National Consultant for Evaluability Assessment of Empowered Women for Sustainable Peace Project

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. 

In Indonesia, UN Women works with government, civil society organizations (CSOs), academia, the media, the public and private sectors to address national priorities of gender equality and women’s empowerment. Placing the advancement of women’s rights at the centre of our work, UN Women Indonesia focuses on (1) Ending violence against women (2) Promoting women’s human rights (3) Women’s economic empowerment (4) Women contribute to and have greater influence in building sustainable peace. 

As the specialized UN Agency on gender equality and the empowerment of women, UN Women in Indonesia is also working alongside other UN Agencies to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming are translated into UN works and programmes to achieve Sustainable Development Goals across the country. UN Women programmes in Indonesia are guided by the Strategy Note 2021-2024, that is aligned with UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) signed between the Minister of National Planning and UN system in the country. In addition to programmatic interventions, UN Women has a triple mandate of normative support, UN coordination, and operational activities.  

Assignment Background:  

Indonesia is renowned for its vulnerability to natural disasters and climate change impact according to its location between the Indian and Pacific Oceans as well as in “The Ring of Fire” with over 500 volcanos. The National Disaster Management Board (Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana – BNPB) reported the occurrence of such events was about 3.239 disasters caused by natural hazards from January to December 2023.1 Regarding the country context, Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim nation, the largest archipelagic country with more than 18.000 islands which geographically comprises of a rich socio-cultural diversity by having 300 ethnic groups across the islands and Southeast Asia’s largest economy. This diversity of socioeconomic settings has also caused Indonesia to have a high risk of conflict due to social and economic tension alongside the risk of natural disasters. 

Recognizing the adequate effort to grapple with the risk of natural disasters, Indonesia has established BNPB under the Presidential Regulation (PP) No. 21/2008 marking the BNPB as the spearhead national agency in formulating policies and coordinating the implementation of disaster management, complementary with local government in provincial and district level called Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD). BNPB has come to its inclusive initiative by enacting Perka BNPB 13/2014 on Gender Mainstreaming in Disaster Management which endorsed three main indicators: participation, control of resources and decision making, and benefit of policies and programmes. 

Furthermore, socio-cultural wise, the National Disaster Management Law (2007) defines a social disaster as ‘an event or a series of events caused by humans, which include social conflicts between community groups, and terrorism’, whilst the law is practically focused on the management of natural hazard-induced disaster. Hence, Indonesia has passed Law on Social Conflict Management No. 7/2012 (Undang-Undang Penanganan Konflik Sosial – UU PKS). The UU PKS is subtly recalling the history of Indonesia’s period of hardship when the practice of injustice and civil unrest were implemented under the military authoritarian rule of President Suharto. Otherwise, the UU PKS underlies the roots of violent conflict in Indonesia, which are affiliated with politics, economy, socio-cultural issues, and inter alia. Further initiative has been embarked on the passing of new Presidential Regulation No. 7/2021 on National Action on Prevention and Management of Violent Extremism towards Terrorism (RAN PE) 2021-2025. This indicates a strong commitment of the Government of Indonesia (GoI) to preventing conflict and maintaining peace to bring stability.  

Conceding the current situation, it is paramount to uphold gender-responsive resilience to ensure that women and girls have an agency to withstand crises emanated by politics, economy, socio-culture, and natural disasters. UN Women takes the initiative, focusing on deepening and expanding the ‘Peace Village’ concept, to implement Empowered Women for Sustainable Peace: Addressing the Peace-Humanitarian Nexus to Enhance Community Resilience in Indonesia which aims to strengthen community resilience and reduce vulnerabilities in emergency and conflict-affected areas by addressing the humanitarian-development-peace nexus in the context of Indonesia. The project is funded by Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) for the duration of July 2023 to May 2026. 

In partnership with governments, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders, the project pursues four main outcomes: 

1. National and/or local governments produce and use risk-informed, gender sensitive analysis of root causes and structural drivers of conflicts and positive factors for resilience. 
2. Women are able to influence and gain benefits from local policies, plans, and mechanisms that build resilience. 
3. Communities demonstrate commitment to advancing and implementing gender-responsive solutions/interventions/mechanisms to promote social cohesion, conflict prevention and resilience. 
4. Multi-stakeholder platform is established to promote capacity-sharing and knowledge to enhance collaboration between humanitarian, development and peace actors at the national level, focusing on women’s leadership and participation in conflict prevention, emergency response and humanitarian action. 

This project is focusing on creating promising practices to connect humanitarian-development and peace, the ‘Peace Village’ model, from the ground up and establish linkages between this model and national and inter-regional levels. This facilitates knowledge sharing and fosters collaboration among provincial governments. Additionally, it is expected to pave the way for replication, potentially leading to sustainable impact. 

In the planning stage of the project, it has been discussed that Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting (MER) method would be implemented in accordance with UN Women corporate standards. Thus, UN Women intends to conduct an evaluability assessment for the project during its first year of implementation and to ensure that the foundation for MER (the M&E Framework, with a focus on baselines, indicators, targets, and means of verification) is designed correctly. 

Reporting directly to the WPS Project Coordination Analyst KOICA, the Consultant is responsible for conducting the evaluability assessment. The project directly benefits at least 20 selected villages across Central Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), and West Nusa Tenggara (NTB). 

Objectives

The purpose of the consultancy is to work with the project team members of UN Women under the “Empowered Women for Sustainable Peace: Addressing the Peace-Humanitarian Nexus to Enhance Community Resilience in Indonesia” project (also known as KOICA Project) to support the Evaluability Assessment to achieve the following objectives: 

1. Identify the extent to which the Theory of Change and related M&E components of the project have been designed in a manner that will allow for valid and impartial assessment of project performance, providing information to support project management decisions and stakeholder reporting needs. This includes an assessment of the causal chains of the results framework, clarity, relevance, and coherence, including of indicators, baselines, and target. 
2. Assess the likelihood that data will be available for measuring progress against the established M&E framework.  
3. Identify how contextual factors both internally and externally may affect the project implementation and implications for the evaluability.  
4. Document good practices for planning M&E, and for monitoring implementation and performance that should be shared with UN Women.  
5. Provide technical support to UN Women’s KOICA project lead and respective Responsible Parties’ project managers in order to develop their M&E processes including recommendations for the design and finalization of the M&E Framework and Plan.  

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall guidance of the Programme Manager for Governance, Peace, and Resilience and direct supervision of the Project Coordination Analyst Peace – Humanitarian Nexus, the consultant will conduct the overall evaluability assessment. An evaluability assessment is a systematic process intended to determine whether an intervention is in a condition to be evaluated, justified, feasible and likely to provide useful information. It also supports the overall efforts and is suggested to be done in the first year of the Project.  

As part of the evaluability assessment, the consultant will undertake the following tasks: 

• Review the existing documents, including the Project Document, Results Framework, M&E Framework, M&E Plan, and M&E tools.  
• Support in identifying project priorities. 
• Clarifying project goals and objectives and assessing the feasibility of the project goals and objectives.  
• Reviewing the M&E Framework and providing feedback on how to improve the M&E framework. 
• Reviewing and providing assessment on the construction of the SMART indicators. 
• Considering the quality of the information, the appropriateness of the proposed Management Information System (MIS) for storing and safeguarding the data and use of this information by project stakeholders and in performance reports. 
• Examining M&E systems, data availability and quality and whether relevant reliable and valid indicators, tools are in place. 
• Reviewing the resources and management arrangements for implementing the M&E plan to ascertain feasibility and appropriateness and make recommendations for improvements if needed.  
•  Providing practical recommendations on improvements in M&E plans and implementations with specific focus on improving project monitoring quality and readiness for project evaluation.    

Expected Deliverables and Timelines  

The main tasks and deliverables expected from the assessment are as follows:    

1. Evaluability Assessment Methodology Note setting out approach and timeline to achieve the objectives based on the criteria and other elements set out in this TOR; and subsequent revisions based on consultations.  
2. Draft evaluability assessment report, to include:  

• Suggested revisions to M&E plans, including baseline and milestone data, or a clear indication of how the project is collecting these;   
• Short findings report for each of the project outcomes including specific suggestions for improvements; and   
• A summary overview of issues, with recommendation of operational improvements for the project and office to make. 
• The draft evaluability assessment report will be reviewed by UN Women team, including the Regional Evaluation Specialist. 
• The report should be no longer than 20 pages (excluding appendices) and will include an executive summary of no more than 2 pages. 

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. 

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: .

Functional Competencies:  

• Ability to conduct research and data collection to develop background information and briefs. 
• Good time management. 
• Good writing skills, and able to identify target audience for written documents. 
• Good interpersonal communication skills. 

Required Skills and Experience

Education: 

• Master’s degree or certification equivalent in social sciences, gender and development, statistics, monitoring and evaluation, or a related field is required.  
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree. 

Experience:  

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible experience in design and implementation of M&E in development projects implemented by national/international NGOs/UN bodies/ Government; 
• Experience in conducting evaluability assessments or baseline studies; Strong understanding of the results chain, Results-Based Management approach, and M&E Frameworks; 
• Experience and contextual understanding related to data collection and monitoring in the Asia and pacific region (preferably form Viet Nam, Cambodia and/ or Bangladesh); 
• Expertise in analysing data; 
• Proven ICT skills; 
• Strong cooperation skills; 
• Knowledge about gender equality, the empowerment of women and violence against women and familiarity with non-profit and/or international organizations. 

Language requirement: 

• Fluency in (written and spoken) in Bahasa and English is required; 
• Knowledge of the other UN official working language is an asset. 

Submission of Application and Evaluation

Interested candidates are encouraged to submit an electronic application no later than 25 April 2024. The application must include (as attachment) the following documents:

• Letter of Interest containing the statement on candidate’s experience in line with the scope of work and requirements.
• Updated CV.
• P11 including past experience in similar assignments; can be downloaded at this .

(Please merge into one file with pdf format before uploading. Applications without financial proposal will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment)?