Technical Expert to provide Gender Technical Assistance to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gender & Community Development (National Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment M&E Framework)

Background

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) seeks to engage a consultant with expertise in gender responsive Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) to support the Ministry of Women Affairs Gender and Community Development (MWAGCD) to pilot the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) M&E Framework with the line ministries within the Food Security and Nutrition Cluster under the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation, 2013-2018 (Zim Asset). The Food Security and Nutrition Cluster has been selected for the first pilot due to the strategic economic importance of agriculture within the environmental and climate changes, and the location of a large proportion of women within this sector as contributors to the country’s food security.

The pilot program will consist of a three-month capacity building programme to enable the line ministries within the Food and Nutrition Cluster to collect and analyse sex-disaggregated data using their selected gender indicators in the GEWE M&E Framework. At the end of the two-part training which includes a seminar and one-on-one follow-up support, line ministries will have the knowledge and skill to engender their quarterly reporting on Zim Asset in accordance with the National M&E Policy’s principle on equality and equity. 

The GEWE M&E Framework:

The Government of Zimbabwe is committed to promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment programs as enshrined in the new Constitution. To further demonstrate its commitment to the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality, the Government of Zimbabwe is party to several international, regional and sub-regional human rights instruments that protect and promote women’s rights.

Zim Asset is a Results- Based economic blueprint for the country. It has four (4) strategic clusters -Food Security and Nutrition; Social Services and Poverty Eradication; Infrastructure and Utilities; and Value Addition and Beneficiation - and two (2) enabling clusters -Fiscal Reform Measures, Public Administration, and Governance & Performance Management. Gender is a cross-cutting issue and the result area of Gender and Development is located within the Social Services and Poverty Eradication Cluster.

The Government has placed also a strong focus on results in the implementation of national and sectoral policies, ministerial programs and development initiatives. In 2010, government through the Office of the President and Cabinet launched the Results Based Management Framework (RBM) and the National Monitoring and Evaluation Policy in 2015. The National M&E Policy charts the path to be taken by all state and non-state entities and agencies to strengthen the monitoring and evaluation of their programs, and reinforce accountability to development results. Gender equality and equity is one of the M&E Policy principles and it states that all ministries use sex-disaggregated data in planning and decision making.

The Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development (MWAGCD) has the Government mandate to promote and lead women’s empowerment and gender equality in Zimbabwe, through national coordination, accounting, tracking and evaluation, including leading the national reporting on CEDAW and other regional and international commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment. In 2015-2016, UN Women supported the Ministry to develop the GEWE M&E Framework which creates a system for the collection of sex disaggregated data to track and analyze the gender differentials in the implementation of line Ministries policies, programs and to some extent, the allocation of resources.

The GEWE M&E framework’s goal is to improve accountability to and implementation of the GEWE commitments in Zimbabwe. The framework will enable the MWAGCD, the Gender Machinery within government and line ministries to produce gender-responsive, evidence-based and timely reports to inform gender responsive policy formulation, planning, resource allocation and service delivery at national, provincial and district levels.

The process to develop the GEWE M&E Framework was participatory, and the draft GEWE M&E framework was approved by the Minister of the MWAGCD in early 2017 and sent to the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC), the overall responsible entity for M&E in government, for review and guidance on the process for the launch and implementation of the framework. Based on the feedback received, in June 2018, government ministries were convened by the MWAGCD, with support from UN Women, and the gender indicators were reviewed, refined and aligned to the ministries’ Key Results Areas (KRAs), the Zim Asset Cluster areas and to the gender indicators in the SDGs.

The MWAGCD will conduct a pilot roll-out of the GEWE M&E Framework to build the capacity of line ministries to use the gender indicators to collect sex disaggregated administrative data and to use existing gender statistics available from ZimStats to provide a gender analysis to their ministerial reports and to the Zim Asset Clusters quarterly reporting on progress achieved. UN Women will support the MWAGCD in this process with a technical consultant who will support the Ministry in the design and delivery of a three-month training programme piloting the GEWE M&E Framework with the Zim Asset Food and Nutrition Cluster.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Consultant will support the MWAGCD to pilot the implementation of the GEWE M&E Framework with a specific focus on building the capacity of line ministries to engender their reporting on the implementation of the country’s national development plan, Zim Asset. In 2017, the pilot will begin with a three-month technical assistance program for the MWAGCD to work with the line ministries in one of the Zim Asset strategic clusters – Food and Nutrition. The ministries within this Cluster include: Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanization and Irrigation Development, Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement, Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate, Ministry of Health and Child Care; and the cross-cutting ministries will include: Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Ministry of Justice and the Office of the President and Cabinet.

The consultant is expected to liaise with UN Women and the MWAGCD during the process of designing and implementing a capacity building program. The main objective of the training:

Capacity Building Objective:

• To provide the line ministries in the Food and Nutrition Cluster with the knowledge and skills on how to use the GEWE M&E Framework to engender their planning, programming and reporting.

The expected outputs from the capacity building program are:

• Increased knowledge on how to regularly collect and use sex-disaggregated data;
• Increased knowledge on how to analyse sex-disaggregated data and apply in planning, programming and reporting on results;
• An enhanced understanding of the GEWE M&E Framework and its added value to ministries’ tracking and evaluation of performance and achievements of their KRAs; and
•  Strengthened capacity of ministries to implement and report on gender commitments to improve institutional accountability to gender equality and women’s rights

The consultant will be expected to deliver the following:

• Develop a capacity building plan which includes an outline of the specific technical assistance and capacity building actions to be implemented with the Cluster;
• Develop a GEWE M&E user module which includes guidelines on how to use the GEWE M&E Framework for reporting on Zim Asset;
• Compile into a package of hand-outs supporting gender statistics and gender analysis training materials;
• Facilitate a four-day training seminar for the Food Security and Nutrition Cluster on how to use the GEWE M&E Framework for gender-responsive planning, programming and resource allocation within line ministries and to engender quarterly reports on Zim Asset;
• Provide technical support to the line ministries following the four-day seminar to produce gender-responsive reports for their September reporting period;
• Document for the MWAGCD and UN Women the process, inclusive of Lessons Learnt and recommendations to inform technical assistance and GEWE M&E capacity building program with the three remaining Zim Asset Clusters.

Expected Deliverables:

This consultancy work is expected to contribute to improved collection, analysis and utilization of up-to-date sex-disaggregated and gender differentiated data to promote gender-responsive planning and budgeting. The expected deliverables are:

• Inception Report- Inception report detailing how the consultant will conduct the work;
• GEWE M&E user module;
• A program for a four-day training seminar;
• Facilitation of the four-day training seminar to achieve the stated objectives and outputs;
• Provide technical support, following the seminar, to the individual line Ministries in the Zim Asset Food and Nutrition Cluster to use the GEWE M&E gender indicators to collect sex-disaggregated data and produce gender-responsive quarterly reports for Zim Asset;
• Produce a Final Report on the GEWE Pilot Capacity Building Program;
• Produce a final user-friendly GEWE user module to be used for rolling out the GEWE M&E Framework to line ministries  in the other Zim Asset clusters.

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: http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf

Functional Competencies:

• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Demonstrate good oral and written communication skills;
• Focus on impact and results for the partners and responds positively to feedback.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s Degree or equivalent in Social Sciences, Development Studies, Women’s Studies or a relevant field, Post-graduation work in M&E and Gender training

Experience:

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in the field of monitoring and evaluation with government partners and diverse stakeholders. Experience in facilitation and training of the design of monitoring and evaluation frameworks, program evaluations and a strong Knowledge of gender responsive evaluation methodologies and frameworks. Relevant experience in the field of gender and development and having worked with a government Ministry in Zimbabwe is desirable and will be of an added advantage.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English and working knowledge of any other Zimbabwean Language
• Knowledge and use of computers and its programs/ Applications. Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.) and advance knowledge of the spread sheet and database packages (5 Points).