Провідний експерт /експертка з оцінювання Програми «Молодіжний працівник»

Through its Democratic Governance and Inclusive Social Fabric portfolio, UNDP Ukraine supports the Government, civil society, and people of Ukraine in advancing democratic policies and practices essential for accelerating progress on sustainable human development and the promotion of human rights. This includes advocating for human rights and gender equality, supporting anti-corruption initiatives, enabling all Ukrainian citizens to protect their rights, strengthening participatory governance and civic engagement mechanisms, and empowering civil society and youth activists.

The project “Civil Society and Youth Support” (CSYP), funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is a nation-scale 4-year project that runs from 1 January 2023 until 31 December 2026. CSYP builds on many years of joint programming by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DMFA) and UNDP supporting civil society and youth empowerment. The project contributes to the long-term result: “Ukraine’s civil society and youth are impactful players in strengthening the country’s resilience and recovery, democracy and human rights agenda, including issues of respect to diversity and women’s rights and social cohesion.” The project has a three-dimensional approach, working with civil society organisations at subnational level, supporting an enabling policy environment for CSOs and the national “youth machinery” at central level, and supporting Ukrainian youth to actively participate in the country’s recovery.

In 2014, UNDP Ukraine launched the Youth Worker Programme in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine and the State Institute for Family and Youth Policy. The Programme was conceived as a way to introduce European approaches and shared values in youth work, while adapting them to Ukrainian realities through a structured training model and a national trainers’ team. Over the past decade, the Programme has evolved from a series of non-formal educational trainings for specialists working with youth – both from private and public sector – into a nationally recognised system of non-formal education for professionals in the fields of youth work and youth policy. The programme is currently is institutionalised by the Government of Ukraine and is situated under the All-Ukrainian Youth Centre (AUYC) which bears primary responsibility for the programme implementation from the State side and has dedicated budget for that. UNDP and several other international partners partner with AUYC and Ministry of Youth and Sports in the programme development and implementation.

The Youth Worker Programme comprises three levels of training: a basic course introducing the foundations of youth work and youth policy; specialised courses providing deeper learning on selected topics in response to sector needs; and a Training of Trainers track that prepares participants to deliver trainings, sustain quality and expand coverage. The Programme also invested in professional community building through national events, including the Forum of Youth Workers and the competition of the best practices of youth work.

A major milestone in the Programme’s institutional development was the growing formal recognition of youth work as a professional field. In March 2023, the professional standard for the profession Specialist on Youth Issues, Youth Worker was approved and registered, and the national classifier of professions was updated to include the youth worker. As of 1 October 2024, the Programme counted 7,046 graduates, reflecting its scale and its role as a nationwide capacity development approach. In 2023, programme administration transitioned to the All-Ukrainian Youth Centre, replacing the State Institute for Family and Youth Policy.

The Youth Worker Programme is included in the State Target Social Programmes “Youth of Ukraine” 2021–2025 and 2026–2030, reflecting its role in the national youth policy infrastructure. In practical terms, this means that some funding is allocated annually for programme implementation at both the national and community levels, although in both cases the funding is not fully sufficient. As a result, many programme activities are co financed by international partners such as United Nations Development Programme and others. In the context of limited state funding for youth policy implementation and the ongoing war and recovery priorities, continued partner support remains important to sustain delivery, ensure training quality, and maintain a focus on professional development of youth work practitioners and institutions across the country.

Against this background, and in close coordination with the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine, UNDP is commissioning an external evaluation of the Youth Worker Programme covering the past ten years. The evaluation will inform decisions on the Programme’s continuation and future direction. To ensure independent expert leadership, UNDP intends to engage an Individual Contractor (Lead Evaluation Expert) responsible for the design and analytical work of the evaluation, while primary data collection will be carried out by a separate outsourcing organisation contracted by UNDP. It is envisioned, that the Lead Evaluation Expert will design the methodology, develop the data collection tools, verify the quality of data collection and analysis carried out by the outsourcing organisation, and prepare the draft and final evaluation reports.

MAIN OBJECTIVE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The objective of the assignment is to provide the methodological leadership and analytical work required to deliver a clear, evidence-based account of what the Youth Worker Programme has achieved in Ukraine over the last 10 years, how the full-scale invasion impacted the programme development and its focus, what value it adds today, and what it should prioritise next. The evaluation will inform decisions on the Programme’s continuation and future direction, and support partners in agreeing a realistic pathway for strengthening the Programme’s quality, administration, and reach. The key users of the evaluation at the national level will be the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine, the All-Ukrainian Youth Center, United Nations Development Programme, and other international partners supporting the programme, as well as territorial communities, youth centres, the broader youth worker community, and programme trainers. The recommendations should be addressed to these parties and reflected accordingly. The evaluation will assess relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, and impact in line with the DAC evaluation criteria, and will examine the Programme’s contribution across three connected levels: (i) the individual level (changes in youth workers’ competencies, confidence, professional identity and practice);

(ii) the organisational/local community level (integration of youth work approaches into civil society work and local authorities); and (iii) the institutional/ecosystem level (contribution to the wider development of youth work and youth policy in Ukraine, including coordination, standards, professionalisation and positioning within the broader landscape of non-formal education).

The Lead Evaluation Expert will develop a focused set of hypotheses about how the Programme is expected to generate results and will test these using triangulated data from programme records, stakeholder perspectives, and targeted case examples. The evaluator should apply an outcome harvesting approach to identify and verify concrete changes linked to the Programme at individual, organisational/community and institutional levels, ensuring that conclusions on the Programme’s contribution are based on concrete and verifiable evidence;

The evaluation should deliver a balanced picture of progress and gaps, practical recommendations, and a small set of evidence-informed development scenarios for the next phase of the Programme.

SCOPE OF WORK

Under the direct supervision of the Monitoring and Evaluation Analyst, CSYP, the Lead Evaluation Expert will lead the design, analysis and reporting of an external evaluation of the Youth Worker Programme using a mixed-method, contribution-focused approach. The Expert will not carry out primary data collection. Data collection will be conducted by a separate organisation contracted by UNDP and the Expert will be provided with that data by the UNDP. The Expert will, however, design all data collection

instruments and verify the correctness of the raw data collection and the analysis produced by the contracted organization.

Specifically, the Lead Evaluation Expert will be responsible for the following:

• Conduct a desk review of key programme, policy, legal, administrative and other relevant documents related to the Youth Worker Programme and the broader youth work and youth policy context in Ukraine, and prepare a short overview and data availability note identifying available sources, major evidence gaps and limitations relevant to the evaluation;
• Develop the evaluation design, including the evaluation matrix, hypotheses, sampling logic, analytical framework and limitations / mitigation measures, and propose the final combination of core methods (desk review, in-depth stakeholder interviews and online survey of youth workers, focus group discussions) and at least two (2) additional methods (e.g. mapping of the youth work training ecosystem, focus group discussions with youth workers, focus group discussions with trainers, community case studies, focus group discussions with young people);
• Develop all data collection tools (interview protocols, survey instruments, focus group discussion guides, case study templates, observation guides) and quality assurance procedures, gender-responsive and inclusive approaches, for use by the contractor responsible for data collection;
• Verify the correctness of the raw data collection and the analysis produced by the data collection contractor;
• Triangulate findings across all sources, identify well-substantiated findings and more tentative conclusions, and assess the Programme’s positioning, distinctiveness, overlaps and risks of duplication within the broader landscape of youth work and non-formal education in Ukraine;
• Prepare the inception report, the draft evaluation report, and the final evaluation report, in line with the standards and structure agreed with UNDP;
• Conduct one validation session with key stakeholders and youth workers to discuss preliminary findings and document how the feedback was reflected in the final outputs;
• Deliver practical recommendations and a small set of evidence-informed development scenarios for the next phase of the Programme, including options for UNDP, Ministry of Youth and Sports, All-Ukrainian Youth center on the national level to engage with and support the Programme going A separate set of recomendations should also be addressed to the youth workers and prgramme trainers as well as local self-government bodies and local youth centres.

EXPECTED OUTPUTS AND DELIVERABLES:

INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS

The Consultant shall report to the Monitoring and Evaluation Analyst and Civil Society and Youth Project Manager, CSYP. The format of the reports must be agreed at the inception stage of the contract; UNDP reserves the right to make further changes and clarifications to the report’s format.

The Consultant shall provide the necessary information and reports according to a preliminary determined schedule or as soon as possible (within a reasonable period of time). The quality of the evaluation and produced deliverables will be assessed according to the internationally recognized standards and criteria.

The Consultant will duly inform UNDP of any problems, issues or delays arising in the course of implementation of the assignment and take necessary steps to address them, including any quality issues identified in the work of the outsourcing organisation responsible for primary data collection.

All reports and results are to be submitted to UNDP in electronic form (*.docx, *.xlsx, *.pptx, *.pdf, or other formats accepted by UNDP) with the final products attached. The language of the reports and final deliverables is English.No reports or documents should be published or distributed to third parties without the approval of UNDP.

The evaluation should adhere to the quality standards of OECD, such as evaluability, methodology, stakeholder engagement, validity and reliability, independence, ethics.

PAYMENT SCHEDULE

The payments shall be arranged in stages in accordance with the proposed payment scheme below and upon acceptance of the deliverables based on quality control and recommendations. UNDP will be the ultimate authority to control the quality of work results and assess the Consultant’s performance during the assignment.

Travel is not envisaged, In case any public events are planned by UNDP as part of the present assignment beyond the activities foreseen in this TOR, the Consultant will not be responsible for the logistics of such events; UNDP will cover the related conference costs (including possible printing, food, accommodation, transportation, tickets, etc.) on its own.

In particular, the payment schedule will be as follows:

COMPETENCIES REQUIRED:

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism;
• Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

Education:

• At least Bachelor’s degree in social sciences, public policy, evaluation, statistics, sociology, or related fields;
• At least five (5) years of professional experience in designing and managing mixed methods evaluations, assessments or analytical assignments in the fields such as, civil society development, public administration, or related fields;
• Experience in leading evaluations, assessments or analytical assignments in the youth policy and/or youth work will be considered as an asset;
• At least three (3) examples / samples / brief overview of analytical or evaluation reports where the candidate was the author or lead author, related to youth policy, youth work, education, civil society development, public administration, social inclusion, or related fields (to be provided as links in the CV / proposal or as separate documents);
• Experience in conducting gender-responsive and inclusive evaluations (use of gender-disaggregated analysis, bias-free interviewing, inclusive research approaches) will be considered as an asset (examples / brief overview of evaluations, assessments or research to be included in the respective CV section with web-links or provided as separate documents);
• Previous relevant work experience with UN agencies, international organisations, or government bodies of Ukraine in the field of youth policy / civil society / evaluation will be considered as an asset;
• Fluency in Ukrainian (speaking, writing, editing) and working knowledge of English (the deliverables under this assignment must be produced in English) is Language proficiency should be clearly specified in the CV and, where possible, confirmed by available language level certificates or relevant examples of reports, or other written work.
• Personal CV, including information about experience in similar projects / assignments as well as the email and telephone contacts of at least two (2) professional references;
• Financial proposal;
• At least three (3) examples / samples / brief overview of analytical or evaluation reports where the candidate was the author or lead author, related to youth policy, youth work, education, civil society development, public administration, social inclusion, or related fields (to be included in the respective CV section with web-links or provided as separate documents);
• If applicable: Experience in conducting gender-responsive and inclusive evaluations use of gender-disaggregated analysis, bias-free interviewing, inclusive research approaches) will be considered as an asset (examples / brief overview of evaluations, assessments or research to be included in the respective CV section with web-links or provided as separate documents).

Experience:

Language requirements:

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSAL

Applicants shall submit the following documents:

 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS, CONFIDENTIALITY, AND PROPRIETARY INTERESTS

• The Individual contract (IC) holder needs to apply standard ethical principles during the Some of these must deal with confidentiality of interviewee statements when necessary, refraining from making judgmental remarks about stakeholders
• The consultant shall not, during or after completion of the assignment, disclose any proprietary or confidential information related to the services without prior written consent from
• All materials, data, and documents produced under this assignment shall remain the property of UNDP and the Government, and may not be used for purposes outside the assignment without
• Feedback from the interviewees should be presented in the aggregate manner in the final report without referring to a particular individual and the interview logs are not shared wit

 RESPONSIBLE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) IN CONTRACT IMPLEMENTATION

Where AI tools are used in the performance of the contract or development of deliverables, the contractor shall ensure that:

• AI use is appropriate, proportionate, and subject to effective human oversight and professional judgment;
• Deliverables are accurate, reliable, explainable, non-discriminatory, and fit for purpose;
• No confidential, personal, sensitive, or proprietary information related to UNDP, beneficiaries, partners, or third parties is disclosed to unauthorized AI platforms or systems;
• AI-generated outputs are reviewed, verified, and validated by qualified personnel before submission to UNDP;
• The use of AI does not infringe intellectual property, copyright, privacy, or data protection obligations;
• The contractor remains fully liable and accountable for all deliverables and outcomes, regardless of AI 

UNDP reserves the right to request disclosure of material AI use in the preparation of deliverables and to require revision or replacement of outputs where AI use creates quality, ethical, legal, security, or confidentiality concerns. 

Source and application https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_negotiation.cfm?nego_id=45853