Evaluation Consultant - Retainer

Contract

This is a International Consultant contract. More about International Consultant contracts.

Background

The UN Women Independent Evaluation Service (IES) of the Independent Evaluation and Audit Service (IEAS) evaluates the work of UN women to enhance organizational accountability, provide evidence-based information for decision-making and to contribute to learning on gender equality and the empowerment of women. IES posts Regional Evaluation Specialists in the Regional Offices of UN Women with a key task to lead independent evaluations and to support country office personnel with the management of decentralized evaluations. UN Women hires external consultants to conduct evaluations as evaluation Team Leader, thematic expert or evaluation analysts.

UN Women, through its Strategic Plan 2022-2025, has identified four impact areas through which the organization strives to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment:

• Governance and Participation in public life
• Women Peace and Security, Humanitarian Action, and Disaster Risk Reduction
• Ending Violence Against Women
• Women’s Economic Empowerment

Expressions of interest from qualified individuals for the following positions are sought on a retainer basis:

Evaluation consultants to support evaluation team leaders in the conduct of evaluations.

Please mention your specific thematic area of expertise if any. Consultants will be engaged in a retainer contract and based on organizational needs and alignment with expertise.

Duties and Responsibilities

Evaluation consultants are integral members of the evaluation team. The work of the consultant will be home-based and in the field, and they will need to connect with the team during West and Central Africa working hours via online platforms.

Under the overall oversight of the Regional Evaluation Specialist, the Evaluation consultant will contribute to the following phases of evaluations:

• Evaluation Planning stage:

  • Reviewing all relevant documents (i.e. Strategic notes, project documents, donor and/or other monitoring reports, evaluation and audit reports, etc.) to identify efforts relevant to the evaluation topic.
  • Providing support to the portfolio analysis to provide an overview of the different efforts undertaken by the CO/RO for the thematic area.

• Evaluation Inception phase:

  • Support the Human rights-based stakeholder analysis from a thematic perspective.
  • Contribute to the development of an inclusive Evaluation methodology which is tailored to relevant inquiry in the thematic area (including through the evaluation matrix, data collection tools etc)

• Evaluation Data collection:

  • Support interviews and consultations by taking detailed notes and ensuring adherence to ethical guidelines.
  • Contribute to evaluation analysis by capturing results, challenges, gaps and learning pertinent to the evaluation topic.

• Reporting phase:

  • Provide substantive inputs to the final synthesis report.
  • Potential support to case study through inputs on the thematic areas.
• Other tasks as assigned by the supervisor.

Tasks and deliverables

The evaluation consultant will be key member of the evaluation team, engaged in all phases of the evaluation process and in each type of evaluation to produce concise and analytical evaluation reports. Deliverables for the evaluation consultant include the following: desk review, portfolio analysis, stakeholder analysis, interview notes, qualitative and quantitative data analyses, contributions to the inception report, presentations and final synthesis reports and annexes for evaluations. These deliverables must be high quality and in line with the GERAAS criteria established by UN Women.

Supervision

The consultants will be directly supervised by the Regional Evaluation Specialist for West and Central Africa who is based in the Regional Office of Dakar (Senegal). However, based on the evaluation assignment, will also receive guidance from the evaluation team leader engaged. The Regional Evaluation Specialist reports to the Chief of Independent Evaluation Service at UN Women headquarters.

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 analytical skills
• Strong knowledge of UN Women processes and systems
• Strong networking skills
• Strong inter-personal skills, communicate effectively with staff at all levels of the organization;
• Ability to work in a highly pressured environment

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• Master’s degree in a field of relevance for the evaluation (i.e. Social Sciences, Gender Equality, Evaluation, international affairs).
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree;

Experience and skill

• At least 2 years of work experience contributing to gender-responsive evaluation or experience in gender analysis and human-rights based approaches or research.
• 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 working in the West and Central Africa region is an asset.

Language requirement:

• Language proficiency in English and French required
• Knowledge of languages from the region is an asset.

Duration of Assignment

From 15 Oct 2023 to17 Mar 2025 (Maximum 100 days of assignment period; UN Women does not warrant that the maximum of 100 days. The service will be purchased during the term of the Agreement). The consultant will be engaged under a retainer contract, which facilitates direct engagement of the consultant depending on need and availability within the contract period for a pre-agreed fee.

Submission of application

Submission package includes:

• Cover letter outlining relevant work experience (Please also mention your specific thematic area of expertise).

• Completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from

  P_11_form_UNwomen -JUL 2021.docx (live.com)

• 2 writing samples (must be a sample where the applicant was directly responsible for writing and demonstrating gender analytical skills)

• List of 3 professional references that can be contacted.

• Copy of passport

• Copy of the highest Education certificate

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.

Diversity and inclusion:

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.