UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT FUND FOR WOMEN (UNIFEM)

CONSULTANCY ANNOUNCEMENT

Terms of Reference
Evaluation Consultants for the Project
Strengthening Women’s Legal Rights in Aceh

1. Background

Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD or Aceh) was still a conflict-torn region when the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004 struck. The impact of the disaster was devastating to Acehnese communities emotionally, economically, socially and environmentally. Aceh, more than any other place, bore the brunt of the disaster with estimates of 130,000 deaths, 37,000 missing and nearly 500,000 internally displaced persons living in barracks, makeshift camps and host communities. The majority of victims are believed to be women.

Despite this, Acehnese women survivors took on vital roles during the emergency period as well as during the reconstruction phase by volunteering, providing care for relatives and orphaned children, offering emotional support to grieving survivors, engaging in aid distribution, providing health care services, as well as grassroots organizing, mobilizing existing networks, promoting and sharing essential information to affected communities, and facilitating capacity building activities for fellow women and men. Notwithstanding their involvement in post tsunami Aceh, official reports and field accounts indicate that women have been marginalized and excluded from the redevelopment of Aceh across all sectors and levels. Additional concerns exist for women in the context of the reassertion of Syariah Islam in Aceh and discriminatory interpretations of the law.

The Law on Governing Aceh (LoGA) was passed in July 2006 marking an important step in fulfilling a major commitment of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Government of Indonesia (GoI) and GAM (The Free Aceh Movement) signed on 15 August 2005. Based on the LoGA and national law No. 18/2001 on Special Autonomy for Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, Aceh has the right to develop and pass qanun (local by-laws). This is a critical time in Aceh to ensure that principles of gender equality and non-discrimination are incorporated into qanun making.

Responding to the aforementioned concerns and particularly the reassertion of Syariah Islam and need for legal reform, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) has been implementing the project, “Strengthening Women’s Legal Rights in Aceh” which commenced in April 2007. The project is supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and funded by a grant of One million two hundred thousand Canadian Dollars (CAD$1,200,000.00) for a project duration of 24 months.

Focusing on mainstreaming gender equality perspectives into the development of qanun, the project aims to strengthen key institutions and a core group of strategically positioned advocates to promote women’s legal rights in the context of Aceh’s autonomous legal reform, and increase awareness and application of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in the context of Muslim society. The process of integrating gender into legal reform in this project is guided by gender equality principles in Islam and CEDAW. The convergence of Islam and CEDAW provides the framework for ensuring better legal protection of women’s rights in the post-tsunami and post-conflict recovery process.

2. Purpose of the evaluation

Being in the final year of implementation, as it was committed in the project document, a final independent evaluation will be conducted. The evaluation has the following purposes:

1. To assess and validate the results of the project in terms of achievements/gaps in delivering  outputs, contributing to outcomes, reaching target beneficiaries, the factors that affected the results, and the potential for sustainability;
2. To analyze the effectiveness of the overall strategy and approaches of the project on strengthening women’s access to legal rights, including the use of converging gender equality principles in CEDAW and Islam as an approach, capacity building,  partnerships, and knowledge generation and dissemination;
3. To analyze lessons learned on both substantive and project management issues, specifically broader learning for UNIFEM overall approach to support legal reform and access to justice applying the framework of CEDAW in the context of Muslim societies;
4. To provide inputs for a second phase of the project.

• Finalizing the second phase of the project – its focus and strategy
• UNIFEM’s strategic reflection and learning on its work on to support legal reform and gender justice applying the gender equality principles in CEDAW and Islam in Aceh as a catalytic mechanism for the advancement of women’s human rights;
• Convening other partners (UN, Government, civil society) to share findings and stimulate broader collaboration on legal reform and access to justice using the gender equality principles in CEDAW and Islam.

3. Description of the project “Strengthening Women’s Legal Rights in Aceh”

The project focuses on mainstreaming gender equality perspectives into Aceh’s autonomous legal reform with particular attention to upcoming qanuns. The project adopts a gender-sensitive rights perspective to legal reform in Aceh, using the synergies between CEDAW and Islam, as the mechanism to ensure that gender equality and women’s empowerment perspectives are mainstreamed into Aceh’s legal reform. Enhancing women’s access to rights and entitlements from a CEDAW perspective cannot be realized without addressing gender discrimination in interpretation and implementation of the existing Syariah in Aceh. The convergence of gender equality principles in Islam and CEDAW provides the framework for advancing women’s legal rights in Aceh. Work on defining this convergence has been done in different parts of the world, including Morocco, South Africa and Malaysia and will support the process of determining the interface between the international normative standards of substantive equality and non-discrimination as contained in CEDAW and other human rights instruments and gender equality human rights principles in Islam. The interface of these perspectives needs to be defined, claimed and owned by Acehnese advocates of gender equality and human rights.

The goal of the project is to improve the lives of women in Aceh by enhancing their role in the political, social and economic institutions of Aceh.

The expected outcomes are:

1. Selected qanuns are gender responsive and women are empowered to claim their rights.
2. Improved understanding, technical capacity, commitment and leadership to integrate gender equality into selected qanuns among gender advocates and mainstream institutions.
3. CEDAW-Syariah/Islam knowledge base adapted, localized and institutionalized to strengthen advocacy for women’s legal rights in Islam.

The expected outputs are:

1. Strengthened partnerships/collaboration among and between multiple stakeholders advocating for mainstreaming of gender sensitive perspectives into selected qanuns.
2. Increased capacity of key stakeholders to influence the mainstreaming of gender perspectives into selected qanuns.
3. Increased availability and use of documentation and resource materials on CEDAW-Syariah/Islam.

See the logical framework analysis in Annex I.

4. Scope of the Evaluation: Evaluation questions

Regarding the geographic scope, the evaluation will focus its analysis on the work done at the provincial level in Aceh. The evaluation will cover the timeframe 2007-2009, from the initial implementation stage to the completion of project phase. The evaluation will also be forward looking in terms of the design of the project for future stages and replicable models. It will therefore be a summative evaluation, with a significant formative component.

The evaluation will address a number of key questions in two main areas:

1. Results: questions on the achievement of results of the project based on specific outcomes and corresponding outputs.
2. Strategy: questions on the effectiveness of using converging gender equality principles in  CEDAW-Islam as an approach/framework for engendering qanun making, and lessons learnt for UNIFEM.

For the development of the second phase, the evaluation is to shed light on strategic areas for UNIFEM’s work on advancing women’s legal rights in Aceh in the context of the Aceh Recovery Framework (ARF). ARF (2008-2011) presents the Government of Aceh’s priority goals and strategies to advance the rehabilitation-reconstruction efforts, reduce poverty rapidly, consolidate the peace and reintegration process and to achieve key socio-economic development goals for the benefit of all peoples in Aceh.

It is expected that the Evaluation Team will develop an evaluation matrix which will relate the following questions, the areas they refer to, the criteria for evaluating them, the indicators and the means for verification as a tool for the evaluation.

Key evaluation criteria and questions to be addressed:Effectiveness – Achievement of outputs, progress towards outcomes

• To what extent has the project Strengthening Women’s Legal Rights achieved the stated outputs?
• What evidence exists of progress towards the outcomes?
• Assess the factors that facilitated/inhibited project contribution towards outcomes.  In particular,
• Partnership choices and strategies
• Project strategies/approaches, e.g., capacity development, awareness building, knowledge  generation and dissemination
• In particular, how effective was the strategy of using the converging principles of gender equality in CEDAW and Islam in advancing women’s legal rights in Aceh?
• Project management, .e.g., adequacy of management structure in Aceh; adequacy of the management structure at regional office to facilitate the support to the project on managerial, administrative and technical matters; adequacy of monitoring and reporting

• Context: How relevant was the design of the project for the Aceh situation - in terms of alignment with priorities and needs of the province? How flexible did the project respond to needs and changing developments within the province?
• Priorities: Based on UNIFEM’s mandate and comparative advantage, how did the project select and prioritize qanuns for engendering? With what results?

• Are the project results sustainable?
• Were risk factors and risk mitigation strategies identified during project formulation?
• Partnerships: Were the partnership choices appropriate for greater  sustainability of the project?
• Capacities: What mechanisms has the project developed to ensure that systems and capacities for integrating gender equality principles into legal reform are institutionalized?
• What other factors contribute to, or constrain sustainability?
• Is there evidence of interest or concrete plans for upscaling or replication of successful experiences?

5. Management of the evaluation

The UNIFEM Regional Office will manage the evaluation.  During the evaluation process, it will consult UNIFEM Evaluation Unit, and the Asia, Pacific & Arab States Section in HQ as may be necessary.  Coordination in the field including logistical support will be the responsibility of the Aceh office. 

This is a participatory evaluation with a strong learning component. For the preparation of this TOR, an initial identification of key stakeholders has been conducted in order to analyze their involvement in the evaluation process. The management of the evaluation will ensure that key stakeholders will be consulted.

After the completion of the evaluation, a final stage of the process will take place, including the dissemination strategy for sharing the lessons learnt, and the management response of the evaluation results. These activities will be managed by the UNIFEM East and Southeast Asia Regional Office in close consultation with UNIFEM Evaluation Unit.

The UNIFEM East and Southeast Asia Regional Office may participate in the country missions in collaboration with the evaluation team.

6. Evaluation Methodology

The evaluation of the project Strengthening Women’s Legal Rights will be based on a methodology proposed by the evaluation team and validated by UNIFEM East and Southeast Asia Regional Office in consultation with the UNIFEM Evaluation Unit. The methodology should include:

• the evaluation design, specifying the approach to address the purposes of the evaluation and the evaluation questions (including an evaluation matrix with key evaluation criteria, questions, indicators, and sources of information);
• the instruments and tools to gather relevant information and data, including the variety of key informants to be interviewed;
• the approaches for the analysis and interpretation of data.

• the communication and reporting strategies of evaluation results; and
• the work plan – indicating timing of activities and resources

Timeframe and products

The evaluation will be conducted between January and February 2009.

7. Composition, skills and experience of the evaluation team

The evaluation will be conducted by a team composed of 2 experts: an international consultant with evaluation expertise, and 1 National Consultant with gender and Islam expertise.

a.  Evaluation Team Leader – International Consultant

• At least a master’s degree; PhD preferred, in any social science
• 10 years of working experience in evaluation, and at least 5 in evaluation of development programmes.  Experience in evaluation of large programmes involving multi-countries
• Proven experience as evaluation team leader with ability to lead and work with other evaluation experts
• 5 years of experience and background on gender equality and/or human rights and familiarity with CEDAW
• Experience in working with multi-stakeholders essential:  governments, CSOs, and the UN/ multilateral/bilateral institutions.  Experience in participatory approach is an asset. Facilitation skills and ability to manage diversity of views in different cultural contexts
• Experience in capacity development essential
• Familiarity with the Aceh and/or Indonesia an asset.
• Ability to produce well written reports demonstrating analytical ability and communication skill
• Ability to work with the organization commissioning the evaluation and with other evaluation stakeholders to ensure that a high quality product is delivered on a timely basis.
• Fluent in English.

The Evaluation Team leader will be responsible for coordinating the evaluation as a whole, the evaluation team, the workplan and the presentation of the different evaluation products.

b.  Evaluation Team Members - National Consultant

• At least a master’s degree related to any of the social sciences
• At least 5 years experience in gender and development, particularly in the context of Muslim societies
• Familiarity with the Aceh context essential. 
• Good understanding of gender equality and human rights.  At least 5 years experience in this field.  Familiarity with CEDAW an asset.
• Experience in working with at least two of the following types of stakeholders: government, civil society, multilateral institution
• Good analytical ability and drafting skills
• Ability to work with a team
• Fluent in English.  Working knowledge of an additional language used in one of the countries essential, in two or more countries an asset

 8. Ethical code of conduct for the evaluation

It is expected that the evaluators will respect the ethical code of conduct of the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG). These are:

• Independence: Evaluators shall ensure that independence of judgment is maintained and that evaluation findings and recommendations are independently presented.
• Impartiality: Evaluators shall operate in an impartial and unbiased manner and give a balanced presentation of strengths and weaknesses of the policy, program, project or organizational unit being evaluated.
• Conflict of Interest: Evaluators are required to disclose in writing any past experience, which may give rise to a potential conflict of interest, and to deal honestly in resolving any conflict of interest which may arise. 
• Honesty and Integrity: Evaluators shall show honesty and integrity in their own behavior, negotiating honestly the evaluation costs, tasks, limitations, scope of results likely to be obtained, while accurately presenting their procedures, data and findings and highlighting any limitations or uncertainties of interpretation within the evaluation.
• Competence: Evaluators shall accurately represent their level of skills and knowledge and work only within the limits of their professional training and abilities in evaluation, declining assignments for which they do not have the skills and experience to complete successfully.
• Accountability: Evaluators are accountable for the completion of the agreed evaluation deliverables within the timeframe and budget agreed, while operating in a cost effective manner.
• Obligations to Participants: Evaluators shall respect and protect the rights and welfare of human subjects and communities, in accordance with the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights conventions.   Evaluators shall respect differences in culture, local customs, religious beliefs and practices, personal interaction, gender roles, disability, age and ethnicity, while using evaluation instruments appropriate to the cultural setting.  Evaluators shall ensure prospective participants are treated as autonomous agents, free to choose whether to participate in the evaluation, while ensuring that the relatively powerless are represented.
• Confidentiality: Evaluators shall respect people’s right to provide information in confidence and make participants aware of the scope and limits of confidentiality, while ensuring that sensitive information cannot be traced to its source.
• Avoidance of Harm: Evaluators shall act to minimize risks and harms to, and burdens on, those participating in the evaluation, without compromising the integrity of the evaluation findings.
• Accuracy, Completeness and Reliability: Evaluators have an obligation to ensure that evaluation reports and presentations are accurate, complete and reliable. Evaluators shall explicitly justify judgments, findings and conclusions and show their underlying rationale, so that stakeholders are in a position to assess them.
• Transparency: Evaluators shall clearly communicate to stakeholders the purpose of the evaluation, the criteria applied and the intended use of findings. Evaluators shall ensure that stakeholders have a say in shaping the evaluation and shall ensure that all documentation is readily available to and understood by stakeholders.
• Omissions and wrongdoing: Where evaluators find evidence of wrong-doing or unethical conduct, they are obliged to report it to the proper oversight authority.

1. Quality criteria for the assessment of proposals.
2. Quality criteria for evaluation report.
3. UNEG Ethical Code of Conduct
4. UN Evaluation Norms and Standards

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