Consultant for External Program Evaluation at International Development Law Organization

Background

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) kill more than 15 million people between the ages of 30 and 69 annually. Over 85 per cent of these “premature” deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. The economic impact, including loss of income by people harmed by NCDs, the costs of treatment, and the impacts on families all threaten international development. While the world was already off track from achieving the SDG3 target to reduce premature mortality from NCDs through prevention and treatment,[1] the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures have further hindered progress.[2] In addition, it has been comprehensively established that people with pre-existing NCDs are more vulnerable to becoming severely ill with COVID-19.[3]

Besides the evident health-related impact of this pandemic, the COVID-19 crisis affects people’s socio-economic conditions and countries’ governance frameworks, resulting in enhancing inequalities and insecurity at national and global levels.[4]

It is in this dramatically changed context that lessons from Global RECAP should be documented.

The Global Regulatory and Fiscal Capacity Building Programme (GLOBAL RECAP)

Since January 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) have been implementing a comprehensive programme (Global RECAP: Global Regulatory & Fiscal Capacity Building Programme)[5] to build regulatory and fiscal capacity to support the development, adoption, implementation and monitoring of cost-effective diet and physical activity interventions. The five policy domains which are the focus of Global RECAP are: fiscal policies to promote healthy diets, including sugar sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes; nutrition labelling; product reformulation, restrictions on marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children; and regulatory and fiscal approaches to promotion of physical activity. The programme is envisaged to create an enabling environment for evidence-informed, coherent and equitable regulatory and fiscal interventions to promote healthier diets and physical activity. The first phase of Global RECAP runs until December 2021.

Global RECAP intended Outcomes are:

  1. Strengthened capacity of government officials, regulators, policymakers and civil society to understand, develop and implement (as appropriate) regulatory and fiscal measures that promote healthy diets and physical activity.
  2. Strengthened national and international collaboration among policymakers, regulatory bodies, lawyers, public health and nutrition experts, civil society actors and communities to support regulatory and fiscal environments that promote healthy diets and physical activity.
  3. Increased generation and use of relevant evidence and research from different disciplines to develop and implement effective regulatory and fiscal measures to promote healthy diets and physical activity.

External Review

International Rescue CommitteeThe Peer Review is intended to be a learning exercise to consider overarching progress and the main lessons learned and knowledge gained during the Global RECAP implementation period to date.

The Specific Objectives of the Peer Review are:

Provide an overview of the progress (intended and unintended) achieved by the programme;

Identify lessons learned from the results achieved and knowledge gained; Given the knowledge gained, extrapolate relevant lessons learned that Implementing Partners could use to inform the design of a new phase of the programme.

Through a participatory learning process Global RECAP Implementing Organisations have identified the following Learning Questions to guide the Peer Review process.

  1. What progress has been realized towards the intended outcome of the program?
  2. How has the program contributed to any positive unintended outcome?
  3. To what extent have assumptions made during the program design phase changed in the course of implementation? What adaptation measures have been put in place?
  4. Which factors have hindered or negatively affected implementation and performance?
  5. To what extent was the start-up/inception phase of the program sufficient to prepare the way for implementation of programme activities?
  6. How has the program utilized synergies among research, advocacy and policymaking and how could such potential synergies be optimized?

The perspective of efficiency, effectiveness and relevance should be considered when answering these questions – as well as the organizational set-up and design of the program.

Methodology and Phases

The External Review will be facilitated by an external consultant who will work in collaboration with, and report to, a core group of peers from the three Implementing Organizations (IDLO, WHO, IDRC) that have contributed to the program.

Peer-to-peer core team (PtP team) will be composed of up to two representatives for each RECAP Implementing Organization and one representative from RECAP donors, if desired. The PtP team will provide guidance and support to the work of the consultant to convey lessons and learning from the program, from an internal perspective.

The conclusions and recommendations of this peer review will be shared with Program Teams from the three Implementing Organizations, key informants and donor(s),.

The External Review Review will cover all program activities from January 2019 until July 25, 2021.

The External Review will entail three phases:

1) Inception Phase

· The consultant will begin a review of the key program documents defined as relevant to the intervention (to be defined as part of the work plan);

· The consultant will conduct one inception meeting (or more, as needed) with the PtP team to ensure understanding of the operating context;

· The consultant will develop and submit to the PtP team a draft work plan, inclusive of all phases and deliverables;

· In collaboration with the PtP team, the consultant will refine the Learning Questions for the Peer Review;

· In collaboration with the PtP team, the consultant will identify a sampling approach for key informants from project beneficiaries and stakeholders to be interviewed;

· Design other data collection tools as needed.

At the end of the inception phase the consultant will present a short summary of the information and feedback collected during this phase (documents reviewed/people interviewed – max 3 pages) and a work plan to be submitted to the PtP team including the refined Learning Questions. The work plan will also include a description of and timeline for the next phases of the peer review, a complete list of documents to be reviewed, list of key informants, and a preliminary schedule for the planned meetings. The Inception phase will last one week (5 working days).

2) Data Collection Phase

The consultant, in collaboration with the PtP Team, will facilitate generation of knowledge and lessons from key informants from relevant stakeholders (e.g. key government focal points, partner civil society organizations, partner research groups, etc – as it will be defined during the inception phase) to complement the Inception phase data collection and analysis. This will entail:

Focus-group discussions with relevant Program Stakeholders:

The consultant, in collaboration with the PtP Team, will facilitate remote focus groups discussions with identified relevant stakeholders in country including local partners, beneficiaries’ institutions, CSOs, research teams, country teams and academics involved. A minimum of one and a maximum of three focus group discussions and/or interviews with key informants will be facilitated for each component of the program to capture additional data in each area for a total of maximum nine focus group discussions (the exact number to be defined in agreement with the PtP team).

Bilateral interviews with identified key informants will be conducted by the external consultant without the participation of the PtP team, as agreed in the work plan.

Other cost-/time-effective data collection methods that can capture information from the project stakeholders might be considered (e.g. surveys, questionnaires, etc.), in discussion with the PtP team.

Focus-group discussions with relevant External Stakeholders

In collaboration with the PtP team, remote focus group discussions with selected external stakeholders will be conducted. Discussions will aim at collecting additional data on how to leverage synergies and complement existing ongoing initiatives for scaling up work in the next phase. One focus group discussion will include global actors (i.e. potential interested donors) and the other national actors (i.e. potential relevant stakeholders to be involved in the next phase).

Review any other relevant documents, as resulting from the focus group discussions.

The data collection phase will last two weeks (10 working days)

Validation session:

At the end of this phase, th e Consultant will conduct a participatory validation session to the Program Teams (RECAP teams in IDLO, WHO and IDRC) and Donor(s) to outline and present preliminary findings.

3) Synthesis Phase

Learning Report writing and dissemination: A draft Learning Report will be prepared and shared with the PtP team (who will share with their Program Teams) and donors for review, verification and feedback. It will include final answers to the Learning Questions and related findings, conclusions, and lessons learned to inform on follow-on programming.

The synthesis phase will last two weeks (10 working days)

Debriefing session:

At the end of this phase the consultant will participate in a participatory debriefing session with Program Teams from the Participating Organisations and donors which will focus on the way forward, immediately and in the longer term.

Timeframe

The consultancy is expected to start in July 2021. The inception note is expected by the end of July 2021 and the draft Assessment Report is expected by the end of September 2021.

Expressions of Interest

June 21 – July 4

Selection of the consultant (by agreement between WHO, IDLO and IDRC) **

July 5-9

Inception phase

July 12-16

First draft work plan submission by the consultant: July 18

Review of the work plan by PtP: July 19-21

Finalization of the workplan by the consultant: July 25

Data collection phase (Focus group discussions)

July 26 – August 6

Debriefing session: August 10

Synthesis Phase

August 11 – September 25

First Draft Learning Report submission by the consultant: August 25

Review by PtP and RECAP Program Teams: August 26 – September 2

Second Draft Peer Review Report submission by the consultant: September 6

Review by RECAP program teams (IDLO, WHO, IDRC): September 7 – 10

Review by donor(s): September 11 – September 15

Final Draft Peer Review submission by the consultant: September 19

Debriefing session: During the period September 27 – October 1

Profile of the consultant

Consultancy proposals will be accepted from an individual consultant or from a consultancy firm or organisation.

The consultant should in particular demonstrate:

Extensive experience in working on Rule of Law, Health Law and/or Public Health, experience working in the African and South East Asian regions is desirable

Proven competences in conducting Peer Reviews and previous experiences in similar learning exercises

Sound knowledge of capacity building, social mobilization and research programs targeting policy makers, government institutions, CSOs and academia

Demonstrated knowledge of, and experience in, legal and fiscal approaches to NCD prevention or a similar multisectoral public health issue

Demonstrated knowledge of human-rights based approaches to development

Sound expertise in public health, especially in development contexts

Sound expertise in multi-partners program implementation

Expert level written and spoken English

Glossary

Peer-to-peer core team (PtP): Core group of peers composed of up to two representative for each RECAP Implementing Organization (WHO, IDLO and IDRC) and one representative from RECAP donors, if desired.**

RECAP Program teams: RECAP Teams in WHO, IDLO and IDRC

RECAP Implementing Organizations: WHO, IDLO and IDRC

[1] Sustainable development goals (SDGs): Goal 3. Target 3.4: By 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from non- communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being. https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal3

[2] UN Inter-Agency Task Force on NCDs, Policy Brief: “Responding to NCDs during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic”, 2020. Available at: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-Non-communicable_diseases-Policy_brief- 2020.1

[3] See WHO, 2020. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on noncommunicable disease resources and services: results of a rapid assessment. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/ncds-covid-rapid-assessment
WHO, Information note on COVID-19 and NCDs https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/covid-19-and-ncds

[4] UN’s Framework for the Immediate Socio-Economic Response to the COVID 19 Crisis. April 2020. Available at: https://unsdg.un.org/sites/default/files/2020-04/UN-framework-for-the-immediate-socio-economic-response-to-COVID- 19.pdf

[5] Global RECAP is a collaborative project between the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) and in coordination with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

How to apply

Applications will be received through the following link:
https://www.impactpool.org/jobs/708775

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