Result of Service

Data collection, analysis and drafting key parts of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework for Eswatini 2021 – 2025

Work Location

UNRCS Eswatini

Expected duration

within 5 months

Duties and Responsibilities

1.1. CONTEXT The Kingdom of Eswatini is a small landlocked country in Southern Africa bordered by Mozambique and South Africa. Within this context Eswatini has committed to human rights standards and international obligations, but challenges remain in upholding them, especially regarding gender equality and environmental protection. Efforts to improve healthcare, education, and gender equality have seen minimal progress, while economic transformation requires addressing youth unemployment and fostering private sector growth. Eswatini faces challenges in sustainable energy generation and climate change adaptation. Aligning policies with global commitments is crucial for environmental conservation. Interconnected risks affecting SDG achievement remain high, requiring an integrated approach for mitigation. Overall, the Eswatini UNSDCF, National Development Plan (NDP) for 2023/24 – 2027/28, and SDGs are complementary frameworks that work together to advance sustainable development in the country, ensuring alignment of priorities, resources, and efforts towards achieving common objectives for the benefit of the Eswatini population. The UNSDCF serves as a strategic partnership framework between the Government of Eswatini and the United Nations system. It identifies key areas where the UN can support national development priorities and the achievement of the SDGs. The UNSDCF is designed to align with Eswatini’s national development plans, including the NDP, to ensure coherence and synergy in development efforts. The NDP outlines Eswatini’s strategic priorities, objectives, and policies for a specific period. It sets out the government’s vision and roadmap for achieving socioeconomic development, including goals related to economic growth, social development, infrastructure, and governance. The UNSDCF complements the NDP by providing additional support and resources through UN agencies to implement priority interventions identified in the plan. Eswatini’s SDG Recovery and Acceleration Plan (ESRAP) is intended to support the fast tracking of implementation of SDGs in the country. 1.2 UNSDCF HIGHLIGHTS The UNSDCF 2021-2025 was developed during the onset of COVID-19 in 2020. The development was an all-inclusive transparent process. The process identified four outcome areas aligned to sixteen out of 17 SDGs except for Goal 14 on Life Below Water . Each of the UNSDCF outcome area is backed by a theory of change identifying the immediate and underlying causes and proposed approach and partnerships to address the causes. The funding framework of 2020 projected that implementing the UNSDCF 2021-2025 would require an estimated USD$20 million per year or approximately USD$100 million over 5 years of which only 65% was available. During the implementation of the UNSDCF 2021 to date, several emerging events occurred that influenced the delivery of the UNSDCF targets, and in some cases, possibly reversed national development milestones. The outbreak of COVID-19, recurring cyclones, unprecedented civil unrest, as well as global geo-political events, such as the Russia-Ukraine war have all impacted on national development processes in Eswatini. These have resulted in job loses, escalating food prices, political uncertainties, and extensive damage to national and individual infrastructures, widening food insecurity and out of pocket health services and reversing educational gains with marginalized groups such as persons with disability, youth, women, and children most affected. The Cooperation Framework outlines three priorities and four outcome areas (organised around four Results Groups (RGs) and the five pillars of the 2030 Agenda,: People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnerships. SCOPE Programmatic scope: The Evaluation will cover all the outcomes of UNSDCF 2021-2025 implemented through the joint workplans, UN entities country programmes and implementation frameworks as well as other initiatives, projects, and activities conducted by the UNCT under the UNSDCF implementation. Geographic scope: The evaluation will cover the national and regional levels. During the inception phase, a selection of 2 to 3 regions (sub-national) will be selected by the evaluation team in consultation with the UNCT. Temporal scope: The evaluation will cover the implementation period from January 2021 to July 2024, in relation to the outcomes and results achieved. However, data will be collected on selected programmes and projects as per the agreement of the evaluation team and the technical committee. The evaluators will be based in Eswatini with travel to the purposely selected regions and programmes based on an evaluation plan/roadmap to be submitted by the evaluation team and approved at the inception stage. The evaluation will be conducted over a five-month period July to November 2024 and the results will be disseminated amongst and utilised by government, development partners, civil society, private sector, academia, DCO and other stakeholders. The Evaluation Team will develop a detailed work plan at the inception phase. EVALUATION APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY The evaluation will use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, including document reviews, analysis, including document reviews, analysis and secondary data, individual interviews with key informants and focus groups or other types of discussions to collect data. The independent external evaluators shall be guided by the UNSDCF Evaluation Guidelines 2022 in developing the evaluation methodology. They shall also develop the necessary tools to collect data and information to answer the overall evaluation questions. The evaluation will use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, including document reviews, analysis of quantitative secondary data, individual interviews with key informants and focus groups or other types of discussion to collect data. The Evaluators shall be guided by the UNEG Norms and Standards for Evaluation, as well as other DCO UNSDCF Evaluation Templates and Tools. An evaluation methodology will be developed by the evaluation team in accordance with the Guidelines for the Evaluation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (unevaluation.org) The team will also design relevant tools to collect appropriate data and information to answer the outlined evaluation questions. The methodological design will include: the sampling approach; the theory of change analysis and reconstruction; evaluation matrix data collection strategy; data quality assurance (control and validation); data analysis and reporting. The evaluation team will be guided by UNSDCF evaluation guidelines 2022, to produce a quality and evidence-based report that will be used by government, development partners, civil society, private sector, academia, and other stakeholders. MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENTS The evaluation will have the following management arrangements as per UNEG-DCO Guideline for UNSDCF Evaluation: DCO DCO will oversee the evaluation process and provide the quality assurance support to ensure that the process and recommendations are sound, useful and evidence based and links well with the development of the second-generation CF 2026-2030. Evaluation Manager The Evaluation Manager (Chair of the UN Policy and Programme Support Group – PPSG) will provide technical oversight of the entire process of the evaluation, from its preparation to the dissemination and use of the final evaluation report. The EM will facilitate access to information for the evaluators, sets up meetings, organize briefing and debriefing sessions and provide comments on the main deliverables of the evaluation process. Technical Evaluation Management Group The Technical Evaluation Management Group (TEMG), comprising members of the PPSG, and representatives from the four results groups, will provide advice and support in the planning and implementation of evaluation activities. Evaluation Steering Committee The existing UNSDCF Joint National Steering Committee will serve as the Evaluation Steering Committee (ESC). It will oversee and guide the UNSDCF evaluation process. The Committee comprises the UNCT, high level reEVALUATION CRITERIA AND QUESTIONS The ToRs include a list of evaluation questions that are in line with the purpose, objectives, and scope of the evaluation. These are structured around: – Relevance and adaptability, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, coordination, sustainability, and orientation towards impact. During the inception phase, the evaluation team will discuss with the evaluation technical management team and the ESC to finalize the evaluation questions. The Evaluation Team (consultants) The evaluation team will be composed of a multi-disciplinary (One International and two nationals). All possible efforts will be made to ensure gender representation. The evaluation team will be responsible for finalising and designing the evaluation methodologies, collecting, and analysing data and compiling a quality evaluation report based on sections allocated to them. The team will report to the Evaluation Steering Committee through the Evaluation Manager. EVALUATION CRITERIA AND QUESTIONS The ToRs include a list of evaluation questions that are in line with the purpose, objectives, and scope of the evaluation. These are structured around: – Relevance and adaptability, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, coordination, sustainability, and orientation towards impact. During the inception phase, the evaluation team will discuss with the evaluation technical management team and the ESC to finalize the evaluation questions. Relevance and adaptability (Did the CF implementation do the right things and did it adapt to emerging needs) 1. To what extent are the UNSDCF objectives aligned with the needs, priorities, and policies of the government, national development plans, and strategies? 2. How has the CF programmatic interventions responded to the most critical emerging socio- economic issues in particular the Covid- 19 pandemic, and the civil unrest faced by the country? Coherence (how well was the CF aligned to the country’s needs and priorities) 3. To what extent has the UNSDCF affected the position, credibility, and reliability of the UN system as a partner for the government and other actors? 4. To what extent has the UNSDCF promoted complementarity, and coordination with other key development partners to maximize the achievement of results? Effectiveness (Has the Cooperation Framework realized its objectives) 5. What has been the progress made towards the achievement of expected outcomes and results? Indicate the results achieved so far and/or whether they are on-track to be achieved? 6. What are the key processes underpinning the achievement of the outcome and results above? Indicate the processes, and the key actors involved, strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. 7. To what extent has UNSDCF considered the varied needs of LNOB groups and geographical spread? Efficiency (Have resources ie human and financial been managed well)? 8. To what extent has UNSDCF made effective use of its financial resources as well as administrative resources, policies, procedures, and tools to pursue the achievement of the outcomes defined in the UNSDCF? 9. To what extent did the UNCT demonstrate human resources capacities in line with the UNCT Configuration Exercise including each agency’s Capacity and Statement for Planned Contribution to the Cooperation Framework? Coordination (How well has coordination been effective) 10. Post UN reform, to what extent have UN agency programs and work plans been effectively and meaningfully derived from the CF both in design and implementation? 11. To what extent did the post reform Resident Coordinator office’s roles and responsibilities enable positive UNCT’ s joint convening power and better coherence of the country team Progress towards Impact (Has the cooperation framework led to landscape change) 12. To what extent has the UNSDCF contributed to the realisation of the Theory of Change under each outcome areas? Can the contribution/s, if any, be clearly identified and measured? Sustainability (will the benefits be sustainable over a period)? 13. What mechanisms, if any, has the UNSDCF established to ensure socio-political, institutional, financial, and environmental sustainability? 14. What is the likelihood that progress towards the SDGs is sustained by national partners and stakeholders over time? 15. To what extent has community involvement been prioritized in formulation and implementation of the Cooperation Framework programmes to promote interventions’ sustainability?

Qualifications/special skills

Advanced Degree in development studies, public administration, economics, social sciences, environmental management, law, or related qualification is required. A minimum of seven years of experience in conducting evaluations is required. Experienced with one or more of the following – inclusive growth, social development, human rights, governance gender, environmental management is required. Technical competence in undertaking complex evaluations using both quantitative and qualitative methods is required. Strong data collection and analysis skills and prior experience working, in multidisciplinary teams and in multicultural environments is required. Knowledge of UN role, UN reform process and UN programming at the country level, particularly UNSDCF & Strong experience and knowledge in the UN programming principles including LNOB, human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment, sustainability, and resilience, and accountability is required.

Languages

Fluency in oral and written English is required. Fluency in oral and written siSwati is desirable.

Additional Information

Not available.

No Fee

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.