Project Final Evaluation Support Assistant

Contract

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

Background

Gender equality and women’s empowerment remains a critical development issue in Armenia: women comprise 52.2% of population in Armenia and 56% of those with higher education, still, leadership positions in government, in policy-making institutions or the private sector in Armenia are male-dominated. Due to their limited representation in leadership positions women have very little influence over policy decisions. While a 30% quota system ensures women are represented in political parties, they face distinct barriers to enter the office at the local and national levels.

UNDP in Armenia has been continuously working in the area of the political empowerment of women, advancing leadership of women, supporting the local governments to engender local decision-making and development processes, enabled youth to get knowledge and skills on participatory governance advance their potential and raise their voice in policy making at national and local levels. UNDP has considerably contributed to increase of representation of women at the local level, as well as formation of dynamic groups of women and youth who not only benefit from projects’ support, but also lead local initiatives on broad spectrum of topics, including participatory governance, women empowerment, and other.

Currently, UNDP’s Women Empowerment and Gender Equality (WEGE) Programme is comprised of four projects working on political leadership of women, economic empowerment of women, innovative public services, youth leadership advancement, strengthening gender equality in the public administration system of Armenia. Projects are implemented in strong synergy and coordination with one another building on the ongoing activities, relying on the cadre of women and youth already capacitated from previous projects and joining forces to upscale proven support schemes countrywide. UNDP enjoys broad partnerships among national government, regional and local authorities, donor and international community, civil society organizations, media and other stakeholders.

One of the above-mentioned projects is “Women in Local Development: Women in Politics” (hereinafter WiP), implemented by UNDP in Armenia with financial support from UK Good Governance Fund (UK GGF), in partnership with the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure of the Republic of Armenia (MTAI) and OxYGen Foundation. The overarching goal of the project is to contribute to enhanced political participation of women, with specific focus on increased representation and participation of women, including young women, in community development processes.

The project objectives:

• Research on policy gaps and perceptions for women’s political participation;
• Women empowerment through leadership schools, pre- and post-electoral support, setting female-led integrity islands, etc.;
• Strengthening the role of political parties for inclusiveness and gender equality;
• Facilitation of bottom-up policy dialogue and networking events;
• Advancing public discourse, awareness raising and advocacy campaigns on gender equality;
• Advancing youth leadership though upscale of UNDP’s “I AM the Community” youth leadership model, and engaging youth in community democratization and development processes

A mid-term evaluation covering the period from the project’s start in November 2018 up to November 2020 was conducted in October-December 2020.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of work:

The overall objective of the final evaluation assignment is to assess the relevance of the project interventions and the final results vis-à-vis the planned objectives, effectiveness, efficiency as well as, (as available) the impact and sustainability of interventions within the framework of “Women in Politics” project. The evaluation results will be used by the UNDP, UK GGF, implementing partners and other stakeholders when planning further interventions in the areas of women empowerment and women’s political participation in Armenia.

The geography of the evaluation will cover 450 non-consolidated communities of Armenia where the project was implemented. A significant number of the mentioned communities were enlarged in 2021 within the framework of Administrative and Territorial Reform led by MTAI.

The evaluation will focus on direct and indirect beneficiaries of the project, specifically women, young people aged 18-30, high school students aged 15-18, municipalities, local councils, political parties, partner media outlets, as well as other stakeholders/partners.

Interviews will be organized/held online in case the travel to Armenia is impossible in view of the COVID-19 or other restrictions. Findings of the evaluation will be shared with implementing partners, stakeholders, and the donor organization UK GGF.

The project final evaluation must provide evidence-based analytic information that is credible, reliable and useful. The Evaluator and the national evaluation support assistant are expected to follow a collaborative and participatory approach ensuring close engagement with the project team, Implementing Partner Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, Responsible Party OxYGen Foundation, UK Embassy, UK GGF, government and municipal counterparts, UNDP Country Office, and other key stakeholders and beneficiaries.

Under the overall coordination of UNDP “Women in Politics” Project Task Leader and direct supervision of the Evaluator, the Evaluation Support Assistant will help the Evaluator in country-level data gathering, organizing interviews, surveys/questionnaires and field visits. In particular, the Evaluation Support Assistant will provide inputs for defining national/local context as per the Evaluator’s specifications, will help Evaluator communicate with national stakeholders and beneficiaries, will provide oral and written translation as necessary. The Evaluation Support Assistant enables the Evaluator to interact with executing agency and national stakeholders to collect necessary data, discuss main findings and take notes, while keeping the overall independence and integrity of the evaluation process.

Duties and responsibilities:

As per the request and requirements of the Evaluator, the National Evaluation Support Assistant will:

• Support the Evaluator with data collection for triangulation of evaluative evidence, including on-the-ground data and documents (project documentation, standard progress reports, work plans, quarterly donor reports, monitoring data, event/conference reports, UNDP’s data, midterm evaluation report and any other materials that the team may consider useful for this evidence-based review)
• Assist the Evaluator with conducting meetings and interviews, including online (via Zoom) and/or face-to-face (considering health security measures in the situation of COVID-19 pandemic), with key project stakeholders and beneficiaries as per the request by the Evaluator. Taking notes of the interviews/meetings.
• Conduct surveys/questionnaires with stakeholders, including but not limited to executing agencies, senior officials and task team/component leaders, key experts and consultants in the subject area, partner local self-government bodies, project beneficiaries, etc.
• Conduct field missions to project sites and partner municipalities if required.

Expected deliverables:

Deliverables

Delivery time

Support to the Project Evaluation process is provided and respective comprehensive report on the implemented tasks is prepared

May 21, 2022

Payment mode:

Lump sum payable modality will be applied for this assignment. Payment will be made in one installment upon completion of the tasks and approval of deliverable by the Evaluator and UNDP country office

Competencies

• Demonstrated understanding of issues related to gender equality, women empowerment and local development processes; experience in gender sensitive evaluation and analysis is an asset,
• Excellent communication skills,
• Demonstrable analytical skills
• Good understanding of international development and gender equality projects implementation and evaluation principles,
• Strong interpersonal skills with ability to establish and maintain effective work relationships with people of different social and cultural backgrounds,
• Ability to create and promote enabling environment for open communication,
• Advanced communication capacity and proven knowledge of communication tools, excellent writing skills,
• Ability to work efficiently and provide high quality outputs under time pressure,
• Ability to work independently and participate effectively in a team-based information sharing,
• Advanced IT and Microsoft Office operating capacities.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• Advanced university degree in social sciences, public administration, governance, public policy and/or other relevant disciplines.

Experience:

• At least 5 years’ professional experience in implementation support of development projects with demonstrable experience in research, data collection analysis and reporting; relative database management and database development
• Experience of working in independent evaluation teams, experience of conducting and leading evaluations is an asset,
• Proven practical experience in information gathering and research methodology; experience in data analysis,
• Proven practical experience in interaction with multiple stakeholders, organization and facilitation of meetings and interviews,
• Advanced experience in working with government agencies (central and local), public and international organizations and projects,

Language Skills:

• Fluency in Armenian and English (written and oral), knowledge of Russian is an asset.

CANDIDATES WILL BE EVALUATED BASED ON THE FOLLOWING METHODOLOGY:

Candidates will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of the applicants' technical qualifications, experience and financial proposal.The contract will be awarded to the candidate whose offer has been evaluated and determined as technically responsive/compliant/acceptable to the requirements of the ToR and received the highest cumulative (technical and financial) score out of below defined technical and financial criteria.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for financial evaluation.

Technical Criteria - 70% of total evaluation - max. 70 points

Financial Criteria - 30% of total evaluation - max. 30 points.

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE APPLICATION.

• Financial Proposal and Availability form: OFFEROR’S LETTER TO UNDP (A total lump sum option is applicable for this assignment)
• CV shall include Education/Qualification, Processional Certification, Employment Records /Experience

General Conditions of Contract is available here: GENERAL CONDITIONS OF CONTRACT

Note: Please note you can upload only one document to this application (scan all documents that should be included in the application in one single PDF file and upload it).