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International Consultant – Endline Evaluation of Combatting Gender-Based Violence in Bangladesh (CGBV) project

Dhaka

  • Organization: UNWOMEN - United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
  • Location: Dhaka
  • Grade: Consultancy - International Consultant - Internationally recruited Contractors Agreement
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Women's Empowerment and Gender Mainstreaming
    • Monitoring and Evaluation
    • Gender-based violence
    • Project and Programme Management
    • Drugs, Anti-Money Laundering, Terrorism and Human Trafficking
  • Closing Date: Closed

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. Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women will lead and coordinate United Nations system’s efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. Bangladesh has a significant history of women organizing movements to claim their rights. Over the years, women’s groups have mobilized themselves and made sure their voices are heard in various issues, starting from violence against women, gender equality in securing economic opportunities and participation, equal representation in politics, reproductive rights, family law reforms and gender mainstreaming in public policies.

 

Against this backdrop, UN Women in Bangladesh supports the government to implement their commitments to international normative standards on gender equality and women’s human rights. The UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for 2022-2026 was launched in 2021 and the corresponding UN Women Bangladesh Strategy Note (2022-2026) defining UN Women’s strategic engagement in Bangladesh has also been finalized. The country strategy focuses on strengthening the national structures and mechanisms for gender mainstreaming in policies, plans and budgets; supporting efforts to prevent and eliminate violence against women; promoting women’s access to decent and safe work; promoting policies and government investment in women’s empowerment and resilience building in the context of climate change, humanitarian crisis as well as other threats to peace and security. With the triple mandates- normative, implementation and coordination, UN Women works with a range of stakeholders in Bangladesh including the government, civil society and women’s organisations, youth, UN agencies and donors, to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.The Ending Violence Against Women (EVAW) portfolio contributes to UN Women Bangladesh Strategic Note 2022 – 2026 Outcome 1.4: By 2026, more women, girls and sexual minorities benefit from an environment in which they are empowered to exercise their rights, agency, and decision-making power over all aspects of their lives and towards a life free from all forms of discrimination, violence and harmful norms and practices. Bangladesh reiterated its commitment to gender equality in its 8th Five Year Plan (FYP) (2020- 2025). The plan recognizes the need to address discriminatory social norms to prevent VAW; strengthen social research to identify the root causes of violence.

 

In Bangladesh harmful gendered social norms manifest across all aspects of women and girls’ lives – particularly in political, social, and economic spheres. Acceptance of violence against women as the social norm not only results in high prevalence, but it also perpetuates inter-generational transmission of violent behavior. As a result, prevailing inequalities are reinforced, and the country’s full development potential remains untapped. Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) cuts across sectors, class and geographic locations. The VAW survey (BBS, 2015) estimated that more than two thirds (72.6 per cent) of ever-married women experience one or more forms of violence by their husbands at least once in their lifetime, while 37.5 per cent of adolescent girls aged 15 to 19, experience physical intimate partner violence. Laws related to VAW are still discriminatory, especially the definition of rape, use of character evidence, and family law. Laws are yet to be fully implemented and interpreted with gender lens. Both CEDAW Concluding Observations and Voluntary National Review have highlighted concerns related to legal reform, women’s access to justice, tackling harmful social norms and stereotypes, and strengthening the gender-responsiveness of the law enforcement and Judiciary. UN Women has learnt from evidence elsewhere, experiences in Bangladesh that it takes time to change discriminatory social norms and that it requires changes at each level of the social ecology: the individual, family/household, community, and society/culture. This also adds to a body of evidence showing consistent and sustained changes in power dynamics requires long-term, gender-transformative interventions, and the creation of enabling systems that allow these changes to flourish at all levels of the social ecology (for example, evidence-based prevention interventions, such as SASA! Together and Sammanit Jeevan).

Duties and Responsibilities

Description of the projectUnder the EVAW programme, the Combatting Gender Based Violence in Bangladesh (CGBV) is 5 years (includes 6 months no cost extension period) project funded by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Government of Canada, that has started in Match 2018 and will end on 31 March 2023 with a total funding amount is USD 3.8 million. The CGBV project is being implemented in 12 villages under 3 districts in Bangladesh - Bogura, Cumilla and Patuakhali. Bogura, reputed for cultural activism but conservative mindset of people due to larger Muslim population (94%) and has extremely high child marriage rate that are fueled by spread of extremism in some of the districts. This district also saw a higher rate of overseas migration of people in past years.

Cumilla district is politically vibrant, has cross border movement and human trafficking, especially young women, and adolescent girls, with highest overseas migration among the districts and has seen a steady industrialization. Patuakhali is a cyclone prone, riverine district with agricultural and fishery based small and medium industrial area where women aged 15 – 19 married is 17.2 – 27.7% (VAW survey 2015).The CGBV project recognized that prevention of violence requires sustained and comprehensive action at individual, family, organizations, and societal levels. The project focuses on primary prevention, stopping violence before it occurs, as it is a strategic approach to ending violence against women and girls. The CGBV project has created a holistic and participatory framework of integrated and mutually reinforcing interventions to address the underlying causes and drivers of violence against women and girls; make duty bearers accountable to comply with international and national obligations addressing violence against women and promote their equal status in the society. Simultaneously, the project has enhanced the capacity of civil society to advocate and influence policies for a violence free society and strengthen women’s voice and agency.

UN Women is implementing the CGBV project in partnership with 3 Civil Society Organization (CSO) partners (Responsible Parties-RP). BLAST at the national level, is responsible for discriminatory law reformation to prevent sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence. It has worked with CSO coalition to build the capacities for advocacy for legislative policy changes related to GBV laws and Sexual Harassment Act. Christian Aid has implemented VAW prevention manual and implementation of High Court Directive (2009) to prevent sexual harassment for strengthening local government institutions, human rights defender manual for improving workers voices and rights, mid-level managers manual for institutional building at the factories. And WE CAN has implemented Whole of School approach in the education institutions, community mobilization approach – SASA!Together and family-based intervention – Shomman O Shomotar Jeebon (adapted from Stepping Stones).UN Women partners with district based and high-level leadership of key institutions such as, Deputy Commissioner (DC) Offices, Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI), and education institutions in three districts. The RPs have been involved with DC offices, Upazila Nirbahi Officer’s office (subdistrict executive officer’ ) , Department of Women Affairs (DWA), Nari Nirjaton Protirodh Committee ( VAW committee) at district and upazila (subdistrict) level, Union Councils, selected factory workers and management, and in selected 6 tertiary level educational institutions and 12 villages to prevent and address violence against women. Finally, the project has created a strong and expanded knowledge base system to inform prevention policy and programming. The project is expected to reach 30,000 direct beneficiaries at the end of project implementation. Specifically, the CGBV project focuses on the following outcomes:

Outcome 1: National and local laws and policies to prevent violence against women are strengthened, if needed, and implemented .Outcome 2: Favourable social norms, attitudes and behaviours are promoted to prevent violence against women and enhance women’s economic empowerment.Outcome 3: Policy and programming is increasingly informed by an expanded knowledge baseon effective approaches to prevention of violence against women.

 

III. Purpose and use of the evaluationThe endline evaluation of CGBV project will be undertaken with the purpose of ensuring accountability to the donor, project beneficiaries and partners for achieving best results with its normative, coordination and implementation work. The project has resulted in transparency, credibility and bringing together duty-bearers and rights-holders that generates a space for mutual accountability, transparency and application of key gender equality and human rights principles. In addition to that, the evaluation will assess the progress towards achieving the intended results and compile lessons learned and promising practices in country to prevent VAW. Moreover, the evaluation will be carried out to generate knowledge to inform the designing of VAW prevention programming and the other projects in EVAW programme of UN Women in Bangladesh. UN Women at the global and regional level will use the results of the evaluation for disseminating promising practices and lessons learned and findings through other countries and regions. Other national stakeholders - NGO partners, participating government institutions, and other local partners, will be also closely involved in the evaluation process to increase ownership of findings, draw lessons learned and make greater use of the evaluation results.As part of this assignment, UN Women is seeking an international consultant with expertise in EVAW evaluation and research following the OECD criteria. A national consultant will be hired who will support the international consultant to translate the tools, field data collection, sorting and analyse of the data, and report writing. The international consultant should manage the national consultant and the international consultant will be engaged for a total of 40 days within the period of the contract.

IV. Evaluation Objectives:Guided by the UN Women Evaluation Policy, the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Norms and Standards for Evaluation in UN System and the UNEG Ethical Guidelines, the main objective of the evaluation is to assess the contribution of the Combatting Gender Based Violence (CGBV in Bangladesh) project in the prevention of violence against women through sustained and comprehensive actions at individual, family, institutional and societal levels. The CGBV project focused on primary prevention, stopping violence before it occurs, as it is a strategic approach to ending violence against women and girls.

The evaluation aim to be both summative (reviewing past gains) and formative (informing future strategies) in order to assess the achievement of results and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the programme, while drawing key learning from the evaluation findings that can inform recommendations for future EVAW programming of UN Women BangladeshThe evaluation will have the following specific objectives:1. To assess the CGBV project’s contributions to the overarching goal of: “Women and girls, including the most marginalized, are free of violence at home, at work and in public spaces”.In doing so the evaluator will analyse the programmatic achievements under the following three outcome areas:a. National and local laws and policies to prevent violence against women are strengthened and implemented.b. Favourable social norms, attitudes and behaviours are promoted to prevent violence against women and enhance women’s economic empowerment.c. Policy and program are increasingly informed by an expanded knowledge base on effective approaches to prevention of violence against women2. To evaluate the project against the OECD DAC’s six evaluation criteria of relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability1.3. To analyse how human rights approach and gender equality principles are integrated in implementation4. To draw lessons and produce concrete recommendations on how UN Women Bangladesh can build on the gains of the CGBV project; including identifying what could be done differently and which interventions have worked and should be considered for scaling—whether through expansion or replication (horizontal) or through policy, political, legal, or institutional scaling (vertical).V. Scope of the EvaluationThe scope of the evaluation will follow the prevention strategy of the CGBV project, and the prevention interventions that have been implemented at national level and local level in the districts of Bogura, Cumilla and Patuakhali. Evidence building -adapting model, measuring impact for generating knowledge on primary prevention of VAW remained the core overarching strategy of CGBV project.The CGBV project has worked at the national level, supported concerted national level Policy Advocacy for a stronger legal framework protecting women from all forms of gender-based violence. Therefore, the geographical scope of the evaluation will include - Bogura, Comilla, and Patuakhali. The evaluation will cover the project implementation of the project from 20 March 2018 to 31 March 2023. The evaluation will assess all the components of the project.

VI. Evaluation Criteria and Key QuestionsThe evaluation will use the standard criteria of assessing the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability of the programme assess results. The following section outlines the suggested preliminary evaluation questions that can be refined by the evaluator during the inception phase in consultation with UN Women.”Relevance and coherence of the programme design and prioritiesa) To what extent the programme design, strategies and partnership were relevant to the needs and priorities of the women in relation to living a life free from gender-based violence and adjust to or respond to changes in country contexts, for example, political changes, COVID-19 pandemic.1b) To what extent did the CGBV project support and complement the National Action Plan to Prevent Violence Against Women (NAP-VAW) and other interventions in the country and address gaps in GBV/VAW primary prevention?Effectiveness of the programme resultsa) To what extent did the CGBV project achieve its objectives in strengthening women’s legal protections for VAW, changing social norms/attitudes/behaviours to prevent VAW, and expanding the knowledge base in VAW prevention?b) How effective was UN Women’s approach in using evidence-based strategies to prevent VAW? What worked well that need to be considered for future programming?c) How did the project leverage strategic partnerships at all levels and how effective was the partnership approach?Efficiency of the programme approach and managementa) To what extent did the programme set-up, including UN Women’s management systems, human and financial resources, and interventions contribute to or hinder the achievement of programme objectives and with national approaches of UN Women?Impact of the programme2a) What are the key contributions of the CGBV project to improving the prevention of GBV/VAW in Bangladesh?b) To what extent did the CGBV project impact the lives of the women and men who were the primary beneficiaries of the project? What about the impact on secondary beneficiaries?c) What contributions have been made towards impact with respect to furthering gender equality and women’s empowerment and human rights?d) How well the knowledge generation and lessons were documented and disseminated?Sustainability of the programmea) How sustainable are the gains from the CGBV project? To what extent will net benefits of the intervention continue or are likely to continue in the current country context? Did the interventions consider partner capacities and build ownership in the design and implementation of the project? To what extent the interventions are scalable?

VII. Evaluation methods and management process:The evaluation will be a transparent and participatory process involving relevant UN Women staff, stakeholders, and partners at the national and local level and the external consultant. It will be carried out in accordance with United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Norms and Standards and Ethical Guidelines and Code of Conduct, more specifically, UN Women's GERAAS (see Annex 1) will be used to assess and ensure the quality of evaluation products. All deliverables will be reviewed against the GERAAS criteria by the Evaluation Management Group for approval. The evaluation content and process are required to integrate gender equality and human rights principles. The evaluator is expected to provide a detailed plan on how the ethical principles will be ensured throughout the evaluation process. 

VIII. Expected Data Collection method:

The data source for the evaluation will be progress reports, donor reports and the quarterly reports on RMS (UN Women Result Based Management System), information on beneficiaries, quantitative data sheet on beneficiary target reach and events brief developed by partner and of UN Women.The international consultant needs to design data collection methods and take measures to ensure data quality, reliability, and validity of data collection tools and methods and analysis (such as appreciative inquiry, most significant change, storytelling, case study, survey, interviews, focus groups, observation, site visit) that are responsive to gender equality and human rights issues following ethical considerations and will identify participatory tools for consultation with different stakeholders ensuring diversity and inclusion. It should develop a sampling frame (area and population represented, sex disaggregated data, rationale for selection, mechanics of selection, limitations of the sample) and specify how it will address the diversity of stakeholders in the intervention. A full methodology will be developed by the international consultant during the preparation phase and included in the inception report. The list of sources of information collected will be then attached to the evaluation report. The evaluator will elaborate on the final rationale for selection and their limitations.

 

IX. Evaluation StakeholdersDuring the evaluation, the beneficiaries, especially the women and men from the communities from the project sites will be engaged in participatory manner along with other key stakeholders from local government institutions, Chamber of Commerce &Industries, workers and senior management from factories, sexual harassment prevention committee members, and multi stakeholder alliance members, students group members from educational institutions will take part. National level stakeholders such as University Grants Commissions, BLAST and their unit coordinators will be consulted. In addition to that, the staff from implementing partners, UN Women project staff and donor focal point will participate as stakeholder. During the evaluation the ethical safeguards will be employed to ensure safety, and privacy of the participants who will share their consent to be part of the stakeholder list.

X. Evaluation ProcessThe evaluation process includes the following four phases that will be used for determining the evaluation timelines and setting deliverables/performance indicators:a. Preparation: this phase will include stakeholder analysis and establishment of the reference group, development of the ToR, and recruitment of the evaluation team. Recruitment of the consultant, initial meeting(s) of the selected consultant with UN Women Bangladesh to discuss objectives, approach, scope, methodology and timelines of the evaluation will also be carried out in this phase.b. Conduct: This phase will begin with inception report, the desk review, stakeholder workshop, development of data collection tools, and data collection and analysis. The evaluation will consider consulting the CGBV prevention strategy, scoping study and baseline, the midterm review, COVID-19 assessment, yearly donor reports and learning briefs to understand the progress and design the methodology and tools for the evaluation.c. Reporting: This phase will include the presentation of preliminary findings, draft and the final report of the evaluation after successful completion of the field data collection from the selected sample involving the mentioned stakeholders.d. Use and Follow up: This phase will include the management response, ;validation of the findings and the dissemination of the report and follow up to the implementation of the management response.

 

XI. Evaluation Timeframe

Tasks

Deliverables

Timeframe

% of payment

  1. Conduct preliminary desk review and consultations, develop data collection tools, draft and submission of  inception report  (including how the ethical principles will be ensured throughout the evaluation process)
  • Inception report including Evaluation matrix and Data collection tools
  • Inception presentation to the ERG

15 January 2023

30% of total value upon successful completion of delivery 01

  1. Conduct data collection and analysis and presentation of preliminary findings
  • Monitor the process of field data collect
  • Debriefing after any data collection visits to the field.

15th February 2023

70% of total value upon successful completion of delivery (02 – 04)

  1. Preparation of reports and validation: first draft evaluation report, validation of preliminary findings.
  • Power Point Presentation of preliminary findings to ERG
  • Share preliminary findings presentation with draft report by 15th March  

15th    March 2023

  1. Finalization of report after validation workshop presenting the draft report to relevant stakeholders
  • Final draft incorporating feedback from validation workshop

30th   March 2023

 

XII. Evaluation Governance and Management

The evaluation will be followed and managed by the below structure:

 

Evaluation Management Group (EMG):

An evaluation management group will be established to oversee the evaluation process, coordinated by the evaluation manager. The group will be chaired by the Deputy Country Representative of UN Women Bangladesh Country Office (BCO) with Planning, Monitoring and Reporting Analyst as Evaluation Task Manager. The EMG will be composed of Knowledge Management & Monitoring Analyst, EVAW and Evaluation Specialist of regional office of Asia Pacific (ROAP) as advisory capacity. Representative from GAC (donor) will be included in EMG. This evaluation management group will be responsible for final approval of the evaluation ToR, selection of the external evaluation team, inception report and final evaluation report. The Knowledge Management & Monitoring Analyst, EVAW should ensure that the evaluation addresses the information gaps and evaluation questions relevant to the CGBV project.

 

Evaluation Reference Group (ERG):

The reference group will be consisted of the key stakeholders from stakeholder analysis of CGBV project. The Evaluation Manager will identify stakeholders, who should participate, how and when, as well as the relevance of a particular group to the purpose and use of the evaluation using stakeholder analysis. The reference group will be a diverse and representative group of stakeholders. The representation from stakeholder from duty bearers and right holders and different areas of intervention including representation from national partners, local implementing partners, University Grants Commission (UGC) of Bangladesh, representative  from Department of Women Affairs, will be reflected in reference group.  This reference group will support the evaluation process in providing information for data collection (through participating in survey and qualitative interview). This group will also be involved in preliminary findings sharing, providing recommendations and dissemination of evaluation report. The quality of the evaluation must comply with GERAAS (Global Evaluation Reports Assessment and Analysis System) criteria.

 

 

XIII. Duration of assignment: 40 days spread between 25 December 2022- 30 March 2023. Home based and travel at the project locations for field data collection

 

XIV. Supervision and performance evaluation

The International consultant will receive guidance from the Planning, Monitoring and Reporting Analyst, UN Women Bangladesh.

 

XV. Travel and DSA:

No DSA will be paid at the duty station and field data collections in CGBV project field locations.   

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.

 

Functional Competencies

  • Excellent evaluation skills, especially based on OECD based criteria ;
  • Good understanding and practice of primary prevention programming in a less developing country; 
  • Good understanding of the underlying issues related to gender-based violence in Bangladesh and/ or South Asia;
  • Outstanding knowledge of gender, women’s rights, humanitarian law and principles, legislative laws related to GBV
  • Excellent facilitation and communication skills

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • A master’s degree in economics, social sciences, international relations, development studies, gender equality or related area.  

 

Technical Competencies:

  • Minimum 5 years of relevant experience and involvement in ending violence against women (EVAW) evaluations.  Experience of conducting evaluation within the United Nations system will be considered an asset.
  • Minimum 4 years of proven experience of working with Women CBOs, and grass roots organizations.  
  • Minimum 3 years of experience / knowledge of gender equality and GBV programming at country or international level is desired.
  • Demonstrate facilitation and communications skills, experience in participatory approaches and ability to negotiate amongst a wide range of stakeholders.

 

Language requirement:

Excellent command of English (oral and written)

 

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

Consultant must send a financial proposal based on Lump Sum Amount. The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include allcosts components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, only  and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the SSA in completing the assignment.The contract price will be fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done uponcompletion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages

 

Evaluation Method and Criteria:Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology.

Cumulative analysis-

The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant up on Cumulative Analysis/evaluation and determined as:1. Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and2. Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to thesolicitation;Only candidates obtaining a 70 mark in technical evaluation will be considered eligible for financial evaluation.Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 49 points out of 70)

Criteria-01; Academic Qualification  - Max Point 10

Criteria-02; Number of years of relevant experience and involvement in several evaluations of development projects, following OECD criteria within or outside of UN system - Max Point 20Criteria-03; Number of years of proven experience of working with Women CBOs, and grass roots organizations. Max Point 20

Criteria-04; Number of years of experience /knowledge of gender equality and GBV prevention. Max Point 20

 

The total number of points allocated for the technical qualification component is 70. The technical qualification of the individual is evaluated based on following technical qualification evaluation criteria:

Only the candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% of total points (49) will be considered as technically-qualified candidate.

Interested candidates will submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. 

To be included as part of the proposal:

 Only applications including all items mentioned above will be considered.

 

  • To be included as part of the proposal:

  • A brief expression of interest: a brief narrative presenting your suitability for this assignment
  • A technical proposal outlining the understanding of the assignment and proposed methodology, team composition, Gantt chart, ethical consideration for undertaken the evaluation in line with the TOR.
  • UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from: http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment
  • 2 Sample excerpts on evaluation related to VAW prevention, gender equality, and or women’s empowerment.   
  • Financial proposal: The financial proposal shall specify a daily professional fee and total for 40 days in USD . UN Women will not bear any other expenses  

 

NOTE: Documents required before contract signing:

UN Personal History Form;Full medical examination and Statement of Fitness to work and travel for consultants with travel involved. (This is not a requirement for RLA contracts);

Security Certificate BSAFE: EN: https://agora.unicef.org/course/info.php?id=17891Individual subscribers over 65 years of age are required to undergo a full medical examination including x-rays at their own cost and obtaining medical clearance from the UN Medical Director prior to taking up their assignment;Release letter in case the selected consultant is government official.

Only applications will all items mentioned above will be considered

Note: The individual consultant who does not meet the above eligibility criteria shall not be considered for further evaluation. Necessary documentation must be submitted to substantiate the above eligibility criteria

This vacancy is now closed.
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