Project External Evaluation Consultant

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.

UN Women has been working in Lebanon since 2015 through its triple mandate, encompassing normative support, UN system coordination and operational activities to mobilize urgent and sustained action to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls and support the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Operational activities have prioritized advancing women’s leadership and political participation, women and peace and security and economic empowerment with changing discriminatory gender norms as a cross-cutting area of work.

Under the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) programme, UN Women supports the government of Lebanon in the implementation, reporting, monitoring and evaluation of progress achieved under the National Action Plan (NAP) on United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on WPS, which was endorsed by the government of Lebanon in 2019 for the period 2019-2023. The NAP on UNSCR 1325 focused on: i) supporting the security and defense sectors in developing and implementing gender equality policies; ii) removing discrimination against women in laws; and iii) promoting women’s role in peace building, recovery, transitional justice and mediation efforts. In addition, UN Women Lebanon supports the efforts of national women’s led organisations (WLOs), women’s rights organizations (WROs), and community-based organizations (CBOs) to seek truth, foster collective remembrance and ultimately, move towards reconciliation around the legacy of the civil war, which falls under Strategic priority 2 on conflict prevention in the Lebanon UNSCR 1325 NAP.

Within its WPS programme, UN Women is implementing the Project. “Implementing the Women, Peace, and Security agenda in Lebanon through Building Pathways for Dialogue and Inclusive Governance”. Its goal is to support inclusive pathways for national and local dialogue and trust in Lebanon through women’s engagement in peace and security.

The project is currently in its second phase (2021 – 2024) with its first phase having been implemented in 2020-2021. One of the project outputs is supporting women’s engagement in peace and security at the local level by strengthening capacities of female leaders to lead cross-community and intergenerational reconciliation and dialogue through a coaching and accompaniment approach. It seeks to do this by promoting accountability and reconciliation through intergenerational female led community-based dialogue initiatives which aim to deal with Lebanon’s past. In the medium/longer-term, this dialogue process is expected to identify entry points for improving interlinkages between women-led community reconciliation and national policies on women engagement in peace and security.

Purpose of the Evaluation
Currently in its second phase of implementation, the Project “Implementing the Women, Peace, and Security agenda in Lebanon through Building Pathways for Dialogue and Inclusive Governance” it is critical to commission an independent evaluator to evaluate the contribution of the community dialogue component, that is led by women-led organizations (WLOs)/ women rights organizations (WROs), to the overall goal of supporting inclusive pathways for national and local dialogue and trust in Lebanon through women’s engagement in peace and security. The purpose of the evaluation is to provide an objective assessment of the women-led dialogue component (Output 2) within the larger project and determine its relevance, coherence, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability. The evaluation will also maximize learning from this initiative to other similar initiatives/projects being implemented by UN Women and will facilitate the effective communication of project benefits and successes. Building pathways for peace and good governance is a long-term process, one that is highly dependent on transforming relationships and on contextual developments, hence the importance of documenting achievements thus far and reflecting on them for the consolidation of learning and good practices for either future phases of the same project or other similar projects.

About the Project
The project, in its second and current phase was initiated in September 2021. It is currently being implemented until December 2024 (i.e., 40 months). Funded by the Government of Norway with 13 million Norwegian Kroner (NOK), equivalent to USD 1,290,337, it aims to “support inclusive pathways for dialogue and trust in Lebanon through women’s engagement in peace and security at the local and national” level to advance conflict prevention and social cohesion. It seeks to do this in the following ways:

• To support dialogue and trust building between women from different political parties (traditional and new) in Lebanon, in order to broker consensus and push forward political and economic reforms (output 1).
• To promote accountability and reconciliation through female led community-based dialogue initiatives which aim to deal with Lebanon’s past and raise awareness of communities on the role women played in and the disproportionate impact on them of the Lebanon civil war (output 2) (evaluand).
• To enhance capacity of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to design and implement gender-responsive institutional reforms and strategies (output 3).

Output 2 of this project (also the evaluand) rests on the assumption that if more women lead and foster reconciliation and understanding at the community level, then conflict prevention and social cohesion will be promoted because women’s leadership in peace and stability at community level will have advanced tolerance across communities.

Output 2 (the evaluand) contributes to the following frameworks:

Framework	Relevant Element
UN Women Lebanon’s Annual Workplan	Outcome 4: The Women, Peace and Security Agenda is implemented through an enabling environment that supports women’s participation in conflict prevention.
Lebanon United Nations Strategic Framework	Core Priority 2: Lebanon enjoys domestic stability and practices effective governance. Specifically, Outcome 2.3. Institutional mechanisms and policies strengthened for improving the legal status of women, eliminating gender-based violence and promoting gender equality.
Lebanon’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security	Strategic Priority 1, Women’s Decision Making at All Levels Strategic Priority 2, the Prevention of Conflict
National Human Rights Action plan	Chapter 2: Theme number 16: women’s rights. (p.112) In addition to a special focus on personal status and nationality, the plan urges the state to raise awareness of the discrimination against women and to take special measures to improve the current status of women until the needed legislative amendments are implemented. This includes incorporating the quota system and giving women the chance to participate in political and economic life.
Sustainable Development Goals	Goal 5 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls Notably target 5.5, Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life
Universal Declaration of Human Rights	Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made based on the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)	Article 3: equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of civil and political rights. The Lebanese State has an obligation to ensure the equal enjoyment by women of the human rights protected under the Covenant without any discrimination, in particular the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of civil and political rights, in accordance with article 3. The State must not only adopt measures of protection, but also positive measures in all areas so as to achieve the effective and equal empowerment of women.

The responsible party implementing Output 2 under this project is KAFA (enough) Violence & Exploitation. Kafa is a Lebanese civil, non-governmental, non-profit, feminist, and secular organization seeking to create a society free of social, economic, and legal patriarchal structures that discriminate against women. Kafa heads the capacity development of women leaders in community-based dialogue and initiatives for peace between women across community and generational divides. Kafa and UN Women worked previously together on several projects including the most recent one on dealing with Lebanon’s civil war and oral history from the perspectives of women.

Evaluation Objectives
The final evaluation will evaluate the relevance, coherence, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability of the contribution of the community dialogue component towards strengthening capacities for reconciliation at the local level; of strengthening dialogue platforms and fostering platforms cross-community and intergenerational dialogue; and of scaling-up best practice activities that promote women’s leading roles in dealing with Lebanon’s violent past for a better future. The evaluation report will be disseminated within UN Women and with the donor. The executive summary of the evaluation report would be shared with the implementing partners, project participants, and relevant stakeholders such as donors and partners of other similar UN Women projects.

Evaluation criteria and questions
The overall objective of the evaluation is to evaluate the contribution of the Output 2 towards supporting inclusive pathways for dialogue and trust in Lebanon through women’s engagement in peace and security at the local level. The evaluation questions will be organized by the OECD DAC criteria as listed below.

Relevance (did the intervention do the right thing?)

• What is the relevance and strategic positioning of the output 2 vis-a-vis the peacebuilding needs in Lebanon from the perspective of stakeholders targeted through the project? Is the implementation approach of activities relevant to the context in Lebanon? Has the relevance of the implementation approach of activities changed after the armed conflict in South Lebanon and its spillover effect across the country? How so?
• What were the criteria for targeting, prioritizing, inclusion? How were intended beneficiaries selected? Were target groups excluded? Why? What was the process for engaging with the intervention? Were these methods relevant to the context? What percentage of the target population was engaged in the program?
• How does program implementation vary across groups paying attention to the needs of target groups living with disability and/or implementation sites?
• What needs to be changed to respond to the changing conflict and peace dynamics? What worked well and is recommended to continue?

Efficiency (How well were the resources used?)

• What are the characteristics of the entities or organizations implementing a program? What was their existing capacity? How were they selected? How were they prepared for implementation?
• What services were offered? Over what time period? Were these offered in parallel or in sequence? Was there a core package of services or a customized offering?
• Were there optional services for some participants? Did these services change over time?
• Were services adapted to the needs/changing needs of beneficiaries and/or to the developing context (for example, increase in reported community tensions, GBV cases, armed conflicts, etc.)
• How much was invested (financial as well as Human Resources) under output 2? What it adequate to address the desired results? Was the progamme providing value for money?
• How effective was the monitoring and learning systems? Did the monitoring and learning system allow for reflection on and extraction of good practices and lessons throughout implementation?

Effectiveness (Did the intervention achieve its objectives?)

• Did the program deliver as intended (fidelity)? What did not work well in terms of implementation, and why?
• Were there significant dropouts among beneficiaries? If yes, what were the conditions for the dropouts and/or challenges for sustained participation?
• Has been an improvement in the situation of women’s meaningful engagement in community peacebuilding?
• Did the implementation approach contribute to community tension alleviation and gender equality in the implementation sites?
• Did the implementation approach contribute to engaging youth and promoting intergenerational dialogue?
• Were risks identified in the risk analysis matrix monitored, managed, and mitigated?
• What are the essential elements needed to make this new intervention work? What are the barriers to implementing and scaling up a successful pilot, and how might these be overcome?

Gender Equality

• To what extent the interventions are contributing towards gender transformative changes to advance and sustain gender equality and women’s empowerment?
• To what extent the programme interventions are adhering to the principles and standards of Leaving no one behind and targeting and benefitting traditionally excluded women and girls?

Sustainability

• Does the programme have an exit or transition strategy? To what extent were capacity and systems developed to facilitate the programme transition and to ensure sustainability of the programme efforts and results?

At inception stage, the evaluation expert is expected to develop an evaluation matrix summarizing key questions, indicators, sources of information and above to guide the analysis and triangulation. Final evaluation matrix will be validated by the evaluation management group. The below questions will be refined by the consultant in the evaluation matrix.

Evaluation management
The consultant will report to the Programme Management Specialist, and will be supported by the WPS Programme Coordinator, who will be the point of contact on the contract and payment issues. The evaluation will be a consultative, inclusive, and participatory process and will include a management structure consisting of an Evaluation Reference Group (ERG), which UN Women will be set up to support the Evaluation Task Manager (ETM) and to provide expert advice on the evaluation process, facilitate a comprehensive review of the evaluation products and to ensure the participation of key stakeholders in the evaluation, and ensure quality control and assurance of the evaluation report. The ERG will comprise of staff members of UN Women in regional and country offices and the donor. A detailed terms of reference for the ERG will be developed. The ETM will lead the day-to-day management of the process. Under the overall guidance of the Regional Evaluation Specialist (RES), who will review and approve all evaluation deliverables, the ETM will oversee the evaluation management, make key decisions and quality assure the different deliverables. Under the overall guidance of the ETM, the evaluation will be carried out by an external consultant recruited by UN women for this specific evaluation. The consultant will be responsible for all logistics (office space, administrative and secretarial support, telecommunications, printing documentation, travel, etc.) and the development and dissemination of methodological tools.

The phases of the evaluation will be as follow:

• Inception phase: Develop the methodology in consultation with WPS team and the ETM.
• Data collection and analysis: Desk review of relevant documents. Interviews with the stakeholders, including UN Women staff and partners (government, UN, civil society, academic), beneficiaries and donors. Learning sessions for the UN Women office.
• Reporting phase: Analyze data, draft evaluation and learning report, host closing learning session (open to externals outside of UN Women, as identified by UN Women).

Evaluation Ethics and Norms
The evaluation is to be conducted in line with UNEG and for evaluation, the, UN Women evaluation guidelines including , , and the UN Women “” handbook.

Duties and Responsibilities

The evaluation will be conducted between September and December 2024 in the geographic locations targeted by the project in Lebanon (Tripoli, Akkar, Beirut, Hasbaya, Zahrani, Chouf, and Aley). It will cover the programme period from September 2021 to December 2024. The evaluation will be a Theory-based, non-experimental gender responsive evaluation that will apply a mixed method approach.
The evaluation will have a strong formative element (learning how to improve). It will be based on the principles of participation and will engage all project stakeholders – women leaders, benefitting community members, implementing partners, consultants, UN Women personnel, donors, and other actors. The evaluation will focus on the results framework agreed upon with the donor and the partners.

Key Deliverables:
The following key deliverables are expected to be delivered by the successful applicant:

• Inception report:

o The inception report should detail the applicant’s understanding of the evaluation objectives; present a conceptual framework inclusive of the theory of change for the evaluation, detailed methodology including sampling strategy, data collection and analysis plan. The inception report should also include a detailed work plan with clear timelines, stating key deliverables and a comprehensive evaluation matrix with a detailed list of key questions, sub questions related to the evaluation criteria; indicators, data sources; methods of data collection, and data analysis.
o The proposal should demonstrate that the proposed methodology is within the scope of work laid out in this call for proposal, while ensuring appropriateness of the approach to the local conditions of Lebanon and the operating environment of the peacebuilding activities.
o The inception report will be drafted in line with the UN Women guidelines, following and based on preliminary discussions with UN Women after the desk review and should be produced before the evaluation starts.

• Draft report and a PowerPoint presentation:
o The first draft will be in English and will contain summary of key findings, risk management and recommendations, which will be presented in UN Women office in Beirut, Lebanon (or online if needed). Feedback from the presentation and reviews by key stakeholders will be shared with the evaluator for finalization of the report.
o Validation workshop and debriefing on preliminary results: A half-day meeting/workshop to discuss the evaluation results with key stakeholders will be convened in UN Women office in Beirut, Lebanon. This will be conducted immediately after the completion of the draft report. Upon validation of the draft evaluation report UN Women will review the draft evaluation report and provide an amalgamated set of comments to the service provider within an agreed period, addressing the content required (as agreed in the TOR and inception report) and agreed quality criteria.

• Final evaluation report:

After incorporating feedback received on the draft report, the evaluator will submit a final report in English as per the agreed timelines with clear set of findings, conclusions, and recommendations, based on an agreed reporting outline; (this will include the abridged and detailed versions of the reports). The service provider will also attach the following annexes to the final report, data collection tools and guidelines, datasets, analysis plans, collation and aggregation tables, risk matrix, etc.

Deliverable	Expected Completion Time (due day)	Payment Schedule
Inception report including proposed methodology and implementation plan	By September 30, 2024	25% of payment will be made upon satisfactory delivery of the inception report
First Draft evaluation report	By November 15, 2024	50% of payment will be made upon satisfactory delivery of draft report
Final evaluation report, an evaluation brief and a power point presentation	By December 15, 2024	25% of payment will be made upon satisfactory delivery of final report, evaluation brief, and a PowerPoint presentation

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel
This is a home-based consultancy with expected progress update meetings in UN Women premises in Beirut, Lebanon. As part of this assignment, there will be field trips to the project sites (Tripoli, Akkar, Beirut, Hasbaya, Zahrani, Chouf, and Aley).

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:

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES:

• Excellent understanding of UNEG norms and standards for evaluation and methodologies.
• Demonstrated skills in research and conflict and social analysis.
• Demonstrated skills in using evidence-based communications and advocacy to influence stakeholders.
• Respect for diversity, cultural sensitivity, and ability to work in multi-cultural environments.
• Excellent use of participatory and consultative approaches.

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in political science, social sciences, humanities, and/or peace and conflict 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.
• Formal training or credential in evaluation is an added advantage.

Experience:

• At least five years of experience in conducting evaluation with a proven track record of conducting gender-responsive evaluation is required.
• Out of which at least two years of progressively responsible experience in reconciliation and peacebuilding programming.
• Experience in leading or conducting evaluations of the same nature is an added advantage.
• Experience in gender, peace and conflict dynamics in the Lebanese context is required.
• Experience in engaging with a diversity of stakeholders is required (i.e., local community members, representatives of the UN and the international community in Lebanon)
• Excellent analytical skills with strong drive for results and capacity to work independently.
• Excellent English and Arabic communication and writing skills (Samples of previous work will be required for shortlisted applicants.)

Languages:

• Fluency in English and Arabic is required.
• Knowledge of French is an asset.

Application:

• Personal CV or P11 (P11 can be downloaded from: )
• A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page)
• Managers may ask (ad hoc) for any other materials relevant to pre-assessing the relevance of their experience, such as reports, presentations, publications, campaigns, or other materials.

The above-mentioned documents should be merged in a standalone file including all them, since the online application submission does only permit to upload one file per application. Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification.

 

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