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UN Women: National Consultant to to conduct a Final Evaluation of the programme “Promoting Gender Responsive Policies in South East Europe”Vacancy Number: Pr18/01783
Contacts: Ms. Lucretia Ciurea. Background
UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination and violence against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programs and services needed to implement these standards. Following the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BDPfA) in 1995, governments and civil society in the Western Balkans[1] have made efforts to advance gender equality and women’s rights, albeit at different paces and reaching different results. Important progress has been made in setting up legislative and institutional frameworks to develop and implement gender equality policies. Although gender responsive budgeting has been introduced in different legal frameworks and is increasingly becoming mandatory, still, the implementation of laws and policies to advance gender equality remains weak, the eradication of discrimination and gender stereotypes has been slow, and financing for gender equality is still a challenge. The mobilization of financing for full implementation of national gender equality commitments in Western Balkan has been mainly hindered by:
Since 2010, UN Women has provided support to central government institutions in Albania, Bosnia and Hercegovina, FYR Macedonia and the Republic of Moldova in strengthening democratic governance and advancing women’s rights through initiatives aimed at mainstreaming gender in policy planning and budgeting. Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) was introduced as a transformative mechanism, linking gender equality policy objectives with the resource allocations needed for their implementation. In several countries, especially with the introduction of gender equality in the budget laws and policies, GRB was institutionalized. Support was provided to civil society organisations, parliament and gender advocates to help them contribute meaningfully to policy making and budgeting and reflect the needs and priorities of excluded/vulnerable groups. The first two phases of the GRB regional project: “Promoting Gender Responsive Policies and Budgets in South-East Europe” (2011-2013) and the Promoting Gender Responsive Policies in South East Europe and the Republic of Moldova, Phase II” regional project (2013 -2016) have been already evaluated. The final report of the second phase was released on March 2017. The findings and the recommendations of these evaluations will be closely considered for the forthcoming evolution of the third phase of GRB Regional project covering February 2017-January 2019The project aims to support the implementation of specific priorities set in the governments strategic documents and subsequently to advance the implementation of national and international commitments on gender equality. In doing so, the project provides technical support to governments to mobilize the necessary political, institutional and financial support to advance gender equality by ensuring Gender Responsive Policies and Budgets (GRPB) processes are systematic and sustainable. The project specifically contributes to the implementation of:
The project is structured around two outcomes with specific outputs as follow: Outcome 1: Governments in targeted countries promote gender responsive fiscal laws, policies and national action plans to enable specific budgetary allocations for gender equality; Output 1.1: Public officials in national and local governments take initiatives to apply GRB in public finance management due to increased capacities. Output 1.2: National and local governments prioritize budgetary allocations for GE through participatory processes and make monitoring reports of policies and budgets available to citizens. Outcome 2: Gender advocates and MPs demand accountability from national and local governments on policies and budgetary allocations for GEWE. Output 2.1: Gender advocates monitor and report on government’s commitments on GEWE. Output 2.2: Parliamentarians raised gender issues and monitor government’s expenditures in specific sectors GEWE. Output 2.3: National and Regional associations and expert groups/institutions exchange experience and replicate best practices on GRB. Project beneficiaries and key stakeholders Project implementing partners at central level are ministries of finance that receive technical assistance from UN Women to support and monitor the implementation of existing GRB requirements by the assigned line ministries. At l regional level the project has two implementing partners: the Network of Associations of Local Authorities in Southeast Europe - NALAS and the Center for Excellence in Finance (CEF), With support from UN Women, NALAS is further strengthening its institutional capacities on GRB in order to be able to act as champion and facilitate learning and knowledge sharing regarding gender responsive planning across local governments in the region and introduce a gender perspective into areas of municipal competence. The partnership with the Centre for Excellence in Finance (CEF) will help to introduce GRB as one of the tools for mainstreaming gender in their Performance budgeting programme offered in the center training curricula. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the main project partners are: Gender Center of Federation of BiH, Gender Center of Republika Srpska BiH and the Agency for Gender Equality of BiH. At local level, implementing partner in FYR Macedonia is ZELS - the Association of Local Self Government Units. Through ZELS the project is further enhancing the capacities of local self-government units for gender responsive policy planning and budgeting and is strengthening the intra-institutional coordination among LSGUs. ZELS also serves as central repository of information and knowledge related to gender responsive budgeting in the processes of policy design, analyses and monitoring. . In Albania, the project is focused on strengthening local and national capacities for scaling up the processes of local and national planning and budgeting of local services and ensuring accountability and transparency of public services. In Moldova, ASEM, Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova is one of the key partners for the work carried out on GRB and academia. Partnership and cooperation are continued with women’s groups and civil society organizations, including those specialized in public finance with the aim of expanding their expertise in the field of gender responsive planning and budgeting. Support is provided to CSOs to continue enhancing the participatory processes and dialogue with central and local level institutions, as well as to further improve monitoring of public programmes, budgets and spending. Budget, geographical scope and timeframe The programme activities are being implemented in Albania, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Moldova. Total programme budget is USD 1,608,209 out of which USD 1,111,192.00 contributed by Austrian Development Agency, (ADA), and USD 497,016.80 the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC). Specifically, the budget divided by country is as follows: ALB-240,437.28, BiH-232,502.40, MKD 511,212.79, MDA 119,927.00. The project is implemented from February 2017 to January 2019. Project management The overall management responsibility and administration of the project rests with the Regional Office of UN Women for Europe and Central Asia in Istanbul, while the day-to-day management and implementation of the programme is responsibility of the project offices and technical experts hired as project coordinators in each country of project implementation. Project Advisory board Project Advisory Board (PAB) which consists of Government representatives, CSOs, GRB experts and representative of ADC, SDC and UN Women from the countries involved, provides guidance and quality assurance of the project implementation. Members of the Project Advisory Board are responsible to:
[1] For the purposes of this Terms of Reference, the Western Balkan include countries of project implementation: Albania, Bosnia and Hercegovina, FYR Macedonia, as well as the Republic of Moldova. [2] Law on Gender Equality in Society no. 9970, Official Gazette of the Republic of Albania, 125/2008; Law on Gender Equality in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 102/09; Law on Equal Opportunities between Women and Men, Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia, 6/2012; Law on Ensuring Equal Opportunities for Women and Men No. 5-XVI, Official Monitor of the Republic of Moldova, 47-50/200. [3] Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Albania, Albania Public Finance Management Strategy 2014-2020, (Tirana, 2014). accessed November 10, 2016, http://www.financa.gov.al/files/userfiles/Raportimet/Albanian_PFM_strategy_2014-2020.pdf [4] Ibid [5] Ibid Scope of work
A twofold evaluation governance structure for the evaluation will be established. An Evaluation Management Group (EMG) comprising of senior management of UN Women, Evaluation Task Manager and Programme manager will be established to oversee the evaluation process, make key decisions and quality assure the different deliverables. In addition, the evaluation will be quality assured by the UN Women Regional Evaluation Specialist for the ECA region, who is a member of the UN Women Independent Evaluation Office. Designated UN Women focal point who has not been involved in direct management of the programme, will serve as the evaluation task manager responsible for the day-to-day management of the evaluation and in enduring that the evaluation is conducted in accordance with the UN Women Evaluation Policy, United Nations Evaluation Group Ethical Guidelines and Code of Conduct for Evaluation in the United Nations system and other key guidance documents. The establishment of an Evaluation Reference Group (ERG) will facilitate the participation of the key stakeholders in the evaluation process and will help to ensure that the evaluation approach is robust and relevant to staff and stakeholders. Furthermore, it will make certain that factual errors or errors of omission or interpretation are identified in evaluation products. The reference group will provide input and relevant information at key stages of the evaluation: inception report, draft and final reports and will support UN Women with the dissemination of the results. Phases of the evaluation process The evaluation process has five phases: 1) Preparation: gathering and analysing programme data, conceptualizing the evaluation approach, internal consultations on the approach, preparing the TOR, establishment of the Evaluation Management Group (EMG) and the Evaluation Reference Group (ERG), stakeholders mapping and selection of evaluation team. 2) Inception: consultations between the evaluation team and the EMG, programme portfolio review, finalization of stakeholder mapping, inception meetings with the ERG, review of the result logics, analysis of information relevant to the initiative, finalization of evaluation methodology and preparation and validation of inception report. 3) Data collection and analysis: in-depth desk research, in-depth review of the programme documents and monitoring frameworks, in-depth online interviews as necessary, staff and partner survey/s, and field visits. 4) Analysis, validation and synthesis stage: analysis of data and interpretation of findings and drafting and validation of an evaluation report and other communication products. 5) Dissemination and follow-up: once the evaluation is completed UN Women is responsible for the development of a Management Response to evaluation recommendations within 6 weeks after the final approval of the evaluation report, publishing the evaluation report, uploading the final evaluation report on the UN Women GATE website and the dissemination of evaluation findings amongst key stakeholders. The evaluation team will be responsible for phases 2, 3 and 4 with the support of UN Women while UN Women is entirely responsible for phases 1 and 5. Requirements for experience
III. Competencies:
Documents to be included
Interested candidates are invited to submit their online applications by 19 November 2018 with the following documents.
Financial proposal
The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of the lump sum amount (daily rate and number of anticipated working days). Please see Annex I: Price Proposal Guideline and Template and Annex II: Price Proposal Submission Form.
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