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WOMEN’S POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND EVALUATION EXPERT

home based with travel to car

  • Organization: UNWOMEN - United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
  • Location: home based with travel to car
  • Grade: Consultancy - International Consultant - Internationally recruited Contractors Agreement
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Social Affairs
    • International Relations
    • Political Affairs
    • Democratic Governance
    • Women's Empowerment and Gender Mainstreaming
    • Monitoring and Evaluation
    • Civil Society and Local governance
  • Closing Date: Closed

Background

In March 2017, the Government of Canada signed a grant arrangement with UNWOMEN to help achieve a better participation of women as political leaders and agents of change, peace building and development in West and Central Africa through “Women’s Political Empowerment and Leadership” project.

The focus countries of the project are: Central African Republic (CAR), Liberia, Nigeria and the Republic of Guinea. The four countries rank among the last countries in terms of women representation in decision-making positions and in elective bodies: 8% of women elected to parliament in CAR, 11% in Liberia, 4% in Nigeria The Republic of Guinea is the exception in the selected countries with 21 %.

The ultimate outcome of this project is to achieve gender equality and empowerment of women and girls in West and Central Africa. The intermediate outcomes for this Project include:

(i)increased effective participation of women as political leaders at the local, national and regional levels; and

(ii)Improved legislative practices and frameworks for the promotion of gender balance in politics in the Central African Republic, Liberia, Nigeria and the Republic of Guinea.

This project is in line with development priorities at global, regional and national levels: The 2030 global Agenda for Sustainable Development that offers an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate progress towards gender equality with targets affirming that women’s political 

leadership is fundamental to achieving a peaceful and sustainable future. It is also aligned with the regional gender parity commitments of the African Union’s Agenda 2063, the ECOWAS Supplementary Act on Equality of Rights between Women and Men for Sustainable Development. At national level, the goal of promoting women’s rights and gender equality features in the constitutions and is central to the development agendas of all target countries.

In terms of implementation, UN Women works with national governments, parliaments, electoral management bodies, political parties, NGOs and CSOs. The Project provides targeted and technical support and capacity building for key stakeholders through the provision of training, technical assistance, awareness raising and advocacy campaigns.  

After two years of implementation, a mid-term review is planned to assess the progress of the project in terms of implementation and impact

The review is designed as a learning exercise through the participation of all the project’s teams at the national level and regional level to inform future project implementation and design.

UN-Women in West and Central Africa is therefore seeking the services of an independent international consultant to conduct the Midterm Review according to the objectives and scope.

Under the direct supervision of the Women’s Political Participation Regional Advisor based in Dakar (Senegal), the Consultant will conduct the Mid-Term Evaluation of the Project during November 2019.

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.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the of the Regional Advisor, the Consultant will conduct mid-term review (MTR) of the Project with expected outputs and deliverables as detailed below.

The UN Women Evaluation Policy is the main guiding documents that set forth the principles and organizational framework for review planning, conduct and follow-up in UN Women. These principles are aligned with the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Norms and Standards for Evaluation in the UN System and the UNEG Ethical Guidelines.

The key principles for gender-responsive reviews at UN Women are: 1) National ownership and leadership; 2) UN system coordination and coherence with regard to gender equality and the empowerment of women; 3) Innovation; 4) Fair power relations and empowerment; 5) Participation and inclusion; 6) Independence and impartiality; 7) Transparency; 8) Quality and credibility; 9) Intentionality and use of evaluation; and 10) Ethics

Specifically, the intention of this mid-term review of the Women’s Political participation and Leadership project will be to:

  1. Demonstrate results and accountability to stakeholders by providing information about outputs, intended and unintended effects of gender equality and women’s empowerment in politics;
  2. Provide credible and reliable evidence for decision making by providing information about the project’s design, implementation, knowledge products and resource allocation by providing information on how the project’s meets beneficiaries’ needs, partner coordination and resource allocation; and

Contribute to lessons learned about normative, operational and coordination work by providing information about what is working well, what is not and the missed opportunities if any.

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 UNWomen (Governance and Women’s Political Participation 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:

The review will take place in the following countries: Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Central African Republic. It will cover the implementation period from 2017 to 2019.

MTR OBJECTIVES

The MTR will assess progress towards the achievement of results as specified in the Logical Framework of the Project as well as the Initial and potential impacts of the project. The review will assess early signs of success or failure with the goal of identifying the necessary changes to be made to set the programme on- track to achieve its intended results. The MTR will review the strategy and risks to sustainability as well as identify lessons learnt and best practices which could be applied to future and other on-going programmes.

The MTR will assess the two main categories:

PROGRAMME STRATEGY

  • Review if the project is being implemented in line with the intended project design.
  • Review if the baseline indicators and/or benchmarks remain valid to monitor performance? How are these being used in project’s management?
  • Assess if the implementation strategy continues to provide the most effective route towards expected results or if adaptations are needed.
  • Review how the project supports UN-Women's triple mandate. Has the programme contributed to advance UN Women's coordination mandate on each of the three thematic areas, both at global policy and country programming levels?
  • Review if there is a systematic approach to leaving no one behind (LNOB) and if not, provide specific recommendations for capturing LNOB information within the existing performance monitoring framework.

PROGRESS TOWARDS RESULTS

  • Review the Log-frame indicators
  • Identify potential barriers to achieving the project’s objectives in the remainder of the implementation timeframe and suggest redirection if needed;
  • By reviewing the successful aspects of the project’s, identify good practices and upscaling opportunities.
  • Review overall effectiveness of the project’s management, governance structure and planning, reporting and monitoring.
  • Review the coordination mechanisms between the regional office and country offices as well as the implementation arrangements/and outline good practices and recommend areas for improvement.
  • Review any delays in implementation, identify the causes, and examine if they have been resolved.
  • Review the monitoring tools currently being used: Do they effectively and efficiently capture information from countries and are additional tools required to be more participatory and inclusive?
  • Has the project enabled and/or leveraged strategic partnerships with relevant stakeholders at regional and country levels?
  • Assess how the project Team and partners undertake and fulfil UN Women reporting requirements (internal and external).
  • Review internal project communication with stakeholders: Is communication regular and effective? Does this communication with stakeholders contribute to their awareness of outcomes and activities and investment in the sustainability of project’ results?
  • External communication: Are proper means of communication established or being established to communicate on the project progress/results and impact?
  • Validate whether the risks identified in the Risk Matrix are the most important and whether the risk ratings applied are appropriate and up to date. If not, explain why.

CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS:  The MTR consultant will include a section of the report setting out the MTR's evidence-based conclusions, in light of the findings. Recommendations (not more than 10) should be succinct suggestions for critical intervention that are specific, measurable, achievable, and relevant. A recommendation table should be put in the report's executive summary.

MTR APPROACH & METHODOLOGY: The MTR must provide evidence-based information that is credible, reliable and useful. The MTR will adhere to the principles established in Evaluation Policies of UN Women and the UN Evaluation Group's Norms and Standards for Evaluation. These include but are not limited to:

  • Independence, impartiality, transparency, ethics, partnerships, credibility and utility.
  • Mixed methods, both qualitative and quantitative, should be used to collect data and gather evidence.

The MTR consultant will review all relevant sources of information (listed below) and any other materials considered useful for this evidence-based review. The MTR consultant is expected to follow a collaborative and participatory approach ensuring close engagement with the UN-Women Governance & Women’s Political Participation Team, Project Steering committees, the UN-Women Offices, UN-Women HQ and Regional Advisor, and other key stakeholders.

The final MTR report should describe the MTR approach taken and the rationale for the approach making explicit the underlying assumptions, challenges, strengths and weaknesses about the methods and approach of the review.

List of Documents to be reviewed by the MTR consultant:

  • Women’s Political Empowerment and Leadership” project document and log frame
  • Flagship Programme documents: Women’s Political Empowerment and Leadership
  • Women’s Political Empowerment and Leadership” project Annual Reports including Progress of Indicators matrix
  • Quarterly monitoring from Result Management System (RMS)
  • Leadership and Women’s Political Participation Annual Work Plans including
  • Relevant mission reports
  • UN-Women Programme and operational manual
  • UN-Women Strategic Plan

The commission unit is the WCA Regional office, and the consultant will report to the Regional Advisor on Governance and Women’s Political Participation who will facilitate contacts and field missions with relevant country offices.

Ethical Code of Conduct

UN Women has developed the 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. The signed Agreement will be annexed to the consultant contract. The UNEG Guidelines note the importance of ethical conduct for the following reasons:

  1. Responsible use of power: All those engaged in evaluation processes are responsible for upholding the proper conduct of the evaluation.
  2. Ensuring credibility: With a fair, impartial and complete assessment, stake- holders are more likely to have faith in the results of an evaluation and to take note of the recommendations.
  3. Responsible use of resources: Ethical conduct in evaluation increases the chances of acceptance by the parties to the evaluation and therefore the likelihood that the investment in the evaluation will result in improved outcomes.

Competencies

Core Values and Guiding Principles

  • Demonstrates integrity by modeling UN Women values and ethical standards.
  • Demonstrates a commitment to UN Women’s mission and vision.
  • Able to work effectively within a team.
  • Displays cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability.
  • Able to multi-task and juggle competing demands.
  • Can assess and prioritize work needs quickly.
  • Able to relate to external partners, including other international organizations and agencies, NGOs, grassroots community groups, etc.

Functional Competencies

  • Good knowledge of and experience with methods of evaluation and project review
  • Sound expertise in gender equality and women’s empowerment, including on women’s political participation programming/evaluation.Good communication skills.
  • Ability to produce well-written documents demonstrating excellent interpersonal communication skills.
  • Demonstrated leadership and personal examples of promoting knowledge management and a professional learning environment.
  • Outstanding networking, team-building, organizational and communication skills.
  • Capacity to work with diverse partners including governments, donors and civil society.
  • Ability to use Microsoft word, excel, e-mail, web-based applications and databases.

Ability to work effectively and harmoniously with people from varied cultures and professional backgrounds.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent) in Gender Studies, Education-related fields, evaluation methodologies, Political Science, Sociology, International Relations, or relevant field and/or equivalent practical experience.

Experience:

  • At least 10 years of relevant work experience in the field of gender equality and women’s empowerment programming.
  • Technical competence in the thematic areas to be evaluated (Women’s participation in politics)
  • Recent experience with project monitoring and evaluation (including in the UN).
  • Knowledge of the role of UN Women and its programming, coordination and normative roles at the regional and country level is an asset.
  • Experience with UN organizations and programmes, including those related to women’s empowerment, gender mainstreaming and gender equality is an asset.

Language:

  • Fluency in oral and written French and English is required.
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.
This vacancy is now closed.
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