and stakeholders. The final case studies produced will feed into the Women Count Annual Report 2019 and will be made available on the Women Count Data Hub to be widely disseminated as a key learning tool for internal audiences (UN Women) and external stakeholders such as National Statistics Offices, Ministries, civil society organizations etc.  

Duties and Responsibilities

• Conducting a thorough desk review of key programme documents.

• Development of a robust methodology (including sample design, the overall research design, etc), including the respective data collection tools for each method anticipated (i.e. KIIs, FGDs, survey, etc).

• Delivery of draft and final inception reports that document the findings from the desk review as well as the anticipated research design (incl. sample design), methodology, tools and timing.

• Conducting and documenting of all research activity (i.e. interviews).

• Data analysis.

• Delivery of the draft and final case studies reports.

Stages

*To be delivered by the consultants 

Competencies

Core Values

• Integrity

• Professionalism

• Respect for Diversity

Core Competencies

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues

• Accountability

• Creative Problem Solving

• Effective Communication

• Inclusive Collaboration

• Stakeholder Engagement

• Leading by Example

Functional Competencies

• In-depth substantive knowledge of monitoring and evaluation and related development policy and programming issues, including knowledge of results-based management and logframes;

• Demonstrated grasp and understanding of gender issues, in general, and preferably in the UN system;

• Strong research and analytical skills;

• Ability to work with multidisciplinary and multicultural teams;

• Creativity, innovation and initiative;

• Result oriented;

• Comprehensive knowledge of information technology and ability to apply it in work assignments;

• Fully computer literate in using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• Master degree (or equivalent) in development related disciplines, gender, economics, statistics, development or other social science fields.

Experience

• At least 10 years of experience in the area of monitoring and evaluation in the UN and/or qualitative research and technical reports.

• Proven analytical and report writing skills and ability to write, review, and edit reports.

• Experience in working with government agencies, civil society organizations and international organizations is an asset.

• Experience related to gender statistics is highly desirable.

• Excellent time management skills, with an ability to deliver high-quality outputs on time.

Languages

• Fluency in English is required.

• Knowledge of another UN official working language is an asset.