Background

I. Organizational Context

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (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 support to Member States’ efforts and priorities in meeting their gender equality goals and for building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

In Türkiye, in line with its global Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and Country Strategic Note (2022-2025), and the overall UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework for Turkiye (UNSDCF) (2021-2025), UN Women works towards the overarching goal of “Women and girls including those at greatest risk of being left behind fully exercise their human rights, enjoy a life free from violence and discrimination, and lead, influence and benefit for Turkiye”. UN Women works in four thematic areas: (i) governance and participation in public life; (ii) women’s economic empowerment; (iii) ending violence against women and girls; and (iv) women, peace and security, humanitarian action and disaster risk reduction. UN Women contributes to three UNSDCF outcomes: 1) Women and girls have improved and equal access to resources, opportunities, and rights, and enjoy a life without violence and discrimination; 2) By 2025, Persons under the Law on Foreigners and International Protection are supported towards self-reliance. 3) By 2025, governance systems are more transparent, accountable, inclusive and rights-based with the participation of civil society, and quality of judicial services is improved.

As indicated in the Evaluation Plan of the Strategic Note 2022-2025 of the UN Women Türkiye Country Office, a final evaluation with a special focus on lessons learnt will be conducted towards the end of implementation period of the “Strengthening Civil Society Capacities and Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships to Advance Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in Türkiye / Strong Civic Space for Gender Equality” Project. The main purpose of this final evaluation is to assess the programmatic progress and performance of the project considering the following evaluation criteria: relevance, effectiveness, impact, organizational efficiency, coherence, human rights and gender equality and sustainability. In this regard, UN Women Türkiye CO will procure services from a national consultant for conducting the final evaluation of the project.

This final evaluation will serve to document the progress made towards planned outputs, outcomes and impact of the Project and to support the CO and national stakeholders’ strategic learning and decision-making on further interventions. The evaluation is expected to support enhanced accountability for development effectiveness and learning from experience to inform the future operations of the CO.

The final evaluation is expected to take place in between 1 April – 15 October2024 corresponding to the final phase of project implementation.

“Strengthening Civil Society Capacities and Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships to Advance Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in Türkiye / Strong Civic Space for Gender Equality” Project is implemented by UN Women Türkiye with the financial support of European Commission. The project has an overall objective to reduce gender inequalities by enhancing the ability of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Türkiye to be agents of transformative change towards gender equality and women’s rights.

More specifically the project aims to;

• Support the work and capacity building of CSOs in critical areas where gender gaps persist and where CSOs have a key role to play access to justice, combating VAWG, women’s economic empowerment, sex-disaggregated and gender-sensitive data and knowledge, gender sensitive crisis response and environment/climate action with a specific focus on better understanding and responding to the needs of women from specific marginalized groups.

• Further strengthen and expand the constituency of gender equality advocates, women’ solidarity and women’s human rights movement building for gender equality through support to knowledge, networks, platforms of dialogue, access to intergovernmental, EU and international fora, and fostering strategic and innovative partnerships with a wide set of activists and stakeholders, including men and boys advocates, youth groups, academia, disability rights activists, climate justice activists and other key constituencies.

The Project has 42 months of duration between April 2021- September 2024 and a total budget of 4,455,000 Euros.

The expected outputs of the project and the respective activities are as follows:

Output 1: Women’s rights /women-led civil society organizations and other relevant rights-based CSOs in Türkiye have increased resources and capacities to advance the rights of women and girls in fields where gender gaps persist (economic empowerment, elimination of violence against women, access to justice/human rights mechanisms, gender responsive climate change action) in line with Türkiye’s national and international commitments and in consideration of COVID-19 impacts.

• Providing small grants to minimum 30 grassroots/smaller/less experienced women led CSOs to develop and strengthen their institutional capacities,

• Providing financial and technical support to minimum five women’s civil society organizations to implement programmatic initiatives to address persistent gender inequalities and rights violations, exacerbated by COVID-19.

• Based on consultations and a survey with women’s CSOs and other relevant rights based CSOs, preparing and implementing a capacity development programme in the area of gender sensitive/responsive disaster risk preparedness and management, climate action and crises response, taking into account the newly emerging needs in the context of COVID-19.

Output 2: Women’s rights /women-led civil society organizations and other relevant rights-based CSOs in Türkiye have increased access to and expertise in gender responsive research and data generation, to address current knowledge gaps and to use in programming and in evidence-based advocacy on gender equality.

• Conducting two field research activities to better understand the needs, priorities and status of rural women, and women with disabilities in line with the SDG principle of leaving no one behind and conduct technical analysis to produce a policy paper on women’s access to justice

• Conducting data literacy capacity development program to enhance the knowledge on gender data and gender analysis among the CSOs and the youth/young professionals to contribute to evidence-based advocacy in different thematic areas.

• Strengthening the skills of media professionals and students on the effective use of gender data and statistics in their reporting and storifying.

Output 3: Gender equality advocates representing the rights and voices of different groups of women and girls, including youth and those in most marginalized and vulnerable positions, have increased opportunities and support to share knowledge, network, partner and jointly advocate for GEWE with men and boys, and relevant stakeholders at the local, national, regional/EU and global levels.

• Supporting existing or the establishment of new platforms, alliances, and networks to exchange information, knowledge, best practices and create synergies and collaboration at the local and national levels targeting specifically civil society organizations,

• Conducting assessments and other preparatory conceptual work for the establishment of a Gender Equality Academy targeting a diverse group of students, women’s CSOs, civil society activists, expert trainers, social partners, young people, professionals, academics and UN Women’s other relevant stakeholders such as the private sector, government institutions, local authorities, as well as other practitioners who want to integrate gender awareness into their life and profession/businesses,

• Assisting CSO members/affiliates and women’s rights and gender equality advocates, including young women, with financial and logistical support to participate in key regional, EU and international forums, such as the annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York, Generation Equality global/regional meetings, and other relevant events,

• Facilitating forums and/or establish networks for both formal and informal consultations with young people (women and girls, men and boys) at the regional/local level and support youth associations with knowledge exchange,

• Facilitating dialogue between Governmental and non-governmental organisations in the framework of intergovernmental processes.

Project beneficiaries and key stakeholders are:

• Civil Society Organizations

• Women networks and platforms

• Academicians

• Advocates of Women Rights and Gender Equality

• Media

Project is contributing to the results under the UN Women Global Strategic Plan Outcome 1: Global normative frameworks and gender-responsive laws, policies and institutions and Outcome 5: Women’s voice, leadership & agency and Outcome 6: Production, analysis, and use of gender statistics and sex-disaggregated data and knowledge. Project also serves for reaching the targets under UNSDCF Türkiye 2021-2025 Outcome 1.2: By 2025, women and girls have improved and equal access to resources, opportunities, and rights, and enjoy a life without violence and discrimination.

As indicated in Evaluation Plan of the Strategic Note 2022-2025 of the UN Women Country Office, a final evaluation with a special focus on lessons learnt will be conducted towards the end of implementation period of the “Strengthening Civil Society Capacities and Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships to Advance Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in Türkiye / Strong Civic Space for Gender Equality” Project.

The overall objective of the final evaluation is to assess the programmatic progress and performance of the above-described project considering the following evaluation criteria: relevance, effectiveness, impact, organizational efficiency, coherence, human rights and gender equality and sustainability. The evaluation will be based on the assessment of the progress made towards the achievement of the set outcomes and objectives, and analyse the results achieved and challenges encountered. The findings of the evaluation will guide future efforts and policies, improve practices, and ensure accountability to promote gender equality effectively in Türkiye.

Scope of the evaluation

The final evaluation of the “Strengthening Civil Society Capacities and Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships to Advance Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in Türkiye / Strong Civic Space for Gender Equality” Project will be conducted in the final stage of its implementation and will cover the period from April 2021- August 2024. The evaluation is scheduled between 1 April and 15 October 2024, as detailed in Terms of Reference. The evaluation includes a desk review of project documentation and relevant publications, primary data collection and drafting the final evaluation report with recommendations. Primary data collection i.e. conducting KIIs with project’s stakeholders, can be organised in an online format or in person.

The evaluation shall cover all aspects of the project, and broadly allocate resources (time) in relation to the relative expenditure between the various components of the project.

Duties and Responsibilities

II. Duties and Responsibilities:

The evaluation will be a transparent and participatory process involving relevant UN Women stakeholders and partners in Türkiye. The evaluation will be based on gender and human rights principles and adhere to the UNEG Norms and Standards and Ethical Code of Conduct and UN Women Evaluation Policy and guidelines.

The evaluation team must take into consideration that UN Women managed evaluations are annually assessed against the UN-SWAP Evaluation Performance Indicator and its related scorecard.

A theory of change approach is suggested to be followed. This is to be explored further by the evaluators in the inception phase. If needed, a reconstructed theory of change should elaborate on the objectives and articulation of the assumptions that stakeholders use to explain the change process represented by the change framework that this project considered and has contributed to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. Assumptions should explain both the connections between early, intermediate and long-term project outcomes and the expectations about how and why the project has brought them about.

The evaluation methodology will deploy mixed methods, including quantitative and qualitative data collection methods and analytical approaches to account for complexity of gender relations and to ensure participatory and inclusiveness processes that are culturally appropriate. Data collection methods may include but are not limited to:

• Desk review of relevant documents such as project and programme documents, progress reports, financial records, meeting minutes and monitoring reports, and secondary data or studies relating to the country context and situation

• Semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, surveys with UN Women Türkiye office staff, direct and indirect beneficiaries, implementing partners, government partners, donor and other stakeholders

• Field visits to and observation at selected project sites

Data from different research sources will be triangulated to increase its validity. The proposed approach and methodology have to be considered as flexible guidelines rather than final requirements, and the evaluators will have an opportunity to make their inputs and propose changes in the evaluation design. The methodology and approach should, however, incorporate human rights and gender equality perspectives. It is expected that the Evaluation Team will further refine the approach and methodology and submit a detailed description in the inception report.

Comments provided by the Evaluation Reference Group (ERG) and Evaluation Management Group (EMG) are aimed at methodological rigor, factual errors, errors of interpretation, or omission of information and must be considered by the evaluators to ensure a high-quality product. The final evaluation report should reflect the evaluator’s consideration of the comments and acknowledge any substantive disagreements.

Evaluation questions

The evaluation will address the OECD-DAC evaluation criteria of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, and coherence. More specifically, the evaluation will address the following key criteria Tentative questions under each of the criterion could consider the following:

Relevance

• To what extent was the design of the project and its results relevant to the needs and priorities of the beneficiaries? Was the choice of interventions relevant to the situation of the target group?

• To what extent is the project consistent with the national development strategies in the area of gender equality and women’s empowerment?

• To what extend is the project contributing to the implementation of UN Women’s Strategic Note

• and UNSDCF?

• To what extent has the project been catalytic in addressing some of the root causes of inequalities related to women’s leadership in politics and private sector?

• To what extent is the project aligned with international agreements and conventions on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the context of women’s leadership?

• To what extent does the UN Women possess the comparative advantage in the programme’s area of work in comparison with other UN entities and key partners in Türkiye?

• To what extent has the project been flexible to adapt to the changes in the political and economic context of the country?

Coherence

• To what extent does the project fit within UN Women’s Strategic Plan and interrelated threefold mandate?

• Are there any synergies and inter-linkages between the project and other interventions of UN Women?

• To what extent the project is in complementarity, harmonisation and coordination with the interventions of other actors’ interventions in the same context?

• To what extend the implementation of project ensures synergies and coordination with Government’s and key partners relevant efforts while avoiding duplications?

• To what extent are the interventions achieving synergies with the work of the UN Country Team?

Effectiveness

• To what extent have the expected results of the programme been achieved on both outcome and output levels?

• What are the reasons for the achievement or non-achievement of the programme results? Has programme achieved any unforeseen results, either positive or negative? For whom? What are the good practices and the obstacles or shortcomings encountered? How were they overcome?

• How effective have the selected strategies and approaches been in achieving programme results?

• How well did the intervention succeed in involving and building the capacities of rights-holders, duty-bearers, as well as the programme partners?

• Has the project had effective monitoring mechanisms in place to measure progress towards results?

• What -if any- types of innovative good practices have been introduced in the programme for the achievement of GEWE results?

Efficiency

• Have resources (financial, human, technical support, etc.) been allocated strategically to achieve the programme outcomes?

• To what extent does the management structure of the intervention support efficiency for programme implementation and achievement of results?

• Have the outputs been delivered in a timely manner?

• Is the coordination between the project counterparts and UN Women leading to better programme results?

Sustainability

• What is the likelihood that the benefits from the programme will be maintained for a reasonably long period of time after the programme phase out?

• To what extent the intervention succeeded in building individual and institutional capacities of rights-holders and duty-bearers

• To what extent has UN Women been able to establish relevant partnerships with key stakeholders in the programming, implementation, and policy advocacy processes?

• How effectively has the programme generated national and local ownership of the results achieved?

• What voice and influence do key national partners including women’s movement etc. have within the programme’s decision-making structure and hierarchy?

• What steps were taken to develop and/or reinforce the operating capacities of in-country partners during the implementation of the programme?

• To what extent has the programme been able to promote replication and/or up-scaling of successful practices?

• To what extent has the exit strategy been well planned and successfully implemented?

Human Rights and Gender Equality

• To what extent has gender and human rights principles and strategies been integrated into the programme design and implementation?

• To what extent is the programme bringing about gender transformative changes that address the root causes of gender inequalities – including prevailing social norms, attitudes and behaviors, discrimination and social systems and including inequalities those experienced by groups in vulnerable situations?

Considering the mandates to incorporate human rights and gender equality in all its work and the UN Women Evaluation Policy, which promotes the integration of women’s rights and gender equality principles, these dimensions will have a special attention in this evaluation and will be considered under each evaluation criterion.

The evaluation questions outlined above are tentative and will be revised and further developed and tailored by the evaluation team during the inception phase of the evaluation. It is expected that the evaluation team will develop an evaluation matrix, which will relate to the evaluation questions, the areas they refer to, the criteria for evaluating them, the indicators, and the means for verification as a tool for the evaluation. Final evaluation matrix will be validated by EMG and approved in the evaluation inception report. As previously indicated the questions outlined above are indicative and the evaluation team is expected to develop a final set of evaluation questions during the evaluation’s inception phase.

Evaluation governance structure

A twofold evaluation governance structure for the evaluation will be established. An Evaluation Management Group (EMG), comprising of senior management of UN Women, Evaluation Task Manager and Programme manager, will be established to oversee the evaluation process, make key decisions and quality assure the different deliverables. In addition, the evaluation will be quality assured by the UN Women Regional Evaluation Specialist for the ECA region, who is a member of the UN Women Independent Evaluation Service. Designated UN Women focal point who has not been involved in direct management of the programme, will serve as the evaluation task manager responsible for the day-to-day management of the evaluation and in enduring that the evaluation is conducted in accordance with the UN Women Evaluation Policy, United Nations Evaluation Group Ethical Guidelines and Code of Conduct for Evaluation in the United Nations system and other key guidance documents. The UN Women Country Representative will be the ultimate accountable person to approve the final evaluation report and endorse the Evaluation Management Response to evaluation recommendations. In UN Women it is mandatory to develop and endorse an evaluation MR within six weeks after the evaluation reproved has been approved.

The establishment of an Evaluation Reference Group (ERG) composing of UN Women CSO programme specialist, monitoring and reporting analyst and programme analyst will facilitate the participation of the key stakeholders (UN Women, EUD and a selection of the supported CSOs and partners of the project) in the evaluation process and will help to ensure that the evaluation approach is robust and relevant to staff and stakeholders. Furthermore, it will make certain that factual errors or errors of omission or interpretation are identified in evaluation products. The reference group will provide input and relevant information at key stages of the evaluation: inception report, draft and final reports and will support UN Women with the dissemination of the results.

Phases of the evaluation process

The evaluation process has five phases:

1) Preparation: gathering and analyzing programme data, conceptualizing the evaluation approach, internal consultations on the approach, preparing the TOR, establishment of the Evaluation Management Group (EMG) and the Evaluation Reference Group (ERG), stakeholders mapping and selection of evaluation team.

2) Inception: consultations between the evaluation team and the EMG, programme portfolio review, finalization of stakeholder mapping, inception meetings with the ERG, review of the result logics, analysis of information relevant to the initiative, finalization of evaluation methodology and preparation and validation of inception report.

3) Data collection and analysis: in-depth desk research, in-depth review of the programme documents and monitoring frameworks, in-depth online interviews as necessary, staff and partner survey/s, and field visits.

4) Analysis, validation and synthesis stage: analysis of data and interpretation of findings and drafting and validation of an evaluation report and other communication products.

5) Dissemination and follow-up: once the evaluation is completed UN Women is responsible for the development of a Management Response to evaluation recommendations within 6 weeks after the final approval of the evaluation report, publishing the evaluation report, uploading the final evaluation report on the UN Women GATE website and the dissemination of evaluation findings amongst key stakeholders.

The evaluation team will be responsible for phases 2, 3 and 4 with the support of UN Women while UN Women is entirely responsible for phases 1 and 5.

III. Deliverables and Payment Schedule

The assignment will start on 22 April 2024 and be completed mid-October 2024. The national consultant is expected to spend up to 35 working days on [non – consecutive basis] throughout the assignment.

The national consultant is responsible for the following deliverables:

An inception report: The national consultant will support the team lead in the production of the inception report that will present a refined scope, 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 desk review of background documentation and the inception meeting with EMG will be completed and the data extracted from these resources will be incorporated into the inception report. The report will include an evaluation matrix and detailed work plan. A first draft report will be shared with the evaluation management group and, based upon the comments received the evaluation team will revise the draft. The national consultant will maintain an audit trail of the comments received and provide a response on how the comments were addressed in the final inception report.

Presentation of preliminary findings: The national consultant is expected to support the evaluation team lead to review additional documents, conduct online interviews organise visit to programme sites, hold debriefing with EMG and ERG for preparing the preliminary findings. A PowerPoint presentation detailing the emerging findings of the evaluation will be shared with the evaluation management group for feedback. The revised presentation will be delivered to the reference group for comment and validation. The national consultant will incorporate the feedback received into the draft report.

A draft evaluation report: The national consultant will support the team lead in the production of the draft evaluation report. A first draft report will be shared with the evaluation management group for initial feedback. The second draft report will incorporate evaluation management group feedback and will be shared with the evaluation reference group for identification of factual errors, errors of omission and/or misinterpretation of information. The third draft report will incorporate this feedback and then be shared with the reference group for final validation. The national consultant will maintain an audit trail of the comments received and provide a response on how the comments were addressed in the revised drafts.

The final evaluation report: The final report will include a concise Executive Summary and annexes detailing the methodological approach and any analytical products developed during the course of the evaluation. The structure of the report will be defined in the inception report.

Evaluation communication products: A PowerPoint/Prezi presentation of the final key evaluation findings and recommendations, and a 2-pager/infographics on the final key findings, lessons learned and recommendations. The national consultant might be requested to do an online presentation of the preliminary findings at the closing event of the programme in 2024 (date and event TBC).

Expected Deliverables and Payment Schedule:

The following table summarizes main activities and expected deliverables against targeted delivery deadlines and indicative working days to be invested by the Consultant.

Deliverable	Target Deadline	Estimated number of working days
Kick off meeting	22 April 2024	1
Desk review of all project documents	7 May 2024	5
Inception report including an evaluation matrix, a list of key partners to be interviewed, KII questions, timeline for the KIIs	7 June 2024	5
Data collection and draft evaluation report	07 July 2024	10
Final evaluation report	July – August – September 2024	10
Evaluation communication products	15 November 2024	4
Travel	May-June-July-August-September	5
	Total Days	40

All deliverables shall be received and cleared by the UN Women Türkiye Country Office. All reports shall be presented in English, in electronic version.

Note: The mentioned number of working days has been estimated as being sufficient/feasible for the envisaged volume of work to be completed successfully and is proposed as a guideline for the duration of assignment. It cannot and shall not be used as criteria for completion of work/assignment. The provision of envisaged deliverables approved by the UN Women shall be the only criteria for consultant’s work being completed and eligible for payment/s.

Payment Schedule:

The payment to the consultant is determined by multiplying the total number of working days by the agreed daily fee.

Consultant shall be paid upon on a monthly basis based on the deliverables produced within that month in addition to the monthly timesheet indicating the days allocated for the specific deliverables produced in that quarter. Payment shall be affected only if the monthly report and the timesheet are submitted to and approved by the Project Coordinator. Without submission and approval of the deliverables and timesheets, Consultants shall not receive any payment even if they invest time for this assignment.

Mandatory Courses:

The Consultant shall complete all the mandatory and further required UN courses, training, and modules on time. The certificates shall be submitted to the Programme Specialist.

Please note that the required training courses could vary based on contract content and duration, the nature of the work and inclusion of travel. The Hiring Manager will provide the list of mandatory courses to the Consultant. Hence, the Consultant is obliged to follow the instructions of her/his Hiring Manager upon which training modules to complete and when to complete them.

Travel

This is a home-based as