Consultant: Final Evaluation of FCDO DRC Grant At Women for Women International

Call for Proposals

Final Evaluation: Empowering DRC’s Women to Break Poverty Cycles, Achieve Self Reliance and Realize their Rights

Organisation: Women for Women International (WfWI)

Donor: The Government of the United Kingdom; The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)

Location: The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Evaluation budget: GBP 15,000

Duration of contract: May to September 2022 (5 months)

Deadline for proposals: May 15, 2022

Background information

Women for Women International (WfWI)

WfWI works with the most marginalized women in conflict-affected countries to help them move from poverty and isolation to self-sufficiency and empowerment. Through our core combined economic and social empowerment programme, we aim to provide participants with a combination of knowledge, skills, and resources to increase their self-confidence and capacity to create sustainable change in their lives and those of their families and communities. Since 1993, WfWI has served over 520,000 women in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Sudan.

The Project

Under the Government of the United Kingdom FCDO 2019 – 2022 programme, WfWI was awarded a grant that sought the social and economic empowerment of marginalized women in South Kivu’s grassroots communities. 1,200 marginalized women (primary beneficiaries) are trained on rights, vocational and business skills; 60 male leaders and 60 women leaders are engaged as women’s rights advocates, mobilizing 6,910 community members (secondary beneficiaries). Three CSOs strengthened to lead a local advocacy alliance, opening a community dialogue, action, and accountability space on VAWG and land rights.

The project had the following intended results:

IMPACT

South Kivu communities are more inclusive and responsive, support women’s empowerment, and advance gender equality.

OUTCOME

Marginalized rural women break poverty cycles, achieve self-reliance, and partner with men and civil society to realize their rights.

Indicators:

· 1 – 480 (40%) of all graduates earn at least $1.90 by graduation

· 2 – 1,020 (85%) of all graduate’s report increased involvement in household decision-making by graduation

· 3 – 42 (70%) of cumulative male leader’s report taking actions in support of women’s rights and participation

· 4 – Increased awareness among key government stakeholders of issues identified by CSO alliance, Change Agents, and male leaders (qualitative) by end of project.

· 5 – 2110 (1320 women; 790 men) supported to have choice and control over their own development and to hold decision makers to account.

OUTPUT 1

Marginalized women have increased knowledge, improved agency and have more opportunities for economic empowerment.

Indicators:

· 1.1 – 1,080 women (90% of enrolled) graduate by September 2022 from 12-month social and economic empowerment training program

· 1.2 – Average test score of 80% for all graduates by Sept 2022

· 1.3 – 1,080 (90%) of all cumulative graduates are actively participating in VSLA groups by graduation

· 1.4 – 720 (60%) of all graduate’s report increase in average monthly earnings by graduation

OUTPUT 2

Men have improved attitudes and behaviors towards gender equality. Indicators:

· 2.1 – 54 men (90% of cumulative enrollees) complete men’s engagement programme training (Level

1) by end of project

· 2.2 – Cumulative MEP graduates’ average GEM scale score increases 70% by September 2022

· 2.3 – 600 cumulative men community members reached through male leaders’ step-down training (Level 2)

· 2.4 – 250 community members sensitized on women’s rights or participating in community discussion around critical community issues affecting women and girls

OUTPUT 3

Civil society strengthened and collaboration improved to promote women’s rights and gender equality. Indicators:

· 3.1 – 5 cumulative capacity strengthening plans developed for partner CSOs

· 3.2 – Improvement on “5C” organizational capacity assessment in key organizational and programmatic areas. CSOs demonstrate improvement in at least 3 categories of organizational capacity, according to capacity assessments.

OUTPUT 4

Decision makers engaged to support women’s rights and ensure more responsive service delivery. Indicators:

· 4.1 – 10 community advocacy activities held by CSOs in the advocacy alliance, disaggregated by individual vs joint advocacy activity.

· 4.2 – 10 decision makers reached by advocacy activities, disaggregated by stakeholder type

Project Timeframe: 15 October 2019 – 14 October 2022

Location of Project: DRC (South Kivu Province)

Overview of the Evaluation

The final evaluation will be used to enhance WfWI understanding of implementation successes and challenges, as well as provide lessons and guidance for the broader sector, particularly actors working in conflict-affected settings.

The evaluation has four explicit objectives:

· To evaluate the entire FCDO project cycle in terms of effectiveness, relevance, efficiency, sustainability and impact

· Provide findings, conclusions and recommendations in order to draw lessons for WfWI’s future design and implementation of community level women’s empowerment and advocacy projects;

· To evaluate the effectiveness of the project’s advocacy alliance, including the effectiveness of organizational capacity building efforts and how the alliance contributed to community-level outcomes,

· To assess the extent to which targeted community-level decision-makers engaged to support women’s rights, and evaluate this project’s contribution to more responsive service (e.g., legal, health, etc.) delivery.

Evaluation Questions

The evaluator(s) should adapt and respond to the questions below. WfWI will work with the evaluator(s) to agree the evaluation methods and approach.

1. To what extent was the intervention successful in terms of OECD-DAC evaluation criteriaⁱ (relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability)?

a. Relevance: Did the intervention do the right things?

b. Coherence: How well did the intervention fit?

c. Effectiveness: Did the intervention achieve its objectives?

d. Efficiency: How well were resources used?

e. Impact: What difference did the intervention make?

f. Sustainability: Is project impact long-term?

1. How effective was the project’s CSO advocacy alliance, and how did the alliance contribute to community-level outcomes? How did WfWI’s 5C model of capacity building contribute to alliance’s outcomes?
2. To what extent did targeted community-level decision-makers support women’s rights, and what was the project’s contribution to more responsive service (e.g., legal, health, etc.) delivery?
3. What has been the overall project’s contribution to making target South Kivu communities more gender inclusive and responsive, supportive of women’s empowerment, and proactive in advancing gender equality?

Evaluation Methods

Evaluation methods should be rigorous yet proportionate and appropriate to the context of the project. A participatory, mixed-methods approach is recommended, with likely stronger emphasis on qualitative methods. Given the current COVID-19 pandemic, evaluator(s) should consider methods that optimize remote or socially distant data collection. For example, evaluator(s) may suggest approaches that draw on locally hired, remotely managed support personnel in each country. The evaluator(s) will operate at their own risk and are encouraged to propose an evaluation design that minimizes harm to themselves and others, particularly interview respondents. The evaluator(s) should make use of data already available from WfWI (such as monitoring data and project reports) and complement this with data collection methods that will allow for triangulation and a deeper understanding of the questions. All project data, reports, and research results will be made available to the evaluator(s) upon evaluation kick-off.

Budget

The maximum total budget available for the evaluation is GBP15,000. This should include all evaluator(s) time, travel and subsistence costs, any costs associated with field-level data collection (e.g., data collectors, translators, etc.), communications, taxes and fees, feedback to WfWI, and any other costs associated with delivering the evaluation report. We expect a summary budget highlighting main cost category to be presented as part of the application, and applications will be assessed on whether the proposed costs are adequately justified.

Management Arrangements

The selected evaluator(s) will work closely with WfWI’s country office teams in DRC; WfWI- HQ’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning team based in Washington DC; and WfWI-UK (based in London), who are commissioning the evaluation – to design the evaluation, ensure the delivery to schedule, and produce the final report. WfWI’s country office teams will support the evaluator(s) to identify and access key stakeholders on the ground. The evaluator(s) will be assumed to be responsible for organizing their own travel and accommodation as needed for field visits, in coordination with WfWI as able and appropriate.

Timeline and Deliverables

The table below outlines the key activities and deliverables and their corresponding deadlines.

Activity or Deliverable

Date

Deadline for proposals

• May 15, 2022

Evaluator(s) appointed

• May 20, 2022

Desk-based document review

• May 2022 (TBD)

Field work

• June-July 2022 (TBD)

Draft report submitted to WfWI

• September 2022 (TBD)

Feedback and learning session with WfWI staff

• September 2022 (TBD)

Deadline for final report to be submitted to WfWI

– September 30, 2022

Dates to be discussed in more detail with WfWI*

Report

WfWI expects the final evaluation report to consist of the following sections:

1. Executive Summary
2. Introduction

Purpose and context for the evaluation Logic and assumptions of the evaluation

1. Evaluation

Methodology Evaluation plan

Strengths and weaknesses of selected design and research methods Summary of problems and issues encountered

1. Findings

Overall results in response to each of the Evaluation Questions Assessment of accuracy of reported results

1. Conclusions
2. Recommendations
3. Annexes (such as)

Evaluation research schedule Evaluation framework

Data collection tools List of people consulted

List of supporting documentary information

Profile of the Independent Evaluation provider

The Independent Evaluator should be a suitably qualified and experienced consultant or consulting firm. Interested firms or individuals may be based anywhere, provided they demonstrate the capacity to collect information from DRC. The consultant profile should include:

· An evaluation specialist with a minimum of seven years’ experience in programme/project evaluation in an international development context;

· Experience of participatory monitoring and evaluation;

· Ability to design and plan the evaluation approaches and research methodologies, including quantitative and qualitative research methods;

· Strong experience with qualitative data management, including using qualitative methodologies like focus groups; demonstrated ability to conduct strong qualitative data analysis;

· Relevant subject matter knowledge and experience in women’s rights, advocacy, and economic empowerment, to ensure the evaluation design and research methods are as relevant and meaningful;

· Ability to manage a complex evaluation and research process;

· Ability to design, manage and implement primary research in challenging, unstable, environments, with previous work experience in DRC strongly preferred.

· Fluency in English and French;

· Excellent written skills; and

· Ability to work to strict/tight deadlines.

While evaluation consultants may be nominated by WfWI, they must not have a conflict of interest with the on- going activities of WfWI.