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 supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes and services needed to implement these standards. It stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life, focusing on five priority areas: increasing women’s leadership and participation; ending violence against women; engaging women in all aspects of peace and security processes; enhancing women’s economic empowerment; and making gender equality central to national development planning and budgeting. UN Women also coordinates and promotes the UN system’s work in advancing gender equality.
Although many positive results have been achieved since Georgia began actively working on accelerating gender equality laws and policies in 1994 (CEDAW ratification year), significant challenges remain in formal as well as informal policies, practices and procedures across state institutions as well as public sector that hinder the achievement of substantive gender equality. To enhance good governance and democratic development of Georgia and to strengthen the private sector’s role in women’s economic empowerment, UN Women Georgia Country Office, with the generous support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway implemented the first phase of the “Good Governance for Gender Equality in Georgia” project from 2019 to 2023. Within the framework of the project, UN Women laid important foundations for introducing a gender mainstreaming agenda to key stakeholders and generating political ownership over its implementation by the national stakeholders, the Government, civil society and the private sector. As a direct result of the project, Georgia undertook substantial steps towards the materialization of commitments under the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA). These included adoption of legal changes to introduce the Gender Impact Assessment (GIA) as a part of the law-making cycle, integrating gender equality issues in the 2023-2027 Public Administration Reform Strategy and Action Plan and developing capacity of up to 1,400 public servants on gender responsive budgeting and gender mainstreaming more broadly. Further, the analysis of the actions that the private sector companies beneficiaries of the 1st phase of the project took to implement the Women’s Empowerment Principles: Equality Means Business (WEPs) varied widely and benefited almost 12,000 women in total from 2017 to 2021. In monetary terms, the total value of the WEPs companies’ work for gender equality amounted to GEL 1.7 million (equivalent to USD 627,383); the largest amount was spent on procuring goods/services from women entrepreneurs/women-owned businesses. A more than GEL 600,000 (equivalent to USD 221,429) was spent by respondent companies on WEPs activities that included training, grants and scholarships for the internal staff and money spent on community organizations and grants for women outside of the companies.” In addition, only in 2021, 10 WEPs companies fundraised more than USD 900,000 for advancing gender equality agenda from various international financial institutions, local banks and donors. The final evaluation of the GG4GEG project is available here: https://gate.unwomen.org/Evaluation/Details?evaluationId=11525 .
To accelerate achievement of the project’s ambitious goals and objectives and for the sustainability of the results, with the generous support of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) UN Women implements the second phase of the GG4GEG project in 2023-2025. Building on the results achieved and lessons learned, as well as capitalizing on strategic partnerships harnessed with key government, civil society and private sector counterparts as a part of its 1st phase, the GG4GEG II focuses on accelerating political will, policies and capacities to promote gender mainstreaming across governance systems and processes aligned with the BPfA and CEDAW benchmarks, as well as Georgia’s EU approximation aspirations. The project started in 1st of July 2023 and runs for 30 months with an end date in 31st of December, 2025. The total budget of the project is USD 2,805,311.
The impact-level goal of the GG4GEG II project is to ensure that women and girls in all their diversity benefit from gender-responsive governance and fully and equally participate in decision-making and economic life in Georgia. In order to contribute to the achievement of this impact-level goal, the project has set two outcomes, each with three interlinked outputs, described below.
Outcome 1: Gender-responsive legislative and policy frameworks are adopted and implemented to promote gender equality and women’s meaningful participation in decision-making and leadership at all levels
• Output 1.1: Laws, policies and capacities for gender mainstreaming in public policymaking and implementation and public finance management are developed and sustained at all levels
• Output 1.2: Public sector institutions and their human resource management policies and practices integrate gender equality and promote women’s participation and leadership at the national and local levels
• Output 1.3: More and better-quality data and analysis are available to promote and track the progress of gender equality and women’s empowerment
Outcome 2: Women are empowered economically and access entrepreneurial and employment opportunities through a gender-sensitive private sector and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Georgia
• Output 2.1: Businesses have increased understanding and capacities to implement the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs)
• Output 2.2: Women-owned enterprises are empowered through enabling, gender-sensitive entrepreneurial ecosystem and equal access to Business Development Support (BDS), markets and capital.
• Output 2.3: Women, particularly the poor and socially excluded, obtain skills and access information, networks, economic opportunities and support services to become farmers/entrepreneurs or to join the formal labour sector
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. The final evaluation will be designed as a summative project evaluation to support the strategic learning and planning processes, focusing on the assessment of outcome- and output-level results and capturing the key lessons learned from project implementation.
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.
Main evaluation users include UN Women Country Office in Georgia as well as the Government of Norway (project donor). Furthermore, national stakeholders – civil society partners, private companies, grassroots 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
• 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 Government of Norway in the areas of good governance and women’s economic empowerement.
• 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. Human Rights and Gender Equality will be included as an additional criterion. The evaluation will seek to answer the following key evaluation questions/sub-questions which will be furthered tailored during the inception phase of the evaluation:
• Relevance: A) How does the project reflect and align with gender equality 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 the UN Women CO Strategic Note? 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) Has the project achieved any unforeseen results, either positive or negative? For whom? 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 achievement of WEE results?
• Human Right and Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women: A) Has the project been implemented according to human rights and development effectiveness principles (Participation / empowerment; Inclusion / non-discrimination; National accountability / transparency)? B) Is the project design tailored to target the underlying causes of gender inequality and address LNOB? C) To what extent is the project changing the dynamics of power in relationships between different groups, including backlash on gender equality?
• 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?
• 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 extend 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 extend have the project’s exit strategy been well planned and successful? F) To what extend 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 two national consultants/evaluators. It is planned to be carried out in Tbilisi, with a possibility of field visits, completed in 40 working days in the period of 26 May 2025 – 30 November 2025.
The final evaluation will include all aspects of the project and will cover almost the full project implementation period, starting from July, 2023 to September, 2025.
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 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 GG4GEG project team, government partners, NGO partners, beneficiaries, etc. shall also take place.
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 GG4GEG 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 consultants 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. 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.
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 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 two (2) national consultants.
Description of Responsibilities/ Scope of Work
The national consultants/evaluators will work under the direct supervision of the international evaluator and will benefit from technical and operational support of UN Women Country Office in Georgia. The national consultants are expected to provide key contextual information and perspective to design and deliver a robust utilisation-focused evaluation will be responsible for the following tasks:
• To provide country contextual advice and support to the international evaluator in designing and delivering contextually relevant and sensitive project evaluation;
• To collect and review all relevant materials, such as reports, assessments, studies and draft laws, etc.
• Provide outline/translation of all key documents from Georgian into English to the international consultant, as needed.
• To contribute to the development of methodology and evaluation instruments, i.e. focus group and interview guides and translate the final instruments in Georgian if needed.
• To support arrangement of meetings, focus group discussions, interviews with key beneficiaries and stakeholders of the project together and in consultation with UN Women.
• To support the international consultant to conduct individual interviews and focus groups discussions with the relevant stakeholders online and face-to-face.
• To participate in all the meetings, focus group discussions and interviews, provide interpretation as needed, take notes and prepare summaries in English.
• To conduct focus groups and in-depth interviews with selected respondents independently (including the regions of Georgia), using the agreed guides and provide the international consultant with the summaries of the interviews and focus groups.
• To support international consultant in analyzing the data.
• To be available if further clarification is needed by the international evaluator during the drafting and finalization process of the evaluation and provide inputs to the evaluation report as needed.
• To support the international consultant in preparing 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 prepare a brief narrative report on fulfillment of all the tasks assigned by this ToR.
Deliverables
• Desk review of all relevant materials such as reports, assessments, studies, draft laws, etc. completed and summaries/translations of all key Georgian documents, as needed, provided to the international consultant – by 16 June 2025 (5 working days).
• Evaluation methodology including the instruments finalized and selected guides translated in Georgian– by 30 June 2025 (5 working days).
• Meetings, interviews and focus group discussions on consultation with the international consultant arranged, conducted and relevant summaries prepared – by 30 July 2025 (15 working days).
• Support to the international consultant in data analysis and preparing 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 provided - by 15 September 2025 (3 working day).
• Inputs and clarifications provided to the evaluation report prepared by the international consultant – by 30 November 2025 (2 working days).
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 (Shida Kartli, Imereti, Guria, Samegrelo and/or Kakheti) with a total stay of maximum 6 days
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:
Will be added separately for each position
• 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:
• Master’s degree or equivalent in Gender Studies, Social Sciences, Public Policy, Social Policy, or a related field is required
• A first-level university degree in combination with four (4) additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
Experience:
• At least 2 (two) years’ experience in conducting/supporting evaluations of strategies, policies, and projects, in lieu of advanced degree, or 4 (four) years of similar experience in case of first level university degree
• At least 2 (two) years of experience in conducting qualitative research, including developing qualitative research instruments, conducting interviews and focus groups and analyzing data, in lieu of advanced degree, or 4 (four) years of similar experience in case of first level university degree
• At least 2 (two) years of experience in gender equality, gender mainstreaming, gender analysis and/or women’s empowerment issues, in lieu of advanced degree, or 4 (four) years of similar experience in case of first level university degree
• Excellent writing and reporting skills with ability to prepare minutes and document key findings of the meetings/consultations/interviews.
• Experience of gender analysis and human-rights based approaches;
• Knowledge of gender equality situation in Georgia is an asset;
Languages:
• Proficiency in English and Georgian.
Notes:
• Managers may ask (ad hoc) for any other materials relevant to pre-assessing the relevance of their experience, such as reports, presentations, publications, campaigns, or other materials.
TOR Annexes
1. UNEG Code of Conduct for Evaluations - http://www.unevaluation.org/document/detail/100
2. UNEG Ethical Guidelines - http://www.unevaluation.org/document/detail/102
3. UNEG Norms for Evaluation in the UN System - http://www.uneval.org/document/detail/21
4. UNEG Standards for Evaluation in the UN System - http://www.uneval.org/document/detail/22
5. UNEG Guidance Integrating Human Rights and Gender in the UN System - http://www.uneval.org/document/detail/22
6. UN Women Evaluation Handbook - http://www.uneval.org/document/detail/1616
7. UN SWAP Evaluation Performance Indicator and related Scorecard - http://genderevaluation.unwomen.org/en/evaluation-handbook
8. Evaluation Consultants Agreement Form - http://www.uneval.org/document/detail/1452
Statements:
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Diversity and inclusion:
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