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’s mandate (GA resolution 64/289) is to lead, coordinate and promote accountability of the UN system to deliver on gender equality and the empowerment of women with the primary objective of enhancing country-level coherence, ensuring coordinated interventions and securing positive impacts on the lives of women and girls, including those living in rural areas.

Since 2009, UN Women has contributed to progress on issues of equality and women’s empowerment in Tunisia. Its integration into the national UN Country Team (UNCT) in 2019 allowed it to deepen its support to women’s issues in Tunisia across its triple mandate. Tunisia Country Office was a part of the Morocco Multi Country Office till 2019. Currently UN Women operates in Tunisia and Libya as a cluster office covering both the countries. UN Women Tunisia has an operational presence in Tunis with offices in Tunis and Tripoli.

Focusing on the normative, coordination and operational mandates, UN Women Tunisia has focussed on issues of women’s political participation and parity, consolidated a gender perspective in the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF), supported the women’s groups and national institutions , strengthened the expertise of local ministries and civil society groups on gender norms, security and women’s employment opportunities. The office has built strategic partnerships with government institutions such as with the Ministry of Women, Family, and the Elderly, Ministries of Agriculture, National Observatory on Ending Violence Against Women (EVAW), the National Institute of Statistics, the Ministry of Finance and the National School of Administration. It has also supported the National Action Plan’s (NAP) Steering Committee and the monitoring of NAP.

On its coordination mandate, UN Women Tunisia has served as a central hub of knowledge and expertise on gender for the UNCT. It led the establishment of the UN Gender Thematic Group (GTG) with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and has supported gender mainstreaming across the programming of partner agencies. UN Women has also led gender mainstreaming across all four of the UNCT Results Groups and other key coordination groups including on migration, youth, and conflict analysis. As support to the Resident Coordinator (RC), UN Women is responsible for facilitating the UNCT-SWAP Gender Equality Score Card exercise. It has developed strategic partnerships and collaborations on programmatic areas of intervention with other UN partners, including with the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), the World Health Organization (WHO), UNFPA and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The Strategic Note is the main planning tool for advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment through UN Women’s support to normative, coordination and operational work and is designed to align with the national development and gender equality and women’s empowerment priorities, United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) as well as UN Women’s Global Strategic Plans. Accordingly, UN Women Tunisia’s Strategic Notes (2018-2021 and 2022-2025) were designed to align with the 2015-2020 Tunisia United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), the 2021-2025 United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF), as well as UN Women’s Global Strategic Plans (2018-2021 and 2022-2025).

UN Women Tunisia’s Strategic Notes have been based on the principles of “Leaving No One Behind” committing to support the most vulnerable women such as the rural women to strengthen their skills and to contribute towards their economic empowerment through an improved access to resources and to a sustainable income; women survivors of violence to raise their awareness and knowledge to access services and claim their rights; single mothers; women with disabilities; women living with HIV; women in the informal economy including the homeless women; minor domestic workers and migrant women.

Tunisia Country Office Strategic Notes under consideration for the Country Portfolio evaluation (Strategic Note 2018-2021 and 2022-2025) comprises of following impact areas and outcomes:

Strategic Note Cycle 2022-2025, Impact areas and Outcomes:

This Strategic Note 2022-2025 was aligned to the United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks (UNDAFs) 2015-2020 for Tunisia. The Strategic Note focused on four impact areas, under the Impact 1 it focused on women politicians with low access to education and supported national and local authorities in developing gender-responsive budgeting and planning to take into account the most vulnerable women, under the Impact 2 it focused on vulnerable rural women with low access to financial, education and production resources, under the Impact 3 and 4 it focus on women survivors of violence.

The impact and outcome areas were:

Impact 1: Women lead, participate in and benefit equally from national and local gender-responsive and sensitive governance systems in Tunisia

Outcome 1.1 Mainstream gender into public policies and budgets and to support the improvement of the legal and normative frameworks.

Outcome 1.2 Reinforcement of gender sensitive accurate data production and use.

Impact 2: Women have income security, decent work, and are economically empowered in Tunisia

Outcome 2.1 More rural women secure access to productive resources and engage in sustainable agriculture

Impact 3: All women and girls live a life free from all forms of violence

Outcome 3.1 Supporting all the national stakeholder’s commitment to prevent Violence Against Women and to deliver quality essential services to Women Survivors of Violence

Outcome 3.2 aims at supporting cities and local stakeholders in the development of empowering public policies for women and girls.

Impact 4: Women and girls contribute to and have greater influence in building sustainable peace and resilience and live a life free from all forms of violence in Tunisia

Outcome 4.1 Supporting all the national stakeholder’s commitment to prevent Violence Against Women and to deliver quality essential services to Women Survivors of Violence

Outcome 4.2 Supporting cities and local stakeholders in the development of empowering public policies for women and girls.

The current Strategic Note Cycle (2022-2025) of the Country Office is structured around three thematic areas for its strategic programming, namely, Women’s Economic Empowerment, Inclusive Governance and Women’s Political Participation, and Women, Peace and Security (WPS). The Women’s Economic Empowerment programme has three pillars that addresses structural barriers through evidence-based policy reforms, addresses economic violence and stereotypes and facilitates employment of women in rural and urban areas, including safe transportation, quality care for children and safe workplaces. Gender-responsive budgeting is a cross-cutting area. The inclusive Governance and Women’s Political Participation area of work focusses on improving the capacity of institutions and civil society actors to support gender-responsive legal frameworks and mechanisms that guarantee the rule of law; enhances the capacity of electoral bodies, civil society, and women candidates to promote inclusive and gender-sensitive electoral processes; and focusses on strengthening the capacity of national authorities to provide preventative and responsive protection services to address violence against women, especially women in politics, both online and offline. The women’s participation for inclusive peacebuilding and reconciliation pillar focusses on strengthening the capacity of national institutions to implement, monitor and evaluate Tunisia’s National Action Plan (NAP) for UNSCR 1325; improve the capacity of civil society actors, including men and boys to advocate for women’s leadership and inclusive peacebuilding processes; and to enhance the capacity of national authorities to support national reforms to prevent terrorism and violent extremism and promote gender-responsive rehabilitation and reintegration for victims and survivors.

The impact and outcome and their alignment with the UNSDCF are as following:

Impact 7: Women have income security, decent work, and economic autonomy

Outcome 7.1: In 2025, institutions, conducting effective and risk-sensitive public policies in partnership with economic and social actors, put the country’s resources at the service of inclusive, sustainable, resilient socio-economic development that generates decent jobs, particularly for the most vulnerable. (UNSDCF Effect 1)

Outcome 7.2: By 2025, health, education and social protection systems are resilient and ensure equitable access and quality services, especially for the most vulnerable, and effective engagement of the population (UNSDCF Effect 3)

Impact 8: Women fully and equally participate in leadership and decision-making and women and girls benefit from gender-responsive governance

Outcome 8.1: In 2025, accountable institutions supported by a harmonized legislative framework and committed populations guarantee the strengthening of the rule of law, the protection of human rights and social cohesion and justice, especially for the most vulnerable, in accordance with international conventions and standards and in complementarity and interdependence with inclusive and sustainable development efforts. (UNSDCF Effect 2)

EVALUATION BACKGROUND

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 for Evaluation in the UN System, Standards for Evaluation in the UN System and Ethical Guidelines.

Country Portfolio Evaluation (CPE) is a systematic assessment of the contributions made by UN Women to development results with respect to gender equality at the country level to feed into learning on what strategies work well and what needs strengthening. It uses the Strategic Note as the main point of reference to assess the Country Office’s contributions, success, challenges as well as lessons in advancing gender equality. The purpose of the CPE is to identify UN Women’s comparative advantages in Tunisia and support decision-making for the office strategy moving forward. The evaluation also seeks to provide information useful to the evaluation of the One UN Programme and insights on the strategic direction for UN Women Tunisia within the context of the repositioning of the UN development system, as adopted by the General Assembly resolution 72/279 on 31 May 2018.

This CPE is a primarily a formative (forward-looking) evaluation to support the Country Office and national stakeholders’ strategic learning and decision-making for the next Strategic Note. The evaluation is expected to have a secondary summative (backwards looking) perspective, to support enhanced accountability for development effectiveness and learning from experience.

The Independent Evaluation Service (IEAS) is leading this CPE and will assess the contributions of UN Women in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment in Tunisia over the course of its two Strategic Note cycles covering the period 2018-2021 and 2022-2025.

The primary intended users of this CPE are the Tunisia Country Office personnel and the UN Women Regional Office for Arab States. The secondary intended users are the Government of Tunisia; development partners, such as UN agencies and bilateral/ multilateral agencies; and civil society. UN Resident Coordinator (RC)/Resident Coordinator’s Office (RCO) in Tunisia would also benefit from understanding the value added and contribution of UN Women towards achieving the Gender Equality and Women’s empowerment results outlined in the 2015-2020 United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) and 2021 – 2025 United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF).

The intended uses of CPE are the following:

1. Evidence to inform the planning and design of the forthcoming Strategic Plan as well as the Tunisia UNSDCF;
2. Accountability for UN Women’s interventions in terms of providing technical support to the Government of Tunisia, UN Entities and other players to achieve results related to gender equality and women’s empowerment; and
3. Lessons learned and good practices for national, regional and other stakeholders working on gender equality and women’s empowerment

The evaluation will apply Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development/Development Assistance Committee (OECD/DAC) evaluation criteria (relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and sustainability) and a Gender Equality criterion. The evaluation will draw on the audit findings related to organizational efficiency.

The evaluation has the following objectives:

1. Analyse how gender equality principles are integrated in the design and implementation of UN Women’s work in Tunisia and contribute to sustainability of efforts.
2. Assess effectiveness and organizational efficiency in progressing towards the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women results.
3. Assess the relevance and coherence of UN Women programme vis-a-vis the national commitments and UN system, the added value of UN Women, and identify contributions to Tunisia 2015-2020 UNDAF and 2021-2025 UNSDCF gender equality and women’s empowerment outcomes.
4. Provide lessons learned and actionable recommendations to support UN Women strategic positioning moving forward.

This CPE will answer the key questions below. During the inception phase after consultation with the Management and Reference groups the evaluation team will review the questions to ensure they reflect the priorities of key stakeholders and elaborate the sub-questions in the evaluation matrix:

1. To what extent have UN Women’s contributions across its integrated mandate advanced gender equality and the empowerment of women in Tunisia, including through the UN system and Government of Tunisia? [effectiveness]
2. Is UN Women’s thematic focus and strategy for implementation the most relevant and coherent for advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment in Tunisia considering its added value vis-à-vis other actors and coordination with actors? [relevance and coherence]
3. Has the portfolio been designed and implemented according to the “Leave No One Behind” principles, including disability perspective and principles of national ownership and sustainability of programming efforts? [gender equality, and sustainability]
4. How efficient is the Tunisia-Libya cluster office arrangement? Does UN Women Tunisia have appropriate governance, capacity and capability to ensure good use of resources (personnel, funding, and assets) to deliver results? [organisational efficiency and governance]

CPE Design: The CPE will be gender-responsive meaning that both the process and analysis will be inclusive, participatory, ensure fair power relations, transparent and apply the key principles of a human rights-based approach; and they analyse the underlying structural barriers and socio-cultural norms that impede the realization of women’s rights. It will also be utilization-focused, which means that it will be tailored to the needs of the organization through a participatory approach from the inception through to the development of recommendations, which will facilitate production of a useful evaluation.

The evaluation will be employing a non-experimental, theory-based9 design, apply a feminist approach and use gender-analytical frameworks to examine issues of power and to understand and evaluate whether and how UN Women has contributed or led to gender-transformative changes.

It will apply a mixed-method research approach, using qualitative as well as quantitative methods and use triangulation to validate the various sources of information. It is expected to apply a purposive sampling to ensure a diverse range of perspectives is considered.

CPE scope: The CPE will focus on UN Women Tunisia Country Office’s two Strategic Note cycles covering the period 2018-2021 and 2022-2025. The CPE will feed into the planning process for the next strategic note and the forthcoming UNSDCF. The entire programme of work and UN Women’s integrated mandate will be assessed, including its contributions in the operational, coordination and normative spheres. The geographic scope will include all locations where UN Women has worked. The possibility of in-person data collection will be considered.

Management and quality assurance: All evaluation processes at UN Women establish mechanisms to ensure high quality evaluation processes and products as outlined in the UN Women Evaluation Policy and Handbook. The Evaluation Report will follow the standard outline as established in the UN Women Country Portfolio Evaluation Guidance and should also follow the United Nations Editorial Manual. The UN Women Evaluation Report Quality Assurance (GERAAS) criteria will be used to assure quality. All products are subject to quality assurance review by the peer reviewer, the Evaluation Reference Groups (ERG), and the Evaluation Management Group (EMG).

This CPE will have the following structures :

1. Oversight: The Director of the Independent Evaluation and Audit Service oversees all activities, while the Chief of Independent Evaluation Service is responsible for the evaluation related activities. They will review and approve the key products of the CPE.
2. Team Leaders: Regional Evaluation Specialist for the Arab States region will serve as the team leaders, leading methodological approach, collection of data, analysis and writing. The Regional Evaluation specialist will be overseeing the work of the evaluation consultants, managing the contracts and assuring quality of the work.
3. Evaluation: evaluation team members will include an international evaluation consultant responsible for key analytical tasks, systematization of information and contribution to analysis and report and presentation preparation; a national evaluator to support the data collection in country and provide key contextual information.
4. CPE Management Group for administrative support and accountability: Country Representative and/or Deputy Representative, Assigned CPE Focal Point, and the Team Leader.
5. CPE Reference Group for substantive technical support: National government partners, Civil Society representatives, Development partners/donors, UNCT representatives.
6. Peer Review for methodological guidance and feedback: 1 IES staff will be engaged as peer reviewers of the CPE.

Ethical code of conduct: UN Women has developed a UN Women Evaluation Consultants Agreement Form for evaluators that must be signed as part of the contracting process, which is based on the UNEG Ethical Guidelines and Code of Conduct. These documents will be annexed to the contract. The UNEG guidelines note the importance of ethical conduct for the following reasons:

Responsible use of power: All those engaged in evaluation processes are responsible for upholding the proper conduct of the evaluation;

Ensuring credibility: With a fair, impartial and complete assessment, stakeholders are more likely to have faith in the results of an evaluation and to take note of the recommendations;

Responsible use of resources: Ethical conduct in evaluation increases the chances of acceptance by the parties to the evaluation and therefore the likelihood that the investment in the evaluation will result in improved outcomes.

The evaluators are expected to provide a detailed plan on how the following principles will be ensured throughout the evaluation (see UNEG Ethical Guidance for descriptions): 1) Respect for dignity and diversity; 2) Right to self-determination; 3) Fair representation; 4) Compliance with codes for vulnerable groups (e.g., ethics of research involving young children or vulnerable groups); 5) Redress; 6) Confidentiality; and 7) Avoidance of harm.

Specific safeguards must be put in place to protect the safety (both physical and psychological) of both respondents and those collecting the data.? These should include:

1. A plan is in place to protect the rights of the respondent, including privacy and confidentiality;
2. The interviewer or data collector is trained in collecting sensitive information, and if the topic of the evaluation is focused on violence against women, they should have previous experience in this area;
3. Data collection tools are designed in a way that are culturally appropriate and do not create distress for respondents;
4. The interviewer or data collector is able to provide information on how individuals in situations of risk can seek support.

Duties and Responsibilities

The national Evaluator will be expected to support the evaluation Team Leader and the international evaluation consultant and carry out the following responsibilities:

• Provide country contextual advice and support to the evaluation team leader for designing and delivering contextually relevant and sensitive Country Portfolio Evaluation;
• Support inception phase through initial desk review, analysis of available reference material and in-depth stakeholder analysis based on agreed criteria;
• Liaise with the country stakeholders and assist in the country data collection by conducting interviews and focused group discussions as advised by the team leader;
• Attend and support the preparation of all meetings and presentations;
• Support the analysis of the evidence for the report and support the drafting of various sections of the country evaluation report.

This is a home-based consultancy. As part of this assignment, there will be a field travel to UN Women’s areas of work.

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:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment/application-process#_Values

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES:

• Ability to think, analyze and articulate strategically on programme development and results-based management
• Ability to facilitate meetings with different levels of stakeholders
• Excellent drafting and writing skills to produce and present concise and analytical discussion papers.
• Knowledge in results-based programming in support of gender and human rights.

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification:

• At least a Master’s degree in sociology, international development, Social sciences, gender studies or other related areas.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years of professional experience of working on Gender equality and women’s empowerment related issues;
• Minimum 5 years’ experience of conducting evaluations;
• Experience of gender analysis and human rights-based approaches;
• Technical knowledge in monitoring and evaluation, results-based management;
• Previous experience of working with UN agencies and UN system is an asset;
• Knowledge of the role of UN Women and its programming, coordination and normative roles is an asset;
• Data collection and analysis skills;
• Evaluation report writing skills; and
• Process management skills, including facilitation and communication skills with stakeholders

Languages:

• Fluency in English and French is required.

Applicants shall attach as one file the following documents:

Personal P11 (P11 can be downloaded from: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-P11-Personal-History-Form.doc )

A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page)