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.

The Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda stands at a juncture to prevent conflicts, protect human rights, build peace, and promote relief and recovery from conflict and crisis. However, there are remaining global, regional, and local challenges for its full implementation due to institutional resistance and the lack of budgeting and of political will to meet the commitments under UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace, and Security (hereinafter UNSCR 1325) and its sister resolutions. Further, crisis and conflict have profound and disproportionate impacts on women and girls, amplifying pre-existing inequalities.

Since 2001, UN Women (previously UNIFEM) has provided continues support to partners in Georgia to increase meaningful participation of women in conflict prevention, transformation, resolution, and sustainable peacebuilding processes. Under the current project “Accelerating Implementation of Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Georgia” (2020-2024) and in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for 2021-2025, UN Women supports the Government of Georgia to develop and implement the National Action Plan for the Implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions on Women, Peace, and Security (UNSCR 1325 (2000) et al.) and to achieve the targets of nationalized Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5 and 16.

UN Women partners with the UK Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF), now Integrated Security Fund (ISF) and the Ministry of Defence of the UK Government to contribute to the enhancement of women’s meaningful participation in peace and security processes and to increase Georgian Government’s accountability to implement the WPS agenda (WPSA) in Georgia.

The project on “Accelerating Implementation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Georgia” funded by the UK Government is specifically tailored to respond to the needs and interests of internally displaced (IDP) and conflict-affected women and girls as well as government and civil society partners in Georgia and aims at the supporting the implementation of WPS agenda in Georgia. Namely, the project addresses the problems at the individual, community, institutional and policy levels and proposes activities that will contribute to the overarching goal/impact of the project to advance gender equality, achieve the full, equal, direct and meaningful participation of women in peace and security processes, as well as in crisis response and recovery, and support the social cohesion and sustainable peace in the country.

The project commenced on November 16, 2020, and initially spanned 40 months, concluding on March 31, 2024. The total budget was £1,420,776.05, funded by the UK CSSF and UK MoD. Under a new agreement, the project was extended for an additional year, from April 8, 2024, to March 31, 2025, with an additional £467,350.00 provided by the UK Integrated Security Funds (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office – FCDO).

Within the framework of the above-mentioned projects, UN Women works with security sector actors, including the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Security Service, the Office of National Security Council, and the Georgian Intelligence Service to mainstream gender into the Security Sector Reform process and its outcomes. Herewith, to promote the implementation on the WPSA and mainstream gender, UN Women cooperates with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the State Ministry for Reconciliation and Civic Equality, the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Labor, Health, and Social Affairs of Georgia and the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure of Georgia, as well as closely works with the target municipalities to support the localization of the WPSA. UN Women also continues to support the capacity development of women mediators and peacebuilders, and internally displaced and conflict-affected women at grassroots to ensure their direct and meaningful participation in peace processes, as well as creates spaces for effective engagement of women peace activists with the participants of formal peace and incident prevention processes (namely, the Geneva International Discussions and the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanisms).

One of UN Women’s top priorities for the 2020-2024 period is to provide support for the localization of the fourth National Action Plan for the Implementation of the UN Security Council Resolutions on Women, Peace, and Security (2022-2024). The localization process is achieved through fostering the active participation of women and grassroots organizations, internally displaced and conflict-affected women in local policy planning and budgeting processes, and the capacity building of the local governments to advance the WPSA implementation. In this respect, UN Women is targeting 17 municipalities in the regions of Kvemo Kartli, Shida Kartli, Imereti, Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti and Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti, including the villages that are adjacent to the Administrative Boundary Lines with Abkhazia, Georgia and Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia, Georgia.

Purpose and the Use of Evaluation

Upon the project completion, as established in the Project Document, a mandatory external final evaluation is to be conducted by UN Women for accountability and learning purposes. This main purpose of the final evaluation is assessing the achievement of project results and performance of the above-described interventions. Findings of the final external evaluation will inform UN Women Georgia’s future work in the area of Women, Peace and Security. The external evaluation will further identify lessons learned, best practices and challenges of the project “Accelerating Implementation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Georgia” and its extended phase and will greatly inform the development of the follow-up programmatic interventions.

The information generated by the evaluation will be used by different stakeholders to contribute to building of the evidence base on effective strategies for women’s empowerment in Georgia and to facilitate UN Women’s strategic reflection and learning for programming in the area.

The information generated by the evaluation will be used by different stakeholders to:

• Contribute to building of the evidence base on effective strategies for the implementation of WPSA in the country.
• Facilitate strategic reflection, learning and further planning for programming in the areas of WPS.
• Strengthen national stakeholders and structures with the aim to increase sustainability of the results beyond the project.

Main evaluation users include UN Women Country Office in Georgia as well as the UK Government (project donor). Furthermore, national stakeholders – civil society partners, grassroots conflict affected and IDP women and targeted state and non-state agencies will be also closely involved in the evaluation process to increase ownership of findings, draw lessons learned and make greater use of this final evaluation results.

Evaluation Objectives, Criteria and Questions

The specific evaluation objectives are as follows:

• Analyze the relevance and coherence of the implementation strategy and approaches of the project.
• Assess effectiveness and organizational efficiency in progressing towards the achievement of the project’s results as defined in the interventions.
• Validate the project results in terms of achievements and/or weaknesses toward the outcome and outputs.
• To assess how the project and its results relate and contribute to commitments and achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Georgia
• Determine the impact of the intervention with respect to gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Assess the sustainability of the results achieved by the project.
• Document lessons learned, best practices, success stories and challenges to inform future work of UN Women and the UK Government (FCDO) in the areas of WPS.
• Identify strategies for replication and up-scaling of the project’s best practices.
• Provide actionable recommendations for future programmatic developments and maximize ownership by partners in the country covered by the project.

The evaluation will address the criteria of Project Relevance, Coherence, Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Sustainability. More specifically, the evaluation will address the key evaluation questions:

• Relevance: A) How does the project reflect and align with gender equality/WPS national strategic plans and normative frameworks as well as Georgia’s international obligations and commitments? B) Is the project design based on quality analysis, including gender and human rights-based analysis, risk assessments, socio-cultural and political analysis? C) Were the programmatic strategies appropriate to address the identified needs of beneficiaries?
• Coherence: A) To what extent the project adheres to corporate strategic priorities of UN Women and UK around WPS? B) Is the project achieving synergies between the larger UN Women’s portfolios and the work of the UN Country Team? C) Is the project achieving synergies between UN Women and key national stakeholders including national governments and CSOs? D) How does the project design match with the complexity of national structures, systems and decision-making processes?
• Effectiveness: A) What has been the progress made towards achievement of the expected outcomes and expected results? What are the results achieved? B) What are the reasons for the achievement or non-achievement of the project results? C) Does the project have effective monitoring mechanisms in place to measure progress towards results? D) What is the influence of the specific country context and circumstances on the achievement of results and operational effectiveness? F) How adaptable and rapidly does the project react to changing situations?  G) Which methods and approaches have (haven’t) worked well and why? H) What are the good practices, and the obstacles or shortcomings encountered? How were they overcome? I) To what extent have capacities of relevant duty-bearers and rights-holders been strengthened? J) What -if any- types of innovative good practices have been introduced in the project for the meaningful participation and empowerment of IDP and conflict affected women and youth?
• Efficiency: A) Have resources (financial, human, technical support, etc.) been allocated strategically to achieve the project outcomes? B) Have the outputs been delivered in a timely manner? C) To what extend were relevant stakeholders and actors included in the project planning and implementation?
• Impact: A) What evidence exist that the project has delivered longer term results from processes through to benefits? Have any unintended results been delivered? B) Is there a potential measurable impact of the project intervention on the target group across all dimensions of the project? C)To what extent is the project changing the dynamics of power in relationships between different groups? D)To what extent is the project bringing about gender transformative changes that address the root causes of gender inequalities – including prevailing social norms, attitudes and behaviors, discrimination and social systems?
• Sustainability A) How effectively has the project been able to contribute to the generation of national ownership of the project outputs? B) What is the likelihood that the benefits from the project will be maintained for a reasonably long period of time after the project phase out? C) To what extent has the project identified strategic partners that could pick up on supporting continued government and non-governmental action when the project comes to an end? D) Do national/local institutions demonstrate leadership commitment and technical capacity to continue to replicate some project activities? E) To what extent have the project’s exit strategy been well planned and successful? F) To what extent has UN Women been able to promote replication of project successes?

The questions outlined above are preliminary and are expected to be revised and refined by the evaluation team during the inception phase of the evaluation.

Scope of the Evaluation

The final evaluation of the project is to be conducted externally by an international external consultant/evaluator in a team with one national consultant/assistant evaluator. It is planned to be carried out in Tbilisi, Shida Kartli and Samegrelo regions, and completed in 40 working days in the period of 1 December 2024 – 17 March 2025.

The final evaluation will include all aspects of the project and will cover almost the full project implementation period, including the extension phase.

Evaluation Design, Process and Methods

The evaluation methodology will be mixed (quantitative and qualitative research methods and analytical approaches) to account for complexity of gender relations and to ensure participatory and inclusive processes that are culturally appropriate. A theory of change approach will be followed, and the consultants are expected to reconstruct, validate, and identify the gaps in the project’s theories of change (for each of the Outcomes). The reconstructed theories of change should elaborate on following how the project has contributed to creating an enabling legislative, policy, institutional and economically enabling environment in line with internationally binding standards on gender-sensitive governance systems and women, peace, and security in Georgia. Assumptions should be tested and explain both the connections between early, intermediate, and long-term project outcomes and the expectations about how and why the project has brought them about. By reconstructing the Theories of Change evaluators are also expected to identify challenges and gaps in the implementation of the project on “Accelerating Implementation of Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Georgia” for future improvement.  Hence an eventual next phase of the project will benefit from a refined and tested Theories of Change.

Interviews and focus group discussions with all key stakeholders involved in the project implementation, including but not limited to project team, government partners, NGO partners, beneficiaries, etc.

The evaluation team should develop a sampling frame (area and population represented, rationale for selection, mechanism of selection, limitations of the sample) and specify how it will address the diversity of stakeholders in the intervention. The evaluation team should take measures to ensure data quality, reliability and validity of data collection tools and methods and their responsiveness to gender equality and human rights; for example, the limitations of the sample (representativeness) should be stated clearly, and the data should be triangulated (cross-checked against other sources) to help ensure robust results.

The evaluation process is divided in four phases: 1) Preparation, mainly devoted to structuring the evaluation approach, establishing reference group, preparing the TOR, compiling project documentation, and recruitment of the evaluation team; 2) Conduct, which involves reconstruction of theory of change, organizing inception meetings, drafting inception report and finalization of evaluation methodology, data collection and analysis, including desk research and preparation of interviews and focus groups, preparation of field missions and visits to project sites (data collection in the field will be implemented by national consultant based on the clear and specific guidelines from the international consultant); 3) Reporting, focusing on presentation of preliminary findings, developing draft and final reports; and 4) Use and follow-up, which will entail the development of management response by UN Women team and follow-up to the implementation of the management response.

The consultant will be responsible only for Conduct and Reporting phases:

• Conduct phase: at the beginning of the consultancy, the consultant will be provided with key sources of information for an initial desk review. The online inception meetings will be conducted with WPS Program team. In this phase an inception report that will include the refined evaluation methodology including data collection plan and instruments will be delivered. The inception report will be validated and approved by UN Women. Based on the inception phase, the consultant will carry out further in-depth desk review. Data collection will be carried out jointly by the international and national consultant. Online or face-to-face interviews and focus group discussions with key stakeholders, as relevant, will take place. Field missions will be conducted by international and national consultant jointly in line with data collection plan and instruments developed by the international consultant, while international consultant can also interview major English-speaking project partners online. National consultant will provide summaries of interviews in English to the consultant in line with the pre-agreed format and the international consultant will carry out further analysis.
• Reporting phase: The collected information will be analyzed, and final evaluation report will be delivered. A validation meeting will be organized where the consultant will validate the final report with UN Women and Evaluation Reference Group (ERG) and submit for approval by UN Women.

UN Women’s Independent Evaluation Service (IES) has developed the GERAAS, which has adapted UNEG Standards for Evaluation in the UN System to guide evaluation managers and evaluators on what constitutes a ‘good quality’ report at UN Women. All evaluations in UN Women are annually assessed against the framework adopted in GERAAS and hence the consultant should be familiar with GERAAS quality standards.

In addition, UN Women is an UN-SWAP reporting entity, and the consultant will take into consideration that all the evaluations in UN Women are annually assessed against the UN-SWAP Evaluation Performance Indicator and its related scorecard. T The evaluation will be conducted in accordance with UN Women evaluation guidelines and UNEG Norms and Standards for evaluation and the UNEG Code of Conduct for Evaluations in the UN System.[1]

Stakeholders Participation and Evaluation Management Structure

The evaluation will be a consultative, inclusive, and participatory process and will ensure the participation of stakeholders engaged in the implementation of the project.

The evaluation will be human rights and gender responsible, and an Evaluation Reference Group (ERG) will be established.

The Evaluation Reference Group is an integral part of the evaluation management structure and is constituted to facilitate the participation of relevant stakeholders in the design and scope of the evaluation, raising awareness of the different information needs, quality assurance throughout the process and in disseminating the evaluation results. The Evaluation Reference Group will be engaged throughout the process and will be composed of relevant representatives of state and non-state stakeholders. The ERG group will review the draft evaluation report and provide substantive feedback to ensure quality and completeness of the report and will participate in the inception and validation meeting of the final evaluation report.

The UN Women Georgia Monitoring and Evaluation Focal Point will serve as the Evaluation Task Manager, who will be responsible for day-to-day management of the evaluation and ensure that the evaluation 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 evaluation process will be supported by the UN Women Europe and Central Asia Regional Evaluation Specialist.

Coordination in the field including logistical support will be the responsibility of UN Women.

Within six weeks 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 relevant projects.

This is a consultative/participatory final project evaluation with a strong learning component. The management of the evaluation will ensure that key stakeholders are consulted.

The international consultant will lead the evaluation in close coordination with one (1) national consultant.

Description of Responsibilities/ Scope of Work

The international consultant evaluator will benefit from technical and operational support of UN Women Country Office in Georgia. In more specific terms, the national consultant will be providing support to the international consultant will be supported by the national evaluator and will be responsible for the following tasks:

• To conduct inception meetings/interviews with WPS Program staff and elaborate and submit the detailed inception report which contains evaluation objectives and scope, desk review, description of evaluation methodology / methodological approach, data collection tools, data analysis methods, key informants/agencies, evaluation questions, performance criteria, issues to be studied, work plan and reporting requirements. It should include a clear evaluation matrix linking all these aspects.
• To elaborate and finalize the data collection plan (outlining the roles of international and national consultants) and data collection tools (e.g. guides and questionnaires) individually designed for each respondent/group of respondents to be used during the interviews and focus-groups with the key informants/interviewees.
• To conduct individual interviews and focus groups discussions with the relevant stakeholders online and face-to-face with the support and together with national consultant.
• To analyze the data and reconstruct, validate, and identify the gaps in the project’s theory of change based on the research findings.
• To prepare a Power Point Presentation and an outline on preliminary findings and present to ERG and reflect the feedback shared at this presentation in the final report.
• To produce and submit the draft and final evaluation reports in English. Format of the final evaluation report shall include the following chapters: Executive Summary, Project description, Evaluation purpose, Evaluation methodology, Findings, Lessons learned, Recommendations and Annexes (including interview list – without identifying names for confidentiality, data collection instruments, key documents consulted, Terms of Reference).

Deliverables

1. Detailed Inception Report, which contains evaluation objectives and scope, findings from inception meetings with all relevant stakeholders, initial desk review, description of evaluation methodology/methodological approach, data collection plan and tools, data analysis methods, key informants/agencies, evaluation questions, performance criteria, issues to be studied, work plan and reporting requirements. It should include a clear evaluation matrix linking all these aspects – by 20 December 2024 (10 working days, home-based)
2. Data collected through interviews and focus group discussions – by 7 February (10 working days, in Georgia or home-based –fieldwork will be carried out by international consultant and national consultant jointly in line with the agreed guidelines)
3. Data analyzed and Power Point Presentation on preliminary findings conducted to highlight key evaluation findings and conclusions, lessons learnt and recommendations – by 21 February 2025 (5 working days, in Georgia or home-based)
4. Draft and Final Evaluation report & Evaluation brief that reflects key findings, conclusions and recommendations and deployed methodology (indicative samples will be provided by UN Women) in English taking into consideration comments and feedback collected from the presentation of preliminary findings. The report shall include the following chapters: Executive Summary, Introduction and Background, Evaluation approach and methodology, Findings, Conclusions, Lessons learnt, Recommendations and relevant Annexes – by 10 March 2025 (14 working days, home based). The evaluation team has to submit the initial draft of the evaluation report to Evaluation Reference Group after 10 working days and use the additional 4 days to address ERG comments/feedback and resubmit the final version to the Evaluation Task Manager).
5. Evaluation brief that reflects key findings, conclusions and recommendations and deployed methodology (indicative samples will be provided by UN Women) – by 17 March 2025 (1 working day).

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is a home-based consultancy.

As part of this assignment, there will be a trip to Tbilisi and maximum of 2 trips to the regions of Georgia: [location: Zugdidi and Gori] [Duration of stay: 3 days in Zugdidi, 2 days in Gori].

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is a home-based consultancy.

As part of this assignment, there will be a trip to Tbilisi and maximum of 2 trips to the regions of Georgia: [location: Zugdidi and Gori] [Duration of stay: 3 days in Zugdidi, 2 days in Gori].

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:

• 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
• Technical knowledge in monitoring and evaluation.

Ethical Considerations 

UNEG Ethical Guidance should be applied to the selection of methods for the evaluation and throughout the evaluation process. The consultant will sign the “Evaluation Consultants Agreement Form – UNEG Code of Conduct for Evaluation in the UN System” prior to the initiation of the evaluation process.

Required Qualifications: 

Education and Certification:<