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Local consultant to undertake a Country Programme Evaluation (CPE) of UN Women Moldova Country Office (CO) Strategic Note (SN) 2014-2017 (For National Consultants Only)Vacancy Number: Pr16/01395
Background
The Country Office (CO) Strategic Note (SN) is the main planning tool for UN Women’s support to normative, coordination and operational work in Republic of Moldova. The CO has been operational in Moldova since 2014. This evaluation will consider the Strategic Notes covering the period 2014-2017.The current Strategic Note will end on December 2017, and a new Strategic Note is due to be developed starting on January 2017. The Strategic Note is linked to the UN Women Global Strategic Plan 2014-2017, Moldova’s UNPF/UNDAF for 2013-2017, the National Program on Gender Equality for 2010-2015, CEDAW Concluding Observations from 2013, the relevant recommendations from the UPR and other existing key policies and strategies of the Republic of Moldova. The CO Strategic Note supports the following Goals contained in UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2014-2017:
UN Women's mandate (GA resolution 64/289) is to lead, coordinate and promote accountability of the UN system to deliver on gender equality and the empowerment of women with the primary objective of enhancing country-level coherence, ensuring coordinated interventions and securing positive impacts on the lives of women and girls, including those living in rural areas. The United Nations-Republic of Moldova Partnership Framework/UNDAF (UNPF) 2013-2017 is the core framework for UN Women to fulfil its coordination mandate. It builds on Moldova’s national strategies and international commitments to define three areas of UN cooperation: 1) democratic governance, justice, equality and human rights; 2) human development and social inclusion; and 3) environment, climate change and disaster risk management. Through this Framework the Government of Moldova joins over 30 governments in a global reform effort of the UN development system - “Delivering as One”. The Strategic Note is grounded in the standards, principles and obligations of the Convention to Eliminate all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, Concluding Observations of the Commission on the Status of Women, SCR 1325, Millennium Development Goals, and Committee and Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Recommendations (2011), CEDAW Concluding Observations on the combined 4th and 5th periodic reports, Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) CAHVIO. The Republic of Moldova has made positive legislative steps to address gender inequality, including through laws, policies, as well as public institutions and media. Nevertheless, women still face discrimination and inequality due to low access to decision-making, they are disadvantaged economically and are subjected to violence. Moldova’s third and fourth periodic state reports, presented to CEDAW committee on 01 October 2013, highlighted the following key issues of gender inequality: 1) women’s representation in politics and decision making processes; 2) economic empowerment and access to the labor market and decent jobs; 3) efforts made towards combating violence against women and family violence; 4) availability of sex disaggregated data for decision-making process and sector budget development; 5) reproductive health and rights of women; 6) protection of migrant women; and 7) inclusion of Roma women. ). Women's representation in politics and at the decision-making level is below existing international benchmarks. Women hold 21% of seats in Parliament. The Cabinet of Ministers comprises 6 women out of 21 members of the current Cabinet (as of July 2015). Women are also underrepresented at the local level holding 20.4% of mayoral seats, 17.9% in district and Municipal Councils, 26.9 % in local councils and 18.8% as heads of Districts. Women from particular groups, such as Romani women, women with disabilities and others, are virtually excluded from representation in public life. Women are also underrepresented in decision-making bodies in the private and civil society sectors, as well as within the tripartite mechanism. Although unemployment is a challenge for both women and men, women face specific barriers in the labour market. These include discriminatory practices such as significant payment gap disparities. Women in Moldova earn less than men and in 2013 women’s average salary represented 88.96%, out of the average salary of a man. National data reveals women are employed in lower-paid jobs and in the most “feminized” sectors of the economy which include public administration, education, health and social assistance (71.44%), and trade, hotels and restaurants (59.65%). Women also have unequal access to state funded programs on business and entrepreneurship development. The nationwide share of women entrepreneurs is only 27.5% and significantly lower in rural areas (14.9%). Women also have unequal access to the state funded programmes on business and entrepreneurship development. This leaves Romani women and women with disabilities often excluded from the formal labour market. Women’s equal participation in the labour market and women’s economic empowerment are crucial factors for sustainable development, pro-poor growth and the achievement of Moldova’s 2020 targets in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. Widespread poverty and the lack of job opportunities has caused many Moldovans to look for employment outside the country, which resulted in an increase in migration. There are an estimated 600,000 Moldovans residing abroad, and roughly 340,000 migrants are thought to still have families in Moldova, causing far-reaching consequences for families and children left behind. According to the National study “Violence against Women in the Family”, carried out by the National Bureau of Statistics and commissioned by the UN in Moldova in 2011, 63% of women experienced some type of violence (psychological, physical or sexual) from husbands/partners in their lifetimes, and one in ten women mentioned that she experienced economic violence at least once in her lifetime. Rural women, elderly women and those separated or divorced reported the highest prevalence rate of multiple forms of violence. Violence against women and girls leads to a wide range of social, health and economic problems, affecting families, communities and society. The high incidence of VAW also hampers the economic empowerment of women, their participation in decision-making and impedes the achievement of social and economic safety and well-being and global development goals, thus perpetuating under-development and poverty. Scope of work
Country Portfolio Evaluation (CPE) is a systematic assessment of the contributions made by UN Women to development results with respect to gender equality at the country level. The UN Women portfolio responds to three core mandates, which include normative, operation and coordination work. The CPE focuses on their individual and combined success in advancing gender equality in the countries covered by the CO. It uses the Strategic Note as the main point of reference. This CPE is being primarily commissioned by the Country Office (CO) as a formative (forward-looking) evaluation to support the CO and national stakeholders’ strategic learning and decision-making for the next Strategic Note, due to be developed in 2017. The evaluation is expected to have a secondary summative (backwards looking) perspective, to support enhanced accountability for development effectiveness and learning from experience. The timing of this Country Portfolio Evaluation is intended to assess the effectiveness and lessons as we approach the end of the current Strategic Note. The period covered by the evaluation will be 2014-2016. All activities included in the Strategic Notes 2014-2017 will be considered. The CPE will focus on all activities undertaken by the CO under the Strategic Notes, including general support to normative policy and UN coordination. Programme work will be considered based on the thematic areas established by the UN Women Strategic Plan 2014-2017. It is a priority for UN Women that the CPE will be gender-responsive, and will actively support the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment. The primary intended users of this evaluation are: CO, Regional ECA Office, and UN Women HQ. Uses of evaluation:
Evaluation Objectives The evaluation has specific objectives:
The evaluation will apply four OECD/DAC evaluation criteria (relevance, effectiveness (including normative, and coordination mandates of UN Women), efficiency, and sustainability) and Human Rights and Gender Equality as an additional criterion. For detailed information, time frame and expected deliverables, please refer to Annex 1- Terms of Reference. Requirements for experience
The National Consultant must possess the following qualifications: Education:
Experience:
Language:
The consultant should have proven commitment to the core values of the United Nations, in particular respecting differences of culture, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, language, age, HIV status, disability, and sexual orientation, or other. Documents to be included
Interested candidates must submit via online submission system the following documents/ information to demonstrate their qualification:
Financial proposal
The financial proposal shall be structured around the specific tasks and key deliverables described in the Terms of Reference. Interested individual consultants must specify a daily fee. Payments are made to the Individual Consultant based on the number of days worked.
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