Background

I.UN Women 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. UN Women 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 March 2022, UN Women received funding from the Government of Japan to implement a one-year LEAP program that aimed at strengthening the protection, leadership and empowerment of over 6,360 vulnerable women, men and youth affected by COVID-19 and forcibly displaced into IDP and refugee camps in Uganda. This Programme was designed to contribute to the immediate lifesaving and emergency needs of 6,360 (30 percent hosts) as direct beneficiaries in Kyegegwa, Yumbe and Adjumani refugee hosting districts. The project was to indirectly benefit with 10,000 (5,000 female and 5,000 male) refugee and host community women, men, girls and boys. The project aimed is to ensure that refugee women and girls are protected from the impacts of the emergency refugee crisis, and COVID-19 through the provision of gender-responsive COVID-19 services, protection and, enhancing women’s leadership, capacity development and peaceful co-existence for better recovery and resilience.

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II.Program Overview / Results

Since April 2021, Uganda experienced an increase in protection and socio-economic vulnerability in the refugee crisis, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the country battled a second wave of viral infections, the lockdown measures and severe underfunding for humanitarian assistance. This proposed project sought to support women and girls affected by the COVID-19 crises and displaced into refugee and IDP camps in Uganda. It sought to facilitate a responsive environment, conducive for gender equality and that supports the needs of refugee and host women and girls, in conformity with human rights standards and international best practice.

Overall Goal:

To strengthen the protection, leadership and empowerment of over 15,760 vulnerable women, men and youth affected by COVID- 19 in IDP and refugee camp of Uganda and Somalia.

The program aimed at achieving the following Outcomes:

OUTCOME 1: 4,530 vulnerable women, men and youth lead and participate in COVID-19 prevention, response and recovery interventions in Uganda.

Output 1.1: 3,000 Refugee and host community women have increased capacities & skills to participate and lead in the management of COVID-19 interventions within refugee and IDP camps in Uganda

Output 1.3: 1,530 women and men benefit from initiatives promoting positive gender norms in support of women's leadership and protection from violence and access to COVID-19 awareness and sensitization measures in Uganda.

OUTCOME 2: Positive coping mechanisms improved for 1,830 vulnerable refugees, IDPs and host communities’ women and girls most affected by COVID- 19 crisis in Uganda

Output 2.1: 500 women in refugee and host communities most affected by COVID- 19 have increased access to ICT skills and services through existing women empowerment centers in Uganda

Output 2.2: 1,330 refugee women and girls affected by COVID- 19 have increased access to effective safety and protection services at the PCR testing and vaccination sites in Uganda.

III.Purpose of the Evaluation

The UN Women Evaluation Policy is the main guiding document that sets forth the principles and organizational framework for evaluation planning, conduct and follow-up in UN Women. These principles are aligned with the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Norms and Standards for Evaluation in the UN System.  The key principles for gender-responsive evaluation at UN Women are: 1) National ownership and leadership; 2) UN system coordination and coherence with regard to gender equality and the empowerment of women; 3) Innovation; 4) Fair power relations and empowerment; 5) Participation and inclusion; 6) Independence and impartiality; 7) Transparency; 8) Quality and credibility; 9) Intentionality and use of evaluation; and 10) Ethics.

The one-year COVID -19 response project funded by the Government of Japan whose implementation commenced in April 2022 will come to an end in March 2023. In line with the program requirements and the UN Women evaluation policy, an end of Programme evaluation is to be conducted to assess the performance of the Programme, provide accountability and enhance learning. The purpose of this independent end term evaluation is to assess the project’s achievements against the set objectives, identify and document lessons learnt (including design issues, lessons and best practices that can be up-scaled or replicated), and assess how the program contributed to gender equality and economic empowerment of refugee women in Kyegegwa, Yumbe and Adjumani districts.

It is a priority for UN Women that this end line program evaluation will be gender-responsive and will actively support the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment, with emphasis on UN Women key areas central to supporting women and girls’ empowerment in humanitarian action: Leadership and participation, Protection and safety, and Economic well-being.

The primary intended users of this evaluation are:

·         Relevant staff in target ministries, local government and targeted government institutions, and participating CSOs

·         Target beneficiary communities/groups

·         Members of community leadership structures

·         Relevant staff in participating UN-agencies.

·         Staff of implementing partners

·         Sector leads in the participating UN-agencies and refugee response coordination.

UN Agencies technical working groups

UNACs

·         Development partners

Primary intended uses of this evaluation are:

1.     Information on the program’s effectiveness will be used to inform decision making for the scale up of LEAP;

2.     Feedback, participation and accountability to affected communities

3.     Accountability for the development effectiveness of the LEAP to the donors and other stakeholders.

4.     Capacity development and mobilization of national stakeholders to advance gender equality and the empowerment of women.

Duties and Responsibilities

I.evaluation criteria and key questions

The objectives of the evaluation are to:

1.     Assess the relevance of LEAP COVID-19 response intervention in addressing the needs of refugee women and how gender equality principles were integrated in the program

2.     Assess the effectiveness and efficiency of UN Women’s approach for achievement of results, as defined in the logical framework

3.     Identify lessons learned and provide actionable recommendations with respect to the strategy, and overall approach to UN Women’s programming in humanitarian settings.

The evaluation will apply four UN Evaluation Group (UNEG) evaluation criteria (relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and coherence), as well as standards based on Human Rights and Gender Equality.  

The evaluation will seek to answer the following key evaluation questions and sub-questions:

II.Scope of the evaluation

The evaluation is an end of project evaluation and will cover all project activities implemented since March 2022 – February 2023. The evaluation will cover project beneficiaries i.e., refugees in   Yumbe, Adjumani and Kyegegwa districts and the respective host communities.

The evaluation team is expected to undertake a rapid evaluability assessment in the Inception. This should include the following:

1.     An assessment of the relevance, appropriateness and coherence of the implicit or explicit theory of change, strengthening or reconstructing it where necessary through a stakeholder workshop;

2.     An assessment of the quality of performance indicators in the program, and the accessibility and adequacy of relevant documents and secondary data;

3.     A review of the conduciveness of the context for the evaluation;

4.     Ensuring familiarity with accountability and management structures for the evaluation.

III.Evaluation Approach and methodology

The evaluation will be an external, independent and participatory exercise, which should be completed within a timeframe of 20 days spread over a period of 3 months beginning on 13th February 2023.  The final evaluation methodology will document and analyze the distinct achievements of each programmatic pillar, while also assessing the ways in which efforts contributed to national implementation and program-level work influenced country advocacy and policy.

The evaluation shall provide evidence-based information that is credible, reliable and useful and will be based on gender and human rights principles, as defined in the UN Women Evaluation Policy and adhere to the United Nations norms and standards for evaluation.

The evaluation methodology will employ mixed methods and an innovative approach for capturing results, while ensuring that the views of the most excluded groups of women are represented in the evaluation. An initial desk review and brief discussions with key stakeholders will support the refinement and finalization of the methodology and analytical framework. An important component of this evaluation will be the assessment of the results framework to assess whether the program remained on track to achieve expected outcomes.

The evaluation is expected to follow a collaborative and participatory approach ensuring close engagement with Programme beneficiaries, implementing partners, district local government leadership, Humanitarian actors, Office of the Prime minister and other key stakeholders as will be informed by the stakeholder mapping process.  The analysis of the application of human rights and gender equality principles in LEAP interventions will be an integral part of the evaluation. Integration of human rights and gender equality issues into the evaluation requires adherence to three main principles – inclusion, participation, and fair power relations.

The main recommended phases of the evaluation methodology are:

1.     Inception Phase:

·         Conduct an initial desk review of available documents, gather and analyse programme data, conceptualize the evaluation approach and develop an evaluation matrix, consult internally on the approach, develop data collection tools, stakeholder mapping, sampling strategy, engage reference group.

·         Conduct inception interviews with key stakeholders to refine the evaluation scope and methodology.

·         Draft an Inception Report that will be reviewed by the Evaluation Reference Group.

·         Refine the evaluation methodology/question matrix based on Evaluation Reference Group’s feedback and integrate proposed changes (as appropriate) into the final evaluation report.

1.     Data collection Phase

·         Collect survey data from beneficiaries and key stakeholders as informed by the stakeholder analysis

Conduct in-depth interviews with national UN Women staff, partner organizations, donor representatives, and others as necessary.

·         Deliver PowerPoint presentation of preliminary field key findings.

1.     Analysis and Report Writing Phase:

·         Review and analyse all available data including staff, partner and stakeholder survey(s) and interpret findings.

·         Prepare first draft of the evaluation report and submit to Evaluation Reference Group for comments and possible endorsement.

·         Revise report based on the feedback from Evaluation Management Group and debriefing session (as appropriate).

·         Compile final report. The report should not be longer than 30 pages in the following format: 

·         Title and opening pages

·         Executive summary

·         Background and purpose of the evaluation

·         Programme/object of evaluation description and context

·         Evaluation objectives and scope

·         Evaluation methodology and limitations

·         Findings

·         Conclusions

·         Recommendations

·         Lessons learned

·         Annexes (Terms of reference, documents reviewed, list of interviews conducted)

IV.MANAGEMENT OF THE EVALUATION

The evaluation and quality assurance will be managed by UN Women Uganda Country Office. The Consultant will be accountable to UN Women on behalf of the team and report to the Uganda CO Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist. The evaluation will be conducted in accordance with UN Women evaluation guidelines and UNEG norms and standards. Upon completion of the evaluation, UN Women has the responsibility to prepare a management response that addresses the findings and recommendations to ensure future learning and inform implementation of their relevant programmes, especially the Women Economic Empowerment and Women’s Leadership programmes. For quality assurance, the evaluation report will be rated against the  Global Evaluation Report Assessment & Analysis System (GERAAS).

The evaluation management structure will comprise of one coordinating entity and two consultative bodies: The Evaluation Management Group and the Evaluation Reference Group. The Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist will manage the day-to-day aspects of the evaluation. This evaluation will be a participatory process and the evaluation manager will ensure consultations with all the key stakeholders as required.

The Evaluation Management Group will be responsible for management of the evaluation. It will coordinate the selection and recruitment of the evaluation team, manage contractual agreements, budget and personnel involved in the evaluation, support the reference groups, provide all necessary data to the evaluation team, facilitate communication between the evaluation team and the reference group. The Management Group will include UN Women (Programme Specialists, M&E/Communications Officer; Operations Manager, Program Analyst; Evaluation Manager).

The Evaluation Reference Group will provide direct oversight, safeguard independence, and give technical input over the course of the evaluation. It will provide guidance on evaluation team selection and key deliverables (Inception Report and Evaluation Report) submitted by the evaluation team. It will also support dissemination of the findings and recommendations. The Evaluation Reference Group will include: Deputy Country Representatives, Representatives from IPs, Embassy of Japan & Regional Evaluation Specialist

V.Time frame and Deliverables

The primary evaluation deliverables are:

Competencies

Core Competencies:

·         Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues

·         Accountability

·         Creative Problem Solving

·         Effective Communication

·         Inclusive Collaboration

·         Stakeholder Engagement

·         Leading by Example

Functional Competencies

·         Ability to create, edit, and present information in clear and appealing formats.

·         Ability to manage data, documents, correspondences, and reports.

·         Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to communicate and work well with diverse and multicultural supervisors and staff members.

·         Demonstrated ability to meet deadlines and work under pressure.

·         Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude.

·         Focuses on impact and results for partners and responds positively to feedback.

Required Skills and Experience

1.     QUALIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE

The selected consultant should fulfill the following requirements:

Education

·         A Master’s degree related to any of the social sciences, political science, international relations, economics, gender studies and evaluation

Work Experience

·         A minimum of 10 years of working experience in conducting evaluations including proven experience in designing and conducting major evaluations within humanitarian settings;

·         Extensive knowledge and experience in the application of quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods with a strong gender focus; 

·         High level data analysis skills in both quantitative and qualitative data; 

·         In-country or regional experience in programming in refugee setting;

·         Flexibility and Ability to work with teams in multicultural settings

·         Demonstrable ability to work under pressure to meet challenging deadlines

Language Requirements

·         Fluency in written and spoken English is essential

·         Working knowledge of another official UN language is an asset;