Job description
Background: Launched in May 2016 during the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS), the Grand Bargain was a direct response to the US$15 billion humanitarian financing gap identified in the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Panel Report. The foundational goal was to optimize the humanitarian ecosystem by moving from a supply-driven to a more demand-driven model, ensuring greater efficiency and redirecting resources to frontline delivery. The original agreement established localization as a key commitment—"supporting local and national responders"—with a global, aggregated target to channel at least 25% of humanitarian funding as directly as possible to local and national actorsi.
The process has since evolved through the Grand Bargain 2.0 (2021) ii and the Grand Bargain beyond 2023iii , shifting the strategic objective to focus on "Better humanitarian outcomes for affected populations through enhanced efficiency, effectiveness, greater accountability, and strengthened partnerships." This evolution elevated localization to one of the two core enabling priorities, alongside quality funding.
Over the years, the localization agenda has yielded notable advancements in policy and practice innovation, offering clear pathways for a more effective, efficient, and equitable humanitarian system. Many international actors have publicly stated localization as a priority, reflecting a visible shift in rhetoric and accepted norms since the 2016 WHSiv. Country-Based Pooled Funds (CBPFs) have proven effective in directing resources to Local and National Actors (LNAs)v. Financial efficiency arguments are supported by findings that shifting funds to local intermediaries can be 32% more cost efficient than international structuresvi. Good practices also center on equitable relationships emphasizing mutual accountability, shared decision-making, and ethical partnershipsvii. Consortia models like the Local Coalition Accelerators (LCA) facilitate local actors in designing and delivering joint programming. People-centered approaches like the Women Lead in Emergencies (WLiE) model demonstrate outstanding achievements in enhancing women’s participation in decision-making, grounding humanitarian action in community priorities and capacity buildingviii.
Objective of the consultancy:
Purpose of the Evaluation:
This evaluation serves the dual purpose of accountability and learning. Specifically, it will:
1. Assess and report on UNFPA's progress, challenges, and performance in advancing the localization agenda to effectively meet the needs of the most vulnerable populations affected by humanitarian crises (accountability)
2. Analyze the barriers and enablers to localization within UNFPA's systems and processes and draw lessons for strengthening equitable partnerships and building resilience of local and national actors (LNAs) to improve the delivery of UNFPA's mandate in humanitarian contexts (learning).
Objectives of the Evaluation:
The specific objectives of the evaluation are:
1. Relevance: Assess the relevance and alignment of UNFPA's localization approach(es) within its new Strategic Plan 2026-2029, global commitments (e.g., Grand Bargain), common approaches, corporate strategies, IASC guidance, and the needs and priorities of local and national partners and people affected by humanitarian crises.
2. Effectiveness:
● Assess the effectiveness of UNFPA's partnerships with LNAs in contributing to the delivery of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) outcomes.
● Assess the effectiveness of UNFPA’s efforts to strengthen localization in humanitarian action through five key priority areas:
○ Build equitable partnerships
○ Promote funding to local and national actors
○ Enhance participation, influence and visibility in UNFPA and inter-agency programming (including accountability to affected populations).
○ Strengthen local participation and leadership in humanitarian coordination
○ Build and share capacity
● Analyze the extent to which humanitarian principles, human rights, gender equality, especially support to Women-Led Organizations (WLOs), and disability inclusion, are integrated into UNFPA’s partnership approach.
3. Efficiency: Assess the efficiency of UNFPA's internal systems, processes, policies (e.g., for partnership, programming, finance, procurement, HR, and risk management), and funding modalities in facilitating or hindering timely, flexible, and equitable support to LNAs, and in meeting the humanitarian needs of affected people.
4. Connectedness/Sustainability: Analyze the connectedness of UNFPA's humanitarian localization efforts to its longer-term development programming and peace-responsive efforts (Humanitarian-Development-Peace continuum), focusing on the sustainability of local capacity (e.g., Partnership modality).
Lessons Learned & Recommendations: Identify good practices, lessons learned, and actionable recommendations to inform UNFPA’s strategic shifts necessary to strengthen and sustain localization efforts and position the organization as a credible enabler of local leadership.
Scope of the evaluation, Description of services, activities or outputs:
Duties and Responsibilities:
The overall responsibility of the Evaluation Co-Team Leader is to design and implement the centralized evaluation of UNFPA approach to localization in humanitarian action and to ensure the quality of the evaluation process and draft and final deliverables. S/he will provide technical and methodological guidance to and supervise any national/local consultants hired for this evaluation. S/he will work closely with the IEO Evaluation Co-Team Leader to jointly conduct the evaluation.
Evaluation scope:
● The thematic scope of this evaluation focuses on the relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of UNFPA’s localization approach and how this has contributed to meeting needs and accelerating SRHR and GBV outcomes for people affected by humanitarian crises, in line with UNFPA’s mandate areas as outlined in the UNFPA 2022-2025 strategic plan.
● The geographic scope of this evaluation covers all countries in which UNFPA supports humanitarian action and/or HDP continuum programming (sampling strategy will be applied)
● The temporal scope is from 2019 to 2025
Approach:
The evaluation will adopt a theory-based approach and contribution analysis. It will be based on mixed methods, combining quantitative and qualitative data collection methods and tools. At a minimum, the methodological approach will comprise:
● A reconstruction and testing of the theory of change of UNFPA’s localization efforts in humanitarian action
● A thorough gender responsive stakeholder analysis, including a beneficiary typology;
● A comprehensive document review as well as an analysis of the available programme, administrative and financial data pertaining to UNFPA’s localization efforts in humanitarian action;
● Conduct of key informant interviews, focus group discussions and surveys;
● Desk country reviews;
● country field visits, with a view to illustrating UNFPA’s humanitarian work in different types of emergencies;
Evaluation process
The evaluation will unfold in four phases and lead to the production of associated deliverables as follows.
1. Inception phase
● Document review of all relevant documents available at UNFPA headquarters, regional office and country office levels;
● Stakeholder mapping displaying the relationships between different sets of stakeholders;
● Reconstruction of the theory of change of UNFPA’s humanitarian action;
● Development of the final list of evaluation questions and of the associated evaluation matrix presenting, for each evaluation question, the assumptions to be assessed and the respective indicators, sources of information and methods and tools for the data collection ;
● Sampling strategy and selection of countries for 6 field visits studies and 6 desk reviews; outline of corresponding country briefing notes and/or evidence tables will be agreed with the IEO co-team leader in consultation with the ERG and annexed to the inception report;
● Development of a comprehensive data collection and analysis strategy;
● An updated and detailed timeline for the evaluation
● Development of the draft inception report, including approach, methodology and operational plan, encompassing the inception mission/meeting summary, document review synthesis, stakeholder mapping, refined/reconstructed ToC, evaluation matrix (assumptions, questions, indicators, methods), data collection and analysis strategy, finalized case study selection (for field and desk review), and detailed workplan for all subsequent phases.
● Conduct ERG meetings to present, discuss and receive feedback on the draft inception report.
● Finalise inception report
● Plan data collection phase, including detailed preparation of field missions and remote data collection.
2. Data collection phase
● Conduct an in-depth document review and analysis;
● Conduct interviews with UNFPA key informants (at HQ, regional and country levels);
● Conduct interviews with external key informants (at HQ, regional and country levels);
● Responsible for 2 country field studies;
● Oversight of the 6 country desk reviews (including remote interviews with select informants);
3. Reporting phase
● Conduct in-depth analysis and triangulation of primary and secondary data, culminating in an analysis workshop bringing together the evaluation team and the IEO evaluation manager/co-team leader to discuss and consolidate the results of the data collection, and develop tentative draft findings and conclusions
● Draft the first draft final report (Version 1) using a structure provided by the IEO and revise/finalise it based on IEO quality assurance and feedback to ensure it meets the IEO evaluation quality standards.
● Draft second draft final report (Version 2), and in particular the tentative conclusions and recommendations, which will be presented by the evaluation team during a stakeholder workshop (attended by the ERG as well as other relevant stakeholders) and circulated to UNFPA Executive Committee members.
● On the basis of comments received, the evaluation team will make appropriate amendments to the report, finalize the recommendations and submit the final report. For all comments, the evaluation team will indicate how they have responded in writing (“trail of comments”).
● The report is considered final once it is formally approved by the Director of the IEO in consultation with the evaluation co-lead and the evaluation reference group.
4. Dissemination phase
The team leader will assist IEO in selected dissemination activities. In particular, s/he will prepare a Powerpoint presentation on key highlights of the evaluation report and an evaluation brief.
Duration and working schedule:
The evaluation will be implemented between February 2026 to September 2026 for an expected level of effort of 100 days during this time frame.
Place where services are to be delivered:
The consultant will mostly work remotely with expected travel for 2 in-country field visits and virtual workshop/presentation.
Data Collection:
The evaluation will use primary and secondary sources of information. Primary data will be collected through semi-structured interviews with a wide range of key informants at Global level (UNFPA HQ), Regional offices (ROs), Country Offices (COs) at national and sub-national levels, including government officials, implementing partners, Women/Youth Led/Rights Organizations), other United Nations organizations, donors, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders.
Secondary data will be collected through a desk review of relevant documents and data and requests to UNFPA HQ, RO and CO staff, supported by ERG members and key informants who may also share relevant information and data with the evaluation team.
Monitoring and progress control:
The consultant will have weekly meetings with the IEO co-lead to discuss the progress and any issues with design, data collection, analysis and/or drafting the report.
Supervisory arrangements:
The consultant will report directly to the co-lead in the Humanitarian Evaluation Team (HET) at the IEO.
Expected travels:
Official travel is expected to 2 countries, for around 8 working days per country to gather information. During the field visits, the consultant is expected to work closely with the country team and national consultants in the country offices.
Expected Deliverables:
Design Phase: A Design Report, using the structure provided by the IEO, including a powerpoint presentation structured around the key components of the inception report, for the inception evaluation reference group meeting.
Data collection phase: There will be 5-6 country visits, 2 of which will be conducted by the Co-Lead Consultant and 3 conducted by IEO. The consultant will be responsible to produce:
● 2 country briefing notes and 2 evidence tables compiling the data and information collected through the country field studies;
● 6 evidence tables and 6 power point presentations corresponding to the data collected through the 6 desk reviews.
● Photos from the field mission (note it is necessary to obtain consent to take photos using UNFPA forms).
Reporting phase: The consultant will be responsible to:
● Draft evaluation reports (Version 1 and Version 2) using the structure provided by UNFPA.
● Prepare 2 powerpoint presentations to the ERG (evaluation report Version 1 and Version 2)
● Prepare Recommendations protocol and worksheet.
● Fill Evaluation matrix and do detailed analysis
● Support the write-up of the final evaluation report.
● Each draft (Version 1, Version 2 and Final) will involve several iterations and revisions based on the IEO quality assurance process before each draft version is finalized .
Dissemination phase:
● Evaluation brief
● Final power point presentation for dissemination and facilitation of use purposes.
All the deliverables will be developed in English
Required expertise, qualifications and competence, including language requirements:
The Co-Lead consultant will be expected to have the following minimum qualifications:
1. Master’s degree in evaluation, humanitarian action, public health, social sciences, demography or population studies, statistics, development studies or a related field.
2. At least 10 years of demonstrated experience leading complex mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) evaluations for UN system agencies or major international organizations (at least 2 evaluations).
3. Experience leading evaluations as Team Leader (at least 2 evaluations).
4. Proven experience conducting humanitarian evaluations in complex, volatile, or insecure emergency settings, specifically those involving displaced populations and refugees, including marginalized women and youth/adolescent populations (at least 3 evaluations).
5. Multi-sectoral expertise covering UNFPA's core areas: (i)SRHR, (ii)GBV, (iii)Gender, (iv)Youths and Adolescents, and (v)Population Dynamics/Data Analysis
6. Experience working with UNFPA in evaluation/research, or technical/programmatic capacity is an added advantage.
7. Demonstrated experience in/knowledge of Localization in Humanitarian action
8. Demonstrated experience using theory-based (ToC) evaluation approaches, including demonstrated experience of having done contribution analysis in a report (at least 2 evaluations).
Fluent and demonstrated experience working in English and one of the following UN languages that is relevant to the evaluation: French, Spanish, (demonstrated experience means having led data collection and/or written evaluation reports in the language.
Inputs/ services to be provided by UNFPA:
The IEO will facilitate the consultant to undertake activities indicated in this ToR including liaising with the HQ stakeholders and country offices. More specifically, the Consultant will work with the IEO Independent Co-Team Leader to jointly design and conduct this evaluation using a “hybrid evaluation team model”. The “hybrid” evaluation team, an approach which is being piloted by IEO, will consist of:
- 1 external Co-Lead Consultant
- 1 Co-Lead from the IEO (Evaluation Adviser)
- 1 Evaluation Specialist from IEO
- 1 Research Assistant from IEO
- 6 National Consultants (one for each country case study)
- 6 national Young and Emerging Evaluators (one for each country case study)
The IEO is an independent office reporting directly to the Executive Board, managing and conducting independent centralized and decentralized evaluations and other evaluative exercises.
During field missions, UNFPA country office teams will provide the logistical support for in-country field visits, provide the required documents, publications, studies and be available for interviews. Furthermore, when the consultant is on ground, the country office will provide the consultant with office space.
Other relevant information or special conditions, if any:
Remuneration:
The consultancy fee will be deliverable based as follows:
● 30% upon IEO approval of the final inception report
● 20% upon IEO approval of final country notes
● 20% upon IEO approval of the draft 1 final evaluation report
● 20% upon IEO approval of the draft 2 final evaluation report
● 10% upon IEO approval of the final evaluation report (designed and formatted, in English), powerpoint presentation, and evaluation briefs.
It is to be noted that finalization of each deliverable is an iterative process which includes many versions before IEO approves each deliverable.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Evaluation Office work
AI technologies cannot be used in the framework of this contract unless a prior written agreement is obtained from EO. Upon this prior agreement, the consultant is obligated to disclose the utilization of AI tools in evaluation and commits to upholding ethical standards and accuracy in the application of AI tools.
1. Prior approval for utilization of AI tools: The use of AI tools must be explicitly agreed upon and approved in writing by the EO Director.
2. Declaration of the utilization of AI tools: If the use of AI tools in evaluation is agreed upon with EO, the consultant must be transparent and declare the use of AI tools in evaluation work and other work-related tasks, specifying the nature of AI usage. The AI tools utilized in work-related tasks must include only those tools that are vetted by EO.
3. Verification of accuracy: The consultant commits to diligently checking the accuracy of AI-generated results and assumes full responsibility for its reliability and validity.
Ethical and responsible use: The consultant is obligated to uphold ethical principles in the use of AI in work-related tasks, as well as relevant regulations that govern the use of AI in the UN system. This includes the Digital & Technology Network Guidance on the Use of Generative AI Tools in the UN System, Principles for the Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence in the United Nations System, and UNFPA Information Security Policy. The consultant commits to employing AI tools that adhere to principles of non-discrimination, fairness, transparency, and accountability. The consultant will adopt an approach that aligns with the principle of ‘leaving no one behind’, ensuring that AI tool usage avoids exclusion or disadvantage to any group.
To apply to this consultancy, please submit:
(1) a detailed CV, (2) a cover letter highlighting your experience in conducting humanitarian evaluations and expertise in localization and (3) examples of 2 humanitarian evaluation reports that you led, specifically a theory-based evaluation that uses contribution analysis.
Please submit your application with the above-mentioned supporting documents to Steva Nyawade, nyawade@unfpa.org. The deadline is 18 December 2025.
[I] IASC. The Grand Bargain – A Shared Commitment to Better Serve People in Need. May 2016. https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/sites/default/files/migrated/2017-02/grand_bargain_final_22_may_final-2_0.pdf
[II] IASC.The Grand Bargain 2.0 – Endorsed framework and annexes. June 2021 https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/sites/default/files/migrated/2021-07/%28EN%29%20Grand%20Bargain%202.0%20Framework.pdf
[III] IASC. Grand Bargain beyond 2023. June 2023. https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/sites/default/files/migrated/2023-06/Grand%20Bargain%20beyond%202023%20-%20Framework.pdf
[IV] Viswanathan, Vijayalakshmi (2023) Learning to be more ‘locally led’? Current practice and evidence gaps in the international humanitarian system. London: ODI/ALNAP https://alnap.org/help-library/resources/learning-to-be-more-locally-led-current-practice-and-evidence-gaps-in-the-international/
[V] IASC. Grand Bargain implementation agenda 2025-2026. November 2024 https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/sites/default/files/2024-11/Grand%20Bargain%20Implementation%20Agenda%202025-2026_1.pdf
[VI] Venton et al. Passing the buck: The Economics of Localizing International Assistance.2022 https://thesharetrust.org/resources/2022/11/14/passing-the-buck-the-economics-of-localizing-international-assistance
[VII] DG ECHO. Guidance notes on equitable partnerships https://ec.europa.eu/echo/files/policies/sectoral/dg%20echo%20guidance%20note%20-%20promoting%20equitable%20partnerships%20with%20local%20responders%20in%20humanitarian%20settings.pdf
[VIII] Barbelet, V et al. (2024) Harnessing evidence and learning for people centred:Evidence synthesis and best practice review on AAP, inclusion and localisation.London: ALNAP/ODI. https://alnap.org/help-library/resources/harnessing-evidence-and-learning-for-people-centred-humanitarian-action/
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