CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR THE FINAL EVALUATION OF THE HORIZONT3000 EAST AFRICA PROGRAMME 2019 – 2022 At Horizont3000

Background

HORIZONT3000 is an Austrian NGO with nine Catholic member organisations. mainly funded by the Austrian government (Austrian Development Cooperation / ADC), the European Union, contributions from its member organisations and other public and private donors.

HORIZONT3000 specialised in the implementation of programmes and projects and the deployment of technical assistance personnel. HORIZONT3000 works in close co-operation with local partner organisations, donors and other stakeholders such as international CSOs and research institutes to achieve common sustainable development goals. Through its presence in the regional and country offices, HORIZONT3000 cooperates and engages through an open and constructive dialogue with local partner organisations and beneficiaries guaranteeing a participatory approach and ensuring relevance and sustainability.

HORIZONT3000 aims at targeting the most vulnerable population groups, such as smallholders, marginalised women, children and youth, human rights groups as well as indigenous populations. In 2021, HORIZONT3000 carried out some 145 projects in 16 countries with an annual budget of approximately 11.7 million euros. Currently, 27 people work in the HORIZONT3000 office in Vienna and some 70 experts work in local offices or are deployed as technical advisors in partner organisations. Gender equality and environmental protection are cross-cutting themes of the organisation. The methodological approach is strongly based on the empowerment of partner organisations and beneficiaries and on knowledge management.

The East Africa Programme

HORIZONT3000 is currently implementing its 4-year framework programme (2019-2022) funded by the Austrian Development Agency and member organisations. This programme covers interventions in four regions and countries: East Africa, Central America, Senegal and Mozambique. In East Africa, the intervention “East Africa programme” aims at improving the living conditions of disadvantaged groups in five East African countries, namely Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. The HORIZONT3000 programme in East Africa comprises 21 projects and stands on the two thematic pillars: Rural Development and Management of Natural Resources as one and strengthening civil society and the protection of human rights as the other. These pillars have been developed and strengthened over the years. In the field of rural development, the regional Enabling Rural Innovation (ERI) programme implements a holistic innovative approach to enable small scale farmers to secure their livelihood, innovatively diversify income generating activities and even produce surpluses for local markets. In the area of Human Rights – Civil Society the focus is on the awareness raising and promotion of rights, such as land rights, end of gender-based violence and gender equality.

Over the past five years, HORIZONT3000 has been increasingly engaged in capacity building of its partners for policy engagement with different stakeholders. Both pillars are embedded in the regime of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The programme intervention in the area of Rural Development and the Management of Natural Resources contributes strongly to SDG 2 “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”. Furthermore, the rural development pillar strongly contributes to ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all (SDG 6), to ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all (SDG 7) as well as the achievement of SDG 15 to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss. The strengthening of the civil society and the protection of human rights addresses to the achievement of gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls (SDG 5), reduced inequality within and among countries (SDG 10) as well as the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provision of access to justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels (SDG 16).

In addition to the two thematic pillars, the programme has two cross-cutting themes that focus on gender and knowledge management. The gender result focusses on empowering women and men for increased gender equality, contribution to SDG 5 “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. The knowledge management result strengthens our partners’ capacities to improve organizational performance through the creation, sharing and multiplication of relevant knowledge by partner organisations and HORIZONT3000 Member Organisations through our knowledge management programme KNOW-HOW3000, contribution to SDG 17 ”Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES OF THE EVALUATION

Mandate and purpose

In accordance with the guidelines and rules of the public funder, it is the responsibility of HORIZONT3000, as the organisation responsible for the implementation of the programme, to commission this evaluation. The purpose of this evaluation is to:

• Learning: the programme’s partner organisations in East Africa, donors and HORIZONT3000 are interested in learning from the implementation of programmes and projects in order to continuously improve their own work and the cooperation with other actors.
• Programme steering: This evaluation is taking place in the fourth and final year of the current phase of the East Africa programme. The findings, lessons learned and recommendations will be very useful for the steering of the East Africa Programme in the next four-year phase starting in 2023. As a particular emphasis will be placed on strengthening gender equality in the programme from 2023 onwards, this evaluation also includes questions relating to the gender analyses and its follow up.
• Accountability and reporting: The evaluation should also examine the success and quality of the programme’s implementation on the basis of the OECD DAC criteria.

Specific objectives

• Analysis of effectiveness and sustainability at the level of the regional programme and the individual projects of partner organisations.
• Analysis of the programme’s strengths and potential for improvement in the cross[1]cutting areas of gender equality as well as environmental and climate protection.
• Analysis of the strengths of and the potential for improvement of the programme in the area of knowledge management.
• Obtain recommendations for relevant stakeholders from the evaluation to improve the management of the programme in the next funding phase from 2023.

Final beneficiaries and users of the results

• Partner organisations that implement the activities and interact with the programme’s target groups through the various projects. They are, especially with regard to the learning objective of evaluation, not only the main beneficiaries, but also an important source of information and thus the main beneficiary of the evaluation
• HORIZONT3000, with regard to learning, programme management, but also accountability and communication
• Donors / funding partners, in particular DKA, WHG, BSIN, KFB and ADA (Austrian Development Cooperation Agency), especially with regard to programme quality and quality of implementation
• Target groups (women, girls, men, boys) and civil society organisations in the five countries – as final beneficiaries of future projects in the next ADA Framework Programme 2023- 2026.
• Other actors working on the same issues and interested in the lessons learned from this evaluation. (NGOs, technical services, local authorities etc.

SCOPE

This evaluation covers the East Africa Programme 2019 – 2022 and all its projects implemented by partner organisations and by HORIZONT3000 directly. The results, conclusions and recommendations of the evaluation should also influence the implementation of the next phase of the programme. The evaluation covers the entire duration of the project’s implementation, from its inception to the end of the current funding phase. Geographically it covers Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. In South Sudan only one project is part of the programme intervention. This project was evaluated separately, the report will be provided and should be considered in the overall evaluation. One project in Kenya phased out after 2 years and evaluation will be provided. The evaluation will take place in the last quarter of 2022 and first quarter of 2023. The OECD/DAC evaluation criteria – specifically effectiveness and sustainability – will guide this evaluation. The focus is on these two criteria to enable learning and application of recommendations in the next phase of the programme. There will also be a focus on the OECD/DAC criteria for gender marker 1.

Find a detailed TOR with the evaluation criteria, design, approach, workplan and deliverables in the link below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BEQA-mUbQyUJ2uk51ePSc5otDeClwe1d/view?usp=sharing