Consultant for External Light Review Exercise, “Women Sustain the Peace during COVID-19 in the Philippines”

Contract

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Background

The UN Women grounded on its vision and mandate to lead in women empowerment and gender equality has been working in conflict areas of the Philippines, most notably the Muslim Mindanao region since 2015. It has worked with government agencies, civil society groups and community women leaders to build its normative work on women, peace and security. It has accomplished interventions in promoting women’s leadership in the Bangsamoro peace process; ensuring a gender sensitive transitional justice and reconciliation; and harnessing women’s roles and participation in preventing violent extremism.

The Bangsamoro region was enjoying a relative peace since the new government was legally established by the success of the 2019 plebiscites. Despite the presence of peace spoilers such as the splinter and terror groups, the new government had been making headways towards its transition timeline. Focus was poured into building the governance and administrative machineries. Several accomplishments on promoting the Bangsamoro women’s agenda were done. Notable of this was the passage of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority Act 34 that created the Bangsamoro Women’s Commission in January 31, 2020. Progressive plans were in place and the women’s machinery was geared towards fulfilling its mandate as evidenced by its initiative to enhance the policies on Regional Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security and the Gender and Development Code. Amidst this momentum, the COVID-19 spread to the Philippines and this created a radical change impacting on almost every aspect of governance.

The stability of the peace process is now in a precarious balance. The onslaught of the COVID-19 in these security fragile environments imposed another layer of “threat” that if not managed and responded properly can overturn all the previous gains of the new government. Increasing evidences of social cohesion fractures are beginning to manifest in the seemingly not-threatening-enough discrimination and stigmatization of health workers and people who infected of the disease. Food insecurities are heightened which fuels new breeds of conflicts over land and resources among Moro and Indigenous Peoples groups, as seen now in some BARMM localities.

UN Women in its past interventions successfully developed a model of preventing escalation of violent conflicts in areas at risk of radicalization thru working with women’s collectives by zeroing in on provision of economic stimulus and packages while building their capacities for social cohesion. Lessons from the project implementation firmed up that women’s role in conflict prevention is indispensable if they are given the right tools and capacities.

With generous support from the government of Norway, UN Women seeks to enhance this model applying it in the context of a health pandemic. The Women Sustain the Peace during COVID-19 in the Philippines believes that women and girls contribute and have greater influence in building sustainable peace and resilience, and benefit equally from the prevention of complex emergencies, even health pandemics.

Given these, UN Women is implementing a six-month project based on the following theory of change:

If:

Moro and indigenous women are empowered to contribute to COVID-19 recovery and promote peace and social cohesion in their communities;

Women leaders promote gender-responsive peace and security and COVID-19 recovery efforts;

Women’s machinery and government in BARMM advocate for gender-responsive governance and COVID-19 recovery; and,

Then COVID-19 recovery efforts will be gender-responsive, inclusive, social cohesive and more able to promote sustainable peace,

Because Women’s meaningful participation and receipt of peace dividends are fundamental to sustainable peace and recovery from crisis.

This project aims to contribute to ensure that “Women and gender equality advocates effectively influence sustainable peace and social cohesion in the context of COVID-19 and the BARMM transitional, and women’s livelihoods are supported as part of recovery efforts.” Given the short duration of the programme, a comprehensive evaluation cannot be conducted, however, an external light review exercise of the programme focusing on the relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of key processes and outputs will foster reflection on this new area of work of UN Women and will inform possible future development on the same thematic area.

In this context, UN Women-Philippines seeks to hire a consultant to conduct a light review of the project, “Women Sustain the Peace during the COVID-19 in the Philippines.”

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant for the External Light Review Exercise will be working under supervision of the Programme Specialist, Women, Peace and Security to ensure the following:

No.

Duties and Responsibilities

1

Analyze the programme, “Women Sustain the Peace during COVID-19 in the Philippines”

• Perform a desk review, reviewing key documents such as Project Document, Annual Work Plan and Budget, outputs and reports of UN Women and its implementing partners within the framework of the project.
• Conduct interviews with partners, women and local government beneficiaries and other stakeholders involved in the project.

Remarks:

The timeframe of the evaluation will cover from 1 June 2020 to the finalization of the project in December 2020.

2

Assess the relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of the programme in the view to respond to the following questions:

Relevance: To what extent the programme has contributed to solve the needs and problems identified in the design phase.

Specific questions could include:

1. To what extent are the project interventions relevant to the needs and priorities as defined by beneficiaries
2. To what extent are the project interventions aligned with relevant normative works for gender equality and women’s empowerment?
3. What is UN Women’s comparative advantage in this area of work compared with other UN entities and key partners?

Effectiveness: The extent to which the programme has implemented its outputs to the targeted population, beneficiaries, participants -whether individuals, communities, institutions.

Specific questions could include:

1. To what extent were the expected outcomes achieved and how did UN Women contribute towards these?
2. To what extent are the target populations, i.e., women in conflict and post-conflict areas, reached?

Organizational Efficiency: To what extent the programme was efficiently implemented and delivered quality outputs, against what was originally planned or subsequently officially revised.

Specific questions could include:

1. Is the relationship between the input of resources and results achieved appropriate and justifiable?
2. To what extent does the management structure of the project support efficiency for project implementation?

Methodological Approach

Anticipated approaches to be used for data collection and analysis by the consultant are desk review, interviews with key stakeholders, and other participatory techniques. The external light review must integrate gender and human-rights perspectives throughout each of these areas of analysis and within its methodology. This is particularly important to understand and assess programmes addressing complex, intersectional issues in women’s rights.

Expected Deliverables

No.

Tasks

Deliverables

Target dates

1

Develop workplan and methodology for conducting the light review, including but not limited to desk review, conduct of discussions and interviews (which include guide questions to the respondents), among others

Workplan

20 Nov 2020

2

Conduct desk review, reviewing key documents such as Project Document, Annual Work Plan and Budget, outputs and reports of UN Women and its implementing partners within the framework of the project.

List of documents (to be) reviewed, to be included as Annex of the report

15 Dec 2020

3

Conduct focused group discussions, key informant interviews with UN Women, project partners and beneficiaries and other stakeholders

List of respondents (to be) interviewed, to be included in Annex of the report

15 Jan 2021

4

Draft and finalize light review report to include comments from UN Women. The report would include:

• Cover Page
• Title page, table of contents, acronyms
• Executive summary (maximum 2 pages)
• Project description
• Assessment purpose and intended audience
• Assessment objectives, scope and methodology (including constraints and limitations on the study conducted)
• Findings and Analysis
• Conclusions
• Recommendations (prioritized, structured and clear)
• Lessons Learned
• Annexes, including interview list (without identifying names for the sake of confidentiality/anonymity) data collection instruments, key documents consulted, TOR)

Remark:

• The review should not exceed 20 pages excluding annexes.
• An executive summary will include a brief description of the programme, its context and current situation, the purpose of the external light review, its intended audience, its methodology and its main findings conclusions and recommendations. The Executive Summary should “stand alone” and will be translated to ensure access by all stakeholders if needed.

Light review report

31 January 2021

Competencies

Corporate competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the United Nations’ values and ethical standards;
• Promotes vision, mission and strategic goals of the UN and UN Women;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability
• Ability and willingness to work as part of a team to meet tight deadlines and produce high quality work.

Required Skills and Experience

• A Masters or higher-level degree in International Development or a similar field related to political and economic development, etc.
• A minimum of 5 years’ relevant experience undertaking evaluations, assessments or reviews is required.
• Substantive experience in assessing similar development projects in the area of Women, Peace and Security. Previous experience in Mindanao or the Bangsamoro would be considered an asset.
• Substantive experience in evaluating or assessing projects with a strong gender focus is preferred.
• Experience working on gender, added value of expertise in undertaking gender-sensitive evaluations.
• Excellent English writing and communication skills are required.
• Fluency in English.