By 
The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) was established by the General Assembly resolution 64/289 of 2 July 2010. 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, peace, and security. Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.”
The UN Women Strategic Plan commits the organization to institutionalizing a strong culture of results-based management, reporting, knowledge management and evaluation. For all agreements, timely submission of quality donor reports is one of the main accountabilities UN Women has with respect to maintaining good relations with its donors based on transparency and efficiency. Donor confidence in UN Women’s ability to implement and report on projects not only affects future funding but is crucial in maintaining good relations with donors and building an internal knowledge base on UN Women project performance and best practices.
The UN Women East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) supports one multi-country office -South Africa (Botswana (which has a Program Presence), Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland), and 12 country offices – Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Support provided includes ensuring quality and timely reports which is one of the main indicators used for determining the specific office’s classification as a Tier I or Tier II. This classification is undertaken to identify offices (Tier 2) that require additional support in reviewing reports and clearance by the Regional office before final submission to the donors, while Tier 1 offices prepare and submit reports without additional support from the Regional Office. Currently in the East and Southern Africa region, four country offices are in Tier I i.e., Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The rest are in the Tier II category.
The ESARO would like to undertake a review of a sample of donor reports from each of the four Tier I country offices to determine the offices’ continued capacity and assess the Tier II offices to establish their capacity to be graduated to the Tier I category. The review will also identify quantitative and qualitative data gaps and provide guidance on areas that need further strengthening for sustainable quality and timely donor reporting.
The consultant will work closely with the Regional Monitoring and Reporting (M&R) specialist and the ESA Deputy Regional Director (DRD). The M&R specialist will oversee the day-to-day management of the review and be the focal point of contact for the consultant.
Objectives of the assignment:
The main objective of the review is to assess the Multi/Country offices’ donor reporting capacity in order to determine areas in need of strengthening and the Tier category the offices should be in. The main basis for this assessment will be the quality and timeliness of donor reports.
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