Background:

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination 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.

The Advancing Women’s Leadership, Empowerment, and Resilience in Uganda’s Refugee Response – LEAP II Phase II project aims to directly benefit 56,310 (40,610 women and girls and 15,700 men and boys) and to indirectly benefit 1,300,000 women and men (30 percent hosts). The project outcomes include: 1) Ensuring that Uganda’s Humanitarian and Refugee response planning, frameworks and programming are gender inclusive and responsive; 2) Increasing access to leadership and protection for refugee and host women and social norm change to allow for gender equality within the refugee and host communities; and 3) Promoting positive coping mechanisms and sustainable economic activities for refugee and host community women.

The LEAP II project, which is in its third and last year of implementation has been implemented by UN Women and its partners including: Coalition for Action on 1325 (CoACT), Refugee Law Project (RLP), Oxfam, and Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative.

The evaluation will assess the achievement of the project’s goal which was to ensure that refugee and host women and girls affected by crisis lead, participate in and benefit from humanitarian response and recovery in Adjumani, Kyegegwa, Terego and Yumbe refugee hosting districts.

The purpose of this independent end term evaluation is to assess the project’s achievements against the set objectives, identify and document lessons learnt (including design issues, lessons and best practices that can be up-scaled or replicated), and assess how the program contributed to gender equality and economic empowerment of refugee women and women from host communities in Adjumani, Yumbe, Terego and Kyegegwa districts. 

It is a priority for UN Women that the end line program evaluation will be gender-responsive and will actively support the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment, with emphasis on UN Women key areas central to supporting women and girls’ empowerment in humanitarian action: Leadership and participation, Protection and safety, and Economic well-being. 

The primary intended users of this evaluation are:

• Relevant staff in target ministries, local government and targeted government institutions, and participating CSOs
• Target beneficiary communities/groups
• Members of community leadership structures 
• Staff of implementing partners 
• Sectoral leads in the participating UN-agencies and refugee response coordination.
• UN Agencies technical working groups
• UNACs 
• Development partners

Primary intended uses of this evaluation are:

1. Information on the program’s effectiveness will be used to inform decision making for the scale up of LEAP.
2. Feedback, participation and accountability to affected communities. 
3. Accountability for the development effectiveness of the LEAP program to the donors and other stakeholders.
4. Capacity development and mobilization of national stakeholders to advance gender equality and the empowerment of women. Evaluation will provide evidence on areas that need strengthening in the advancement of GEWE. 

Evaluation objectives, criteria and key questions

The objectives of the evaluation are to:

1. Assess the relevance of LEAP project interventions in addressing the needs of refugee and host community women in alignment with gender equality and women’s empowerment;
2. Assess the effectiveness and efficiency of UN Women’s approach for achievement of results, as defined in the logical framework, including the Program Theory of Change;
3. Analyse how the human rights approach and gender equality principles were integrated in LEAP and humanitarian action programming in the South Sudanese response;
4. Identify and validate lessons learned, promising practices and innovations of work supported by LEAP Project within the context of the aid effectiveness agenda;
5. Assess the added value of the LEAP strategy and related interventions to UN Women’s mandate and to the overall humanitarian response;
6. Assess the inter-connectedness and sustainability of UN Women’s initiatives on increasing leadership, protection and economic opportunities for refugee women and analyse possible weaknesses to improve next steps for scale-up programming;
7. Provide actionable recommendations with respect to the strategy, and overall UN Women approach to programming in humanitarian settings.

The evaluation will seek to answer the following key evaluation questions aligned to the UN Evaluation Group (UNEG) evaluation criteria as well as standards based on Human Rights and Gender Equality. 

Reporting Arrangements:

The evaluation and quality assurance will be managed by UN Women Uganda Country Office. The consultant will report directly to the UN Women Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Specialist, who will provide overall management and supervision of this consultancy. The evaluation will be conducted in accordance with UN Women evaluation guidelines and UNEG norms and standards. Upon completion of the evaluation, UN Women has the responsibility to prepare a management response that addresses the findings and recommendations to ensure future learning and inform implementation of their relevant programmes.  For quality assurance, the evaluation report will be rated against the Global Evaluation Report Assessment & Analysis System (GERAAS).

Description of Responsibilities/ Scope of Work:

The consultant will be required to undertake the following:

• Conduct an initial desk review of available documents, gather and analyse project data, conceptualize the evaluation approach, consult internally on the approach, develop data collection tools, stakeholder mapping, engage reference group;
• Develop the evaluation methodology and data collection tools for review by the Evaluation reference group and incorporate changes as appropriate;
• Develop inception report that will be reviewed by the Evaluation Reference Group;
• Review existing baseline data to determine available data against which to measure progress;
• Collect primary quantitative and qualitative data from beneficiaries and selected stakeholders. This involves travelling to the project location in Adjumani, Yumbe, Terego and Kyegegwa;
• Conduct in-depth interviews with national UN Women staff, responsible partner organizations, donor representatives, and other stakeholders as necessary;
• Prepare the first draft of the evaluation report and submit it to the Evaluation Reference Group for comments and possible endorsement;
• Present the evaluation findings for validation with the Evaluation Reference Group;
• Produce a final evaluation report. 

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is a field-based consultancy. The consultant is expected to undertake travel to the refugee hosting districts of Adjumani, Yumbe, Kyegegwa, and Terego for primary data collection. 

Competencies:

Core Values:

• Integrity;
• Professionalism;
• Respect for Diversity.

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Values and Competencies Framework: 

Functional Competencies:

• Strong analytical and evaluation design skills
• Gender and humanitarian programming knowledge
• Familiarity with Uganda refugee response context
• Demonstrated ability to collect and analyze data from diverse stakeholder groups.
• Presentation and Communication Skills 

Required Qualifications

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree in social sciences, Gender Studies, Development Studies, Monitoring and Evaluation, or related field.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• A project management or M&E certification would be an added advantage.

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years of professional experience in project evaluations, including gender-focused and humanitarian interventions;
• Experience conducting evaluations for UN agencies or international NGOs;
• Experience evaluating infrastructure components (e.g., women centres) is desirable;
• Experience in the use of a modern web-based ERP System, preferably Oracle Cloud, is desirable.
• Experience in outcome mapping and theory-based evaluation;

Languages:

• Fluency in (written and spoken) English is required;
• Working knowledge of local languages spoken in refugee settlements is an advantage; 
• Knowledge of any other UN official language is an asset.

Statements :

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.)

Note: Applicants must ensure that all sections of the application form, including the sections on education and employment history, are completed. If all sections are not completed the application may be disqualified from the recruitment and selection process.