1. POSITION INFORMATION
Post Title:Member of the Evaluation Team
Organizational Unit: UN Women
Closing Date: Tuesday, September 29th 2015
2. ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT
In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly established the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women). The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, consolidating the Organization’s resources and mandates on gender equality for greater impact. The mandate of UN Women brings together four pre-existing entities, calling on UN Women to have universal coverage, strategic presence and ensure closer linkages between the norm setting inter-governmental work and operations at the field level. It entrusts UN Women with a leading role in normative, operational and coordination work on gender equality in the UN system, including women’s political empowerment.
The mandate of UN Women is guided by the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the United Nations Millennium Declaration, relevant General Assembly, Economic and Social Council, Commission on the Status of Women and other applicable United Nations instruments, standards and resolutions. The work of UN Women is focused on responding to its three core mandates:
- Normative work: to support inter-governmental bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women and the General Assembly, in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms;
- Operational work: to help Member States to implement international standards and to forge effective partnerships with civil society; and
- Coordination work: entails both work to hold the UN system accountable for its own commitments on gender equality, including regular monitoring of system-wide progress, and also the broader role of the entity in mobilizing and convening key stakeholders and partnerships.
Supporting Women’s leadership and political participation at all levels
Based on this context and as reflected in its Strategic Plans for 2011-2013 and 2014-2017:Women lead and participate in decision making at all levels is the first impact, women’s political participation is one of UN Women’s core thematic priorities. Promoting women’s leadership and political participation, at all levels of governance, has been identified as a critical impact for UN Women, not only for achieving gender equality but also as an intrinsic precondition for democratic governance and sustainable development. Since women constitute around half the world’s population, it is a matter of justice and democracy that women are represented in decision making positions (at government, legislative or judiciary branches).The objective of promoting women´s political empowerment is aligned with the Millennium Development Goals, the Sustainable Development Goals and resolutions that have emerged from relevant intergovernmental processes that promote greater representation of women, including parity. The results envisaged increasing representation and participation of women in political parties and political decision-making — from the national to the local level — as well as women’s representation, leadership and influence in other areas of civic engagement.
3. PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE EVALUATION
The main purpose of this regional thematic evaluation is to contribute to enhancing UN Women’s approach to leadership and political participation programming to reach the objective of the West and Central Africa Strategy on Governance and women leadership and political participation for 2014-2017.
The evaluation will be formative as it will provide feedback on areas for improvement of gender-focused programming often operating in contexts of obstacles to women's participation perpetuated by cultural, social and institutional structures, processes, rules and norms. It will also serve to confirm or update elements of the WCA Regional Strategy on WPP.
The scope of the evaluation is regional and will include all dimensions of UN Women’s mandate: to support normative and intergovernmental, operational and coordination work at regional and country levels.
4. METHODOLOGY
The evaluation will be a transparent and participatory process involving relevant UN Women stakeholders and partners at the headquarters, the corporate, regional, and country levels. The evaluation will be based on gender and human rights principles, as defined in the UN Women Evaluation Policy and adhere to the United Nations norms and standards for evaluation in the UN System. An important component of this evaluation will be the evaluability assessment of UN Women’s results logic and approach for enhancing leadership and political participation. The logic model based on UN Women Strategic Plans 2011-2013 and 2014-2017 will be used to assess whether this area is on the right track and whether the proposed interventions have the potential to achieve proposed outcomes in suggested time-frame.
5. FUNCTIONS OF THE EVALUATION PROCESS
1) Preparation:gathering and analyzing program data, conceptualizing the evaluation approach, internal consultations on the approach, preparing the TOR, establishment of the reference group, and recruitment of the evaluation team;
2) Inception:consultations between the evaluation team and the Regional Office, program portfolio review, stakeholder mapping, inception meetings with the reference group, review of the result logic for this thematic area, finalization of selection criteria for country case studies, finalization of evaluation methodology and inception report;
3) Data collection and analysis: desk review, in-depth review of global, country and regional level planning frameworks and program documents, in-depth review of WPP portfolio of WCA Country Offices and program presence countries online interviews, staff and partner survey/s, visits to 3-4 case study countries and preparation of case study reports;
4) Analysis and synthesis stage: analysis of data and interpretation of findings, and drafting of an evaluation report and other communication products (video); and
5) Dissemination and follow-up*:* development of a Management Response, publishing of the evaluation report, uploading the published report on the GATE website, and production of other knowledge products and learning events, such as a webinar and an evaluation brief.
6. RECRUITMENT QUALIFICATIONS
Education:
o Minimum of a Master’s Degree in International Development, public administration, business administration, public policy or any other social sciences.
Experience:
o At least 15 years of evaluation experience
o Experience in parliamentary work, governance, rule of law, civil society movements.
o Experience in regional integration and political analysis in the West & Central African region.
o Advanced evaluation experience and expertise in a wide range of evaluation approaches including utilization-focused, gender and human rights responsive, and mixed methods.
o Strong experience in human rights issues, the human rights-based approach to programming, human rights analysis and related UN mandates.
Language Requirements:
o Strong written and spoken skill in English.
o Fluency in French is an asset.
7. COMPETENCIES
CORE VALUES/GUIDING PRINCIPLES
o Integrity: Demonstrating consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.
o Cultural sensitivity/valuing diversity: Demonstrating an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrating an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.
CORE COMPETENCIES
o Working in teams: Acting as a team player
o Communicating information & ideas: Communicating effectively
o Knowledge sharing: Respect the learning of others
o Ethics and values: Demonstrating/ safeguarding ethics and integrity
FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES
o Excellent analytical, facilitation and communications skills; ability to negotiate with a wide range of stakeholders.
o Knowledge of the relevant international/regional frameworks pertaining to women political rights and gender equality, women’s political participation country level programming expertise, gender mainstreaming, and the related UN mandates; experience/knowledge of women’s movements in the region.
o Knowledge in both sub-regions (West & Central Africa)
o Balance in terms of gender is desirable
COPORATE COMPETENCIES
o Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards
o Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN WOMEN
o Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability
o Treats all people fairly without favoritism
8. REQUIRED DOCUMENTS
All candidates eligible and interested in this notice must submit the following documentation:
o Motivation letter at UN Women Regional Immeuble SOUMEX 2e étage.
o CV
o Presentation of previous evaluation projects
o 2 – 3 references
*Female candidates are strongly encouraged.
HOW TO APPLY:
All applications must be submitted at waroenquiries@unwomen.org before Tuesday September 29th 2015.
