Palestine: Consultant For MENA Regional Gender Strategy Review

Jan 25, 2020 | Oxfam
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Gender justice has constituted a focus of Oxfam’s work in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for the last forty years. During this time, Oxfam has made substantial investments in standalone gender justice programs, ranging from women’s political participation and leadership to ending violence against women (EVAW), and from women’s economic empowerment to addressing gender disparities in conflict settings. Oxfam has initiated game changing processes through strategic partnerships with various actors and institutions, including communities, civil society organizations, universities, think tanks and engaging with governance institutions. Supporting the establishment of Change Makers network in Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan, and providing support for women candidates who ran for parliamentary elections. Women’s organizations have also been supported to develop innovative models for legal services and improved access to justice for women in Lebanon, Jordan and Northern Iraq.

In 2016 Oxfam developed a thematic strategy outlines Oxfam’s strategic approach to gender justice in MENA. While Oxfam’s confederation-wide gender justice strategy guides its work, the MENA region has many unique defining features. The strategy aimed to define Oxfam’s regional focus and added value more clearly. Through a framework developed based on the views of over 50 internal and external stakeholders and shared theories of change, the strategy set the strategic direction of and provided guidance for Oxfam’s comprehensive and holistic approach to gender justice work in the MENA region over the last five years.

In the last five years many changes happened in Oxfam MENA, including the formation of the MENA Regional platform which finalized its first strategy in March 2019. Oxfam International embarked on a wide consultative process to develop a 10 years global strategy. A new model for Oxfam International started to be implemented, bringing some achievements and challenges. Some of these changes introduced gender specific model changes such as introducing and popularization of feminist principles and better safeguarding and safe programming processes. Oxfam International also approved a southern affiliate from the region (KEDEV in Turkey) which is a feminist organization that will bring lots of dynamics to the gender approaches or Oxfam’s work in the region. Most importantly the socio- economic and political situation in the MENA changed dramatically. With all of this in mind, the regional gender justice strategy period ends in 2020, and it is time for it to be evaluated. There was no mid-term review for the strategy and it is time to assess how much influence and impact the strategy had on Oxfam’s gender justice work in MENA.

This evaluation will be used to inform the next strategy development process and identify what worked and what needs to improve in the strategy development process and design.

Scope of the evaluation

The regional gender justice strategy was expected to build and communicate a strong regional program of work, which informs and is informed by robust country strategies. It envisioned that this will enable Oxfam to better target its gender justice programs (including long term development, humanitarian and campaign and policy) and streamline its actions across the region, while increasing and demonstrating its impact on gender equality and women’s empowerment at country and regional levels. It was designed to achieve this through a common approach to influencing, working in partnership with others, building program quality and enhancing knowledge management across the region. This integrated and multi-sector strategy aimed to define collectively the scale of Oxfam’s ambition, providing a framework which will ultimately guide the level of resources and investment required to achieve these ambitious goals and provide clear governance and accountability mechanisms for its delivery.

The evaluation of the strategy is expected to examine if and how these ambitions were achieved and to what extent Oxfam work in GJ influenced the wider the gender justice agenda in the region. The evaluation is expected to be participatory and reach out the different stakeholders including country directors, gender justice leads in countries and in affiliates, partner organizations and other stakeholders. The evaluation needs to position the strategy in the current internal and external developments in the region.

Evaluation objectives

The evaluation main objective is the answer the question to what extend the regional gender justice strategy have been used in the work of country offices and strategic partners and how relevant was it to the context especially in light of the many changes in the region?

Other objectives include:

• Assessing Oxfam influence on gender justice field in MENA from staff and partners perspective and collect any relevant evidence of that
• Using the five pillars of the regional gender strategy, identify the relevance and most significant impact on the ways of working, programming and understanding of gender justice in the region

Identify the most significant successes, challenges, limitations or lessons learnt from developing the strategy and from implementing it.