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. 

Nigeria continues to face persistently high levels of gender-based violence (GBV) driven by deeply rooted patriarchal norms, harmful traditional practices, socio-economic inequalities, weak enforcement of protective legal frameworks, and protracted conflict and insecurity in several regions. Evidence from the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) 2024 shows that violence against women remains widespread across both public and private spheres, with a significant proportion of ever-married women reporting experiences of physical, sexual, or emotional violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. The burden of GBV is particularly pronounced in fragile and conflict-affected settings, where displacement, poverty, and disrupted social protection systems heighten women’s and girls’ exposure to abuse while limiting access to prevention, protection, and response services. 

Deeply entrenched patriarchal systems continue to shape social relations, reinforce unequal power dynamics between women and men, and normalize practices that undermine the rights, dignity, and bodily autonomy of women and girls. Harmful practices such as child marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM), and other forms of gender discrimination are often defended as tradition or faith-based obligations, despite their clear violation of human rights standards.

Traditional and religious leaders occupy a central position within this context. At the community level, they function as custodians of culture, interpreters of religious and customary norms, and influential governance actors. Their authority extends across families, clans, villages, and places of worship, where they shape attitudes, influence behaviour, and legitimize social norms. Through sermons, community rulings, dispute resolution mechanisms, and leadership of ceremonies and rites of passage, traditional and faith leaders play a decisive role in either reinforcing or transforming gender norms and practices.

In many settings, these platforms have historically been used to reproduce norms that sustain gender inequality, including the social acceptance of early and forced marriage for girls, unequal inheritance rights, and tolerance of violence within the household. At the same time, their position of trust and moral authority also places traditional and religious leaders in a unique position to challenge harmful norms and mobilize communities toward positive change when equipped with the right knowledge, skills, and partnerships.

UN Women’s experience across Nigeria demonstrates that when meaningfully engaged, traditional and faith leaders can become powerful allies in efforts to prevent and respond to GBV. Through UN Women’s EVAWG programming, traditional and religious leaders have played critical roles in abolishing long-standing harmful practices, including the elimination of the “money-wife” practice in Obanliku community of Cross River State and the abandonment of FGM in parts of Ebonyi State. In addition, male and youth networks have been mobilized through traditional institutions to challenge restrictive gender norms and promote positive masculinities. High-profile advocacy by respected leaders, including public calls to address girls’ exclusion from education and the persistence of child marriage in northern Nigeria, has further demonstrated the potential of leadership-driven social norms change.

Building on this evidence, and with support from the Ford Foundation, UN Women is implementing a three-year initiative (2023–2026) titled “Traditional and Cultural Leaders for Ending GBV by Advancing Advocacy, Policy and Social Norms Change in Nigeria and West Africa (LEAP)”. The LEAP Project seeks to strengthen partnerships with traditional and religious leaders at national and regional levels to accelerate progress in preventing and responding to GBV. A core pillar of the project is engagement with high-level leadership platforms, including the Council of Traditional Leaders of Africa (COTLA), a regional network established in 2018 with UN Women’s support.

The LEAP Project is grounded in a social norms change approach, recognizing that harmful practices are sustained by collective expectations and power relations. The project’s theory of change assumes that engaging influential traditional and religious leaders will shift public discourse, signal new collective expectations, institutionalize protective norms, and over time contribute to behavioural and structural change. However, social norms transformation is non-linear and requires sustained engagement beyond typical project cycles. This evaluation will therefore examine both immediate normative shifts and the longer-term pathways toward behavioural change.

As the LEAP Project approaches completion, an end-of-project evaluation is critical to assess its relevance, effectiveness, sustainability and contribution to social norms change. The evaluation will generate evidence on what has worked, what challenges remain, and how partnerships with traditional and religious leaders can be strengthened and scaled to accelerate the elimination of violence against women and girls in Nigeria and across West Africa.

Description of the Project

The Traditional and Cultural Leaders for Ending GBV by Advancing Advocacy, Policy and Social Norms Change in Nigeria and West Africa (LEAP) Project is a three-year regional initiative (2023–2026) implemented by UN Women with support from the Ford Foundation. The project is designed to address the structural and normative drivers of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and other harmful practices by leveraging the authority, reach, and legitimacy of traditional and religious leaders as critical agents of social norms change.

The LEAP Project is grounded in the recognition that violence against women and girls in Africa is largely sustained by unequal power relations, patriarchal social structures, and harmful cultural and religious interpretations that normalize discrimination and abuse. Traditional and religious leaders, as custodians of culture and interpreters of religious doctrine, play a decisive role in shaping community beliefs, values, and behaviours related to gender roles, marriage, sexuality, and violence. While these leaders have historically been associated with the preservation of harmful norms, UN Women’s experience demonstrates that when meaningfully engaged, they can also become powerful allies in challenging harmful practices, promoting women’s rights, and strengthening community accountability for GBV prevention.

The LEAP Project builds on UN Women’s long-standing engagement with traditional leadership structures, particularly the Council of Traditional Leaders of Africa (COTLA), a continental network established in 2018 with UN Women’s support. Since its establishment, COTLA members have demonstrated tangible leadership in abolishing harmful practices, including child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM), issuing public declarations, deposing leaders who shield perpetrators of SGBV, and strengthening community-level prevention and referral mechanisms. These experiences provide the foundation for LEAP’s regional and national approach to coordinated advocacy and collective action.

The overall goal of the LEAP Project is to strengthen partnerships with traditional and religious leaders, regional institutions, and civil society actors to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls, eliminate harmful practices, and promote sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in Nigeria and West Africa. The project explicitly targets the root causes of GBV by addressing harmful gender norms, patriarchal power relations, and religious misconceptions that sustain discrimination and violence.

Geographic Scope and Partnerships

The LEAP Project is implemented primarily in Nigeria, with strategic collaboration and participation of traditional and religious leaders from selected countries in the West Africa sub-region, especially The Gambia, reflecting a broader West African regional approach. At the national and regional levels, the project works closely with a wide range of partners, including:

• Council of Traditional Leaders of Africa (COTLA)
• Country-based traditional rulers councils
• Religious institutions and faith-based organizations
• Federal and State Ministries of Women Affairs
• ECOWAS and its Gender and Development Centre
• Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)

Implementing Partners: 

• Sultan Foundation for Peace and Development (SFPD)
• Interfaith Dialogue for Peace and Development (IDFP)
• Women Wing of Christian Association of Nigeria (WOWICAN)
• Women At Risk International Foundation (WARIF)
• State Ministries of Women Affairs/Secretariat in FCT Abuja, Bauchi, Gombe, Sokoto, Imo, Enugu, Delta, Akwa-Ibom states

Purpose and Use of the Evaluation

The purpose of the end-of-project evaluation is to:

• Assess the extent to which the LEAP Project achieved its intended objectives and results;
• Examine the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, and coherence of the intervention;
• Assess the project’s contribution to social norms change and the prevention of violence against women and girls;
• Document good practices, innovations, challenges, and lessons learned;
• Improve future design of similar GBV interventions, to guide new programmes, or to strengthen accountability to donors, etc
• Generate actionable recommendations to inform future UN Women programming, donor investments, and partnerships with traditional and cultural institutions especially in the context of norms change
• Explicitly assess the project’s social norms change pathway, clarifying what implementing a norms change intervention looks like in practice, and distinguishing between early-stage normative shifts and longer-term behavioural and structural change.

Targeted Users of the Evaluation  

Primary users of the evaluation include:

• UN Women Nigeria Country Office and Regional Office;
• The Ford Foundation;
• National and state-level government partners;
• Traditional and cultural leadership institutions;
• Civil society and women-led organisations;
• Other UN agencies and development partners working on GBV prevention and social norms change.

Scope of the Evaluation

The LEAP project evaluation will focus on the activities of the project between 1^st April 2023 – 31^st March 2026 and will rely on existing background documents for the LEAP programme and other relevant project documents, including results and logical frameworks. The geographic scope of the evaluation will include key stakeholders and primary participants at the national, state, and community-level interventions; engagement with traditional and cultural leaders; partnerships with civil society; and policy, advocacy, and social norms change outcomes.

Particular attention will be given to documenting the sequencing of norms change processes, resistance encountered, enabling conditions, and the time dimension required for sustainable behavioural transformation.

Objectives of the Evaluation 

The evaluation will apply the OECD/DAC evaluation criteria and an explicit gender equality and human rights lens. Specifically, it will:

• Assess the relevance of the LEAP Project in relation to national priorities, community needs, and global commitments on gender equality and GBV prevention.
• Examine the effectiveness of project strategies and interventions in achieving intended outputs and outcomes.
• Examine the processes and stages of social norms transformation triggered by the project, including shifts in discourse, leadership commitments, collective expectations, institutional practices, and emerging behavioural changes.
• Assess efficiency in the use of financial, human, and technical resources.
• Identify evidence of outcomes and emerging impact, including shifts in attitudes, practices, and community accountability mechanisms.
• Assess the sustainability of results, including institutional ownership and likelihood of continuation beyond project funding.
• Examine coherence with UN Women’s triple mandate (normative, coordination, operational) and alignment with other initiatives.
• Document lessons learned, good practices, and replicable models.
• Assess whether the timeframe and enabling conditions were sufficient to expect measurable behavioural change and identify realistic time horizons for sustained norms transformation.

Expected Deliverables 

The consultant is responsible for the following deliverables:

1. Inception Report, outlining the refined scope of the work, a detailed outline of the evaluation design and methodology, evaluation questions, and criteria for the approach for in-depth desk review and field work to be conducted in the data collection phase. The report will include an evaluation matrix and a detailed work plan. 
2. Facilitate participatory meetings with stakeholders, partners, and selected project beneficiaries at the national level and target states to collect relevant data, and report generated.
3. Presentation of preliminary findings report (conducted at the national level and target states). A presentation detailing the emerging findings of the review will be shared with UN Women and key partners for feedback. The revised presentation will be delivered to key stakeholders for comments and validation. The consultant will address the feedback received in the draft report.
4. Draft evaluation report which will be shared with UN Women for initial feedback. 

Final evaluation report taking into consideration comments and feedback collected from UN Women. The report shall include the following chapters: executive summary, introduction and background, evaluation approach and methodology (including limitations), findings, conclusions, lessons learned, recommendations, and relevant annexes, including evaluation brief (3-4 pages). The final evaluation report will be considered finalized when it has taken into account all comments received from the management group and the reference group, and is aligned with the GERAAS parameters

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:

• Extensive experience in conducting evaluations; gender-sensitive evaluations certification or experience preferred. 
• Excellent knowledge and experience in gender equality and women’s empowerment programming and implementation. 
• In-depth experience and excellent knowledge of results-based management
• Ability to actively seek information, offer new and different options for problem solving and meet client’s needs.
• Excellent and effective communication (verbal and written) skills, including preparation of official email invitations, reports and presentations with clear and succinct formulation of findings, observations, analysis and recommendations. 
• Excellent interpersonal skills: ability to establish and maintain effective working relations with people in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environment with sensitivity and respect for diversity.

Education

Advanced University degree (master’s degree or equivalent) in a relevant social science (gender studies, business administration, international development, human rights, political science, international relations, peace and conflict studies or any related field). 

Experienc

• At least 7 years of work experience in the conducting evaluations, preferably on GBV, social norms change, or governance programmes;
• Strong technical competences in gender and women's empowerment agenda. 
• Sound record in designing and leading evaluations; gender-sensitive evaluation certification or experience preferred.
• Proven experience in conducting gender-responsive evaluations.
• Detailed knowledge and familiarity of the UN, its programming processes and coordination mechanisms. 
• Extensive knowledge of, and experience in applying, qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods; In-depth experience and excellent knowledge of results-based management
• Strong process management skills, including facilitation. 
• Strong oral and writing skills.

Language

Fluency in oral and written English is required. 

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.