WAGE Evaluation Consultant

WAGE is a global consortium to advance the status of women and girls, led by the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) in close partnership with the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), Grameen Foundation, and Search for Common Ground (Search). WAGE works to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations and private sector organizations (PSOs) in target countries to improve the prevention of and response to gender-based violence; advance the women, peace, and security agenda; and support women’s economic empowerment. In this context, WAGE provides direct assistance to women and girls, including information, resources, and services they need to succeed as active and equal participants in the global economy and public life. WAGE also engages in collaborative research and learning to build a body of evidence of relevant promising practices in these thematic areas. To account for the deeply interconnected nature of women’s and girls’ experiences, WAGE’s initiatives employ approaches that are highly collaborative, integrated, and inclusive. WAGE is funded by the U.S. Department of State Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI).

WAGE’s Learning Agenda establishes eight priority research questions, which seek to understand what is already known about integrated programming for women’s and girls’ empowerment, what gaps in experience and evidence exist, and how the consortium will aim to bridge these gaps. WAGE analyzes these research questions through collaborative research and learning, which feed into the implementation of initiatives. WAGE also shares research and lessons learned with key stakeholders and the international development community through events, publications, and products to contribute to a body of global evidence on promising practices in integrated approaches to GBV, WEE, and WPS.

This evaluation will focus on Learning Agenda Question 2: What are the lessons learned and promising practices from integrating GBV, WPS, and WEE throughout the program cycle? How do we best apply these lessons?

Evaluation Purpose, Scope, and Objectives:

ABA ROLI’s WAGE Program Team has commissioned the evaluation to identify lessons learned from integrating gender-based violence (GBV), women’s peace and security (WPS), and women’s economic empowerment (WEE) in WAGE projects. ABA ROLI will engage a consultant that will conduct a participatory evaluation. The consultant will compile resources developed under the various WAGE initiatives and collaborate with ABA ROLI’s program partners throughout the engagement.

The evaluation will answer the following core questions focusing on process and results:

1. What processes were used by WAGE initiative teams to integrate the relevant thematic areas into programming? At what levels was integration considered and implemented?
2. What is needed to “successfully” integrate across these thematic areas?
3. What results were achieved through an integrated approach? Are these results that would not have been achieved by only examining one of these thematic areas?

The main deliverable for this effort is a compendium of lessons learned that will serve as a reference tool to help readers find the most suitable path towards integrating GBV, WPS, and/or WEE programming, as conceptualized and implemented in WAGE initiatives. The compendium is intended for those seeking to design, implement or address programs in these areas of assistance. The compendium is not meant to be a detailed guide for how to carry out integration in GBV, WPS and WEE programming. Rather, by sharing how projects have designed, implemented, monitored, and evaluated, and disseminated results of these projects, lessons in what has been accomplished and those others could learn from provide robust basis for consideration in relevant and subsequent effort.

The following initiatives will be included in the evaluation:

• Eswatini: The Integrating the Response to Gender-Based Violence, HIV, and Economic Marginalization of Swati Women Initiative’s goal is to strengthen the collective capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs), first responders, service providers, and lawyers to improve legal protections for women affected by or at risk of GBV and HIV; to promote effective GBV prevention strategies; and to provide holistic services to economically active women, including referrals for GBV survivors. The program aims to improve outcomes for women at risk of GBV or HIV in access to justice, prevention, and support services by advocating for better laws to protect women, strengthening the capacity of CSOs to prevent GBV, engaging men and boys to reduce discriminatory beliefs and practices, and mitigating GBV risks associated with women’s engagement in economic activities.
• Sri Lanka: The Sri Lanka Initiative is a multi-disciplinary program aimed at empowering local women leaders to collaboratively advance the WPS agenda, particularly the meaningful participation of Sri Lankan women in formal and informal reconciliation processes. The program works in close partnership with local civil society organizations and women political and economic leaders to strengthen their capacities, networks, and access to resources to address the challenges specific to women’s conflict-related and post-conflict needs, including GBV, at the local and national levels of governance.
• Timor-Leste: The Business and Social support for female Entrepreneurs in Timor-Leste (BEST) Initiative aims to address the intertwined social, economic, and regulatory challenges faced by female micro-entrepreneurs in starting, maintaining, and expanding businesses by building the capacity of local microfinance institutions (MFIs) and women’s empowerment-focused civil society organizations (CSOs) to provide female entrepreneurs with gender responsive services. The program establishes linkages between MFIs and CSOs to expand female entrepreneurs’ access to financial services and GBV information.
• Moldova: The Reducing Barriers to Women’s Economic Empowerment in Moldova Initiative strengthens the organizational capacities of women’s business associations (WBAs) and women-led CSOs (WCSOs) to lead an effort to improve the enabling environment for Moldovan women engaged in economic activity. The program also fosters collective action among WBAs and WCSOs to address legal framework implementation gaps and societal barriers to women’s economic empowerment.
• Ghana: The WAGE Ghana Initiative seeks to promote WEE in Northern Ghana through RISE Ghana, GDCA, and HKN’s network of community agents and Mobile Telecommunications Network Ghana’s (MTN Ghana) mobile money platform. Through training and coaching on a range of topics including digital literacy and GBV prevention, the initiative will build the capacity of RISE Ghana, GDCA, and HKN to deliver an integrated, market-based, high impact package of financial and non-financial information, product, services, and referrals (Digital Financial Services plus (DFS+) to women entrepreneurs.
• Central Asia: The WAGE Central Asia Initiative is a multi-disciplinary regional program aimed at building and supporting country-level and regional alliances of women’s organizations to improve the ability of Central Asian women to engage in economic activity. The program works with women’s business associations and women’s CSOs to identify and address legal and societal barriers to women’s participation in the Central Asian economies.
• Sudan: The WAGE Sudan Initiative is a multi-disciplinary program aimed at improving prevention and response to GBV and violent extremism (VE) in Sudan. The program works to strengthen CSOs’ commitment and capacity to provide holistic, survivor-centered services to women affected by GBV and VE and to understand and address potential linkages, if any, between GBV and VE.

Evaluation approach and methodology:

To respond to the questions identified above, the consultant will implement the following:

1. Document review
2. Hold KIIs with key consortium members from both HQ and programmatic field teams (may be conducted virtually)
3. Hold pause and reflect sessions and validation meetings
4. Collate, assess, and draft compendium

This evaluation assumes a participatory approach – where partners in implementing these programs will be engaged in discussions that will support the development of the compendium.

Professional qualifications, experience and expertise required for the evaluation consultant

The consultant should be proficient in conducting participatory evaluations and in the context of the program. The consultant must have:

• A master’s degree or higher in public policy or administration, social or political science; experience in evaluation is preferred.
• Advanced knowledge of and experience working on gender issues, such as GBV awareness and prevention, women, peace and security, and women’s economic empowerment.
• Must have published on topics related to gender issues. Record of publications on relevant subject matters is required.
• Must have excellent English communications and writing skills.
• Must demonstrate proficiency in the use of MS Office and other applications for online pause and reflect sessions, validation sessions, and data analysis.

Supervision of the consultant’s work

The consultant will report directly to ABA ROLI’s Senior Technical Advisor for Gender and Social Inclusion. Payment will be tied to successful completion of deliverables according to acceptable quality standards as determined by the ABA ROLI Senior Technical Advisor.

Deliverables

All deliverables must be written and presented in English.

• An inception report / work plan prepared in consultation with the Monitoring & Evaluation Officer that includes design and methodology, data collection activities and analysis, and a clearer description of the scope of the evaluation based on feasibility and purposes stated for the Program.
• Relevant tools for data collection and collated data
• A draft compendium of lessons learned; the draft will be finalized in close consultation with ABA ROLI and key counterparts in WAGE projects.
• A final compendium report, incorporating feedback from ABA ROLI review.
• One or two pager of practical key findings
• PowerPoint presentation or other final debrief product and Q&A session with ABA ROLI team. The presentation must include findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the evaluation.