Roadmap for the EU Engagement with Civil Society At Search for Common Ground

Search for Common Ground (Search) is conducting a baseline evaluation for the “Roadmap for the EU Engagement with Civil Society”. As a learning organization, Search is committed to fostering a culture of learning across all projects and is investing in developing and supporting its programmatic learning opportunities. To do this well, Search is seeking a consultant/expert to lead on some aspects of the study externally as per the details below.

1. Context and Overview
About Search
Search for Common Ground (Search) is a non-governmental organization working to transform the way societies deal with conflicts. We have over 37 years of experience in peacebuilding and are based in 53 local offices worldwide. We strive to build sustainable peace for generations to come by working with all sides of a conflict, providing the tools needed to work together, and finding constructive solutions. While conflict is inevitable, violence is not! Our mission is to transform the way the world deals with conflict, away from adversarial approaches and toward cooperative solutions. Instead of tearing down an existing world, we focus on constructing a new one. We shift the everyday interactions between hostile groups of people, so they can work together to build up their community, choosing joint problem-solving over violent means. We first worked in Lebanon in 1996, and we opened up our office in Beirut in 2008. Since then, our activities and capacities have grown significantly. We rely on local staff as well as local partner organizations to ensure our work is culturally sensitive, sustainable, and well-grounded in the context.

For more information, visit https://www.sfcg.org and https://www.facebook.com/sfcg.lebanon

About the Roadmap for the EU Engagement with Civil Society

In February 2023, the EU published a A Road Map for the EU Engagement with Civil Society. The Roadmap was based on a combination of desk review, key informant interviews and focus group discussions with local experts from the civil society (SCS), reflecting the diversity of CSOs in all fields and locations. It presented a strategy for the EU’s future engagement with civic actors based on a deep understanding of the ecosystem of the civil society, its interrelationships, as well as its relationships with donors, de-facto authorities, and the community at large. It looked closely at the existing modalities of EU engagement, as well as how the approach could look in the future.

Finally, the Roadmap aimed to present a set of priorities and principles for the development of civil society, and how the EU could support civic actors to achieve their goals.

Based on the findings of the roadmap, four priority areas to enhance EU engagement with civil society were defined:

Priority 1: The Representation of Civil Society: Supporting the Development of an Effective and Participatory Civic Space Capable of Leveraging Bottom-Up Community Initiatives.

Priority 2: Deliberative Democracy: Supporting the Evolution of Common Visions for Civil Society and Its Role in the Future

Priority 3: Public Wellbeing: Supporting Civic Actors to Work with Their Communities to Develop Local Capacities for Future Recovery and Sustainable Development:

Priority 4: Self Constitution: Support the Innate Capacity of CSOs in a Sustainable Manner to Develop Equitable Partnerships and Knowledge Exchanges to Heighten the Voice and Effectiveness of CSOs

2. Goal and Objectives of Study
This planned study, aims to monitor, in a participatory manner, the Roadmap for EU Engagement with Civil Society.

This will equip the EU and its stakeholders with practical strategies and tools tailored to the complexity and diversity of the MENA context enabling them to assess concepts such as agency, legitimacy, or resource investments leveraging mixed methods and drawing data from standardized quantitative measures, as well as unique insights from the communities experiencing conflicts and practitioners in the frontlines.

These efforts will result in civil society actors gaining deeper understanding of the EU Roadmap, and regularly engaging in the participatory monitoring processes of the Roadmap in the future. This should contribute to increased reflection and learning, which should inform adaptation and effective implementation of the Roadmap. As a living document, the roadmap will benefit from this monitoring process and critical reflection tools.

The consultant will lead an inclusive design exercise to define the overall process, priorities, research questions, and assumptions and a data collection toolkit to monitor the implementation of the Roadmap. The Roadmap tackles the roles civic actors could play in the future, the necessity to build their capacities and ensure their sustainability, ways to overcome the major challenges they face, and sets out what the EU can do to support these processes. The indicators proposed for the four priority areas of the Roadmap will be reviewed in detail, and refined when relevant, in order to identify how each of the indicators can be collected.

The baseline and monitoring process will integrate gender analysis by disaggregating indicators through cross-cutting factors, such as age and geography, that may influence participants’ needs and experiences. The baseline and monitoring process will ensure risk mitigation and activity adaptation in support of maximum efficacy and upholding of all Do No Harm principles.

The toolkit developed will include necessary tools and guidance to the data collection processes (surveys, guidelines for data collectors, etc), to the data cleaning and analysis processes, and data storage and protection in the database. These tools (and the guidelines for their use) should take into consideration the specific needs and challenges of all the populations targeted by the project, including PWDs, minorities, and hard-to-reach groups.

The methodology and the toolkit will be presented to the EU during an inclusive review and validation workshop, with Search and the project stakeholders, to receive and integrate feedback before final validation by the EU.

The consultant will handover the finalized methodology and tools to the research and data collection team, which is managed by Search. The research and data collection team will be responsible for the mainstreaming of tools within local communities and implementing the data collection and research approaches identified and designed within the methodology. The consultant and the research and data collection team will be coordinating together, through monthly check-in meetings, to ensure the quality of the data collected is aligned with the desired standards.

The consultant will analyze the collected data, interpret the findings, and develop a detailed baseline study report that provides actionable insights. The consultant is also expected to provide recommendations based on the study findings. The report should be available in English and Arabic to be published and utilized by the EU and the project stakeholders for their work with Civil Society.

Following the participatory baseline, the consultant will facilitate a Strategic review and reflection workshop with Search, the EU, and the project stakeholders to assess the whole baseline process, and the relevance and efficiency of the different methodologies and tools developed previously. The workshop will discuss the findings of the baseline as well as contextual shifts, risks, and opportunities that may affect programming. Participants will seek to identify intended and unintended outcomes (of the EU Roadmap and SCSI). A specific session will be dedicated to the review of safeguarding and inclusion measures.

This will be the opportunity to reflect on constraints and challenges that affected the process and the access to data sources that are necessary to measure the different selected indicators. When necessary, potential corrective actions will be identified and implemented, and the tools and methodology will be adapted so that they can be used in future monitoring phases. The learnings of the workshop will be captured into an internal “Process Close-out” report that will be annexed to the study report and shared with relevant stakeholders of the project only.

Specific priorities of the study may be subject to change following changes in the context, in discussion with the chosen expert/team.

Please see here for the full terms of reference.

Requirements of Consultant

• Proficiency in English and Arabic;
• More than 7 years of experience in research or project evaluation or the equivalent in DM&E expertise;
• Experience in working with international organizations;
• ُExperience working with peacebuilding or social cohesion programs;
• Experience conducting large-scale quantitative surveys;
• Evaluation methods and data collection skills;
• Solid communication skills, cultural awareness, and sensitivity;
• Demonstrated ability to write high-quality, methodologically sound, and analytical papers in English;
• Experience doing similar work in MENA countries that include Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq etc.

Selection Criteria

Consultant proposals will be selected for:

• Relevance of methodology to the goal, objectives, and research questions for the project
  Quality of methods, conflict sensitivity approaches, and quality control measures
  Qualifications of the candidate(s).
  Proposed budget in relation to proposed methodology, deliverables and team.
  Timeline for proposed activities and deliverables.
  A well-established, senior research and/or evaluation team.