Midterm Evaluation – Protection of Civilians Program At PAX

SUMMARY

PAX’s Protection of Civilians (PoC) team is seeking a qualified team to conduct a midterm evaluation of its PoC Program (2019-2023). The evaluation should take place between December 2021 and March 2022 and will involve fieldwork in both Iraq and South Sudan, COVID-19 conditions allowing. We will accept applications until 3 December. Much more detail can be found in the evaluation Terms of Reference (ToR) here.

EVALUATION PURPOSE

This midterm evaluation is intended to facilitate deep reflection about progress towards intended results at this midpoint of the program, and to inform potential course corrections in the remaining two years of the grant. The evaluation will also feed into future program design and fundraising processes. Please note that our goal with this evaluation is less about generating a detailed accounting of our program’s results to date, and more to facilitate participatory and engaged learning from within our staff, partners, and other key stakeholders.

PROPOSED OBJECTIVES AND LINES OF INQUIRY

Evaluation Objectives

PAX’s PoC team is particularly interested in exploring the effectiveness and potential impact of our approach at this stage in the program. Earlier evaluations, as well as ongoing components of our learning agenda have enabled us to reflect on other themes—such as relevance, coherence, and efficiency—and integrate these into how we implement our program. These findings and learning outcomes will be made available to the evaluation team. The current lines of inquiry as outlined in the ToR are admittedly rather broad. We propose that a core aspect of the Inception Phase of the evaluation be a participatory exercise with PAX and its partners to further refine, delineate, and contextualize the lines of inquiry to ensure their relevance and utility, and to secure buy-in from relevant programmatic stakeholders for the process.

IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS

Timeline & Components

A proposed 45-60 working days will be available for: evaluation preparation, remote data collection, in-country data collection (in Iraq and South Sudan), and data analysis and synthesis. (Note that this tally does not necessarily refer to person-days, as we anticipate working with a team, rather than individual consultants.)

Deliverables

The anticipated final outputs for this evaluation will include: a detailed inception report and evaluation plan, a presentation of initial findings during each field visit, a draft summary report, an interactive workshop at our headquarters in the Netherlands to present findings and recommendations, and a final report. The project team anticipates benefiting most from a well-facilitated, in-person workshop to discuss the evaluation findings and potential next steps. However, some form of written deliverable will be a valuable means of sharing the evaluation results with other key audiences. If the evaluator is interested in proposing additional or alternative deliverables that will help to better reflect the results of the process, we are open to suggestions in the application responding to this ToR, or during the inception phase.

Desired Expertise & Qualifications

Given the scope of work and variety of expertise required, we strongly recommend that (international) teams of consultants apply for this opportunity, rather than individuals. The team collectively should contain the skills and experience detailed below.

The selected evaluators must have demonstrated expertise in utilization-focused evaluation (UFE) methods, as well as familiarity with conflict-sensitive programming. Previous regional experience in Iraq and/or South Sudan is strongly desired. Arabic language skills are looked upon very favorably, but not required. Additional desired qualifications particularly for Lead Evaluators are listed below:

• Bachelor’s degree in social sciences, international relations, conflict resolution, security studies, or related field; Master’s degree preferred;
• Minimum 7-10 years of experience in designing, overseeing, and implementing project evaluation or combination of education, training, and experience;
• Familiarity with international programming in the protection and security sectors, ideally related to UN or NATO missions;
• Technical knowledge of qualitative and quantitative data collection methodologies;
• Practical professional experience in conflict or post-conflict settings, as well as up-to-date personal security/HEAT training certificates;
• Excellent intercultural communication skills, gender and cultural sensitivity, and the ability to work constructively and build trust with people from a variety of different backgrounds; and
• Strong facilitation, presentation, and communication skills; as well as the ability to communicate effectively in English (and, ideally, Arabic), both verbally and in writing.