International Consultant for Conducting the Final Evaluation of the Tied Grant Project: “Assisting Kazakhstan in the Implementation of the Concept of Family and Gender Policy to Ensure Gender Equality and Empower All Women and Girls

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.

Since September 2022, UN Women and the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan (MCI) with support of the National Commission on Women’s Affairs, Family and Demographic Policy of under the President of Republic of Kazakhstan (NC) are implementing a project funded by the Government of Kazakhstan “Assisting Kazakhstan in the implementation of the Concept of Family and Gender Policy in terms of ensuring gender equality and empowering all women and girls in Kazakhstan, as well as overcoming the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis”. The project is implemented with involvement of UN agencies, such as UNFPA and UNESCO. 

The results obtained within the framework of the project intend to make a significant contribution to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development through the mainstreaming of gender aspects, which are an integral part of all 17 SDGs. The project aims to achieve a particular impact on the accomplishment of the SDG 5 targets and indicators, which are ensuring gender equality and empowering all women and girls. Since achieving gender equality by 2030 is almost impossible without decisive action, it is necessary to eliminate the main causes of discrimination against women in the public and private spheres. 

The project includes comprehensive work on three components in the field of promoting gender equality and empowering women through providing support for the effective implementation of the Concept of Family and Gender Policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan by 2030. This will: strengthen gender aspects in the education system; increase the capacity of representative legislative and executive bodies authorities to develop; approve and implement gender-responsive programs and projects, such as economic empowerment of women from vulnerable groups of the population; strengthen the capacity of civil servants for gender assessment of the national legislation and regulations for further improvement in terms of gender equality; increase potential of national partners in integrating gender-sensitive expertise of legislative acts and draft laws; and raise public awareness about issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The project is implemented within the Donor Agreement for the period of 2022-2024 between UN Women and the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan. 

In 2025 UN Women is planning to conduct a final evaluation of the project with involvement of the independent international consultant.

Objective

A final evaluation of the Tied Grant is taking place during the last year of the project implementation with a focus on assessing the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, and sustainability of the project. 

The evaluation will follow UN Women’s Independent Evaluation Office guidance, and United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) norms and standards, and the ethical code of conduct for evaluations in the UN system. It will be a Human Rights and Gender Responsive evaluation process. 

The objectives of this evaluation are to: 

• Assess how the project design matches with the complexity of addressing the gender equality, enhancing women’s political participation and women’s economic empowerment principles;
• Assess how effective have the selected programme strategies and approaches been in progressing towards achieving project results and contributing to gender equality;
• Assess to what extent expected outputs and outcomes have been achieved;
• Assess how adaptably and rapidly did the project react to the changing country context, including political and legal;
• Assess if the coordination mechanism established led to better project results;
• Provide recommendations with regard to future work to address the gender equality.

The findings of the evaluation are expected to contribute to strategic decision-making, organization learning, and accountability, and will be used for the design of future related interventions in the country. The evaluation should provide specific recommendations as to the priority areas that should be considered to inform future programming. 

Targeted users of the evaluation are national partners, project beneficiaries, UN agencies and the institutions and experts working in this field, and UN Women, which also administers the joint evaluation adhering to the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) norms and standards for evaluation. 

Within six weeks after the approval of the final evaluation report partner entities will produce a joint Management Response (MR) to evaluation recommendations in consultation with key partners. The final evaluation and related MR will be disseminated among MCI and National commission and other relevant national partners. 

Scope of evaluation

The final evaluation of the project will be conducted during the final stage of the project implementation and will cover the period from September 2022 to May 2025. A Programme monitoring and evaluation will be carried out in accordance with the respective regulations, rules and procedures of UN Women.

The evaluation will be conducted during March - September 2025 and will include data collection and missions to the country and it’s targeted to cover all aspects of the programme implementation. 

The project was implemented countrywide, with activities carried out at both the central and regional levels. Some activities were focused on capacity building of national partners, while others, including trainings and events, were conducted in various regions of Kazakhstan. Therefore, the geographical scope of the evaluation will cover both the national level and selected local levels across the country.

An evaluation team will be assembled consisting of an international consultant acting as the evaluation Team Leader who will be the main responsible person for the satisfactory delivery of all the deliverables listed above, and a national consultant who will support all substantive aspects of the evaluation. The international consultant, as team leader, is responsible for overall coordination of the production of deliverables during all phases of the evaluation process, ensuring the quality of outputs and application of methodology as well as timely delivery of all evaluation products in close collaboration with the evaluation team, the evaluation task manager and the evaluation management group. The international Team Leader is expected to lead the data collection.

Duties and responsibilities of the international evaluation team leader

• Leading the inception phase and developing an inception report outlining design, approach and methodology of the evaluation and an the workplan of the evaluation team
• Directing and supervising the work of the local evaluation consultant in carrying out collection, research and analysis of relevant documentation and other data
• Leading data collection missions in selected locations
• Overseeing and assuring quality of data collection and leading the analysis of the evaluation evidence
• Preparing for meetings with the reference groups and other stakeholders 
• Leading the preparation of the draft and final evaluation reports and evaluation communication products

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:

• Strong analytical, writing and reporting abilities
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, ability to lead a team and negotiate amongst a wide range of stakeholders
• Commitment to quality products and deadlines
• Builds strong relationships
• Focuses on impact and results and responds positively to feedback
• Approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
• Demonstrates/safeguards ethics and integrity
• Demonstrated corporate knowledge and sound judgment
• Acts as a team player and facilitates teamwork
• Facilitates and encourages open communication in the team, communicating effectively
• Learns and shares knowledge and encourages learning of others
• Demonstrates integrity and fairness by modelling UN values and ethical standards
• Demonstrates professional competence and is conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results
• Displays cultural, gender, nationality, religion and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Education and Certification:

• At least a master’s degree in social sciences, economics, international relations, gender studies or a relevant social science related area

Experience:

• 7 years of relevant experience of periodically conducting evaluations of strategies, policies and/or development programmes and projects
• Proven experience of designing and leading or participating in gender-responsive and human rights-based evaluations utilising participatory approaches and methodologies
• Previous experience working in the Central Asian countries will be considered an asset
• Experience with the United Nations system will be considered an asset
• Knowledge and experience in gender equality and women’s empowerment, gender mainstreaming and gender analysis

Functional skills: 

• Demonstrated facilitation and communications skills, experience in participatory approaches and ability to negotiate amongst a wide range of stakeholders
• Ability to produce well-written analytical reports

Languages:

• Proficiency in English 
• Knowledge of Russian in this evaluation will be considered an asset.

Statements :

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.

Diversity and inclusion:

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)

Note: Applicants must ensure that all sections of the application form, including the sections on education and employment history, are completed. If all sections are not completed the application may be disqualified from the recruitment and selection process.