Save the Children International (SCI) Somalia program hereby invites interested consultants to bid for the consultancy assignment detailed below
- Title of Consultancy
SNAP Midline evaluation
- SCI Contracting Office
Save the Children, Country Office, Chalbi Drive Lavington, Nairobi
- Period of Consultancy
The consultancy is required to be completed in 35 days.
- Consultant type required
Individual consultants or firms can apply for the consultancy
- Responsibility for Logistics arrangements and Costs
The SCI Somalia will be responsible for the following:
- Ensure effective coordination of the baseline logistics to support the consultants in undertaking their assignment
- Provide the consultant document needed for desk review and inception report. In addition to that review and approve inception report
- Providing input into the tools developed, and evaluation design. Support the consultant to program the data collection tools and data management
- Hire vehicles and enumerators for the consultant
- Link consultants to relevant stakeholders if needed
- Reviewing analysis of the data collected prior to the documentation of the draft reports
- Review draft report and provide constructive feedback to the consultant
- Approve and signoff final report reports
- SCI will hire enumerators for the consultant and vehicles purposely for the exercise. SCI will cater for the transport and accomodation of the consultant. The consultant will not be paid pierdiem. The consulant willl be paid as per th arrangement below
Item
Payment %
Submission of inception report and signing of contract
20%
Beginning of field work
30%
Submission of draft report, field raw data and presentation of analysis findings
20%
Submission of final report and evaluation signed off
30%
- Taxation Provisions
Consultant shall be responsible for all Taxes arising from the consultancy in line with the local Tax regulations applicable at the SCI contracting office named above
- Travel requirements
Sufficient local presence in Somalia with no access limitations in moving from region to another. The consultant is required to demonstrate a well-built survey team that has experience in collecting quantitative and qualitative data. Either the lead consultant or co-consultant is expected to speak in Somali.
- Security requirements
Consultant will comply with standard Save the Children Security procedures, including the completion of SCI online security training prior to travel to Somali
- Qualification and Experience
- Masters in Gender Studies with demonstrable experience in economic empowerment of women and gender equality. Alternatively, masters in development studies, social sciences with statistics and economics background will also be accepted. A team with a combination of at least two of the fields will have an added advantage.
- At least 7 years’ experience of gender equality and women empowerment project evaluation or monitoring. SCI-Somalia is interested to verify related assignments conducted in the past 2 years.
- Demonstrable experience in working with children preferably in conflict prone countries such as Somalia.
- Demonstrate advanced capacity in data analysis preferably regression and econometric analyses
- Demonstrable understanding of economic empowerment of women indicators including but not limited to indicators related to VSLA and EA$E model is a must.
- Considerable record of accomplishment and proven experience in quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis and management.
- Previous consultancy experience with Save the Children DFiD funded behavior change projects.
- Sufficient local presence in Somalia with no access limitations in moving from region to another. The consultant is required to demonstrate a well-built survey team that has experience in collecting quantitative and qualitative data. Either the lead consultant or co-consultant is expected to speak in Somali.
- The team members are expected to meet the terms and work conditions stipulated in their contract including Save the Children child safeguarding policy.
- Profound experience and technical knowledge in gender equality and women’s empowerment
- Evaluation Criteria
The evaluation should effectively answer the following questions under each criteria;
Relevance
- To what extent are the objectives of the programme valid and appropriate for the country programme and target community?
- Are the activities and outputs of the programme consistent with the overall goal and the attainment of its objectives?
- Are the activities and outputs contributing to impact and effects of the programme
- In addition, was the design of the project the most appropriate and relevant to promote the strategy? Are there alternative approaches which may have been more appropriate or gaps in intervention strategies?
Effectiveness
- To what extent do the project objectives demonstrate progress on core indicators?
- To what extent has the project achieved planned outcomes and results?
- To what extent has the CHOICES, EASE and EMB models contributed to behavior change in project participants.
- To what extent has the project contributed to the anticipated level of change in gender and socials norms practices in the target community as compared to the baseline?
- What were the major underlying factors (internal and external) influencing the achievement or non-achievement of the results within the two years of project implementation?
- Has project learning been captured in a timely manner and been used to adapt programming accordingly? What mechanisms exist to capture and share learning?
Efficiency
- Has the project offered appropriate value for money within the context of Somalia in terms of its impact?
- Identify the cost factors spent to deliver gender and social norms change interventions in the Somalia and identify the reasons behind budget underspend;
Impact
- What are the key short term and long-term changes produced by project, positive or negative and what are the key factors behind these changes?
- What real difference has the project activities made for the direct, and indirect stakeholders of promoting gender equality;
- What are the changes achieved by project in relations to making difference on gender practices in the target community.
Sustainability
- To what extent are the benefits of the projects likely to continue after the fund support is ceased? (for example in terms of the structures, practices and networks established and/or promoted)
- Which factors (e.g. involvement of specific stakeholders, investment in structures or networks, promotion of practices or norms) are likely to contribute to the sustainability of the project in the long term?
Coordination
- How have the project activities been coordinated within different stakeholders to achieve overall objective?
- Has the consortium governance structure helped to deliver the project better. Are there ways of improving project delivery mechanisms as a consortium?
- Are there positive and negative issues about projects staff relationship with governments and other NGO working on gender and women empowerment programs?
Scalability/Replicability
- What is the potential for the project or its components to be scaled up or replicated in other programme areas?
- Who are the main actors in the scale-up/replication of the approach in other locations/townships and how has the project engaged with them to date?
- Closing date for Applications
Interested consultants shall submit their applications through the email address provided above on or before 28th Febuary 2019. Shortlisted candidates will be requested for an interview.
only succeful candidates will be contacted.
- Terms of Reference (ToR)
Purpose of the consultancy,
The purpose of the midterm evaluation is to establish how far the CHANGES component has progressed (after two years of implementation) towards creating a conducive environment for women to access economic opportunities and resources as well as reducing or contributing to the elimination of violence against women and girls. In addition, the midterm evaluation is also intended to assess progress made against the set project log frame outcome and output indicators, identify and document major challenges the project is going through and generate learning that will be used to improve project performance and quality in the remaining two years of the project as well as other large scale gender and women’s empowerment programs in Somalia.
Background of the consultancy
The Social Norms and Participation Project (SNaP) is a dual approach toward increasing women’s participation while challenging harmful social norms. The project aims to create an enabling environment for girls and women to reach their potential and make significant contributions to Somali society, preventing the intergenerational transfer of gender inequality and poverty. SNaP is made up of two components.
Component 1: Aims to support and improve an enabling environment for women’s participation. creating pull factors to empower individual women to participate in political decision-making. This component is led by UNDP, working together with UN Women.
Component 2: Aims to support national, regional and community level interventions to challenge harmful social norms, which impede women’s access to economic opportunity and resources, enable impunity for violence against women (VAWG), and continue the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Save the Children leads this in a partnership with International Rescue Committee and CARE International.
SNaP is the overall programme (components 1&2), whereas component 2 is referred to and titled Challenging Harmful Attitudes and Norms for Gender Equality and Empowerment in Somalia (CHANGES). Component 1 is funded by DFID. Both DFID and the Norwegian government fund component 2.
CHANGES is a four-year project ending in October 2020. The project aims to target a total of 18,109 direct beneficiaries and 185,696 indirect beneficiaries across 13 districts in Somalia. The project aims to build upon the latest evidence and thinking in addressing social norms, with a clear understanding of local contexts to deliver an appropriate mix of interventions to address female genital mutilation (FGM) and child, early and forced marriage (CEFM). The consortium aims to achieve this by:
- Enhancing civic engagement to support gender equality for women and girls
- Improving knowledge of and attitudes to gender discriminatory social norms such as female genital mutilation and child marriage
- Increasing social and economic empowerment of women and girls
The CHANGES programme consists of three intervention models. These are;
CHOICES-** The CHOICES model led by Save the Children is gender transformative by design. The model targets young adolescent boys and girls between the ages of 10-14 years with a ten-week long intervention program. The model supports children to share their hopes and dreams, to understand the invisible walls within the society that perpetrate gender discrimination in order to challenge them through adapted cultural and gender transformative activities.
Economic and Social Empowerment (EA$E)– The EA$E model led by the IRC focuses on economic empowerment and will benefit 8,050 women and girls directly through a combination of Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA), entrepreneurship networks, school clubs and business skills training. The impact of this model is to lead to a change in society’s attitudes towards the value of women and girls and their productive potential outside their reproductive role. As well as helping women and girls internalize their own value within their homes and society so that they can actively voice their opinions, seek opportunities, and gain lasting financial independence.
Engaging Men and Boys (EMB) – The EMB model, led by CARE International, comprises five elements for working with communities to transform gender norms: intimate dialogues; building the base; stepping out, stepping up; and alliances for advocacy. EMB activities have been developed based on these five elements to bring about gender transformative change by engaging men and boys through accountability practices to reflect on gender inequality and reduce violence against women and girls. This intervention model of engaging boys and men has been developed by drawing on the partners’ tried and tested experiences in Somalia and globally.
Objectives of the consultancy,
- Assess performance progress of the project output and outcome indicators against the midline milestone targets as specified in the log frame.
- Evaluate whether different approaches used in the program (CHOICES, EMB, EASE) are contributing to behaviour change in project areas.
- Evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency, value for money, impact, sustainability, connectedness of the intervention approach to bring about the desired behaviour change
- Assess the effectiveness of consortium governance and coordination structure.
- Generate and document knowledge and learning from the project life cycle and provide sufficient recommendations for improving project quality and performance.
Proposed methodology and approach,
It is expected that the evaluation will use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods with key consideration of the baseline methodology and ability to respond to all evaluation questions stated above. Save the Children will internally collect and analyse the quantitative data to calculate performance of logframe indicators above using a randomised controlled trial (RCT) design to select intervention as well as non-intervention groups for the three project intervention models as done at baseline survey. The quantitative report will be shared with the consultant as part of secondary information for the evaluation which will also include but not limited to program annual and quarterly reports and IPTTs. The consultant(s) will design and conduct the midterm evaluation to collect additional data (apart from logframe indicators) that would enable him/her respond to all evaluation questions below using OECD/DAC evaluation criteria and present the findings. The consultant will carry out the following specific activities for the consultancy.
· Review key project documents such as proposal documents, terms of reference, baseline report, midline quantitative report, log frame, third party monitoring reports, MEAL plan and work plan
· Produce an inception report demonstrating his/her capacity to handle the consultancy by explicitly explaining his/her evaluation methodology and design that will sufficient serve the evaluation purpose. The inception report should exhaustively cover the proposed design and methodology, analysis plan, suggested final report format among others.
· Develop a detailed work plan for the proposed data to be collected in response to the evaluation purpose.
· The consultant is also expected to conduct training of enumerators and supervisors in line with field data collection plan and tools. Training of enumerators should be conducted to meet SCI enumeration standards.
· Based on the proposed and reviewed field plan, conduct field data collection.
· Discuss with consortium MEAL coordinator on initial results for the purpose of conformity with the set evaluation objectives.
· Conduct final presentation of the evaluation to the stakeholders in collaboration consortium MEAL coordinator and Head of MEAL
· Preparation and submission of final draft report, including a summary table with baseline and midline values against the indicators listed above
· Follow up on report queries and comments and submission of final report
The hired consultant will carry out the exercise in conformity with the standard operating guidelines in the MEAL approach for SCI as the consortium lead. All data collected and report findings for this study shall remain the property of SNaP Consortium under the custodianship of Save the Children Somalia. Appropriate procedures (consent and assent, secure data management) for ensuring ethical and safeguarding standards are met will be put in place by Save the Children and the consultant.
Log frame Project Indicators to be evaluated
Outcome Indicator
Output indicators
Incidence of female genital mutilation in areas of operation (%- disaggregated by age)
Number women actively engaged in promoting gender equality
Number of champions actively engaged in promoting gender equality (disaggregated by sex and age)
Number of community-level organizations actively engaged in promoting gender equality
Incidence of CEFM in areas of operation (%) [15-19 years old who have ever been married]
Percentage of people (disaggregated by gender and age) in intervention communities who can name 3 or more negative consequences of female genital mutilation and early marriage and forced marriage
Percentage of people (disaggregated by gender and age) who are favorable to the continuation of all forms of FGM and CEFM
Percentage of people (disaggregated by gender and age) report being happy if their son marry an uncircumcised girl
Percentage of people (disaggregated by gender and age) reporting that FGM/C is not permitted by law FGM/C is a mandatory religious practice (%)
Percentage of people (disaggregated by gender and age) in intervention communities who can name 3 or more negative consequences of FGM and CEFM
Participation of Women in Economic activities and Household Decision Making [Women reported participating in all four HH decisions]
Percentage of women in areas of operation who earn cash
Percentage % of women who decide how their household income will be used
Percentage % of women asked who could provide two examples of joint-decision making with their spouse/partner in the past two month household decision making
Progressive attitude towards IPV (It is NOT justified under any of the above circumstances)
Percentage of people (disaggregated by gender and age) who have progressive attitude towards IPV
Scope of work
The midterm evaluation is to be conducted in six (6) purposively selected districts from 13 CHANGES operation areas (Hargeysa, Badhan, Garowe, Galkacyo, Mogadishu and Kismayo). The selection of the districts is based on accessibility, timeframe and nature of the evaluation as mid-term
Key deliverables / outputs
The potential consultant will be expected to complete the assignment in 35 days (including development of study protocol and implementation plan/timeline, literature review, inception report, development and pre-testing of data collection tools/instruments, training of assessment team, data collection, analysis, validation and final report writing).
Activity timelines
The consultants will be responsible for the following deliverables by the specified timeline:
Output
Timeframe
Inception report with tools, evaluation methodology and design
8-11 Mar 2019
Enumerators selection and training
12-15 Mar 2019
Field Data Collection (Concurrently for the three regions)
16-23 Mar 2019
Electronic files with all raw data sets. This is including data verification and approval. Qualitative data should be submitted as original
24-26 Mar 2019
Draft report
27 Mar-5 Apr 2019
Report review by the CMU and SCUK and commenting back to the consultant
6-12 Apr 2019
Draft report review and preparation for findings presentation
17-19 Apr 2019
Presentation of the results of evaluation to stakeholders to the donor and consortium partners
20-21 Apr 2019
Final report from the consultant
22-30 April 2019
ANNEX 1 : Consultancy Terms of Reference
HOW TO APPLY SECTION ON RELIEF WEB
Interested consultants should submit their applications via email to [email protected].
The applications should be submitted in PDF format as one document comprising Technical and Financial sections as detailed below.
a) Technical proposal – including but not limited to :
· Consultants understanding of the assignment and context
· Approach to the assignment
· Methodology
· Tools
· Deliverables
· Workplan
· Key staff biodata
b) Financial proposal – providing a breakdown of all charges related to the assignment.
Applicants should also indicate the date they are available to start working on the consultancy All applications MUST be submitted on or before the 28th Feburuary 2019 to be considered for the assignment.
Interested consultants should submit their applications via email to [email protected].
The applications should be submitted in PDF format as one document comprising Technical and Financial sections as detailed below.
a) Technical proposal – including but not limited to :
· Consultants understanding of the assignment and context
· Approach to the assignment
· Methodology
· Tools
· Deliverables
· Workplan
· Key staff biodata
b) Financial proposal – providing a breakdown of all charges related to the assignment.
Applicants should also indicate the date they are available to start working on the consultancy
All applications MUST be submitted on or before the 28th Feburuary 2019 to be considered for the assignment.
More Information
- Job City Hargeysa, Badhan, Garowe, Galkacyo, Mogadishu , Kismayo