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 is committed to promoting gender equality and empowering women globally, working to eliminate discrimination and achieve equality between women and men in all areas of life. The organization leads and coordinates efforts within the United Nations system to ensure that gender equality commitments are realized, providing strong leadership and fostering partnerships with civil society and other stakeholders.
Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) is central to UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and 2026-2029, aligning with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that focus on gender equality, decent work, poverty reduction, and inclusive growth. In the Asia-Pacific region, UN Women’s initiatives aim to advance gender-responsive business practices, transform the care economy, support women entrepreneurs, and promote gender-responsive markets for climate action. These efforts are integrated with broader work in sectors such as climate change, ending violence against women, and humanitarian action.
The UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific’s Women’s Economic Empowerment team is seeking to hire an International Monitoring and Evaluation Consultant. This position will be under the supervision and guidance of the Regional Advisor for Women’s Economic Empowerment. The Consultant will work closely with the Junior International Consultant on Monitoring and Evaluation.The consultant will have oversight and provide MEL support for the entire WEE portfolio and will lead the MEL for projects, such as:
Gender Action Lab: Gender Action Lab (GAL) for Asia and the Pacific aims to foster private sector innovations and concrete actions that advance gender equality and women’s empowerment and build more inclusive economies across the region. In collaboration with the private sector, the GAL will identify, pilot and scale up innovative multi-stakeholder partnership initiatives aligned with the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), such as thematic innovation labs, hackathons, incubators and accelerators, policy labs, applied research initiatives and other partnership support programmes. Finally, the GAL will generate new data and evidence and provide technical assistance to advance policy, investment and ecosystem development for gender-transformative innovations.
WE RISE Together Phase 2 (WRT 2.0) is an initiative funded and supported by the Australian Government through the Mekong-Australia Partnership (MAP) and implemented by UN Women over four years (1 March 2025 to 28 February 2029). The purpose of WRT 2.0 is to advance Gender-Responsive Procurement (GRP) in the Mekong subregion, targeting Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), Thailand and Viet Nam. The project will work on three outcome areas i) Outcome 1: Increased awareness and commitment to GRP, demonstrated through increased adoption of GRP practices by public and private institutions and strengthened gender-responsive data on procurement practices ii) Outcome 2: Strengthened national public policies and/or practices related to GRP and/or women-owned businesses (WOBs) / gender-responsive enterprises (GREs) promotion that are aligned with existing regional frameworks iii) Outcome 3: Increased market connections and opportunities for WOBs and GREs.
Climate and Care Entrepreneurship Programming: Supported by Visa Foundation, the UN Women Care and Climate Entrepreneurship Accelerator works across the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions to support women-owned and women-benefitting enterprises operating in the care economy, the green economy and their intersection. This gender-smart acceleration programme provides enterprises with essential business support, gender expertise, mentorship, access to opportunities to raise capital and access to networks to build inclusive and resilient businesses. It also fosters cross-regional collaboration and knowledge-sharing and engages policymakers, experts, financiers and enterprise-support organizations to strengthen the ecosystem of support for impact enterprises and to catalyse investments in the care and green economies.
Transform Care:The TransformCare Investment Initiative Asia-Pacific (TCII-AP) is a UN Women-convened initiative to make care systems prosperous for people and the planet. TransformCare is a global large-scale, long-term response aiming to catalyse multi-donor investments and multi-partner collaborations to build resilient care systems, serving as a foundation for caring societies and inclusive and green economies where women can fully realize their economic rights and participation. Advancing women’s economic empowerment by building caring societies and inclusive and green economies aims to contribute by 2035 to:
• Benefit 100 million women and girls in all their diversities
• Create 125 million new employment opportunities in the care economy in 2035 as well as in future-oriented sectors, including the green and digital economy
• Release 2 billion hours of time spent by women on unpaid care work
Caring Cities: Within TCII-AP, TRANSFORM CARE – Urban innovation in Care Delivery: Building Caring Societies in the context of the demographic transition builds on joint investments by the Republic of Korea and UN Women to transform care systems in Asia and the Pacific, with implementation in Thailand and Viet Nam. The project will aim to create an enabling environment to expand accessible, affordable quality care and increase decent work opportunities for women by strengthening urban care economies. Guided by gender-responsive care policies and practices, with integrated financing and service delivery solutions, multi-stakeholder coordination and partnerships will enable local governments and municipalities to implement transformative care system reforms.
The Care and Climate Catalyst Program Asia is a pioneering initiative anchored by Dharmalife Foundation gGmbH (Dharmalife Labs), in close collaboration with UN Women, The Asia Foundation (TAF), and London Business School, to address the urgent and intertwined challenges of unpaid care work and climate vulnerability across the Asia-Pacific region. At a time when the global care crisis is intensifying alongside the climate emergency (particularly affecting low-income, resource-scarce populations) this program aims to reimagine care systems, strengthen climate resilience, and advance women’s economic empowerment.
Description of Responsibilities /Scope of Work
The Consultant will undertake the following tasks:
Support the Regional Team with the monitoring, tracking, coordination, and reporting of the WEE Programme portfolio, as follows:
1. Lead M&E Planning, Monitoring and Reporting for Programme Specific Results
• Provide technical support to the design and review of WEE programme results frameworks linked to ROAP SN, development at the proposal and inception stage of project theories of change, logical frameworks, indicators, baselines and targets, in line with UN Women RBM standards, ROAP SN and donor requirements.
• Ensure alignment of WEE indicators with UN Women corporate indicators, ROAP SN, and donor requirements
• Support the development and implementation of monitoring and evaluation plans and tools, including development of gender-responsive and intersectional indicators e.g. GEDSI for projects aligned to ROAP SN as well as monitoring tracking tools
• Support data collection, validation, analysis and interpretation related to programmes on transforming care and women’s access to decent work, entrepreneurship, private sector engagement, sustainable finance and economic empowerment.
• Monitor programme implementation or support implementing partners or country offices in project monitoring
• Support the development and analysis of impact surveys aimed at measuring the progress and achievement of WEE programme activities at ROAP WEE unit
• Support the coordination, consolidation, and preparation of the end-of-programme donor report, incorporating inputs from regional and country programme teams and implementing partners.
• Assist in identifying and consolidating relevant findings, conclusions, and recommendations from programme reviews, studies, or research into programme reporting.
• Support quality checks of programme reports to ensure full compliance with operational reporting rules and regulations of UN Women and the donor incorporating feedback from ROAP wide M&R unit.
• Assist in reviewing reports, surveys, and other documents submitted by partners, and provide feedback to ensure results-based reporting, analysis, and accurate data capture.
• Support activities related to the final evaluation of WEE Programmes.
• Preparation of bi-annual and monthly annual donor project reports.2. Provide guidance, quality assurance and technical support to Programme Leads to support planning of monitoring and reporting work at the planning stage of Strategic Notes, unit workplans and donor projects in line with the corporate requirements
• Provide guidance and technical support to Programme Leads for the preparation of monitoring and reporting plan of projects including for Programme Partners, as well as planning of monitoring and reporting activities and its budget in programme workplans
• Provide guidance and technical support to ensure the quality of results framework of the programme results are aligned to and contribute to the ROAP Strategic Notes and of projects from monitoring and reporting perspectives.
• Provide guidance and technical support to ensure Programme leads collect baseline data in a timely manner with quality as a base to set milestones and targets of results framework of CO Strategic Note and of projects.
• Provide RBM capacity development support to Programme leads and upon request to COs at the planning stage to ensure the full integration of monitoring and reporting with data collection and analysis at the formulation stage of, workplans and projects.
• Support the alignment and mapping of results frameworks in line with the UN Women Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and ROAP SN 2026-2029.3. Coordinate and Lead results monitoring and corporate reporting work at the WEE Unit at ROAP
• Contribute to development of Strategic Note and workplans of RO WEE unit, by: 1) ensuring key lessons and recommendations generated from monitoring and reporting work are used for planning; 2) ensuring proper planning of monitoring and reporting work, including data collection and analysis, and its budget in RO, with development of monitoring/reporting plan of RO.
• Coordinate with relevant WEE unit colleagues to ensure that RO WEE contribution to the Strategic Note has all the necessary baseline data and set milestones and targets for results framework of RO Strategic Note, in line with UN Women Strategic Plan Integrated Results and Resources Framework.
• Coordinate the overall process within the WEE unit to monitor the implementation of RO Strategic Note and Workplan, ensuring the timely submission and quality of monitoring requirements in line with the relevant corporate policies, procedures and guidance.
• Assist with the coordination, consolidation, and preparation of results-based monitoring, reporting, and planning in compliance with UN Women’s results monitoring system (PRISM), including quarterly reports, annual results reports, and annual workplans.
• Identify and consolidate relevant findings, conclusions, and recommendations from programme reviews, studies, or research into reporting at corporate level (PRISM).
• Support the analysis of impact surveys aimed at measuring the progress and achievement of WEE programme activities at regional and country levels.
• Ensure the data entry and quality assurance of WEE monitoring and reporting work and its data in corporate systems, including RMS/PRISM.
• Ensure the quality of reporting of WEE results and data against RO Strategic Note before publishing in UN Women’s Transparency Portal.
• Provide RBM-related guidance and technical support to WEE unit at RO personnel to improve results monitoring and reporting with data, with the use of RBM resources and relevant policies, procedures and guidance from HQ.
• Provide guidance and technical support to personnel in the WEE unit at RO o ensure the effective use of corporate systems (i.e. RMS/PRISM and Quantum) for RO’s monitoring and reporting process.
• Manage documentation in the area of results monitoring and reporting within the WEE unit at the Regional Office and contribute to audits, evaluations and other assessments.
• Contribute to regional-level joint monitoring and reporting with UN partners and other key partners under regional inter-agency mechanisms as relevant for joint programmes in WEE.4. Supervision Responsibilities, Capacity Development and Knowledge Sharing in consultation with and approval of the WEE Technical Advisor
• Supervision responsibilities to work closely with the Junior M&E Consultant to support M&E across the full portfolio of the WEE Unit
• Build capacity of Junior M&E Consultant on RBM, monitoring and evaluation approaches relevant to WEE programming
• Provide clear technical guidance, task assignments and priorities and support to the Junior Consultant in support of WEE monitoring, evaluation and reporting activities.
• Review, quality-assure and provide substantive feedback on draft outputs prepared by the Junior Consultant, including data collection tools, monitoring matrices, reports, presentations and knowledge products.
• Facilitate on-the-job learning and capacity development of the Junior Consultant in monitoring and evaluation methodologies, data analysis and results reporting and identify relevant M&E career development opportunities for training and skills development in consultation with and approval of the WEE Technical Advisor
• Undertake monitoring field visits together with the Junior M&E consultant on an ad hoc basis in consultation with and approval of the WEE Technical Advisor
• Support learning and reflection processes within the WEE portfolio, including lessons learned workshops and adaptive management discussions.
• Contribute to cross-unit, cross-regional and corporate level knowledge exchange and learning on results monitoring and reporting in close collaboration with other Regional Monitoring and Reporting Specialists from other ROs and HQ colleagues.5. The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organisation.
Expected Deliverables
Provide monthly progress report on the following Monitoring & Evaluation activities:
- M&E Planning, Monitoring and Reporting for Programme Specific Results
- Guidance, quality assurance and technical support to Programme Leads to support planning of monitoring and reporting work at the planning stage of Strategic Notes, unit workplans and donor projects in line with the corporate requirements
- Internal UN Women reporting and external donor reporting Monitoring and corporate reporting work at the WEE Unit at ROAP
- Supervision Responsibilities, Capacity Development and Knowledge Sharing
- Programme Monitoring
Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel
This is an office-based consultancy in Bangkok, Thailand. The consultant may be required to travel to the Asia-Pacific region for the purpose of this assignment, where required by the Regional Lead, Women’s Economic Empowerment and Migration. Travel will be arranged by UN Women following UN Women’s Travel Policy.
SCHEDULE OF PAYMENTS
A monthly rate will be paid upon submission of a monthly update reports with an approval of the supervisor.
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 understanding and knowledge of programme formulation and implementation and Results Based Management
- Strong understanding and knowledge of monitoring and evaluation, evaluation design, data collection and analysis, and reporting
- Strong experience managing multi-country reporting and evaluation
- Ability to synthesize program performance data and produce analytical reports
- Very good analytical and results-based drafting skills
- Knowledge of UN programme management systems
Education and Certification:
- Master’s degree in Business, Management, Statistics, Political or Social Science, Economics, International Development Studies, Gender/ Women’s Studies or related fields.
A first-level university degree in similar fields in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
Experience:
- At least 5 years of relevant experience in monitoring and evaluation, with experience in WEE
- Strong knowledge of various data collection methods is required.
- Experience with UN Women and other UN agencies is required.
- Experience working with international donors e.g. but not limited to EU or Australian DFAT or Canada is an asset.
- Experience working in the Asia Pacific region is an asset.
- Experience working in Knowledge Management is an asset.
Language and report writing requirements
- Strong proficiency in English. Other UN languages an asset.
- Strong results-based drafting skills (including progress reports, concept notes, analytical papers) to be assessed through a writing sample.
- Certification of training in M&E is desirable
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:
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If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.
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