ToR for Project Impact Evaluation At Oxfam

ToR for Project Impact Evaluation

1. General Background

Oxfam is an international confederation counting 20 organizations working together with partners and local communities in more than 90 countries. Oxfam has been working in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and Israel since the 1950s, and a country office was established in Jerusalem in the 1980s. Oxfam mainly works in the most vulnerable communities, such as Gaza, East Jerusalem, and Area C, which represents the 61% of the West Bank and where the Israeli government maintains full military and civil control. In the past Oxfam also worked with impoverished communities in Israel.

In this framework, Oxfam is looking for a consultant to conduct an Endline study and Impact Evaluation of the project “**Beyond the barriers. Promotion of a gender sensitive and sustainable rural development to ensure the food security and resilience of vulnerable communities of the West Bank”.**

1.1. Project background:

Oxfam together with Rural Women’s Development Society (RWDS), Palestinian Livestock Development Center (PLDC) and We World-GVC implemented a three-year project “Beyond the barriers. Promotion of a gender sensitive and sustainable rural development to ensure the food security and resilience of vulnerable communities of the West Bank” financed by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS). The project started in May 2018 and it is planned to end in November 2021.

The project’s Global Objective is to contribute to a gender-sensitive, sustainable rural development of most vulnerable communities in Area C and Seam Zone for fostering food security and community resilience. The Specific Objective of the project is to strengthen the endogenous and networking capacities of herders’ and farmers’ communities living in Area C and in the Seam Zone of the West Bank to protect and develop community-based resources and livelihoods opportunities, with special attention to women’s economic and social empowerment.

The Expected Results (ER) of the project are:

ER1. Increased quality and availability of veterinary services, through training and participation of communities and through qualified professional services aimed at enhancing preventive measures for animal health and small ruminant livestock sector’s sustainability;

ER2. Increased communities’ capacities of accessing fodder through improved grazing area management, training herders on producing silage and Total Mixed Ration (TMR), and innovative cooperative mechanisms;

ER3. Increased abilities and resources of communities – especially women – to develop income generation activities and to access markets through establishment of two women-led production units. Also, by capacity building and training for rural women on Cooperativism, plantation techniques, food processing, and small business management.

ER4. Increased target groups’ capacities to participate in inclusive and gender-sensitive policy dialogues for the defence and the development of livelihoods and raised national and international stakeholders’ awareness on the right of vulnerable rural communities in Area C and Seam Zone to sustainable rural development.

2. Purpose and Scope of the Consultancy **

The planned assessment is an impact evaluation using quasi-experimental approach with purpose to estimate the causal impact of “Beyond the barriers” project on target population. The final evaluation intends to make an assessment, as systematic and objective as possible, of the above mentioned project, its design, implementation and results. The aim is to determine the fulfilment of objectives, developmental efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability and impact. Therefore, the main evaluation questions are the following:**

a) Effectiveness

Assessing effectiveness implies measuring the extent to which the project attained its objectives. Questions to consider are:

• To what extent were the objectives of the project achieved? What were the major factors influencing the achievement (or non-achievement) of objectives?
• What changes has produced the project? Have the produced changes generated the intended benefits? Can the changes in outcomes be explained by the project, or are they the result of some other factors occurring simultaneously? To what extent can observed changes be attributed to the intervention?

Example of effectiveness evaluation questions:

• Does the project achieve the intended goal?
• Has the intervention increased the access to targeted communities to income generation assets and services?
• Have the targeted communities increased their dialogue capacities and interconnections with other communities?
• Have the beneficiary women increased their engagement and ability to sustain income generating businesses by the end of the project?
• Has the cost of accessing inputs and services for livelihoods activities in target communities decreased?
• To what extend have the targeted communities’ cooperatives and CBOs participate actively in local and national policy dialogues? Is the policy dialogue promoted by cooperatives and CBOs sensitive to gender issues, such as… ? OR to what extent the promoted policy dialogue is informed by issues faced by women in accessing to income generating activities?
• Do project impact vary across different groups of intended beneficiaries (males, females, but also members of different communities)? Are there unintended impacts?
• What proportion of women participated in the project?
• Were women affected differently than men? If yes, how and why?
• Are there any unintended effects of the project, either positive or negative?
• Were the social inclusion of women enhanced?
• Were the social aspects of women empowerment addressed and how?
• Had the project made the best use of partners’ expertise to achieve expected results? Was the monitoring, management, learning and financial systems put in place effective for that scope?
• How partners cooperated among them?
• What kind of hazards and conditions are presented and mitigation measures taken?

b) Impact

Assessing impact means measuring the changes resulting from the project. This includes direct and indirect, intended and non-intended, positive and negative changes. Questions to consider are:

• What has happened as a result of the project?
• What real difference have the project made for the target groups? What would have happened in the absence of the intervention?

Example of specific impact evaluation questions:

• How and why did the above mentioned changes happen?
• What role did the project have in bringing about these changes?
• Which other factors contributed to bringing about these changes?

c) Efficiency

Assessing efficiency means measuring the project in relation to the inputs. The focus of this assessment should be less on cost-efficiency (in comparison to alternative approaches to achieving the same outputs) and more on process-efficiency.

• Were activities cost-efficient?
• Were objectives achieved on time?
• What has been effective in engaging/influencing communities, government at different levels & other stakeholders to achieve project objectives?

D) Sustainability:

• Have the benefits of the project been likely to persist after the project phased out?
• Which elements furthering sustainability of results did the project design include, if any? Which other would be suggested?
• Were significant collaborations with relevant Governance, Service and gender sector’s stakeholders established? If yes can they ensure the continuity of the achieved outcomes?

3. Evaluation Methodology and Process: