TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE TERMINAL EVALUATION OF HORUMARINTA ELMIGA (HE) III PROJECT IN SOMALILAND

INVITATION TO BID FOR CONSULTANCY

Save the Children International (SCI) Somalia program hereby invites interested consultants to bid for the consultancy assignment detailed below*

Title of Consultancy

TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE TERMINAL EVALUATION OF HORUMARINTA ELMIGA (HE) III PROJECT IN SOMALILAND

SCI Contracting Office

Save the Children – Somaliland Office

Period of Consultancy

The assignment is 40 working days.

Consultant type required **

Both individual and consultant companies can apply this assignment

Responsibility for Logistics arrangements and Costs

The consultant will be responsible for covering all other relevant costs to this assignment. However, SCI will only arrange the required transport while traveling to and within Somaliland for the purpose of this assignment and prior approval from the save the children.

Taxation Provisions

Consultant shall be responsible for all Taxes arising from the consultancy in line with the Somaliland Tax regulations applicable at the SCI Somaliland.

Travel requirements **

The consultant will travel to the field locations as per required where the project activities are going on. Some of these locations including Gabiley, Borama, Berbera, Shiekh, Burao, Ainabo Lasanod and Erigavo.

Save the children will cover travel, accommodation & Food outside Hargeisa.

Security requirements

Consultant will comply with standard Save the Children Security procedures, including the completion of SCI online security training prior to travel to Somalia

Qualification and Experience

The applicant must have the following profiles.

• Should have proven record/prior work of evaluation with similar education programs in similar context.
• Must have technical knowledge/qualification on basic (primary and secondary) education and educational statistics.
• The applicant must have at least 5 years working experience in conducting assessments, evaluations and monitoring projects in a fragile environment.
• The applicant must have deep understanding and knowledge on Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, Learning and Research.
• The consultant company must have legal valid registration proving its existence and presence.
• The applicant should have experience with both quantitative and qualitative research methods and also child participatory methodologies in evaluations.

Evaluation Criteria

The evaluation criteria include the followings

• Relevancy of the technical proposal to the ToR
• Understanding to the assignment by the applicant.
• Reasonability of the costs presented in the financial proposal.
• Prior experience for the applicants in doing similar assignments.
• Qualifications and experience of the applicants.
• Availability and flexibility of the consultant during completing this assignment.
• Knowledge of Somali context or similar locations in the region.
• Meet with legal requirement and taxations.

Evaluation criteria

Weighting marks

Relevancy of the technical proposal to the ToR: 25 Marks

The lowest evaluated financial proposal will be awarded the maximum commercial criteria score of 10 marks.

Highest score will give to the Prior experience more than 5 years for the applicants in doing similar assignments 8 marks.

Less than 5 to 4 years for 4 marks score

Less than 4 years of experience will get 2 marks score

Relevance of the qualifications (Education) and experience in education sector of the applicants 7 score

Interview scores 50 marks

Total 100 Marks

Application Procedure

Interested consultants should submit their applications via email to Somaliland.Procurement@savethechildren.org**

The applications should be submitted in PDF format as one document comprising Technical and Financial sections as detailed below.

a) Technical proposal – including but not limited to :**

· Consultants understanding of the assignment and context

· Approach to the assignment

· Methodology

· Tools

· Deliverables

· Workplan

· Key staff biodata

b) Financial proposal – providing a breakdown of all charges related to the assignment.**

Applicants should also indicate the date they are available to start working on the consultancy

All applications MUST be submitted on or before the closing date below to be considered for the assignment.

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Closing date for Applications

Interested consultants shall submit their applications through the email address provided above on or before. The submission deadline for the proposal is on 20^th October 2021. **

Please be informed that only shortlisted candidates will be communicated and requested for an interview.

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Terms of Reference (ToR)

Complete ToR with details appended below attached herewith as Annex 1.

• Purpose of the consultancy,
• Introduction of the project,
• Background of the consultancy,
• Objectives of the consultancy,
• Proposed methodology and approach,
• Scope of work,
• Key deliverables / outputs
• Activity timelines

Annex 1.

TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE TERMINAL EVALUATION OF HORUMARINTA ELMIGA (HE) III PROJECT IN SOMALILAND.

CALL FOR CONSULTANCY **

September 2021

1. Background **

Save the children and Care International as a consortium have been implementing an education program namely Horumarinta Elmiga III. The program follows a sector-wide approach with a strong focus on public ownership and joint decision-making. Horumarinta Elmiga III (also called “Education for Empowerment through Cohesive and Harmonized System”) is three-year (January 2019 – December 2021) program funded by the European Union. The program covers all the six administrative regions for Somaliland namely Marodi-jeh, Awdal, Sahil, Togdher, Sool and Sanag. The main partner for the program is the Ministry of Education and Higher Studies for Somaliland (MOE&HS).

Horumarinta Elmiga III program targets to expand Basic Education (BE) and Non-Formal Education (NFE) opportunities in underserved areas; mainstream Basic Education for Pastoralists (BEP); reach children with special needs; and provide demand-driven Technical Vocation Education Training (TVET) for employment. The action also targets to improve quality of education through teacher trainings and system strengthening.

The overall objective of the program is “Improved educational attainment for school-age boys and girls in Somaliland”. The project has also a specific objective which says “Increased access to equitable and inclusive quality education for school-age boys and girls in Somaliland”.

The program has three interrelated outcomes with clear targets shown below table which contribute to the realization of the project purpose and specific objective.

Outcomes **

Key Program Targets

Outcome 1:

Increased access to equitable and inclusive basic education for children.

• 13,500 (48% girls) formal primary school students.

• 4,785 pastoralist children for ABE

• 10,080 (48% girls) secondary school students.

• 2,880 NFE learners.

• 350 (50% girls) youth for IBTVET skills.

Outcome 2: **

Improved learning outcomes for boys and girls in school.

• 229 (60% F) pre-service teacher training for primary schools.

• Improved learning outcomes for primary school children as measured by literacy (EGRA) and numeracy (EGMA) pass rates.

• Reading: 65 % Correct Word Per Minute
• Comprehension: 80%

• Establish and train 966 Community Education Committees (CECs) members in the supported schools.

• Strengthen the literacy and numeracy boosting skills for the schoolteachers though trainings and provision of supplementary reading materials.

• Provision of School Grants to 120 supported schools to develop and implement School Improvement Plan.

Outcome 3. **

Increased capacity of MOES at all levels to lead, manage and monitor the education system. **

• Capacity building of MOE&HS at regional and central levels.

• Embedment of short term and need based Technical Advisory/consultancy.

• Policy and legal framework review

• Annual Joint Review of the Education Sector (JRES)

• Steering Committee Meetings (SCM):

• Support the coordination of Education Sector Committee (ESC).

In a bid to assess project outcomes at the end of the grant period, Save the children on behalf of Horumarinta Elmiga Education Consortium is looking for a qualified consultant with appropriate technical capacity and experience to conduct terminal evaluation of Horumarinta Elmiga III project.

2. Purpose of the terminal evaluation **

The purpose of this evaluation is to assess the overall performance of the project by focusing on the extent to which the activities are suited to the priorities and polices of the target group (relevance); achievement of the purpose and planned results/outcomes (effectiveness); sound management and value for money (efficiency); mutual reinforcements with other programs (coherence) and likely continuation of achieved results (sustainability). The evaluation process should also highlight key challenges encountered during the project implementation and document key best practices which can add value during the designing of future programming.

Objectives of the terminal evaluation **

The specific objectives of this evaluation are to:

• Assess the extent to which the project has achieved its objectives and created the expected and unexpected changes in children’s lives referring its result framework.Review the relevance, coherence and effectiveness of the implementation approach and give recommendations for future programming.
• Ascertain the level to which the project employs the principle of sector wide approach (SWA).
• Establish the extent to which the project interventions contribute towards increased access to inclusive, equitable and quality education for the children and young people (disaggregated by sex) in Somaliland.
• Establish the level to which the project has increased participation of youth and adults (disintegrated by sex) in Technical and Vocational Education and Training.
• Measure the extent to which the management and coordination capacity of education institutions including MOE central and regional administrations and teacher training college have been strengthened by the project.
• Document lessons learn (positive and negative) and good practices in implementing the project that could be applied in next similar projects. The lessons learned during the Covid-19 pandemic should be taken in account.
• Based on the findings of the evaluation make specific recommendations for different stakeholders in improving cohesiveness and harmonization of the education system. The recommendations should include how best to close the gender gap in education participation.

3. Terminal evaluation Questions

The selected consult should develop detailed evaluation questions and the data collection tools during the preparation of the inception report.

4. Scope of the terminal evaluation **

The project coverage is the all six administrative regions of Somaliland (Awdal, Marodi-jeh, Sahil, Togdher, Sool and Sanag) and currently targets 90 primary schools, 36 ABE schools, 48 secondary schools, 6 IBTVET centers, Teacher training college and the MoES offices. However, the review process will draw a representative sample from the target population considering proportionality for the target groups.

An external consultant under the guidance of the HE III consortium manager / consortium MEAL manager and the Ministry of Education will lead the whole process of the evaluation. The consultant will develop the data collection tools, train the data collection team, coordinate the field data collection process, interpret the data and produce a comprehensive final evaluation report.

5. Methodology of the evaluation **

The methodology to be adopted by the evaluation shall generate both quantitative and qualitative information, that specific methodology to employ should be participatory, and to enable triangulating data from the key stakeholders including children so that the qualitative data help understanding the quantitative data. Quantitatively, it should include well developed study tools or questionnaires with proper random selection of participants where appropriate. Qualitatively, it should mainly comprise of desk review, use of primary and secondary data and field consultations with the different stakeholders (children’s & youth groups benefiting from the project, CECs, REOs/DEOs office, selected IBTVET institutions, Teacher training college and MOES departments. Case studies are expected to be used to document changes brought about by the project on specific cases, lessons learnt and good practices that can be replicated elsewhere. The lead researcher (consultant) will be responsible for further development of the methodology and the review tools to show how data for each review objective will be captured.

6. Expected Tasks and Deliverables

The consultant is expected to carry out the tasks and provide the deliverables listed in the table below.

Major Deliverables

Expected Timeframe

Proposal Submission Deadline – A technical and financial proposal to demonstrate the consultant’s independent interpretation of the TOR.

October 20^th, 2021

Contract Awarded.

November 5^th, 2021

Evaluation kick-off meeting – Preliminary meetings with consortium team to establish common understanding on the scope of the assignment.

November 6^th, 2021

Submit inception report including evaluation matrix, work plan and data collection tools for the evaluation.

November 7^th, 2021

Recruit and train data collectors in the study locations

November 10^th, 2021

Carry out desk review and data collection with the partners, ministry of education and other stakeholders.

November 20^th, 2021

Submit draft evaluation report indicating the approaches used, achievements, lessons learnt, showcasing good practices and intended/unintended results brought by the project.

December 10^th, 2021

Review of the draft report by Save the Children, Care and MoES and share comments and feedback for further improvement

December 15^th, 2021

Finalize and submit final copy of the evaluation report incorporating the comments and/or feedback from the implementing partners. The report should be presented in agreed format outlined in the consultant’s proposal with all due tables, graphs and accompanying photographs and/or notes.

December 31^st, 2021

7. Duration of the Assignment **

The terminal evaluation will be conducted in 40 working days. The consultant shall develop detailed work plan in his technical proposal and will be reviewed and approved by the consortium team.

8. Roles and responsibilities **

a) The Consultant:

• In liaison with the relevant HE III consortium team, the consultant will develop a technical proposal with a clear methodological approach, a work plan, budget and tools that will be approved by the consortium management team.
• Train all data collection team (enumerators) members on the use of the tools and the agreed methodology.
• Conduct evaluation exercise – field work for data collection on all outcome, output and result indicators in line with approved methodology, data analysis and interpretation in favor of the objectives of the terminal evaluation.
• Draft evaluation report and share it with the consortium team and the MoES for inputs/feedback in a validation meeting.
• Submit final comprehensive evaluation report in and electronic copy to the consortium management unit under the Save the Children.

b) HE III consortium teams:

• Approve the evaluation design, methodology and the data collection tools.
• Recruit and remunerate the data collection team/enumerators.
• Schedule and manage appointments for the data collection process.
• Provide local logistic support for the assignment.
• Ensure that key staff from the consortium members are available for interviews when needed.
• Provide project documents (proposal, log frame, baseline information, mid-term evaluation, donor reports, etc).
• Provide feedback and comments on the draft evaluation report prior to the completion of the final report.

9. Reporting Arrangements

The consultant will report directly to Save the Children office in Hargiesa. The Education Consortium MEAL Manager will be the focal person who will lead this exercise in coordination with the consortium management teams. The consultant will submit the following key reports.

a) Inception report including evaluation matrix, work plan and data collection tools for the terminal evaluation within two weeks after the contract is signed.

b) First draft report for the terminal evaluation including all the findings and recommendations to be submitted within the second week of December 2021.

c) Final terminal evaluation report incorporated with all the comments and suggests from the key stakeholders on 31^st December 2021.