The Position:

The landscape of humanitarian action has changed considerably over the past years. Inter-related global trends, such as climate vulnerability, the rise in conflicts as well as demographic change, and forced migration have led to increased demand for humanitarian action. This is exacerbated by the fact that whilst there has been a reduction in the number of armed conflicts in recent years, the intensity of conflict is reported to have increased and the number of conflict-related deaths has quadrupled (from 56,000 in 2008 to 180,000 in 2014). There is also ample evidence that women, children and adolescents are disproportionately affected by the crisis. More than 75% of the 80 million people needing humanitarian assistance in 2014 were women and children and 40% of the 1.4 billion people living in countries impacted by the crisis are under the age of 15. In the immediate aftermath of disasters, women and girls are further vulnerable to violence and exploitation, including FGM, trafficking, forced and early marriage, domestic violence and sexual assault (Global Fund for Women, 2005). Providing accessible, affordable, acceptable and quality Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal, Child and Adolescent Health services across the humanitarian-development spectrum is a global public good.

The proposed Evaluation will consider the views and ideas of relevant staff from headquarters, regional offices, the roving and surge team members, surge deployed, as well as country office personnel who may have received roving and/or surge support over the last 18 months to two years, including Mozambique, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Honduras, Venezuela, Jordan, Iraq and Syria. The evaluation will also do a comparative analysis of other UN agencies/iNGO’s who have similar mechanisms whether roving emergency response teams, standing team and glean best practices from such organizations. Given that both roving and surge personnel are those that are most commonly deployed to high-risk duty stations, it is also recommended that the evaluation will review industry and agency-set duty of care standards to understand whether these have been applied coherent, and review whether additional duty of care support is required to better ensure safety, security, health and wellness for such cohorts of personnel.

How You Can Make a Difference:

UNFPA is the leading UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA’s strategic plan 2018-2021 focuses on three transformative results: to end preventable maternal death; to end unmet need for family planning; end gender-based violence and harmful practices.

Achieving these goals by 2030 would indeed transform the lives, especially, of many millions of women and girls around the world. Since 2014, the Government of Denmark has provided generous funding for UNFPA’s humanitarian programming interventions globally. The Government of Denmark financially supported UNFPA Humanitarian’s Office (HO) to provide overall technical support to its country teams through capacity development, tailored programmatic support, and the dissemination and development of technical guidance, including the Inter-Agency Minimum Standards for GBV in Emergencies programming. This support was provided by a team of GBV and SRH experts in the HO which included Roving Specialists (also referred to as roving team, RT) to provide dedicated support to UNFPA CO’s humanitarian response efforts. Over the years, experience has illustrated the importance and benefits of having a roving team of highly qualified GBV, SRH and CMR specialists ready for deployment to support countries in need. The demand from country offices for missions by roving team specialists has been consistent and showed the benefits of having staff dedicated to the needs of each COs over a period of time who offered continuous support and follow up. Roving team members used to be home-based and managed by the Humanitarian Office and the Division of Human Resources in HQ. However, this successful pilot experience and the increasing demands for global RT support from  COs has shown the challenges of having a limited number of roving specialists in the HO with stand-by partners contracts and thus it was decided to expand its number from three to six, with staff contracts seconded to three regional offices (ASRO, ESARO, WCARO), with a double reporting line to the head of the HO Response and Technical Support Unit and where they exist, Regional Office Humanitarian Advisors.

Being a pilot exercise, where programme continuation into years two and three is highly dependent on results achieved in the first year of work, decision making around requests for roving support, supervision, as well as monitoring and evaluation has continued to be a mutually shared responsibility between Regional Offices’ Humanitarian Advisors and the Head of of the Humanitarian Office, (and in the absence of Senior GBV and SRH Specialists at the time of pilot launch). For the pilot phase, the Humanitarian Office is directly accountable to the donor and works closely with Regional Offices to monitor, evaluate and report results as requested by the donor. The results from this evaluation will help make necessary and needs-based decisions around adjustments, realignments in this structure and also help provide credible information to help elaborate new funding post this pilot period. 

UNFPA has also taken significant steps to improve its surge mechanism over the last five years. This has included increasing the number of qualified roster members ready for immediate deployment. This was made possible through leveraging the existing staff surge capacity, utilizing the existing standby partner arrangements, and for the first time, opening the roster to the wider humanitarian community and allowing non-UNFPA personnel to apply in 2016 which has since become the most widely used means of deployment.

Evaluation Scope & Approach

The Evaluation will be formative and provide essential understanding of how the different components of the Regional Roving team and Surge Mechanism have been working together and managed in its different dimensions (across departments as well as across regions and countries). It will also assess the most optimal staffing, operating and reporting structure for both mechanisms and best ability to meet duty of care standards

The assessment will also review progress and main milestones achieved during the pilot of the regional roving team 2020 against the programme deliverables.  A look at how the mechanism was operating before the 2020 pilot is also necessary.

The first objective of the evaluation is to assess the extent to which UNFPA has achieved the objectives of the roving team component in the DANIDA-funded Transformative Humanitarian Funding programme.

The evaluation will assess the extent to which UNFPA has achieved the project's specific objectives/intended results as per project documents, and progressed toward the project’s overall goal, drawing out lessons learnt as well as good practices. Specifically, the evaluation will assess the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact of the Roving Mechanism/System in its different components - and capture both intended and unintended results.

The second objective of the evaluation is to assess if the secondment of roving specialists to the Regional Office is the most effective and sustainable way to provide technical programmatic support to COs and to meet duty of care minimum standards, including in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions, and to enhance the understanding of the contribution that the Roving system has made to advancing UNFPA humanitarian agenda, in particular scaling up humanitarian SRH and GBV programming over the course of the last 18 months,

The third objective of the evaluation, as a forward looking process, is to understand how best it should now be structured and supported to meet the emerging needs of humanitarian human resource support in emergencies, while maintaining duty of care standards for the roving specialists.

You Would Be Responsible for preparing:

v) draft report to the Head, Response and Technical Support Unit and Surge Manager for review and approval.

vi) initial presentation/stock taking of results in an online format to the Director of Humanitarian Office, Head of Response and Technical Support Unit and Head of Surge and other relevant staff.

vi) following inputs after the presentation, a final report with full recommendations in Word and pdf formats.

Technical and detailed description of the tasks including the list of deliverables and methodology to be applied is accessible here.

Delivery dates and how work will be delivered:

The consultancy will start by 1st April 2021. The final report and communication materials are expected to be finalized by the end June 2021.

Monitoring and progress control, including reporting requirements, periodicity format and deadline:

• A timeline and workplan will be developed as for delivery of draft report, and consultation by key stakeholders of draft report.
• The acceptance of services at the end of each month will be certified through a Certification of Payment to be countersigned by both parties (IC and UNFPA).
• Biweekly review on progress and adjustment to be made with the supervisor.
• Ongoing monitoring of the work will be conducted under the guidance and oversight by the Head of RTSU and Surge Manager. Regular updates should be done to the HO Director.

Supervisory arrangements:

Humanitarian Office consultancies are under the overall guidance and supervisory of the HO Director. All final products and deliverables need to be approved by the Director.

Expected travel and duration:       

None - Remote Working 37 working days starting from 1 April 2021, for 3 months.

Knowledge and Experience:

• Relevant post-graduate degree (equivalent of a Master’s) in Social Science, International Development or Humanitarian Affairs, Human Resources Management, or Public Policy.
• At least 7 years’ professional experience in applied research or evaluation in humanitarian and development settings. 
• Demonstrable institutional knowledge of the UN, and in particular of UNFPA’s humanitarian mandate and operational role. 
• Demonstrable experience and knowledge of humanitarian response and coordination, ideally specifically related to emergency standing/response and roving and surge team structures and models. 
• Proven experience with qualitative and quantitative research and evaluation methods/approaches and data collection tools, mixed methods analytical tools and frameworks.
• Knowledge of UNFPA’s internal policies and procedures is an asset.
• Proficiency in English (oral and written) is required
• Knowledge of an additional UN language is an asset

How to apply

Interested consultants should submit their CV, brief cover letter outlining relevant experience and a succinct outline with an accompanying financial proposal of how they propose to meet the expected outputs to: Ms Caroline Lugli lugli@unfpa.org.  Applications that do not meet these requirements will not be considered.  UNFPA is unable to provide feedback on applications.  Due date for applications is: 31st March 2021.

Duration:37 working days starting from 1 April 2021, for 3 months.

Disclaimer:

UNFPA does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. Fraudulent notices, letters or offers may be submitted to the UNFPA fraud hotline http://www.unfpa.org/help/hotline.cfm

UNFPA provides a work environment that reflects the values of gender equality, teamwork, Embracing diversity in all its forms, integrity and a healthy balance of work and life. We are committed to maintaining our balanced gender distribution and therefore encourage women to apply. UNFPA promotes equal opportunities for all including persons with disabilities.