National Consultant - Specialist Building Institutional Capacity for Inclusive Service Delivery, Freetown

UN Women is seeking for a local consultant to lead the baseline survey for “Empowering Communities Through Gender-Responsive Local Governance: Building Institutional Capacity for Inclusive Service Delivery”. 3-year project funded by the Embassy of Iceland from 1st December 2025 to 31st December 2028. The project is being implemented across 6 districts with a budget value $1.8M. The project's overarching objective is to ensure all Women, youth and girls, particularly vulnerable and marginalized groups, enjoy equal access to quality services, resources, and opportunities within their local communities, enabling them to fully participate in and benefit from social and economic life in the targeted districts.

The consultant will be reporting to the Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Officer (Evaluation Manager) and Programme Specialist (Gender Mainstreaming) and management of contract management and validating of all deliverables and payment.

Description of Responsibilities /Scope of Work

The scope is to led the conduct of baseline survey for Empowering Communities Through Gender-Responsive Local Governance: Building Institutional Capacity for Inclusive Service Delivery project.

• Inception report:This will comprise of Baseline objectives and scope, description of Baseline methodology/methodological approach, Survey instruments (questionnaires, field manual), data analysis methods, key informants/respondents, evaluations questions, performance criteria, issues to be studied, work plan and reporting requirements, Field plan and Training manual / PowerPoint presentation
• Inception Meetings:The consultant will host in-person (preferably) meeting to discuss and finalize the inception report and seek the by-in of the project stakeholders
• Field data collection:train and deploy enumerators to collect data using the finalized tools. National consultant will ensure data quality assurances during this process
• Cleaned and validated datasets (Primary data) with Summary of desk review:This comprises of clean databases for each segment of the data collection approach (quantitative and qualitative).
• Draft Baseline Report:highlighting key Baseline findings and conclusions, lessons learned and recommendations (shall be done in a specific format). The draft report will be discussed with the national partners to ensure participation and involvement of the national stakeholders during validation sessions.
• Final Baseline Report including executive summary, 2 stories expectedto be submitted to the UN Women CO Monitoring and Evaluation Unit incorporating all comments and feedback collected from all partners involved.
• Knowledge Transition Materials:including PPT, Infographics and factsheets, would be made to facilitate exchanges and comprehension around the results for all implementing partners and stakeholders.
• Presentation of Results with the project team/stakeholders:At least 2 knowledge sharing sessions to disseminate the results with the stakeholders (including donors, partners, CSO coalition members, NGOs/INGO on peace building, UN agencies etc.)

Deliverables:

It is expected that the consultants will deliver on the below deliverables

Deliverables

• Inception report - 8th - 12th April 2026 (5 days)
• Data Collection - 13th - 22nd April 2026 (10 days)
• Data Analysis and reporting - cleaned, validated datasets and produce draft report - 22nd - 28th April 2026 (7 days)
• Final Evaluation Report and knowledge transition materials - 4th - 8th May 2026 (5 days)
• Submission (final report, knowledge materials, datasets, management response), and Dissemination and publication of Results - 11th - 15th May 2026 (5 days)

Total days - 32 working days

Consultant's Workplace and Official Travel

This is a home-based consultancy. However, the consultant is expected to travel across the project locations (Bonthe, Kambia, Moyamba, Port Loko, Western Area Rural) to interact with the target respondents as per the project scope. The National Consultant will collaborate with the project stakeholders including CSOs, Ministry personnel (MOGCA), UN Women personnel, RPs, CSOs etc. for the delivery of the task.