Plan International Recruitment 2019 for Consultant/ consultancy team to carry out the mid-term evaluation of the project “Strengthening Kakungu community resilience to climate change”

Plan International Recruitment 2019 for Consultant/ consultancy team to carry out the mid-term evaluation of the project “Strengthening Kakungu community resilience to climate change”

Applications are invited from suitably qualified Applicants for the Plan International Recruitment 2019. Interested applicant(s) ought to follow the details and procedures on this page to secure this opportunity.

Contents

Plan International Recruitment 2019

Terms of Reference

Mid-term Evaluation of the project “Strengthening Kakungu community resilience to climate change through development of sustainable livelihoods”

1. About Plan International

We strive to advance children’s rights and equality for girls all over the world. As an independent development and humanitarian organisation, we work alongside children, young people, our supporters and partners to tackle the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children. We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood and enable children to prepare for and respond to crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge. For over 80 years we have been building powerful partnerships for children, and we are active in over 75 countries.

Plan International Malawi (PIM) started operations in Malawi in 1994 and has a direct presence in four districts (Mzimba, Kasungu, Lilongwe and Mulanje). PIM works at community level to develop inclusive participatory, child friendly interventions to ensure long term change through interventions in the Education, Health, Child Protection, WASH and Humanitarian Response sectors.

Plan International Germany (GNO) is supporting the implementation of projects at community level through sponsorship and grants projects. In Malawi, we are currently funding four private grants in the Program Areas Lilongwe and Mzuzu, with support from the German foundation “Stiftung Hilfe mit Plan”, as well as an institutional grant in Mulanje Program Area.

Plan International Germany and Plan International Malawi are seeking a consultant or firm qualified and experienced in the sector of agriculture with a focus on climate change adaptation to conduct the Mid-term Evaluation of the project “Strengthening Kakungu community resilience to climate change through development of sustainable livelihoods”.

2. Project background

The project is implemented in Lilongwe Program Area, reaching all 448 households in Kakungu community in Traditional Authority Njewa. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to improved and strengthened food and nutrition security among poor households through implementation of sustainable livelihoods interventions, capacity building, and skills and knowledge transfer thereby ensuring that children, youth, women and men are resilient to the effects of socio-economic and climate change shocks, and impact of disasters. The project is structured in two phases:

  1. “Strengthening Kakungu” lasting from 1st May 2017 until 30th April 2019

In the first two years, the focus is on activities directly implemented in Kakungu community. With different trainings, awareness raising and establishment of community structures, “Strengthening Kakungu” is a direct follow-up to a former project implemented from February 2015 until April 2017.

  1. “Learning from Kakungu” lasting from 1st May 2019 until 30th April 2021

The second phase, called “Learning from Kakungu”, will be used for a phase-out of direct activities in Kakungu community and focus on replication of lessons learned and tested interventions among relevant stakeholders.

Specific objectives of the project are

  1. Livelihoods – To strengthen community coping mechanisms through improved agricultural practices and inputs
  2. Nutrition – To improve nutrition practices towards prevention of acute malnutrition and micro nutrient deficiency
  3. Learning – To strengthen information sharing between stakeholders on climate change adaptation.

3. Evaluation focus

3.1 Purpose of the evaluation

At the end of phase 1 “Strengthening Kakungu”, the project seeks to conduct a gender sensitive Mid-term Evaluation (MTE). The purpose of this evaluation is to assess the performance of the project and capture project achievements and challenges in order to identify those project components that are particularly suitable for replication. The evaluation should have a strong focus on identifying areas of good practices and interventions that proved to be most effective and sustainable. This detailed analysis should give recommendations to be considered during a review and planning workshop, which the project team and relevant stakeholders will conduct in order to use the findings of the study and develop the strategy for the following two years of the phase “Learning from Kakungu”.

3.2 Evaluation criteria

Effectiveness: Assess the extent to which, and the reasons behind, the achievement (or not) of the project objectives and results, and whether these are leading to unintended (positive or negative) consequences for anybody involved or affected by the interventions. The project has determined a performance measurement framework that shall serve as a basis for this analysis.

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Sustainability: Assess the probability of continued long-term benefits to the target populations after the project has been completed. This includes the resource and capacity of community members to continue the intervention after phase-out. (N.B.: an ex post evaluation is planned for May 2022 (one year after project completion) in order to evaluate the sustainability of the program activities)

Child rights, gender and inclusion: Assess the extent to which the project applied gender and inclusion sensitive approaches and explicitly aimed for results that improve the rights of children and young people and promote gender equality. The study should give recommendations for future projects and programs towards gender transformative programming.

Lessons learnt and recommendations/ Replicability: Assess areas of good practices and interventions that proved to be most effective and are likely to be sustainable and produce recommendations for the review and planning workshop in order to prepare the phase of replication of lessons learned and tested interventions among relevant stakeholders.

3.3 Evaluation questions

Effectiveness

· To what extent have the planned objectives and results in the logframe/ performance measurement framework of the project, been reached (per indicator, disaggregated by gender and age)?

· To what extent have the project activities contributed to the overall objective?

· What were the key success factors influencing the achievement of the objectives of the project?

· What opportunities for collaboration have been utilized and how have these contributed to increased effectiveness?

Sustainability

· How likely will the changes caused by this project continue beyond the life of the project?

· What mechanisms has Plan International Malawi put in place to sustain the key project outcomes?

· What are the risks facing sustainability of project outcomes?

Child rights gender and inclusion

· How has the project addressed gender issues and promoted gender equality in the communities?

· Did the interventions miss or exclude any people who should have benefited particularly marginalized children?

· What needs to be changed to contribute to greater equality and non-discrimination and lead to gender transformative programming?

Lessons learnt and recommendations / Replicability

· Which activities have proven to be most effective to reach the program’s objectives and are particularly suitable for replication?

· What are the key lessons learnt, good practices, conclusions and recommendations?

· What should guide the implementation of the phase “Learning from Kakungu” in light of results arising from the evaluation?

· Who are the key stakeholders in Malawi that should be addressed in the phase “Learning from Kakungu”? What are appropriate ways to address and involve them in replicating the learnings form the Kakungu experience?

· How can the lessons learned be communicated to relevant stakeholders during the phase “Learning from Kakungu”?

4. Users of the evaluation

The MTE will be mainly used by Plan International Malawi and Plan International Germany. It will inform and prepare the review and planning workshop that will be conducted with relevant stakeholders in order to develop the strategy of the phase “Learning from Kakungu”.

Therefore the MTE will also be shared with key stakeholders in Malawi such as government line ministries/departments, NGOs, local authorities, and communities as well as the donor in Germany.

The evaluation shall also be used by other staff at the Regional Hub RESA as well as other Country Offices in the region to improve programming by using the findings and recommendations.

5. Methods for data collection and analysis

The evaluation should use a mixed methods approach integrating both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection in order to inform the indicators as determined in the project monitoring and evaluation framework and answer the evaluation questions as outlined above. The evaluator(s) shall ensure that triangulation of information gathered is possible.

The evaluator(s) shall base the overall evaluation methodology on the currently used community-based monitoring approach and tools (a household survey and an output monitoring form) to assess the indicators.

To assess the evaluation criteria and answer the evaluation question, new methodologies and tools will be required. When developing these tools they shall aim to use child friendly, gender sensitive approaches.

The data collection should include the use of a number of approaches to gain a deeper understanding of the outcomes and most effective and sustainable interventions of the project. The data collection methods can include:

· Desk review of background documents (project documents, project monitoring and evaluation framework, monitoring data, progress reports, baseline study, reports of the past evaluations of the former project).

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· Key informant interviews (e.g. with Plan International Malawi project staff members, key district and community members/committees, and representatives from the government line ministries).

· Focus group discussions with relevant stakeholders (e.g. community members, women, men and youth who benefited from the project).

· Individual interviews with community members.

· Questionnaires with community members.

It is expected that the evaluator(s) will develop a detailed methodology for data collection, data management and analysis to answer the evaluation questions. This methodology should be in direct response to the evaluation questions and will be further unpacked in the inception report by the evaluator once the evaluation is underway.

5.1 Sample

The evaluation should gather relevant primary data in all 16 villages of Kakungu community, where the project is implemented and reflect the respective size of the communities. All data should be disaggregated by gender and age.

Quantitative data collections (household questionnaires) shall survey a representative sample of the community.

The currently used community-based monitoring is using a sample of 176 households (11 households per village). The evaluator(s) are expected to verify the monitoring data as well as reflect and assess this sampling size and adjust it for the purpose of this MTE as outlined above, if applicable.

It is expected that the evaluator(s) will outline the intended sampling strategy and sample size in the inception report.

5.2 Participant selection and recruitment

As a minimum requirement, the following key stakeholders and target groups should be given the opportunity to provide feedback on the project to the evaluator(s):

· Project staff (project coordinator, M&E officer, project facilitator) and Management of Plan International Malawi

· Government line Ministries and Extension Workers (Agriculture, Forestry)

· Community leaders (female and male)

· Community committees (Village Development Committee, Natural Resource Management Committee, Youth Clubs, SUN care groups, and others)

· Participants of project activities (e.g. lead farmers, irrigation farmers, participants of trainings and awareness-raising events, school children and teachers (for all groups female and male))

· Community members

The evaluator(s) could also identify and suggest additional or excluded stakeholders that they feel are important to involve to ensure they get the information they need to answer the evaluation questions.

6. Ethics and child protection

Plan International is committed to ensuring that the rights of those participating in data collection or analysis are respected and protected, in accordance with our Child and Youth Safeguarding Policy. All applicants should include details in their proposal on how they will ensure ethics and child protection in the data collection process. Specifically, the consultant(s) shall explain how appropriate, safe, non-discriminatory participation of all stakeholders will be ensured and how special attention will be paid to the needs of children and other vulnerable groups. The consultant(s) shall also explain how confidentiality and anonymity of participants will be guaranteed.

7. Key deliverables

The consultant is expected to lead, accomplish and submit the following deliverables within the agreed timeframe and budget:

  1. An inception report, which will serve as an agreement between parties on how the evaluation will be conducted and should include:

· detailed methodology, including sampling methodology and size;

· an evaluation matrix;

· ethical considerations;

· draft data collection tools;

· consent forms for any primary data collection;

· (draft) methods for data analysis;

· brief justification of the methods and techniques to be used (including relevant underlying values and assumptions/ theories) with a justification of the selections of participants;

· schedule of activities and traveling (timeline).

  1. Final data collection tools
  2. Cleaned data (including data files (e.g. Excel, SPSS), transcripts of qualitative data syntax/ code books etc.)
  3. Consent forms for any primary data collection
  4. Draft evaluation report (in MS Office format)
  5. Final evaluation report (in MS Office and PDF format)
  6. A 5 paged summary report of key recommendations to be used in the review and planning workshop A presentation (ppt.) including the main aspects of the MTE and key recommendations to be presented during the review and planning workshop

8. Timeline

Activity / Time / Number of working days / Responsible / Involved

Tendering / 11/03/2019 / – / GNO / PIM

Deadline for submission of proposals / 05/04/2019 / 20 days / Consultant / –

Assessment of proposals / 08/04/ – 12/04/2019 / 5 days / GNO and PIM / –

Selection of consultant, incl. background checks and contracting / 15/04/ – 18/04/2019 / 4 days / GNO / Consultant

Inception call / 23/04/2019 / 1 day / Consultant, GNO and PIM / –

Submission of inception report / 07/05/2019 / 10 days / Consultant / GNO and PIM

Review, feedback and approval of inception report / 17/05/2019 / 8 days / GNO and PIM / Consultant

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Preparations for data collection: a) Tool translation; b) Field piloting; c) Tools finalisation; d) Enumerator training; e) Mobilisation of respondents / 20/05/ – 31/05/2019 / (detailed planning to be done by consultant) / 10 days / Consultant / PIM

Submission of final data collection tools / 31/05/2019 / – / Consultant / GNO and PIM

Data collection; Data entry and cleaning; Data analysis; Validation of findings with key stakeholders and respondents & feedback incorporation / 03/06/ – 05/072019 (detailed planning to be done by consultant) / 25 days / Consultant / PIM

Submission of draft report / 08/07/2019 / – / Consultant / GNO and PIM

Review and feedback of draft report / 08/07/ – 12/07/2019 / 5 days / GNO and PIM / Consultant

Submission of final report, cleaned data and consent forms / 19/07/2019 / 5 days / Consultant / GNO and PIM

Review and approval of final report / 19/07/ – 23/07/2019 / 2 days / GNO and PIM / Consultant

Submission of summary report and presentation / 25/07/2019 / 2 days / Consultant / GNO and PIM

Development of management response and action plan / 26/07/2019 / 3 days / PIM Management / GNO

Participation and presentation of MTE at the review and planning workshop / Beginning Sept., date tbc / 1 day / Consultant

9. Budget

The maximum evaluation budget is 22,000 Euro. The evaluator’s proposal should include a detailed budget breakdown including number of working days, consultant fees, expenses / per diems, VAT/taxes, social and medical insurance, translation and interpretation, software licenses, electronic devices, travel and VISA costs (if applicable), costs for the development of data collection tools, and all output-related costs.

The payment is in instalments and subject to the delivery of outputs and their formal approval by Plan International as follows:

Milestone / Detail / Amount to be paid (%) / Expected timeframe

Pre-financing / Payment following the signature of the contract / 20% / 19/04/2019

Approval of the inception report / The inception report will be reviewed by GNO and PIM. The consultant is expected to include any feedback before the report will be approved. / 30% / 17/05/2019

Approval of the final report / The final report will be reviewed by GNO and PIM. The consultant is expected to include any feedback before the report will be approved. / 45% / 23/07/2019

Participation in the review and planning workshop / Participation and presentation of MTE at the review and planning workshop / 5% / Beginning Sept., date tbc

10. Expected qualifications

The consultant or the consulting firm should have the following experience and formal qualifications:

· Masters level degree in a relevant field, such as climate change, environmental management, natural resources management or Social Science.

· Proven experience in coordinating and administering evaluations/end line studies, including data collection and entry, data management and storage, preferably for international NGOs.

· Proficiency in qualitative and quantitative research methods.

· Proven experience with data collection, data analysis and statistics.

· Thematic expertise and experience in the area of agriculture and climate change adaptation, and related policies and services systems in Malawi.

· Should have undertaken similar works in Malawi in the last five years

· Knowledge and experience in gender issues, awareness on inclusion, child protection and child rights issues.

· Ready to form a gender balanced research team.

· Experience with working with local communities in relevant local languages.

· Excellent command / highly proficient in spoken and written in English.

How to apply:

11. Contact

Please send your proposals to Plan International Germany, Region of Eastern and Southern Africa under the following e-mail address: [email protected]

12. Applications

How To Apply

Interested applicants should provide a proposal covering the following aspects:

  • Detailed response to the TOR
  • Proposed methodology
  • Ethics and child safeguarding approaches, including any identified risks and associated mitigation strategies
  • Proposed timelines
  • CVs
  • Example of previous work
  • Detailed budget, including daily fee rates, expenses, taxes etc.
  • Police Certificates of Good Conduct (should be made available before contracting, costs shall be included in the total budget)

Please send your application to Plan International Germany by 05/04/2019 24:00 hr (CET) referencing “Mid-term Evaluation for Strengthening Kakungu community resilience to climate change” in the subject line, and including support documents as outlined.

Annex will be shared on demand.

Annex 1: Checklist for Completeness

Annex 2: Global Policy: Safeguarding Children and Young People

Annex 3: Full Report Structure

Annex 4: Project Details

 

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