Endline Evaluation of Eastern Africa Peace and Southern Africa Fighting Inequality Advocacy Programmes 76 views1 applications

Terms of Reference

For the Endline Evaluation of Eastern Africa Peace and Southern Africa Fighting Inequality Advocacy Programmes

Norwegian Church Aid – Regional Office, Nairobi

Background

Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) is a diaconal organization mandated by churches and Christian organizations in Norway to work with people around the world to eradicate poverty and injustice. In 2016-2018, NCA’s long-term development work resulted in long-lasting change for people in over 30 countries.

NCA has been operating in Africa since the 1960s, implementing large humanitarian and developmental programmes, and currently has a presence in 16 countries. In Eastern Africa, NCA aims to contribute to a more inclusive, just, cohesive and peaceful region. Together with faith-based organizations and civil society organizations drawn from the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa Region, NCA’s Regional Peace Programme promotes social cohesion, prevents and counters violent extremism, and strengthens peace structures to prevent and transform conflicts, ensuring that peace processes are inclusive and social action for peace is safeguarded. In contributing to this, NCA works with the All Africa Conference of Churches, the African Council of Religious Leaders, Arigatou International Kenya, Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa, Hekima Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations, and the International Centre for Peace Human Rights and Development.

In Southern Africa, NCA has been working in the SADC region since the 1990s and was active in supporting the fight against apartheid. In 2008, NCA’s regional office moved from Botswana to South Africa. In 2010, the office in Pretoria was delegated a Policy Advocacy mandate and has focused on Economic Justice since. This includes addressing issues related to Extractive Industries, Public Financial Management and strengthening faith-based actors and civil society networks for advocacy empowerment, mobilization and influence of decision-makers. The programme has contributed to establishing and supporting the Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI), which has been a flagship programme for the Regional Office in Southern Africa (ROSA).

Project Background

East Africa Peace Program – The Eastern Africa Region encompassing the Horn and Great Lakes sub-regions continues to be caught in a in complex web of latent, perennial, intermittent and protracted conflicts. The region, which encompasses 12 countries, is characterized by a majority population of young people, with 70% of the region estimated to be below 35. This poses both positive and negative implications for the region. The potential for economic growth and development in the hands of the young creative population is great, but on the other hand, high under/unemployment rates make the young people vulnerable to manipulation towards violence. A conflict analysis carried out by NCA in 2021 highlighted some of the key drivers and / or triggers of conflict in the region; Political Governance and Accountability concerns, Poor management of electoral processes and or political transitions, Religious extremism, Manipulation of Social Identities, Mis or poor governance of natural resource and the proceeds therein, Long-term economic and political marginalization, and Mutual destabilisation between states in the region as well as the role of external actors who stand to benefit from conflicts in the region.

In response to the above and guided by a vision of ‘a more inclusive, just, cohesive and peaceful Eastern Africa Region, ‘ the RPP programme sought to contribute to a socially cohesive region, prevent counter violent extremism, strengthen peace structures to prevent and transform conflicts, work with various actors to ensure that peace processes are is inclusive as well as mobilize social action for peace. The Programme recognized the significant role that religious actors could play in conflict reduction when capacitated and strategically deployed to engage key political actors and institutions to address identified factors driving conflicts.

The programme sought to achieve this through.

1. Availing spaces for positive interaction and dialogue between different social groups, especially promotion of intra and interfaith dialogue
2. Enhancing capacities, particularly knowledge and skills and especially of religious actors, to prevent and transform conflicts,
3. Supporting the participation of women, youth and other marginalized groups in peace and conflict transformation processes in line with UNSCR 1325 and 2250,
4. Creating linkages and boosting networking for joint advocacy by religious actors and other CSOs in the region in response to identified peace concerns.

Southern Africa Programme – The Policy Advocacy mandate stemmed from the realization of the stark exclusion of the ordinary citizens from policy-making processes, while the political elite makes decisions that affect the ordinary citizens without the citizen’s participation and influence. The policy advocacy mandate was also a result of the realization that the SADC is one of the regions most endowed with precious natural resources but remains poor due to a host of factors, including bad governance, corruption, lack of people participation and poor re-distribution of resources. The ROSA Economic Justice/Fighting Inequality Programme thus sought to mobilize citizens, build their advocacy capacities and facilitate safe advocacy spaces to ensure that policy advocacy would become a strong catalyst for regional development. The ROSA progamme has been directly implemented in Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe and, by extension and through collaboration with NCA offices in Angola, Malawi, Tanzania, DRC and Zambia, across the SADC region.

The ROSA 2020 to 2024 Strategic Plan, focusing on Fighting Inequality, was built upon the foundations of the 2010 to 2015 (Economic Justice) and the 2016 to 2019 (Resource Governance) strategic periods. The strategic periods were seamlessly linked to each other with no major changes. The global objective of the 2020 to 2024 Strategic Plan for the Fighting Inequality Programme was to achieve “Fair and equitable finance and redistribution of resources”, with two sub-goals:

1. Duty bearers are influenced to increase finance for and spending to reduce poverty and inequality.
2. Rights-holders are mobilized for just resource governance.

The endline assessment purpose and objectives

The endline evaluation will help NCA to assess the effectiveness and impact of the RRP and ROSA programs. The evaluation will measure the achievement of outcomes against the baseline benchmarks conducted in 2020 and will also help NCA to capture success stories, lessons learned and provide recommendations for use in the new strategy 2025 – 2029.

Specifically, the endline assessment has the following objectives, and the evaluation should seek to answer the related questions, as well as other questions identified by the constultant in collaboration with NCA: – all these will follow the RRP & ROSA MEAL Framework to be availed during inception

Relevance

1. Evaluate the relevance of the project design to meet the objectives
   1. How well did the program’s interventions address the target groups specific needs and conflict/inequality dynamics?
   2. Were the approaches used culturally and contextually appropriate for addressing exclusion, cohesion, and violent extremism?
   3. How relevant did right-holders and stakeholders find the program?

Effectiveness and impact

1. Evaluate the effectiveness and potential impact of the Peacebuilding, Fighting Inequality and Strengthening Civil Society objectives:

PB 1: Promoting social cohesion and countering violence

1. To what extent has the program increased social cohesion among different groups, including recognizing women’s roles in peacebuilding?
   1. Have attitudes between different social groups improved? What evidence supports this change?

PB 2: Peace processes are inclusive

1. Assess recognition of women’s roles in peacebuilding, their participation alongside youth in peace processes, and the impact of UNSCR 1325 and 2250 advocacy, focusing on gender integration and norm transformation to enhance women’s and marginalized groups’ involvement in peace initiatives

PB 5: Protect social action for peace

1. How effective were the religious actors and multi-actor platforms in countering violent extremism and promoting inclusion?

   FI 1: Duty bearers are influenced to increase finance for and spending to reduce poverty and inequality

   1. How effective was the programme in facilitating advocacy to increase finance for and spending to reduce poverty and inequality?
   2. What tangible outcomes have resulted from advocacy on policies or priorities of duty bearers to increase development finance?
   3. Are there signs of partners’ influence on duty bearers priorities of developmental needs identified by partner organisations constituencies?

FI 2: Rights-holders are mobilized for just resource governance

1. How effective have rights-holders been empowered and mobilized to advocate for accountable natural resource governance?
   1. What tangible outcomes have resulted from natural resource governance advocacy?
   2. Has the program led to any changes in laws, policies, norms, or practices that promote social cohesion or protect space for social action?
   3. What were the projects’ advocacy objectives and has the programme influenced duty bearers?
   4. Assess the inclusiveness and impact of initiatives aimed at empowering underrepresented groups in decision-making and their active participation in governance structures. How inclusive and impactful are initiatives aimed at empowering underrepresented groups in decision-making, and to what extent are these individuals participating in governance structures?
   5. Evaluate inclusion of PWDs in partners’ advocacy programming
   6. Assess the functionality of multi-actor platforms facilitated under RPP and ROSA

   SCS 1: Rights-holders are mobilized for collective action on common interests
   – Measure the effectiveness of mobilized right-holders under RPP and ROSA

   SCS 2: Duty-bearers are held accountable by civil society actors
   – Evaluate the advocacy capacity enhancement of religious actors, civil society organisations and rights-holders under RPP and ROSA.

   -Assess if RPP and ROSA have contributed to change in policies, laws, norms and practices

   SCS 3: Underrepresented groups are empowered to participate in decision-making

   SCS 4: Multi-actor platforms are built to work together for social change

Efficiency

1. Assess the Resource utilization of the RRP & ROSA project during implementation
   1. Were financial, human, and time resources used efficiently to achieve the desired outcomes?
   2. Were there any delays or challenges in implementation, and how were they addressed?
   3. Did the outputs (such as mobilization of right-holders and training of religious actors) justify the inputs in terms of costs?

Sustainability

1. Assess whether projects ending in 2024 will continue to work on objectives under RPP and ROSA (Botswana).
   1. Are the peacebuilding and fighting inequality initiatives and platforms likely to be sustained beyond the program’s life?
   2. What mechanisms or local capacities have been developed to ensure the continuation of these activities?
   3. To what extent have local institutions (government, CSOs, religious groups) shown commitment to continuing peace/advocacy efforts initiated by the program?

Gender inclusion

1. To what extent were gender perspectives integrated into fighting inequality/peacebuilding efforts, and how has this affected women’s and youth’s participation in peace/Fighting inequality processes?
2. How effective were the initiatives aimed at transforming gender norms to enhance the participation of women and girls?

Lessons learnt

1. What were the main successes in implementing the program, and what contributed to these achievements?
2. What challenges were encountered, and how were they mitigated or overcome during the program?
3. Which aspects of the program have the potential to be scaled up or replicated in other contexts or regions?

Scope and methodology

The Consultant is expected to travel to five of the sixteen countries in agreement with the NCA team but will be expected to collect data across all the countries. An appropriate mix of qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to gather and analyze data/information to give a diverse perspective to the endline and promote participation of different groups of stakeholders. The selected Consultant should propose appropriate data collection methods, including sampling strategy, and survey tools for each type of stakeholder that follow established ethical guidelines. The endline study must ensure that the data collected is disaggregated by geography as per the country-specific governance structure, sex (male, female, other), age (children & youth, adults), and people with disabilities (PWD). The written documentation should support the data collected. Consultants are encouraged to suggest creative approaches beyond those mentioned in the TOR. However, the endline assessment should encompass the following:

1. Reviewing existing literature, reports, and data relevant to fighting inequality, conflict and peacebuilding in the target region.
2. Conducting surveys in selected locations to gather primary data on the progress against the baseline figures
3. Engaging with key stakeholders, including community leaders, faith actors, government officials, NGOs, and other relevant entities, to gather insights into local dynamics, challenges, and opportunities.
4. Analyzing the collected data to develop a comprehensive endine report outlining the current situation and trends related to fighting inequality and conflict and peace in the project areas.

Management of the consultancy

The Consultant will report to the NCA Regional MEAL Advisor.

Deliverables

Deliverables for this assignment would be:

1. Written inception report and schedule agreed with NCA within one week of commencement
2. Endline assessment report: A detailed report outlining the findings, analysis, and key recommendations derived from the evaluation.
3. An executive summary is incorporated in the above, not exceeding three pages.
4. Data sets: Raw data collected during surveys and assessments in a format accessible for further analysis anonymized.
5. FGD score sheets/ reports/recordings and key informant interview forms/ reports.
6. Related codebooks and data analysis files (SPSS syntax files or whichever tool is used for quantitative analysis)
7. All field notes which should guarantee anonymity for the interviewees
8. Presentation slides of findings to the NCA regional team

Key responsibilities of the Consultant

The Consultant is expected to produce:

1. A detailed work plan and inception report developed with and approved by NCA, setting out the detailed methodology and relevant technical standards to be used as a reference for the evaluation, sampling strategy and deliverables before commencing the desk review.
2. Develop quantitative and qualitative data-gathering tools in consultation with the NCA Regional MEAL Advisor.
3. Conduct training for the data collection teams, including pre‐testing data collection tools.
4. Plan and coordinate quantitative and qualitative data collection
5. The work plan, inception report, draft report, final report, presentation, etc., and communication language must be in English.
6. Anonymized copies of all data collected in Excel or appropriate format would enable cross-checking and additional analysis.
7. The consultant will present draft findings and recommendations.

Schedule, timelines and logistics

The Consultant should describe the evaluation’s overall schedule, which should end on Dec 21st, 2024 (i.e., duration, phasing, timing), as well as work hours, required preparation work, conditions that might affect data collection, meeting-arranging procedures, and needed and available office space (e.g., interviewers). This is a 30 day assignment.

Logistics

Include your logistics and other disbursement costs in the financial proposal, as NCA shall not cater for the Consultant’s logistics and incidentals costs. The consultancy payment term will be 40% upon approval of the inception report and the remaining upon submission and approval of the final endline report.

Product rights & Ownership

NCA will own the evaluation reports and associated products, and any documents or publications related to this evaluation will not be shared externally except with the consent of the NCA RRP & ROSA program managers.

Desired Qualifications and abilities

1. A minimum master’s degree in social sciences or relevant field; Statistics, M&E
2. At least 10 years experience undertaking assessments for advocacy programs in Africa
3. Expertise in conflict analysis,peace programming, natural resource governance and economic justice advocacy
4. Must have led at least two to three similar/assignments in the past 4 years
5. Strong analytical skills with proven experience in collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
6. Extensive experience in undertaking endlines/evaluations in Africa
7. Excellent conflict-sensitive approaches and ability to work in highly sensitive environments
8. Knowledge of and familiarity with Eastern and Southern African contexts
9. Fluent in both oral and written English. Portuguese is an asset.
10. Excellent Analytical, Communication and Report writing skills