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 and peace and security.
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in February 2022 triggered the largest and fastest-growing displacement crisis in Europe since the Second World War. Within months, millions had fled their homes — westward within Ukraine and across borders into neighboring countries — with women and children constituting around 90 per cent of the initial refugee outflow, as martial law restricted the departure of men of conscription age.[1] What began as a mass emergency has since evolved into a protracted war: hostilities have concentrated along the eastern and southern frontlines, while relentless, systematic attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure — including energy, transport, health and education facilities[2] — have extended the war's impact across the entire country, with 2025 marking the deadliest year for Ukraine's women since the full-scale invasion began.[3] In 2026, over 10.8 million people in Ukraine are estimated to require humanitarian assistance, 60 per cent of them women and girls.[4] (See more in Annex 1: Country Context.)
In Ukraine , UN Women works to ensure that the humanitarian response to the full-scale war addresses the distinct needs, priorities and rights of women and girls. It also supports women and girls to participate and lead in crisis response and recovery. Drawing on its triple mandate — normative, coordination and operational — UN Women’s Ukraine Country Office supports the humanitarian architecture in Ukraine to deliver on its gender equality commitments. It provides protection, livelihood and leadership support to war-affected women and girls, working in close partnership with Ukrainian women's rights and women-led organisations at the forefront of the response. This engagement spans the humanitarian–development–peace nexus, guided by its corporate Humanitarian Strategy[5] and Core Commitments in Humanitarian Action[6].
UN Women's Independent Evaluation Service (IES) is undertaking a thematic evaluation of UN Women's humanitarian response to the full-scale war in Ukraine (2022–2026). The evaluation will provide the organisation with an understanding of how it has responded and continuously adapted its humanitarian work — in Ukraine — since the onset of the full-scale invasion. The primary focus of the evaluation will be UN Women’s work in Ukraine, while acknowledging UN Women’s work in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region, including Moldova, Georgia and a regional refugee response led by the Regional Office. The purpose of the evaluation is to provide information for decision-making, learning and accountability. Its findings will inform UN Women's strategic positioning and value-add in the humanitarian landscape, strengthening its capacity to respond effectively to the needs and priorities of women and girls affected by the war.
UN WOMEN’S HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE TO THE FULL-SCALE WAR IN UKRAINE
Between 2022 and 2026, UN Women's humanitarian response in Ukraine has been led by the UN Women Ukraine Country Office and has evolved in scope and priorities. The Women Peace and Humanitarian Fund has provided significant financial resources to UN Women’s humanitarian engagement in Ukraine and has been one of the primary mechanisms of UN Women’s humanitarian support in the country.
Inter-agency coordination on gender in humanitarian action: Through its coordination and normative mandate, UN Women worked to ensure that the humanitarian system as a whole delivered on its gender equality commitments — providing the gender expertise, data and technical support that enabled humanitarian actors to identify and respond to the distinct needs of women and girls. Key actions included:
Protection and livelihood support to war-affected women and girls: Through its operational mandate, UN Women delivered gender-responsive, multi-sectoral assistance that combined protection, livelihoods and leadership support, largely through partnerships with women's rights and women-led organisations. Key actions included:
Amplifying voices, agency and leadership: UN Women placed war-affected women and their organisations at the centre of the response. Through the WPHF — the largest feminist fund for gender-responsive humanitarian assistance and early recovery in Ukraine — UN Women provided direct, flexible funding to 53 women's rights and women-led organisations as front-line responders. This support strengthened their capacity to exercise voice, agency and leadership in the response and recovery at national, regional and local levels, and embedded women's perspectives in Ukraine's key humanitarian response documents and frameworks. The GiHA working group at the national and sub-national levels also worked to advocate for the needs of women and girls in the humanitarian response with data, evidence, and knowledge of best practices.
Across the ECA region, UN Women has also supported the large wave of Ukrainian refugees. This has included, for example:
UN Women's humanitarian response in Ukraine has been anchored in the national and international frameworks governing humanitarian action in Ukraine, and in UN Women's corporate frameworks. At country level, the response aligned with the HNRPs and adhered to the policies and commitments of the IASC, including the IASC Gender Policy. Within UN Women, the response was guided by the UN Women Strategic Plan and the Ukraine Country Office Strategic Note. In UN Women all humanitarian work should also be guided by the corporate Humanitarian Strategy, the Core Commitments in Humanitarian Action and the Leadership, Empowerment, Access and Protection (LEAP) Gender Equality Accelerator/Programming Framework. A Humanitarian Strategy for Ukraine was developed in 2025 based on these, which is supposed to guide the strategic direction of the Ukraine CO.
An important note is that as UN Women operates in a nexus environment it’s humanitarian work in Ukraine is closely interconnected to all areas of work, as outlined in their Strategic Note, including Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE); Women, Peace and Security (WPS); Governance, Participation and Leadership; and cross-cutting communications support to share work on gender norms and stereotypes. Delineating what falls within the scope of humanitarian action is not always straightforward in Ukraine’s nexus context, where humanitarian, recovery, peacebuilding and development efforts are deeply interconnected due to the complex nature of the war and how it impacts all facets of society and the lived experiences of women and girls. The inception phase of the evaluation will further unpack and define what is considered to fall under the humanitarian response and map connections to other thematic areas of work.
During 2022–2026, UN Women's response to the full-scale war in Ukraine was supported by a range of funding partners across the humanitarian–development–peace nexus. Dedicated humanitarian funding was received from WPHF, Austria, Japan and UN Women National Committees. Other partners funded complementary programming, including Canada, France, and Sweden, Norway and Denmark, alongside contributions from the EU and the US Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. Notably, the Country Office had limited access to traditional humanitarian financing instruments — such as CERF, ECHO, the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund and funding channelled through the HNRP — a constraint that shaped the design and delivery of the response and is relevant context for this evaluation.
UN80 and the Humanitarian Reset:
The evaluation takes place against the backdrop of the humanitarian reset launched in 2025 amid severe contractions in global humanitarian financing — driving hyper-prioritisation of response plans, consolidation of the cluster architecture, and an accelerated shift towards local responders — as well as the broader UN80 reform process, which is reshaping mandates, structures and ways of working across the UN system. These changes carry risks for gender equality in humanitarian action, as dedicated gender expertise and coordination mechanisms come under pressure when structures consolidate and appeals narrow. In Ukraine, where the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan has been sharply prioritised, UN Women has sought to adapt, including by advocating for gender-responsive programming within prioritised plans and channelling resources through women-led organisations in line with the localisation agenda. Given that these reform processes are ongoing and their outcomes still unfolding, the evaluation should treat this shifting institutional and financing context as a cross-cutting consideration across all evaluation objectives, questions and recommendations.
The UN Women IES evaluates the work of UN Women to enhance organisational accountability, provide evidence-based information for decision-making and contribute to learning on gender equality and the empowerment of women. The evaluation serves a dual purpose. Looking back, it will assess the results of UN Women's humanitarian response to the full-scale war in Ukraine (summative); looking forward, it will generate insights to inform the future direction and positioning of UN Women's humanitarian engagement in Ukraine(formative). To this end, the evaluation has the following objectives:
The scope of the evaluation is defined across three dimensions: thematic, geographic and timeframe. Reflecting the evolving and cross-cutting nature of UN Women's humanitarian engagement — much of which was implemented across different areas of work rather than under a single humanitarian programme — the scope is deliberately defined broadly at this stage. It will be further refined during the inception phase, based on the desk review, evaluability assessment and scoping consultations, and the final delimitation of the evaluand will be set out in the inception report.
Thematic scope: The evaluation covers UN Women's humanitarian response to the full-scale war in Ukraine since 2022, including both interventions explicitly identified as humanitarian and humanitarian-relevant work under other areas of programming; the precise evaluand will be delimited during the inception phase. The scope is anchored in UN humanitarian and UN Women's corporate humanitarian frameworks — the Humanitarian Strategy (2022–2025), the LEAP Gender Equality Accelerator and the Core Commitments in Humanitarian Action (2025) — and structured around the Core Commitments' two pillars and cross-cutting approach:
Geographic scope: The evaluation will primarily focus on UN Women’s work in Ukraine, including all areas where UN Women has implemented humanitarian work since 2022, coordinated from the Kyiv office and the Dnipro sub-office. The evaluation will also acknowledge UN Women’s work in the ECA region, including Moldova, Georgia, and a regional refugee response led by the Regional Office. Data collection locations within Ukraine will be determined during the inception phase through purposive sampling, taking account of safety and security considerations.
Timeframe: The evaluation covers the period from February 2022, the onset of the full-scale invasion, to September-2026. Humanitarian-relevant work preceding February 2022 falls outside the scope, although the evaluation will take account of the pre-2022 context, including UN Women's presence in Ukraine since 2016 and the humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine since 2014, in so far as it informs the analysis.
The primary and secondary users and intended use are outlined below.
Primary Intended Use Learning & Knowledge Generation Strategic Decision-Making Accountability Capacity Development & Mobilisation UN Women CO Personnel X X X X UN Women ECA personnel X X X UN Women HQ Senior Management X X X UN Women IEAS X X UN Coordination Partners X X Primary Target groups X X X Civil Society Representatives X X X Donors & Multilateral Partners X X X
The evaluation will apply the five OECD/DAC evaluation criteria (relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability), as well as UN Women's additional criterion on human rights, gender equality, disability inclusion, and humanitarian principles, which will be assessed on a cross-cutting basis.
The evaluation team will revise the evaluation questions based on consultations during the inception phase and considering the feasibility of objectives and scope outlined in this Terms of Reference. The evaluation team should raise and address any other relevant issues that may emerge during the evaluation. They should be guided but not limited by the evaluation questions listed below. The evaluation team will develop an evaluation matrix during the inception phase in consultation with the Internal Reference Group (IRG) and the Evaluation Reference Group (ERG) which will outline the questions and means of answering them.
The UN Women Evaluation Policy[1] and UN Women Evaluation Handbook[2] are the main guiding documents that set forth the principles and organisational framework for evaluation planning, conduct, and follow-up in UN Women. These principles are aligned with the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Norms and Standards for Evaluation[3] and Ethical Guidelines.[4]
UN Women evaluations are gender-responsive meaning that both the process and analysis apply the key principles of a human rights-based approach: they are inclusive, participatory, ensure fair power relations, and transparent; and they analyse the underlying structural barriers and sociocultural norms that impede the realization of women’s rights, including marginalized groups: such as persons with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ status, and other groups that are affected by intersecting forms of discrimination (based on ethnicity and/or race).
UN Women evaluations are also utilisation-focused, which means that they will be tailored to the needs of the organisation through a participatory approach from the inception through to the development of recommendations, which will facilitate the production of a useful evaluation. All final project evaluations should also take a systemic perspective which recognizes that UN Women’s contributions towards gender equality and women’s empowerment outcomes and its ability to implement its programme of work are affected by several key influencing factors, such as social norms, harmful practices, international donor and financing environment, political environment, environmental risks or humanitarian crises, security concerns, and local partners capacity and commitment.
The evaluation process will consist of the following phases:
The evaluation will employ a non-experimental, mixed-methods approach that draws on quantitative and qualitative methods and uses triangulation to validate various sources of information. The evaluation design should, to the extent possible in the specific context of Ukraine, ensure participatory and inclusive processes that are culturally appropriate, account for the complexity of gender transformative programming, and ensure meaningful consultation of marginalised women. While the evaluation design will be finalised during the inception phase, it is anticipated that the methods of data collection for the thematic evaluation will include:
Qualitative analysis software will be used for thematic analysis of interviews and focus group discussions. Multiple lines of evidence will inform the contribution analysis. Sources and methods of information will be triangulated to ensure robust findings that can be used with confidence. The inception report will provide more details on the selected approach and methods based on desk review and evaluability assessment, scoping interviews, and consultations with Un Women staff and the ERG.
Qualitative insights and case study approaches are especially important to elicit stories of change among project participants or partners as well as narratives around implementation efforts in such a challenging and dynamic context. A purposive sampling approach will be utilized to ensure a diverse range of perspectives is obtained across all key informant groups while securing the safety and security of all involved. As noted in the scope section, the evaluations will cover selected areas where the humanitarian portfolio is implemented, with the intention of a purposive sampling approach. However, safety and security considerations will also need to inform data collection locations (see section on Risk Analysis and mitigation). The design and data collection logistics must be coordinated with UN Women Ukraine Country Office, including sub-office personnel in Dnipro and implementing partners.
Data collection methods and processes should be gender-responsive and data should be systematically disaggregated by sex and, to the extent possible, disaggregated by age, geographical region, ethnicity, disability, migratory status and other contextually relevant markers of equity. The evaluation should adhere to and be guided by the UNEG Norms and Standards (2016) and the UNEG Ethical Guidelines (2020) at every stage of the evaluation process, observing the principles of integrity, accountability, respect and beneficence. Specific guidelines should be observed, namely the UNEG guidance on Integrating Human Rights and Gender Equality in Evaluations (2014) ,UNEG Guidance on Integrating Disability Inclusion in Evaluations, 2022, UNEG Guidance on the Integration of Humanitarian Principles in the Evaluation of Humanitarian Action and the UNEG Guidance on the Integration of Humanitarian Principles in the Evaluation of Humanitarian Action.
Participatory evaluation is encouraged by UN Women. Stakeholders including but not limited to national and local government agencies, civil societies, women’s groups, UN agencies and leaders will be invited to participate in the process of the evaluation. The evaluators are expected to discuss during the Inception phase how the process will ensure participation of stakeholders at all stages, with a specific emphasis on members of women's organisations and networks, rights holders and their representatives. The evaluators are expected to consult with marginalised groups (e.g. ethnic minorities, women with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ and others) during data collection and apply an inclusive and participatory approach which will ensure active participation and involvement of stakeholders at all levels of the project. The evaluators will finalise the list of key stakeholders/informants and the appropriate data collection methods for each informant category (such as semi-structured or in-depth interviews, expert interviews, focus groups), which will be chosen in close coordination with the project team.
As the evaluation will not employ a randomised or controlled design, it will not be possible to attribute observed outcomes solely to UN Women-supported interventions. The use of purposive sampling may also limit generalisability, as participants are selected based on predefined criteria, as well as considerations related to geographical access, security constraints, and logistical feasibility in the Ukrainian context. This may result in certain perspectives being underrepresented and/or missed, due to a lack of diversity in those who are able to participate.
Turnover of personnel, including the humanitarian portfolio manager/leads at UN Women and staff within partner organisations, may also result in recall bias. The limitations of the sampling approach will be clearly indicated in the final report. Any evaluation that relies on self-reports is subject to bias. CO personnel will not be present during data collection, and data collectors will be trained to ensure they are not leading with questions and reassure respondents about confidentiality and anonymity. Steps will be taken to mitigate the above biases, including by clearly defining the selection criteria, ensuring diverse perspectives, pulling on secondary evidence from audits, UN system evaluations or other reviews, and triangulation of data.
To address these limitations, the evaluation will adopt several mitigation measures. These include clearly defined and transparent sampling criteria; deliberate efforts to capture diverse stakeholder perspectives, including across regions and population groups; triangulation of findings across multiple data sources; and systematic use of secondary evidence such as audits, prior UN system evaluations, and relevant reviews. All methodological limitations, including those related to sampling and attribution, will be explicitly acknowledged in the final evaluation report.
The evaluation will be conducted in a high-risk, rapidly changing security environment, and risk management will be integral to its design. Key risks include safety restrictions on travel and data collection, mental health and trauma, and risks to the safety and confidentiality of participants. These will be mitigated by continuously monitoring the security situation, following UN Women Security, UNDSS and Designated Official guidance during all field missions; maintaining a flexible methodology with contingency plans for data collection; and applying the do no harm principle throughout, including informed consent, confidentiality, protection of sensitive data and full anonymity of key informants in reporting. Persons taking part in the evaluation should be SAFE/IFAK certified to be able to travel to Ukraine. A comprehensive risk analysis and mitigation plan, covering security, ethical and operational risks, will be elaborated in the inception report.
The evaluation will initiate in October 2026, and the final thematic evaluation report will be finalised by May 2027
Mar Apr May Inception Phase Inception interviews and workshop X X Inception report and data collection tools X Data Collection and Analysis Desk review X X X Virtual data collection X X X In-country data collection and validation X Virtual consultations with UKR CO project teams X X X X X X Reporting Preliminary Findings Presentations X Draft evaluation report X Final evaluation report X Communication product / Brief X
The evaluation will be led by the UN Women Independent Evaluation Service (IES), ensuring its independence throughout. The management structure comprises the following:
The evaluation will follow the IES Guidance Note on Short Evaluation Reports (2026). The main report should not exceed 7,000 words, excluding annexes, with full evidence and technical detail retained in annexes (assessed for quality but not counted towards the word limit). All GERAAS criteria continue to apply, and recommendations will be limited to a prioritized set of typically three to five actions." The draft and final reports will be shared with IEAIS leadership and the external and internal Evaluation Reference Groups. IEAIS leadership will approve the final report.
UN Women has developed a UN Women Evaluation Consultants Agreement Form for evaluators that must be signed as part of the contracting process, which is based on the UNEG Ethical Guidelines. These documents will be annexed to contracts, including firms engaged. All data collected by the team members must be submitted to the evaluation manager in Word, PowerPoint or Excel formats and is the property of UN Women. Proper storage of data is essential for ensuring confidentiality. The inception report should detail a data protection plan with procedures for storing and destroying all data collected. The UNEG guidelines note the importance of ethical conduct for the following reasons:
The evaluation value added is its impartial and systematic assessment of the programme or intervention. As with the other stages of the evaluation, involvement of stakeholders should not interfere with the impartiality of the evaluation. The evaluation team has the final judgment on the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the evaluation report, and the team must be protected from pressures to change information in the report.
The evaluations must ensure that the rights of the individual are protected and participation in the evaluation does not result in further violation of their rights. Informed consent must be obtained from all participants, and the nature of informed consent must be included in the inception report. Proper procedures for data collection with participants who may have been affected by violence must be adhered to throughout data collection as outlined in the WHO Ethical and Safety Recommendations for research on violence against women. This should also be used as a guiding document to ensure safe consultations with survivors. This includes access to updated information to offer referrals to participants for psycho-social support as needed. Proper storage of data is essential for ensuring confidentiality.
The ECA Regional Evaluation Specialist (RES), and an Evaluation Specialist from Global Office NY are members of IES and act as co-evaluation team leaders for this evaluation process. The team leads will be supported by three external independent consultants. The evaluation team consists of three evaluators, including two International Experts (One as Evaluation Team lead and one as a Humanitarian Expert) and an additional National Team Member, to be recruited by the UN Women Ukraine CO based on the TOR.
Consultants should have proven commitment to the core values of the United Nations, in particular respecting differences of culture, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, language, age, HIV status, disability, and sexual orientation, or other.
National Evaluation Expert (32 days of engagement)
5 days
5 days
10 days
6 days
4 days
2 days Total Up to 32 days
An interpreter/translator will be used from the existing LTA agreement on such services for the inception consultations, data collection during the field mission and translation of final report, as needed.
Financial Arrangements: Payments shall be made following certification by UN Women that the services related to each deliverable, as described above, have been satisfactorily completed and the deliverables have been achieved by or before the specified due dates.
Performance evaluation: The consultant’s performance will be evaluated against performance criteria such as timeliness, responsibility, initiative, communication, accuracy, and quality of the products delivered.
This is a home-based consultancy. Under the current assignment, the national consultant will be travelling within the country as needed for data collection missions. The payment of the consultant will include the transportation costs.
This section describes the type of products (reports, briefs or other) that are expected from the evaluation, who will use them and how they will be used.
Deliverable Time frame for submission
Person responsible
Inception report Word format (including 2 rounds of revision)
December 2026
Evaluator (IRG and IES feedback)
Presentation of Preliminary Findings
March 2027
Evaluator (IRG and ERG feedback)
Draft report Word format (including 2 rounds of revision)
April 2027
Evaluator (IRG and ERG feedback)
Final report and evaluation brief
May 2027
Evaluator (IRG and ERG feedback)
Language of deliverables
The reports and timesheets delivered to UN Women shall be prepared in English.
The assignment should be carried out within a period of 8 months.
The start date of the assignment is envisaged for October 2026 and will be completed by May 2027.
A model Evaluation Report will be provided to the evaluator based on the following outline. The evaluation manager and the regional evaluation specialist will quality assure the evaluation report. The draft and final evaluation report will be shared with the evaluation reference group, and the evaluation management group for quality review. The final report will be approved by the evaluation management committee.
Language:
[1] UN Women Revised Evaluation Policy, UNW/2020/5/Rev.2 ; accessible at: https://www.unwomen.org/- /media/headquarters/attachments/sections/executive%20board/2020/second%20regular%20session/unw-2020-5- rev2%20revised%20eval%20policy%20for%20endorsement%20at%20srs%202020%203%20sept%20rev.pdf-la=en&vs=3925
[2] UN Women Evaluation Handbook, 2015; accessible at: https://genderevaluation.unwomen.org/en/evaluation-handbook
[3] UNEG, “Norms and Standards for evaluation”, 2016, available online at: http://www.unevaluation.org/document/detail/1914.
[4] UNEG, “Ethical guidelines”, 2008, available online at: http://www.unevaluation.org/document/detail/102.
[1] UN Women and CARE, Rapid Gender Analysis (May 2022)
[2] OCHA, Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) (January 2026)
[4] OCHA, Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) (January 2026)
[5] UN Women Humanitarian Strategy 2022-2025
[6] UN Women Core Commitments in Humanitarian Action (2025)
Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Values and Competencies Framework:
In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.
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