National Consultant to facilitate the Mid-Term Review of UN Women Ethiopia CO Strategic Note 2021-2025

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. Placing women's rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. Established in October 2012, the UN Women  Country Office for Ethiopia works in close collaboration with the Government of Ethiopia through the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs (MOWSA) ,and other relevant Ministries and entities and CSOs,   the private sector, the UN Country Team, development partners and Women Rights Organizations   to advance the women’s national agenda, promote women’s empowerment and gender equality under the framework of its key thematic focus areas.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has reaffirmed the centrality of gender equality and women's empowerment for sustainable development both as a dedicated Sustainable Development Goal and as central to the achievement of all SDGs. The extensive Beijing +25 assessment and review process highlighted many persistent challenges for the achievement of gender equality in particular for women and girls especially multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that women face that have been made worse by Covid 19 pandemic, the conflict and the prolonged drought  thereby  threatening the gains made towards the enjoyment fundamental rights of women  and girls in particular the loss of livelihood  and disproportionally impacted by  the man-made and natural shocks.

UN Women programming cuts across the  triple mandate vested since the creation : normative, coordination and operational.  Under the normative work, UN Women Ethiopia country office strives to ensure that the GoE integrates global frameworks such as the SDGs within its development plans as well as domesticating key and most relevant intergovernmental, continental and global frameworks on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment. Through the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs (MoWSA), UN Women provides advisory and normative support on gender equality mainstreaming in various socio-economic sectors including evidence generation.

The Country Office provides coordination and mainstreaming for more coherence on Gender Equality across the 27 members of the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) operational in Ethiopia.

The main programmatic framework for the country office is the Strategic Note 2021-2025 which on its turn is aligned and responds to the aspirations of the UN Sustainable Development Cooperations Framework (UNSDCF) resulting from the country’s Ten-Year Perspective Development Plan - Ethiopia 2030: The Pathways to Prosperity (2020 – 2030) and related national sectoral policies and plans.  The country office’s thematic focus areas are grounded in UN Women’s global Strategic Plan (2021-2025) and aligned to major international and African regional development and gender commitments, including the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BDPfA) (1995); the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979); Africa’s Agenda 2063; the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) (2003); and the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (SDGEA) (2004).

The programmatic interventions informed by some levels of consultations with stakeholders at the time of formulation of the current SN include:

Women in Leadership and Governance to promote women’s leadership in decision making at all levels for federal, regional and sub-regional by creating enabling environment and building their capacities.

Women Economic Empowerment to adress challenges that avert women, especially the poorest of the poor, from competently participating and contributing to the country’s socio-economic development and enhance their capacities to leverage from national and continental business opportunities.

Ending Violence against Women and Girls to ensure that women and girls live a life free from violence through provision of access to justice and protection services.

National planning and budgeting to ensure that new and existing internationally and nationally agreed commitments on GEWE are adequately and effectively financed in Ethiopia by enabling the government to establish Gender Responsive National Planning and Budgeting system. UN Women Ethiopia country office is also exploring with the Government and Private Sector how the financing for gender equality could go beyond the tradition GRB and include innovative financing mechanisms including gender bonds, Gender Responsive Procurement and other emerging  financing solutions.

Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action Programme to strategically position gender equality across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus through capacity development of WLOs.

Coordination for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of women to accelerate the progress on the implementation of laws, policies and commitments on gender equality and the empowerment of Women as well as coordination of the UN and non-UN actors to advance GEWE.

However, while the above description of the programmatic priorities represent the ideal and best case scenarios perceived by UN Women and partners at the inception of the current Strategic Note in 2021 , the multiple challenges  such as the  very disastrous conflict in Northern Ethiopia  and a few other regions , the prolonged drought and COVID-19 which partially negatively impacted the first  two years  in delivering on the SN if all factors  only to name a few .  We anticipate that the context might have drastically changed that some of the SN priorities could require adequate adjustments.

Notwithstanding the option open to all offices to revise SNs whenever a change is deemed relevant, and

the requirement for UN Women  to be a full and engaged participant in all inter-agency review processes such as Annual UNSDCF  Reviews, UN Women requires its offices to undertake a mid-term review (MTR) of their programmes at the approximate mid-way point in implementation of the programme (there is some discretion for offices to opt for a point between 1.5 and 2.5 years into the programme subject to local context and UNCT or national processes). Following the above-described context with multiple shocks that have severely affected people in Ethiopia and particularly women and girls, UN Women Ethiopia opted for the current Strategic Note Mid-Term review at 1.5 year of implementation.  The UN system in Ethiopia is also in the final stage of the UNSDCF 2020-2025 Mid-Term review.

Although the SN Mid-Term Review is more an internal process, UN Women Ethiopia Country office would like to hire a national consultant to update the Situation analysis for women and girls in Ethiopia in light of the social, political, economic and humanitarian changes, both positive and negative developments that have happened since January 2022 when the implementation of the current Strategic Note started. Additionally, based on the updated situational analysis as well as well as the progress of the first half of the implementation of the current strategic note, the National Consultant will facilitate the   actual Mid-Term Review process of the SN 2021-2025.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the  technical guidance  of the Deputy Country Representative and overall supervision of the Head of Office of UN Women Ethiopia, the consultant will be responsible for following tasks to assist the preparation of the MTR: 

• Desk review of key documents, including:
• UN Women Ethiopia  Strategic Note (2021-2025)
• Previous Country Portfolio evaluation report
• UN Women Thematic pillars programme documents and any programme evaluation report produced in  2022 and /or 2023
• UN Women Ethiopia Annual Reports (2022, 2023)
• 2023 Gender Equality Country Profile for Ethiopia
• UNCT farmework documents such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework  UNSDCF 2020-2025 for Ethiopia (the original and the revised one )
• Humanitarian Situation Overview (HNOs)  and the resulting Humanitarian Response Plans (HRPs) for 2022 and 2023
• All relevant Prodocs of exisiting and pipeline projects and programmes that might be of interest 
• UNSDCF annual reports
• UNCT-SWAP  Gender scorecard assessments and annual progress reports  for 2022
• Any other document that may be found very relevant to the consultant
• Prepare a short questionnaire based on the standard  sample questions (with possibility for the consultant to  have additional questions or rephrase the guidng questions ) and conduct a survey of key UN Women Country Office partners, analyzing and synthesizing results for feedback.
• Develop a short and focused Discussion Paper describing the general situation analysis ,and hence outlining relevance and programme  . Review and make recommendations on position papers to be prepared together with UN Women Ethiopia Country Office (ECO)  team on Programme, Partnerships, Normative Issues, Coordination Issues, Operations and Communication
• Capture the main findings and issues identified for all papers in a powerpoint presentation and brief the ECO team.
• Conduct specific sessions within the Mid Term Review workshops with staff , partners  and participate fully in discussions
• Prepare and finalize SN MTR report including summarizing findings from the MTR workshop discussions and the desk reviews.  
• Facilitate the UN Women country office Planning retreat for the Biennial Work Plan 2024-2025 integrating the key messages and strategic priorities and repositioning from the SN MTR report .

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

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 Core Values and Competencies: http://www.unwomen.org//media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf

Functional Competences

• Excellent analytical and research skills
• Strong facilitation skills;
• Strong interpersonal and good communication abilities
• Excellent writing skills both in Albanian and in English
• Proven ability to work within limited time constraints in the preparation of high-quality documents;
• Ability to organize work efficiently and deal with multiple tasks;

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree or advanced university degree in social science, gender/women’s studies, programme management, or other related fields
• Bachelor’s degree with a qualifying experience may be considered in lieu of advanced degree

Experience:

• 10 years of professional work experience in programme development and implementation, including monitoring and evaluation activities.
• Experience working on gender equality and women’s empowerment in Africa and Ethiopia in particular.
• Proven experience in guiding and documenting programme reviews and evaluations.
• Proven knowledge of programme monitoring and evaluation theory, including theories of change, methodology, technology and tools.
• Experience working programming, monitoring and evaluation with the UN agencies, similar international organizations, NGOs, multi/bilateral and/or government institutions would be an advantage.

Language requirements:

• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English. Knowledge of another Ethiopian official language will be an asset.

Application Process

The application should include:

• All applications must include (as an attachment) a completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment.
• Letter of Intent to include a brief overview about which of your previous experiences makes you the most suitable candidate for the advertised assignment.
• Minimum two examples of analytical/monitoring work or strategic planning or review to be provided (Just list them and add electronic references if applicable )