Below is a brief summary of the Strategic Note in Ethiopia

For UN Women, the Country Office (CO) Strategic Note (SN) is the main planning tool for the agency’s support to normative, coordination and operational work. The current UN Women Ethiopia Strategic Note is aligned with the UN Women Strategic Plan (2014-2017) the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II) 2015/2016 to 2019/2020 and UNDAF (20016-2020).

The UN Women Ethiopia Strategic Note (SN (2017-2020) is informed and guided by the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Africa Agenda 2063. Within this context, UN Women Ethiopia Strategic Note (SN) 2017-2020 outlines the overall strategy and plan of action for the Country Office for the years 2017-2020. Its content was updated after a thorough strategic mid-term review (MTR) in October 2018.

N Women Ethiopia plays a dual role as the Country Office for Ethiopia and, as the Liaison Office to the Africa Union Commission (AUC) and Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). Therefore, this context analysis presents both: the country context for Ethiopia and the Africa context at continental level. The Ethiopia CO contributes to all 17 SDGs through its impact areas. It coordinates interagency structures and processes towards the localisation and implementation, of global, regional and national commitments including the SDGs as part of its normative role. In addition, it leads and coordinates the UN system’s work on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE). The Country Office (CO) also promotes accountability, including the implementation of a regular monitoring system.

The current SN (2017 – 2020) is aligned with the Ethiopia Growth and Transformation Plan II (2015 – 2020) and the UNDAF (2016 – 2020). It is informed by broad consultations with a broad range of partners at both the national and regional level, including consultations held with MoWCY and Sector Ministries at federal and regional levels, the CSO Advisory Group, implementing partners, the UN system, donor partners the AUC, Regional CSOs. In line with the UN Women Strategic Plan (2014-2017), UN Women Ethiopia’s vision is to become “a centre of excellence and knowledge hub for GEWE with capacity and clout to influence national and regional political, social and economic agenda“ by 2020. The Programme is divided into two parts, Ethiopia Country Programme and the Liaison to AU and ECA Programme

In 2018, a mid-term review was conducted on the SN whose key lesson learnt were the following:

• UN Women Mandate. The majority of partners consulted, including AUC, Ethiopia Government and CSOs (Regional and Ethiopia level), indicated that no other agency plays the brokering and coordination role better than UN Women. In a context where there are many actors on GEWE with a lot more resources, UN Women needs to bring in high-level technical policy advice to its partners.
• Prioritisation and focus: In terms of its Liaison role, although partnership with AUC and other key stakeholder is opportunity based, the ECO will adopt a systematic prioritisation led by a strategy. It is imperative that UN Women unequivocally establishes itself as the frontline coordinator and thought leader that catalyses multi-stakeholder strategic partnerships for GEWE in Africa through clearly defined priorities, strategies and resources.
• Value for money. UN Women needs to more effectively demonstrate its delivery of value for money, including through timely and quality donor reporting and strengthening its Knowledge Management and Communications.
• Internal capacity. The small staff capacity within the Liaison function will not allow the ECO to meet the increasing demands for support from AUC and other partners. To strengthen delivery on UN Women’s normative and intergovernmental mandate, the ECO should also enhance the capacity of its staff to provide sound analysis of policies, decisions and good practices in supporting the CO’s advocacy and programmatic actions on GEWE priorities.
• Synergies between regional and national programming and regional advocacy. The convening role of the ECO Liaison Unit of the Regional and International Inter-Governmental process (including the Africa Union Summits, the Africa Pre-CSW ministerial consultations and Beijing review processes) is a critical function, which will require further strengthening. Timely information sharing from the ECO to UN Women offices in Africa and vice-versa including through Country focal points arrangement will be critical to achieve a coherent approach to coordination of UN Women’s support to these processes.
• Addressing the root causes of inequalities. Targeting capacity building for women, without bringing men on board to address gender relations and patriarchal attitudes does not bring sustainable results. As such UN Women launched the HeforShe Campaign in December 2015 with the objective of expanding the reach to Male Champions for the cause of women’s rights and gender equality.
• Increased knowledge management role- UN Women needs to strengthen its capacity to generate quality, regular, comparable and reliable data to maintain its position as a knowledge hub and centre of excellence on GEWE.
• The high importance of institutionalised capacity building – There is a need for institutionalised capacity building programmes to ensure sustainability of programmes. Having in place an integrated approach would help maximise impact. Equally, engaging stakeholders at all levels especially at grass root level.

The Ethiopia SN was revised based on the mid-term review findings and includes the following result area (Impact area):

• Result Area 1: Women lead and participate in decision making at all levels
• Result Area 2: Women, especially the poorest of the poor are economically empowered and benefit from development
• Result Area 3: Women and girls live a life free from violence
• Result Area 5: Governance and national planning fully reflect accountability for gender equality commitments and priorities

The total planned budget of the Ethiopia Strategic Note was USD 29,945,281.46 as per the SN Mid Term Review. As of March 2020, the total resources mobilized are 36,223,200 USD including 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Duties And Responsibilities

Scope of the evaluation

The period covered by the evaluation is from January 2017 to April 2020.

The evaluation team are expected to establish the boundaries for the evaluation, especially in terms of which stakeholders and relationships will be included or excluded from the evaluation. These will need to be discussed in the Inception Workshop.

UN Women organisational structures and systems outside of the Country Office (such as regional architecture) are not within the scope of this evaluation and should be referenced only where a there is a clear implication for the design and implement of the CO Strategic Note. Joint programmes and programming are within the scope of the evaluation. Where joint programmes are included in the analysis, the evaluation will consider both the specific contribution of UN Women, and the additional benefits and costs from working through a joint modality. The specificity of the Delivering as One (DaO) framework and UN Women’s contribution to national development results through the UNDAF will be part of the scope of the evaluation.

The evaluation is recommended to apply the Women’s Empowerment Framework developed by Sara Hlupekile Longwe as a way to conceptualize the process of empowerment. This will help frame progressive steps towards increasing equality, starting from meeting basic welfare needs to equality in the control over the means of production

The evaluation team is expected to undertake a rapid evaluability assessment in the inception stage. This should include the following:

• An assessment of the relevance, appropriateness and coherence of the implicit or explicit theory of change, strengthening or reconstructing it where necessary through a stakeholder workshop;
• An assessment of the quality of performance indicators in the DRF and OEEF, and the accessibility and adequacy of relevant documents and secondary data;
• A review of the conduciveness of the context for the evaluation;
• Ensuring familiarity with accountability and management structures for the evaluation.

The evaluation team will need to undertake an initial assessment of the availability of secondary data necessary for the evaluation in each country. Additionally, in circumstances where constraints are faced such as limited travel or accessibility to project sites, these limitations should be understood and generalizing findings should be avoided where a strong sample has not been used. In addition, cultural aspects that could impact the collection of data should be analysed and integrated into data collection methods and tools. Evaluators are expected to include adequate time for testing data collection tools and also creative data collection tools in the eventual situation of having travel restrictions.

Competencies

Compliance Of The UN Core Values

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards.
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women.
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism.
• Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Required Skills And Experience

Education

• Advanced Degree in Social Sciences, Development Studies, Law, Human rights, Politics, Gender, Women studies or other relevant field and with formal research skills. A professional training in Monitoring and Evaluation and Results-Based Management is considered an asset

Experience

• At least seven years of progressive experience in conducting evaluations as team leader Internationally
• Ability to manage and supervise evaluation teams and ensure timely submission of quality evaluation reports

Language

• High proficiency in English

Application process?

Interested candidates should apply online by latest 5th of July. Candidates should submit (1) a letter of interest, (2) a personal CV, (3) availability during the months from July to October 2020. Shortlisted candidates will be requested to take a short oral interview as part of the final selection process. Please share required doucments to ana.gomez@unwome.org