International Strategic Note Consultant

Background

UN Women Country Office in Tanzania, in alignment with the just finalized United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF: 2020-2025) and SDGs, looks forward to strengthening collaboration with the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania (URT), Women’s Organizations and other Civil Society Organizations and other partners to achieve gender equality and empowerment of women and girls through implementation of transformative programs in Tanzania. The Tanzanian Government finalized its (mainland) Five-Year Development Plan (FYDP) III- 2021/22 - 2025/26 and Zanzibar Development Plan (ZADEP)-2021 – 2026. UN Women is committed to providing continuous and substantive technical support for the advancement of key national commitments on gender equality and the empowerment of women – in line with the national Vison 2040 and development goals.

It Is upon this background that UN Women builds on harnessing synergies and opportunities to develop its next country programme document “Strategic Note (2023-2027)”, which will set the vision, strategic results areas, and implementation plan and roadmap for UN Women Tanzania office for the next five (5) years. This new SN will take into consideration three thematic areas of the UN Women SP 2022-2025, as well as the new generation equality themes as defined by UN Women: EVAWG, Global Norms; Feminist action for Climate justice; Economic justice and rights; Bodily autonomy and Sexual Reproductive Health Rights; Feminist movement and leadership, Gender Statistics, Technology, Youth, and Innovation for Gender Equality.

Objectives of the Assignment

UN Women Tanzania Country Office is embarking on the process of developing its third Strategic Note (SN) for the period of 2023-2027, defining key development results and management/operational results for the next five years. The Strategic Note will be informed by the global UN Women Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and aligned to the UNSCDF for Tanzania as well as the national development plans and priorities, articulating UN Women’s contribution to achieving national priorities, goals and results as set out in the UNSDCF. The SN will also take onboard the new and existing multiyear programs, where UN Women Tanzania has existing donor agreements. This means that development-focused country programmes of individual UN entities (i.e., the SN in the case of UN Women) will be derived from the UNSDCF, FYDP III and ZADEP rather than the other way around. Henceforth, specifically, this new SN will:

Provide an opportunity for UN Women and its partners to utilize the Country Portfolio Evaluation to reflect and undertake a strategic examination of the programmatic approaches and ToC and ensure alignment with the UNSDCF 2022-2027.
Facilitate the alignment of the SN with the UN Women SP 2022-2025, Generation Equality Agenda, and the UNSDCF for Tanzania 2022-2027 by implication NDPIII and the Agenda 2030 for Development.

As a necessary part of the process of developing the new Strategic Note, the UN Women Country Office in Tanzania needs to develop a SN that is:

Is strategically aligned to national priorities/goals, the results of the Cooperation Framework (or equivalent) and member states’ expectations as set on the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR).
Is focused on and clearly aligned with UN Women’s SP areas of work.
Is aligned with relevant intergovernmental frameworks on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.
Reflects UN Women’s contribution to support the full, effective, and accelerated implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Generation Equality Forum, Security Council Resolutions on Women, Peace, and Security where relevant, and gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development including the Leave No-One Behind (LNOB) principle.
Is consultative, developed through the engagement of key stakeholders within the country, including youth, groups that traditionally have been left behind and beneficiary populations to ensure ownership and appropriateness of the programme.
Is based on evidence from:
Previous Country Portfolio Evaluations (CPEs), all previous project evaluations conducted by the Country Office, Cooperation Framework, and other strategic evaluations such as corporate and regional evaluations, as well as the Country Gender Equality Profile (CGEP), Social Institutions Gender Index (SIGI), Common Country Analysis (CCA)and the UNDAP II Evaluation; and
SDG monitoring data, previous UN Women results performance and acceleration strategies, ensuring that all major findings in these, other evaluative evidence, and their subsequent management responses and/or implementation plans are reflected in the design and development of the SN document2 (including reference to national statistical data).
Is reflective of a review and understanding of existing and required Organizational Effectiveness and Efficiency (OEEF) needs, ensuring sufficient capacity is available to safely implement the country programme in line with COs' typology and the financial resources of an office (projected and current).
Is reflective of UN Women’s added value and comparative advantage in the Tanzanian context; and
Is guided by the principles of Results-Based Management (RBM), Sustainability and a Human Rights Based approach.
The SN will need to build on the lessons learned from the evaluation and on areas of specialization over the years and build for innovation.

In addition, this SN should:

Comprise of a robust Results and Resources Framework (RRF) with SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable and Attributable, Relevant and Realistic, Time-bound, Timely, Trackable and Targeted) indicators, baselines and targets including relevant LNOB disaggregation, for UN Women contributions in the country. The RRF establishes the results that UN Women will contribute towards Cooperation Framework outcomes, and the resources required from UN Women and other financing partners for achieving those results.
Adopt and align the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) outcomes and outputs in the SN Development Results Framework (DRF) to which UN Women contributes and detail UN Women’s programme priorities through SN outputs.
Use the specific outputs from the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (Cooperation Framework Outputs) for outputs where UN Women is the lead or contributing agency to form the SN’s outputs (SN Outputs).
Use the Theory of Changes (TOCs) in the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework and UN Women global Strategic Plan and UN Women ESARO Strategic Plan as the foundation for the Tanzania Country Office SN ToC.

Given the above context, UN Women’s response framework to the SN development will thus focus on the following three thematic areas and priorities derived from the UN Women Strategic Plan 2022-2025:

Governance and participation in public life: Ensuring that all women are able to fully and equally participate in decision-making, and women and girls can benefit from gender-responsive laws, policies, budgets, services, and accountable institutions.
Women’s economic empowerment: Advance the economic empowerment of women so that they have income security, decent work, and economic autonomy.

Applying an intentional gender lens to social protection and socio-economic stimulus packages.
Addressing the care economy, paid and unpaid, including through the engagement of men and boys.

Ending violence against women and girls: Promote integrated approaches to ensure that all women and girls live a life free from all forms of violence.

Supporting the establishment of dedicated coordination mechanisms, and the availability and analysis of disaggregated gender data

The above interventions take into consideration the new UN reforms; for joint programming and GEWE accountability and proposing the most effective coordination, monitoring, and reporting mechanism for effective and efficient programme.

A high-impact business model for UN-Women: Ensure a reconceived organizational effectiveness and efficiency (OEE) framework to underpin the achievement of gender equality and to align internal and external goals, incentives, management approaches and reporting.

Building on the above priorities, in consultation with UN Women, national and development partners, the consultant(s) will consider in the design process of the SN.

Rationale

To this end, the UN Women Country Office in Tanzania would like to bring on board a senior International Consultant (IC) to undertake the process of developing a Country Strategic Note for Tanzania that is in line with UN Women corporate guidelines for developing the SN. The consultant should employ a consultative and participatory approach throughout the development and drafting of the Strategic Note by involving UN Women staff, other UN agencies operating in the country, strategic partners including relevant government counterparts, key donors, Women’s Organizations and other CSOs, Private Sector Actors and other stakeholders in the process.

Duties and Responsibilities

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Consultancy Assignment:

Under the direct supervision of UN Women Country Representative in Tanzania, the International Consultant will be responsible for the following specific tasks:

Conduct a desk review of the current UN Women programme in the United Republic of Tanzania (URT), the trends/issues related to GEWE, and how UN Women has been engaged in advancing the same, with practical and substantial recommendations for improved programme cohesion and coherence within the framework of the proposed Strategic Note. The desk review will also analyze the level of organizational effectiveness and efficiency results including risk mitigation measures, resources stewardship, organizational structure, and results-based management. Sources of data will include annual reports, donor reports, evaluations, key knowledge management products, etc. Deliverable under this task will include an inception report with a workplan and a methodology for the identification of stakeholders for the interviews.
Undertake internal and external consultations with key stakeholders to validate the preliminary findings of the desk review, obtain additional insights on key GEWE gaps through a SWOT analysis, etc.
Support the development of the Draft Country Strategic Note 2023-2027 based on UN Women’s global guidance and requirements for the Country Strategic Note Development.
Conduct final consultations in Dodoma and Zanzibar to validate preliminary analysis, the results framework, and the key element of the Country Strategic Note.
Develop the final Country Strategic Note for the UN Women office in Tanzania including Integrated Resource Results Framework, Monitoring, Evaluation, Research Plan, Knowledge Management Plan, Theory of Change and all the required documents based on UN Women’s global guidance/requirement for Country SN, in consultation with relevant thematic and functional leads in the Tanzania Office.

To achieve these requirements, the Consultant is expected to fulfill the deliverables stated in the table below:

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Key Task

Deliverables

1.

Conduct a review of UN Women’s current programme, desk review of key relevant documents (including available national and international reports, UN and development partner programme and framework, government initiatives and general status of women’s rights in Tanzania).

Inception report including methodology and work plan

Presentation of an inception report that includes the workplan and Outline of the SN UN Women Senior Management

2.

Conduct an inception workshop with UN Women, relevant partners, and key stakeholders in Tanzania on the contextual/situational analysis, priority areas, key recommendations, lessons learnt, Theory of Change (ToC), comparative advantage, partnerships, and comprehensive mapping of key stakeholders and risk management.

PPT slides to introduce SN development process including objectives, methodology and expected results of the assignment.

Following inception workshop – a Finalized inception consultation report including comprehensive Situational Analysis for the SN, that lays the ground for the SN strategic priorities and programming

3.

Use UN Women HQ SN guidance note (2021) and templates to develop draft Strategic Note based on desk review and incorporate consultation recommendations. Key elements (covering the entire strategic note period) to include:

Context and Situational Analysis
Lessons Learned
Proposed Program including Overarching ToC (based on the UNSDCF ToC) with corresponding ToCs for each SN Outcome. A diagram of the overarching ToC Theory of Change is mandatory)
Partnership and Coordination
Program Sustainability including Exit Strategy
Monitoring, Evaluation and Research Plan & Knowledge Management
Resource Mobilization Strategy
Communication and Advocacy
Key Risk and Mitigation Strategy
Integrated Resource and Results Framework (Development and Organization Efficiency, Effectiveness Frameworks)
HR plan for implementation of SN
Key issues from the Country Gender Equality Profile (this element has been contracted independently). However, the SN consulting team will be required to provide an overview from the CGEP results.

Draft Strategic Note including all the required elements of the Strategic Note

4.

Conduct Validation/consultation workshop with government, national and development partners, UN agencies, Women’s Organization and other CSOs and stakeholders. Prepare 2nd Draft of the SN including results framework, work plan and budget based on the recommendations/ inputs from validation workshop for final review by UN Women Tanzania office, Resident Coordinator’s Office, and Peer Review Group (PRG) of UN Women (regional and HQ office).

2nd draft complete pack of SN for Peer Reference Group (PRG) and PPT slides for the PRG

5.

Incorporate recommendations from UN Women (Tanzania, HQ and RO) and partners and develop and submit the final Country Strategic Note.

Finalized and approved UN Women Tanzania Strategic Note

Competencies

Competencies

Core Values:

Respect for Diversity
Integrity
Professionalism

Core Competencies:

Accountability
Creative Problem Solving
Effective Communication
Inclusive Collaboration
Stakeholder Engagement
Leading by Example

Functional Competencies

In-depth knowledge of gender equality and women's human rights issues.
Experience in Programme formulation, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation skills
Knowledge of Results Based Management
Ability to gather and interpret data, reach logical conclusions, and present findings
Good knowledge of technical area
Good organizational skills and ability to pay close attention to detail
Ability to use ICT based solutions

Strong analytical and presentation skills

Required Skills and Experience

Required Skills and Experience

International Consultant:

Education

PhD or Masters’ Degree in social sciences, gender studies, public administration, international relations, international law, public policy, or a related field.

Skills and Experience

At least 10 years of experience in the international development field for PhD holders and 15 years for Masters’ Degree holders.
Advanced knowledge of gender analysis and experience working on GEWE issues, preferably within the UN system
Demonstrated knowledge of women’s human rights concepts and approaches and GEWE normative frameworks
Advanced knowledge of results-based planning, including planning of monitoring & evaluation work including demonstrated experience of UN results-based management standards and guidelines, and UN planning processes
Demonstrated experience in project management, conducting research and writing strategic documents, and proposals preferably within the UN system
Knowledge and work experience in Africa, designing multi-year country strategies with a focus on advancing gender equality, the empowerment and rights of women and girls is essential

Language
Fluency in English (written and oral) is a high priority requirement
Fluency in Swahili is an asset.