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 Georgia Country Office (CO) Provides technical support to the state and non-state partners towards the achievement of substantive gender equality in Georgia. In line with national and international commitments, UN Women works on the levels of policies and legislation, institutions and grassroots, in order to achieve transformative results for increased gender equality and greater protection of the rights of women and girls. UN Women puts special emphasis on the work towards gender mainstreaming in good governance reforms and enhancing women’s political participation, ending violence against women, promoting and supporting women’s economic empowerment, and Women, Peace and Security agenda. Along with these key priority areas that constitute UN Women’s mandate, UN Women interventions in Georgia are anchored in the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for the years 2021-2025 with the government of Georgia.

The United Nations Joint Programme for Gender Equality in Georgia Phase III (UNJP4GE or the programme), funded by Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), is implemented jointly by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), these entities are referred to as the Participating UN Organizations (PUNOs).

The current phase (Phase III with an implementation period of 2022-2026) is a continuation, building on the modality, results and implementation mechanisms of Phase I (2012-2015) and Phase II (2016-2022). UNJP4GE Phase III continues to respond directly to the women’s rights and gender equality commitments undertaken by the Government of Georgia (GoG) at the international and national levels and scales up the results achieved by the UNJP4GE in the previous two phases and by UN agencies in general, as well as other stakeholders in the area of gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE) in Georgia. The overall goal of Phase III of the programme is to create an enabling environment for gender equality and women’s empowerment by means of strengthening the capacities of government at both the central and local levels and across the executive, legislative and judicial branches, engaging civil society and raising public awareness about gender equality. This ambitious goal is to be achieved through the intervention logic described below.

OUTCOME: AN ENABLING ENVIRONMENT CREATED FOR GREATER GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT (GEWE)

Output 1: Legislative and policy frameworks are further enhanced towards women’s economic and political empowerment, ending violence against women, the eradication of harmful practices, the enhancement of sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community.

Output 2: National institutions have greater capacities to deliver on Georgia’s commitments around women’s economic and political empowerment, ending violence against women, the eradication of harmful practices, the enhancement of sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community.

Output 3: Rights holders have greater capacities and opportunities to advance women’s rights, diversity and inclusion and become leaders for bottom-up social change towards greater gender equality, social inclusion and human rights

The Joint Programme will continue to address gender inequality in a coherent and holistic manner, covering a wide range of issues such as the political and economic empowerment of women, ending violence against women and girls, combating harmful practices against women and girls, the promotion of women and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights, and tackling sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) issues. Gender inequality is a systemic problem that has its roots in the patriarchal value system that nurtures adverse social norms, both causing and reifying this most widespread form of social injustice. Thus, to ensure a comprehensive and transformative response to the deeply rooted, complex and multifaceted problem in the country towards greater gender equality and the empowerment of women the programme takes a holistic approach by simultaneously targeting three interrelated levels—normative, institutional and grass-roots—and applying multi-tiered programming approaches by providing policy advice, technical assistance, and infrastructure and capacity development support, thereby strengthening national systems and public advocacy through mobilization and awareness-raising.

This current phase is building on the results, lessons learned and implementation modalities of Phases I and II that ran between 2012 and 2021.^[1] The final formative evaluation of Phase I of the UNJP^[2] concluded that the programme was largely successful and noted that there was greater opportunity for impact through joint activities, including advocacy and training. The mid-term evaluation (MTE),[3] as well as the Systematization of Final Results (SFR) of Phase II, also had a formative focus on subsequent programming, with both analyses concluding that the UNJP’s implementation was largely successful and achieved all of the set targets.^[4] The recommendations of the MTE and SFR have greatly informed the design of this phase of the programme and are reflected accordingly. Thus, the structure of the programme has been redesigned to strengthen synergies between the work of the three PUNOs across the six thematic areas covered: women’s political participation (WPP), women’s economic empowerment (WEE), ending violence against women and girls (EVAWG), the elimination of harmful practices, women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRH&RR), and sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC).

The UNJP4GE is fully aligned with national priorities in the area of gender equality and the stated goals and priority areas of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for 2021–2025,^[5] as well as the Strategy for Sweden’s Reform Cooperation with Eastern Europe for 2021–2027 and its Results Area 1 (“Enhancement of human rights, democracy, the rule of law and gender equality”) and Results Area 4 (“Inclusive economic development”). The programme also contributes to the second goal of the Swedish Strategy: peaceful and inclusive societies. The programme is fully aligned with Georgia’s national and international commitments in the field of gender equality and women’s empowerment, including those spelled out in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, 1979), the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention, 2011), the UN Declaration to End Violence against Women (1993) and CEDAW General Recommendation No. 19 (1992) and General Recommendation No. 35 (2017). The programme corresponds to Georgia’s commitments in the frameworks of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA, 1995) and its review processes; Georgia’s commitments under the Gender-Based Violence Action Coalition of the Generation Equality global movement (2021);^[6]the Agreed Conclusions of the Commission on the Status of Women, especially its 57^th session (2013); and the recommendations received by the Georgia State Party through the Universal Periodic Review procedure (2021) and from the CEDAW Committee (2014^[7] and 2023[8]) to the Georgia State Party, the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), the Nairobi Statement on ICPD25: Accelerating the Promise and Georgia’s commitments made at the Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 (2019).[9] The programme further contributes to the achievement of the nationalized Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 5 and SDG 16 (2015).^[10]

The goals and objectives of the UNJP4GE are in line with the Constitution of Georgia (1995); the Law of Georgia on the Elimination of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, Protection and Support of the Victims/Survivors (2006); the Law of Georgia on Gender Equality (2010); the Law of Georgia on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (2014); the National Human Rights Strategy (forthcoming 2022–2030); the National Action Plan on Human Rights (forthcoming 2022–2024); and the National Action Plan on Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence and Measures to be Implemented for the Protection of Victims (Survivors) (forthcoming 2022–2024).

Target population: Society-at-large, women, men and youth and especially excluded groups of the population such as women and children with disabilities and their (often female) caregivers, victims/survivors of gender-based violence, single parents (predominantly mothers), impoverished IDP and conflict-affected families, women and girls belonging to ethnic minority groups, LGBTIQ+ persons, women in vulnerable employment and elderly women.

Geographic areas: Some activities of the programme will be implemented countrywide, while others will focus on the capital Tbilisi as well as the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti, Guria, Racha and Kakheti regions, the Adjara Autonomous Republic of Georgia and Abkhazia, Georgia.

Basic information on the Programme and some of its key documents can be accessed at: https://mptf.undp.org/fund/jge60

2.           Purpose and Use of the Mid-term Review Exercise

The UNJP4GE is commissioning a mid-term review (or systematization of mid-term results) of the programme to:

• Review progress of the programme implementation in terms of the achievement of the output-level results and relevance of the theory of change initially designed for the programme vis-à-vis the changing environment and produce findings formative for the remaining duration of the programme.
• Contribute to building of the evidence-base on effective strategies – especially vis-à-vis the intended sustainability of the project results – for political and economic empowerment of women, ending violence against women and girls, combating harmful practices against women and girls, the promotion of women and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights, and tackling sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) issues.
• Facilitate Participating UN agencies’ (UNDP, UNFPA and UN Women) strategic reflection, learning and further planning for programming in the areas of political economic empowerment of women, ending violence against women and girls, combating harmful practices against women and girls, the promotion of women and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights, and tackling sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) issues to strengthen national stakeholders and structures with the aim to increase sustainability of the results beyond the programme.

The main users of the findings and recommendations of the exercise include UNDP, UNFPA and UN Women offices in Georgia as well as Government of Sweden (project donor). Furthermore, national stakeholders – NGO partners, parliamentary counterparts, targeted state agencies, and local governments will be also closely involved in the process to increase ownership of findings, draw lessons learned and make greater use of the findings of the mid-term formative review (or systematization of mid-term results).

The findings of the exercise are further expected to contribute to effective joint programming on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) in Georgia.

3.           Objectives, Criteria and Key Questions of the Mid-term Review

The overall objective of the exercise is to assess the progress made towards the achievement of the set targets under the outputs and objectives of the programme, analyze the results achieved and challenges encountered.

The specific objectives of the exercise are:

• To analyze the relevance of the UNJP4GE III implementation strategy and approaches to UN and national development policy priorities;
• To review the relevance of the logical framework and respective Monitoring and Evaluation Plan of the project;
• To assess effectiveness and organizational efficiency in progressing towards the achievement of the project’s results;
• To assess the sustainability of the results and the feasibility of ongoing, nationally-led efforts in the thematic areas tackled by the project from the viewpoint of national ownership, national capacity development, partnership and coordination between the implementing UN agencies and other development partners;
• To document lessons learned, best practices, success stories and challenges to inform future programming of UNDP, UNFPA and UN Women in Georgia;
• To assess how the intervention and its results relate and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals in Georgia.

Since the Mid-term Review is a lighter exercise than full-fledged evaluation it will be guided but not bound to exhaustively look at all questions under the following key criteria – such as project relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and coordination which were exhaustively analyzed in the context of the mid-term evaluation of the project. It is noteworthy that all the questions listed below under these criteria have been explored and answered through the Systematization of the Final Results of the UNJP Phase II. Thus, it is expected that these questions will guide the development of the methodology of the Mid-term Review exercise for UNJP4GE Phase III.

Relevance:

• To what extent is the intervention aligned with international, regional and national agreements and conventions on gender equality and women’s empowerment?
• How does the project design match with the complexity of national structures, systems and decision-making processes?
• How does the UNJP assure that the project reflect and align to Georgia’s national plans on gender equality as well as the country’s internationally undertaken obligations and/or best practices?
• To what extent is the UNJP aligned with Georgia’s UN Partnership for Sustainable Development 2020-2025 (UNPSD) and nationalized SDGs?
• To what extent does the UNJP contribute to the implementation of the UNDP Country Programme Document, UNFPA CPD and UN Women Strategic Note (2020-2025)?
• To what extent are key national partners involved in the project’s conceptualization and design process?
• To what extent was the design of the intervention relevant to the needs and priorities of the beneficiaries?

Effectiveness

• What is the progress made towards achievement of the expected outputs ?
• How effective are the selected programme strategies and approaches in progressing towards achieving programme results?
• What contributions are -if any- the PUNOs making to implement global norms and standards for GEWE in Georgia in the framework of this UNJP?
• To what extent have capacities of relevant duty-bearers and rights-holders been strengthened at this stage of implementation?
• Does the project have effective monitoring mechanisms in place to measure progress towards results?
• How adaptably and rapidly does UNJP react to changing country context?
• To what extent does the joint programme modality lead to improved communication, coordination and information exchange within the United Nations family in Georgia?

Efficiency:

• Are resources (financial, human, technical support, etc.)  allocated and split amongst the different implementing entities strategically to progress towards the achievement of the project outputs and outcomes?
• Has the established coordination mechanism of “jointness” led to better programme results if compared to UNJP’s phase I?

Sustainability:

While all the above criteria are relevant, it is of utmost importance that the Systematization of Final Results’ exercise looks particularly at the sustainability aspects of the project results

• Are sustainability considerations incorporated in the project design and implementation? How is this evidenced?
• To what extent has the UNJP been able to establish relevant partnerships with key stakeholders? To what extent are relevant national stakeholders and actors included in the UNJP programming and implementation and policy advocacy processes?
• Do key national partners including women’s movements and women’s organizations etc. have voice and influence within the programme implementation?

The exercise will examine all the relevant documents of the UNJP4GE, including logical framework of the project, its Monitoring and Evaluation Plan, annual work plan, annual reports to the donor, knowledge products produced in the frameworks of the project, etc. and the final report of the Systematization of the Final Results of the project along with its management response. Data will be collected inter alia through on-line interviews with key stakeholders as defined by the agreed mid-term review work-plan.

3.           Design Process and Methods

The Mid-term Review of the programme will be desk based and will also include interviews with key stakeholders in the implementation of the programme. A participatory workshop with implementing UN Entities will be considered. The methodology will be finalized as a part of the second deliverable – inception report in consultation with the management group:

The International Consultant/Evaluator will work in a team with National Consultant/Evaluator and will be responsible for inception, data collection and data analysis and synthesis phase.

• Inception phase: at the beginning of the exercise, the Consultant will be provided with key sources of information for an initial desk review. The online inception meetings will be conducted with the UNJP4GE team and the management of the three PUNOs. At the end of this phase an inception report that will include the refined methodology for the exercise will be delivered. The inception report will be validated and approved by the management of the three PUNOs.
• Data collection phase: based on the inception phase, the contractor will carry out an in- depth desk review, and virtual meetings with key stakeholders to complete data collection and triangulation of information.
• Data analysis and synthesis phase: The collected information will be analyzed, and mid-term formative evaluation  report will be delivered. An online validation meeting will be organized where the contractor will validate the final report with participating UN agencies to be approved by the management of all three UNDP, UNFPA and UN Women.

The consultant must safeguard the rights and confidentiality of information providers, interviewees and stakeholders through measures to ensure compliance with legal and other relevant codes governing collection of data and reporting on data. The consultant must also ensure security of collected information before and after the exercise and protocols to ensure anonymity and confidentiality of sources of information where that is expected. The information knowledge and data gathered in the evaluation process must also be solely used for the evaluation and not for other uses with the express authorization of UN Women, UNDP and UNFPA.

4.           Stakeholders Participation and Management of the Mid-term Review

The Mid-term Review will be a consultative, inclusive and participatory process and will ensure the participation of project beneficiaries.

UN Women as the convening agency of the UNJP4GE will appoint an officer who will serve as the Task Manager for the exercise. The Task Manager will be responsible for the day-to-day management of the mid-term formative evaluation and ensure that the exercise is conducted in accordance with the sister entities’ Evaluation Policies, United Nations Evaluation Group Ethical Guidelines and Code of Conduct for Evaluation in the United Nations system and other key relevant guidance documents. The process will be supported by the UN Women Europe and Central Asia Regional Evaluation Specialist.

Moreover, a Management Group (MG) comprising relevant senior managers of the participating UN agencies and/or their delegated programme staff will be established to oversee the mid-term formative evaluation, make key decisions and quality assure the different deliverables. The MG will quality assure and approve all deliverables. Furthermore, it will make certain that factual errors or errors of omission or interpretation are identified in the deliverables produced. The MG will provide input and relevant information at key stages of the exercise: the terms of reference, inception report, draft and final reports and dissemination of the findings.

In light of the foregoing UN Women in close cooperation with UNDP and UNFPA would like to hire an International Consultant/Evaluator who in a team with a National Consultant/Evaluator will be responsible for conducting Mid-term Formative Evaluation of the UN Joint Programme for Gender Equality.

The contractor will report to and work under direct supervision of UN Women, UNDP and UNFPA and in close collaboration with the Task Manager. 

5. Evaluation Ethics

This evaluation will be conducted in accordance with the principles outlined in the UNEG ‘Ethical Guidelines for Evaluation’. The consultant must safeguard the rights and confidentiality of information providers, interviewees, and stakeholders through measures to ensure compliance with legal and other relevant codes governing collection of data and reporting on data. The consultant must also ensure security of collected information before and after the evaluation and protocols to ensure anonymity and confidentiality of sources of information where that is expected. The information knowledge and data gathered in the evaluation process must also be solely used for the evaluation and not for other uses with the express authorization of UN Women, UNDP and UNFPA.

Description of Responsibilities /Scope of Work

The International Consultant will be responsible to:

• Draft and submit Inception Report, presenting a refined scope, a detailed outline of the exercise design and methodology, evaluation questions, and criteria for the approach for in-depth desk review and interviews to be conducted in the data collection phase. The report will include an evaluation matrix and detailed work plan. A first draft report will be shared with the Management Group and, based upon the comments received the Consultant/Evaluator will revise the draft. The Consultant/Evaluator will maintain an audit trail of the comments received and provide a response on how the comments were addressed in the final inception report.
• Conduct online interviews with key stakeholders to collect and analyse data, where the list of key stakeholders will be identified in consultation with the Contactor. The Task Manager will support the Consultant/Evaluator in liaising with the key stakeholders to schedule interviews as necessary.
• Prepare and finalize Power Point Presentation of preliminary findings (online) detailing the emerging findings of the exercise will be shared with the Management Group for feedback. The Consultant/Evaluator will incorporate the feedback received into the draft report.
• Draft and submit the Mid-term Review Report which will be shared with the Management Group for initial feedback to identify factual errors, errors of omission and/or misinterpretation of information. The revised report will incorporate this feedback and shared with the MG for final validation. The Consultant/Evaluator will maintain an audit trail of the comments received and provide a response on how the comments were addressed in the revised draft.
• Produce Mid-term Review report taking into consideration comments and feedback collected from UNDP, UNFPA and UN Women. The report shall include the following chapters: Executive Summary, Introduction and Background, Approach and Methodology (including limitations), Findings, Conclusions, Lessons learnt, Recommendations and relevant Annexes.

Deliverables

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is a home-based consultancy, no travel is required.

Competencies:

Core Values:

• Integrity;
• Professionalism;
• Respect for Diversity.

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 Values and Competencies Framework:

Functional Competencies:

• Commitment to continuous improvement
• Risk management
• Partnerships building
• Resilience
• Negotiation

Required Qualifications:

Academic Background:

• Advanced (at least Masters) degree in one or more of the following areas: social sciences, gender studies, political science, health, development studies or another related field.

Relevant Work Experience:

• At least seven (7) years of international (preferably eastern Europe, CIS) experience in the field of gender equality and women’s rights;