Mid-Term Evaluation Consultant for Feed the Future Livelihoods for Resilience – Oromia 112 views0 applications

1. Purpose: Catholic Relief Services/Ethiopia (CRS) seeks EOIs to shortlist potential consultants before requesting detailed bids for Mid Term Evaluation (MTE).

2. Objectives and Scope:

Feed the Future Livelihoods for Resilience – Oromia is a five-year USAID funded activity started February 01, 2017. The activity aims to contribute for improvement of PSNP households’ economic well-being, through on-farm, off-farm and employment strategies.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS), in consortium with the Ethiopian Catholic Church Social & Development Commission of Meki (commonly referred to as MCS) implements the activity in nine woredas across three zones in Oromia region: namely, Zeway Dugda, Arsi Negele, Heben Arsi, Shala, Adami Tulu Jido Kombolcha, Dodota, Sire, Siraro, and Boset. The activity targeted to assist 24,500 PSNP households with a goal to successfully graduate 18,375 PSNP households.

With the aim of assessing progress of the activity and to suggest future directions to better achieve activity’s objectives, CRS has planned to conduct an internal Midterm Evaluation (MTE). The evaluation will mainly employ qualitative methods such as Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and site and activity observations to collect information from beneficiaries and key stakeholders. The evaluation will also review routine monitoring data, partner and donor reports and other project documents.

Objectives of this evaluation are:

The MTE will review quality of implementation of the activity in producing planned outputs and outcomes, to assess the intended and unintended effects of these outputs, and to examine the progress to formulate recommendations to be implemented in the remaining life of the activity.

Specific objectives;

1. To assess relevance of strategies and interventions in addressing the needs of targeted groups
2. To evaluate the quality and effectiveness of service delivery, the strengths and weaknesses of activity implementation and management, and the technical quality of activity inputs and outputs in terms of adherence to terms agreed to by USAID and of their acceptability and perceived value to target communities, identifying factors that appear to enhance to detract from the quality, acceptability and usefulness of implementation and outputs.
3. To present evidence of changes (intended and unintended, positive and negative) associated with activity interventions, assess how well the observed changes reflect the RF
4. To recommend adjustments to RF, activity design, resource allocation, activity implementation and management, and M&E Plan that could improve the likelihood of achieving desired results by the activity’s end, based on the evidence collected and conclusions drawn for the evaluation
5. Determine the extent to which outcomes, systems, and services are designed and being implemented to continue after the project ends and assess progress made on implementing sustainability strategies.
6. Expected Procurement Details:

CRS is seeking EOI from a consulting firm that has the following qualifications:

A team Leader with the following qualifications;

· Formal education from a recognized university in a field relevant to evaluation (e.g., program evaluation, statistics, economics, agricultural economics, applied research or sociology) at a post-graduate or an evaluation professional continuing-education level.

· 10 plus years extensive experience in evaluation using mixed methods of investigation (qualitative and quantitative) in developing countries. Experience of evaluating livelihood and economic well-being programs is highly desirable

· Demonstrated strengths in organizing and leading qualitative evaluation teams, and communicating clearly and concisely

· Excellent interpersonal, presentation, and communication skills, and a demonstrated ability to deliver a high-quality product

For this MTE, technical leads are required from the areas of livelihood and markets, youth, gender and rural financial services. The technical leads of these areas must have the following qualifications;

· A Masters or PhD in their respective sectors

· Extensive (8+ years) experience using mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) to evaluate development programs in developing countries

· Multiple years of experience in applying his/her field of expertise to program design and oversight or previous experience evaluating programs in his/her field in developing countries (Ethiopian context preferred)

· The following are the minimum specific qualifications of the technical sector leads

· At least one member of the team must have substantial demonstrated experience in gender and youth integration

· The MTE team should comprise technical expertise from all activity sectors and activity management

· No member of the MTE team should have had any prior input to the activity’s design or implementation

Fluency in English is required for the team leader.

The consultant will be expected to deliver the following:

• Provide MTE plan/inception report including detailed implementation plan that specifies details for methodology and sampling of respondents for FGD, KIIs and Site/activity observations, critical tasks, anticipated outputs, date-bound timelines, resource needs, and responsible person(s).
• Develop data collection instruments and interviewer instructions/manual
• Provide details of composition of a standard MTE team with assigned responsibilities of each team member (see Annex I for detail Annex I MTE team composition, qualifications and role)
• Present key findings, conclusions, lessons learned and recommendation to CRS and stakeholders
• Provide draft MTE for comment by CRS
• Provide final MTE report that is approved by CRS: A final MTE report should be in English reviewed and approved by CRS Livelihoods for Resilience-Oromia CoP. The MTE report must clearly separate in different sections the evidence (i.e., raw data) collected by the evaluation team, the conclusions and recommendations that are based on the presented evidence. It should also state that sources of all evidence must be identified; conclusions must be based only on evidence presented in the report; and recommendations must directly correspond to the conclusions. In line with the requirements of the USAID’s evaluation policy, the report must describe the strengths and limitations of the evaluation methods and how and to what degree these factors influenced the process and findings of the evaluation. Once approved by CRS, the consultant must submit the report, supporting documents, and related data to CRS in time per agreement.

3a. CRS Delivery Schedule (if applicable): If selected, the consultant will be expected to complete the above-mentioned deliverables by June 28,2019.

3b. Timeline for Contract: CRS wishes to enter into agreement with the consultant on January 21, 2018. Start date will be dependent on consultancy proposal on how to submit the deliverables as per the above-mentioned delivery date.

1. Special Procurement Conditions and Additional Information:

CRS invites consultant capable of providing (from section 3 above) their EOIs.

In order to be considered as a potential supplier, interested enterprises should submit their Expression of Interest including the following information:

Please note that responses received without the information below will not be considered.

• Contact information (full name and address, country, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address, website and contact person)
• Brief presentation of your company including experience and year in business, turnover and staffing
• Reference list demonstrating your qualifications for participating in this possible upcoming bidding process

EOIs can be sent by e-mail or delivered in person, (max. 10 pages), to the address and contact person below. Please indicate “CRS/Ethiopia LRO-Midterm Evaluation” on all submissions.

This call for Expression of Interest does not constitute a solicitation. We do not require proposals and prices at this stage; we merely seek your expression of interest in participating in the tender.

Due to the high volume of communications, we will not issue confirmation as to receipt of EOIs.

A response to this Request for Expression of Interest does not automatically ensure that you will be selected to participate in the tender.

CRS reserves the right to change or cancel the requirement at any time during the EOI and/or solicitation process. CRS also reserves the right to require compliance with additional conditions as and when issuing the final solicitation documents. Submitting a reply to a call for EOI does not automatically guarantee receipt of the solicitation documents when issued.