End Term Evaluation Women Count Programme – International Consultant

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Background

In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus Resolution 70/1: Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (the 2030 Agenda). The Resolution states that "realizing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls will make a crucial contribution to progress". The prioritization of gender equality and women’s rights is reflected in a cross-cutting manner throughout every part of the 2030 Agenda, including the declaration, goals, targets, and indicators, means of implementation, global partnership and follow-up and review.

To support member states in implementing the 2030 Agenda, UN Women’s Flagship Programme Initiative “Making Every Woman and Girl Count” (Women Count) was developed to support the monitoring and implementation of the SDGs through better production, accessibility and use of quality gender data and statistics. The Women Count programme approach worked on three interlinked areas:

1. Building a supportive policy and institutional environment for the localization and effective monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);

2. Increasing the quality, comparability, and regularity of gender statistics to address national data gaps and meet reporting commitments under the SDGs; and

3. Ensuring that gender statistics are accessible to users in governments, civil society, academia, and the private sector, to strengthen adequate demand for their production.

The programme is enshrined in UN Women’s global Strategic Plan (SP) 2018-2021, prioritizing the availability, accessibility and use of data and statistics. The programme was implemented from September 2016 to December 2021 at three levels: global, regional, and national level.

UN Women’s Women Count Programme

Making Every Woman and Girl Count: Supporting the monitoring and implementation of the SDGs through better production and use of gender statistics (Women Count) is a programme developed by UN Women to affect a radical shift in the production, availability, accessibility and use of quality data and statistics on key aspects of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The Programme, which is implemented from September 2016 to December 2021 in 10 countries, 4 regional projects and one global project, is a UN Women flagship programme was designed to respond to three main challenges that impede the acceleration of the achievements of the SDGs:

1. Weak policy space and legal and financial environments. Lack of political will and limited awareness of the importance of data for gender equality were identified as critical barriers to progress. Reviews in many countries have shown that the production of gender statistics was not specified in statistics laws and policies, often resulting in an under-prioritization of the sector in terms of budget allocations.
2. Technical challenges limit the effective and efficient production of gender statistics. Due to resource and technical constraints in most developing countries, the production of gender statistics was quite limited and gender data gaps were pervasive.
3. Lack of access to data and limited capacity of policymakers and other potential users to analyze, use and advocate for them to inform policies. Gaps in gender statistics were compounded by the low dissemination and communication capabilities of the NSS to make the existing data available in user-friendly formats.

A comprehensive theory of change (to be shared) was developed to respond to these challenges and define the programme results. However, each project (country, regional or global) formulated a fully-fledged project document, complete with a results framework that was aligned to the overall TOC but customized to address the needs of a specific country.

The programme adopted a joined-up approach at national, regional, and global levels to implement the programme at three levels:

• Country-level Partnerships: Following an independent country selection exercise in 2017, 12 pathfinder countries were selected, in partnership with national statistics offices and in coordination with other actors.
• Regional technical support: Regional projects in Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, East and Southern Africa, and West and Central Africa, provide policy and programmatic support to pathfinder countries to implement Women Count as well as on-demand technical and financial support to other countries. These projects help dismantle barriers to the regular production of gender statistics; support national plans to monitor the SDGs; and promote South-South cooperation and sharing of best practices.
• Global policy support and SDGs monitoring: The global project provides programmatic and technical advice to national and regional Women Count projects; develops guidance on the production of more relevant and disaggregated gender statistics; monitors the SDGs through methodological work, data compilation and dissemination; and strived to improve data on unpaid care and domestic work, among other thematic areas.

Additional projects under the Women Count programme, include the Centre of Excellence on Gender Statistics (CEGS) in partnership with the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico (INEGI). The Joint Programme on Strengthening Methodologies and Measurement and Building National Capacities for Violence against Women Data (Joint Programme on Violence Against Women Data) is implemented in partnership with the World Health Organization).

Duties and Responsibilities

Purpose and objectives of the evaluation

Guided by the UN Women Evaluation Policy, the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Norms and Standards for Evaluation in the UN System and the UNEG Ethical Guidelines, the purpose of the evaluation is to assess the contribution of the programme towards increasing the planning, coordination, availability, accessibility and use of gender statistics. The evaluation will be commissioned as both summative (backwards looking) and formative (forward-looking) evaluation. On the one hand, it will assess the achievement of results at the global, regional, and country levels, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the programme. On the other hand, building on the findings and recommendations from the mid-term review, the evaluation will provide forward-looking recommendations on how UN Women could enhance its work on gender statistics especially considering the inclusion of a new Systemic Outcome on Improving the Production and Use of Gender Statistics and Sex-Disaggregated Data in the new Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and the development of a Data, Evidence and Knowledge (DEK) strategy to improve the production and use of gender data and evidence as a core component of UN Women’s work. The Evaluation will draw on the midterm reviews of the Women Count programme, the Center of Excellence on Gender Statistics and the Joint Programme on Violence Against Women data. It will also draw on recent evaluations conducted by the UN Women Independent Evaluation Service, including the evaluation of UN Women’s Flagship Programme Initiatives and the ongoing Policy Advocacy Evaluation, which include a specific look at some aspects of the Women Count Programme, namely the Women Count Data Hub and its usefulness for policy advocacy.

The evaluation will have the following broad objectives:

• To assess UN Women’s contribution to results, including the effectiveness of programming strategies in addressing policy and legal frameworks that are governing the production of gender statistics and the national level, and in increasing the production, availability, accessibility and use of gender statistics, with a special focus on innovative, scalable, and replicable interventions.
• To provide an evidence-based analysis on whether and how UN Women has strategically positioned itself to add value in the production of gender data and statistics to monitor and report on the sustainable development goals indicators, at country, regional and global levels.
• To assess and validate the effectiveness and sustainability of the programme’s approaches and strategies, including its alignment with internal and external global, regional, and national frameworks and priorities.
• To assess the value of the programme’s results relative to the resources invested in it;
• To evaluate UN Women’s organizational performance such as management systems, design of strategies and programmes, including Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), and their effectiveness in facilitating the implementation of programme objectives; and
• To draw lessons and produce concrete recommendations on how UN Women can build on this first phase of the programme, including aspects that have worked and should be scaled-up, aspects that require improvements and aspects of the programme that have not worked and should be changed or abandoned.

Evaluation scope

The scope of the evaluation will include all geographic areas of implementation at national, regional, and global levels (see below). The evaluation will primarily focus on the Women Count project areas to assess the programme relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, coherence, impact and sustainability of the programme. Findings from the Mid-Term Reviews of the Women Count Programme, the Joint Programme on VAW Data and the Centre of Excellence on Gender Statistics as well as recent corporate evaluation on Flagship Programmes, should be referenced and used to inform this evaluation.

Projectt Areas:

1. East and Southern Africa - Regional project, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania country projects
2. West and Central Africa - Regional project, Cameroon and Senegal country projects
3. Europe and Central Asia - Regional project with support to several countries including Georgia, Albania, Kyrgyz Republic, etc.
4. Asia and the Pacific - Regional project, Bangladesh and Nepal country projects
5. Latin America and the Caribbean - Colombia country project
6. Arab States - Morocco and Jordan country projects
7. Global project

The evaluation will analyze the programmatic achievements, as well as identifying and assessing innovative and scalable programming approaches at the country level, under the following three outcome areas:

1. Supportive policy environment in place to ensure gender-responsive localization and effective monitoring of the SDGs. Assessments are conducted to look at the national legal framework, policies and practices governing the production of gender statistics. Legal, institutional, and financial constraints, from the assessments, addressed, and partnerships put in place to ensure that plans to produce gender statistics to monitor SDGs locally are developed and financed. A participatory national plan is developed with inputs from actors to localize gender-related SDGs, using the globally agreed SDGs indicators as a basis.
2. Improve the regular production of gender statistics: The technical capacity of the National Statistical Systems to produce quality gender statistics are strengthened through (i) direct technical support to compile Tier I indicators; (ii) identification of suitable data sources and technical and financial support to collect Tier II indicators; and (iii) methodological work to develop standards to enable NSS to produce Tier III indicators (especially at the initial years of the programme).
3. Ensure greater accessibility and use of data: Data sharing protocols were strengthened, and dissemination tools were provided. The capacity of all users is strengthened through training and technical assistance. User-producer dialogues are institutionalized, including by creating forums for the NSS to engage with policymakers to improve their understanding of statistical information and identify data gaps to increase accessibility, quality, and demand for gender statistics.

Evaluation criteria and guiding questions

The evaluation will use the standard criteria of assessing the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability of the programme as well as identify and document lessons learned.

The following are the key minimum questions to be evaluated in the following 5 key areas:

Relevance and coherence of the programme design and priorities

1. Was the programme design, including the theory of change and NSS partnerships, relevant to respond to filling gender data gaps at national, regional, and global levels?
2. How relevant was the programme to advance the production, analysis, and use of gender statistics across the geographic areas of implementation?
3. To what extent was the programme aligned to the priorities identified in the national and regional gender assessment of national statistical systems?
4. To what extent did the programme adjust to or respond to changes in country contexts e.g. political changes; changes in NSO leadership; COVID_19 pandemic and did the program respond effectively?
5. To what extent was the programme’s strategy – to improve the National Statistical Systems via addressing three outcomes1 – and approach (global, regional, and national levels) in line with global best practices in statistical capacity building?

Effectiveness of the programme results

1. Did the focus on strengthening institutional capacity improve production and use of gender data and statistics? To what extent did key mechanisms at the country level, such as planning and coordination of gender statistics, improve?
2. How effective was UN Women’s approach in ensuring engendering the national strategy for development statistics as the foundational base for increasing the availability, accessibility and use of gender statistics?
3. Which interventions need to be particularly built on, modified and or expanded during the second Phase of Women Count II?
4. To what extent did the current monitoring and evaluation tools and processes provide the necessary information to adequately monitor and evaluate the programme?
5. How did the programme leverage strategic partnerships at all levels and how effective was the approach?
6. How did the programme engagement in visibility, outreach, and advocacy (through the programme and through strategic partners and donors) position gender data in global, regional, and national policy agendas (external)?
7. How effective is the programme strategy on communication and knowledge management, including the process of knowledge capturing, storage/access and dissemination?

Efficiency of the programme approach and management

1. To what extent did the programme set-up, including UN Women’s management systems, human and financial resources, contribute to or hinder the achievement of programme objectives?
2. To what extent did internal measures including continuous monitoring and budget reallocations, inform and contribute to programme efficiency?
3. How can monitoring, learning and evaluation systems for this strategic area be strengthened?

Impact of the programme

1. What are UN Women’s key contributions to achieving national, regional, and global results on availability, accessibility and use of gender statistics for policy and programme decision making?
2. What are the innovative strategies and promising programming practices that could be upscaled and replicated?
3. How did the increased availability, accessibility and use of gender statistics contribute to (inform/influence) the UN Women triple mandate and accelerate the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women (including SDGs monitoring, Beijing process etc.) at national, regional, and global levels?
4. Has this programme impacted/informed UN Women’s work in general, including work on gender statistics (UN Women Strategic Plan 2022-2025, Output Area 6) and how it is linked to other areas of UN Women’s work (i.e., Normative Inter-governmental work, UN Coordination, Peace and Security and Humanitarian, Ending Violence Against Women, Women’s Economic Empowerment, Leadership and Governance, COVID-19 etc.)? If so: how? If not: what are some of the barriers?
5. How has the programme contributed to UN Women’s policy advocacy in general? To what extent did the programme strategically position UN Women in the statistical and/or policy communities?

Sustainability of the programme

1. How sustainable is UN Women’s intervention on gender statistics at the national, regional, and global levels?
2. What specific approaches and measures did the Women Count programme adopt to ensure ownership and sustainability of the production, analysis and use of gender statistics.
3. To what extent did the gender assessments of the national statistical systems contribute to strengthening a sustainable process that governs the production, analysis and use of gender statistics?
4. To what extent are there identifiable or foreseeable positive or negative contextual factors that may influence the durability of the intervention’s results?
5. What specific measures/activities are recommended for Women Count II to increase sustainability?

Evaluation methods and management processes

Methods:

The evaluation will be a transparent and participatory process involving relevant UN Women staff, stakeholders, and partners at the global, regional, sub-regional and country levels. It will be carried out in accordance with United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Norms and Standards and Ethical Code of Conduct and UN Women Policy guidelines. The evaluation content and process are required to integrate gender equality and human rights principles.

Ethical Code of Conduct:

UN Women has developed a?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. These documents will be annexed to the 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, stakeholders 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.

The evaluator is expected to provide a detailed plan on how the ethical principles will be ensured throughout the evaluation process.

Evaluation process:

The evaluation process includes the following four phases that will be used for determining the evaluation timelines and setting deliverables/performance indicators:

1. Inception phase: This phase includes the initial internal meeting(s) to discuss objectives, approach, scope, methodology and timelines of the evaluation; development of ToR and the recruitment of the evaluation consultant.
2. Planning and design phase: This phase begins with the desk review; development of data collection tools; development and presentation of the inception report; and establishment of Reference Groups (RGs).
3. Implementation phase: This phase includes data collection; data analysis and reporting. It will also include the presentation of preliminary findings and the final report of the evaluation.
4. Dissemination phase: This phase includes the development of UN Women’s management response to the evaluation recommendations; and the dissemination of the report.

Management and governance arrangements:

The Evaluation Manager

The evaluation will be managed by the Women Count?Programme?Management Specialist?in HQ with support from the Women Count?Programme?Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist in HQ, and with the guidance of the Independence evaluation Services (IES) and guidance and supervision from the UN Women Chief, Research and Data Section. The?Women Count team in HQ?will?participate in the evaluation process through interviews with the consultant, contribute to providing quality inputs and assurance, and contribute to the development of the final report, including the development of the management responses.?

Reference Groups (RGs)

An internal and external Evaluation Reference Groups (RG) will be constituted to support the process to ensure quality as well as participation in the exercise. Members will provide substantial technical inputs, facilitate access to documents and serve as key informants if needed, and ensure the high quality of the evaluation report.

The internal RG (IRG) will include the Women HQ team, the Regional Advisors and Country Focal Points of the programme, other UN Women colleagues contributing to the programme (i.e colleagues from the Joint Programme on VAW data) and an evaluation specialist from IES. Members of the external RG (ERG) will be drawn from representatives of NSSs, other partners and the donor committee of the programme.

Timelines

Deliverable/task description****Timeline (Total 50 days) 1. Conduct desk review, develop data collection tools, draft and present inception report (virtual meeting) 04 – 22 Oct 2021 2. Conduct data collection and analysis 25 Oct – 19 Nov 20213. Validation and preparation of reports: first draft evaluation report, present preliminary findings (virtual meetings); second draft evaluation report; submit and present (virtual meeting) final evaluation report.22 Nov – 10 Dec 2021

Competencies

Competencies:

Core Values:

• Integrity
• Professionalism
• Respect for Diversity

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example

Functional Competencies

• In-depth substantive knowledge of monitoring and evaluation and related development policy and programming issues, including knowledge of evaluation, results-based management, and log frames;
• Demonstrated grasp and understanding of gender issues, in general, and preferably in the UN system;
• Strong research and analytical skills;
• Ability to work with multidisciplinary and multicultural teams;
• Creativity, innovation, and initiative;
• Result-oriented;
• Comprehensive knowledge of information technology and ability to apply it in work assignments;
• Fully computer literate in using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

Required Skills and Experience

Required Skills and Qualifications of the consultant

Education

• Master’s degree or equivalent in social sciences, human rights, gender/women’s studies, international development, or related field is required).
• At least 10 years of work experience in evaluation, preferably specific to gender equality and women’s empowerment, within the UN and/or with international development actors.

Experience

• Experience designing and using qualitative data analysis tools.
• Knowledge of the role of UN Women or the UN system and its programming, coordination, and normative roles at the regional and/or country-level is an asset.
• Experience related to gender statistics is highly desirable.

Languages

• Language proficiency in English is required.
• Knowledge of another UN language is an advantage.

How to apply

Interested candidates are requested to submit the following documents:

• CV and P11
• Letter of motivation with professional fee specifying a daily consultancy rate.
• 2 writing samples (must be a sample where the applicant was directly responsible for writing and demonstrating gender analytical skills preferably on evaluation reports).
• List of 3 professional references that can be contacted.

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Added 2 years ago - Updated 2 years ago - Source: jobs.undp.org