Somalia: Final Project evaluation

ORGANIZATIONAL BACKGROUND

Adeso is an expanding and vibrant African-based iternational development and humanitarian organization. At Adeso, we work with African communities who are yet to realize their full potential; working inside these communities to create environments in which Africans can thrive. Our belief that economic, social and environmental security is the bedrock of a healthy community drives the nature and intent of our programming. We work to prevent and overcome situations that adversely affect community well-being by: reinvigorating the economy, developing skills for life and work, providing humanitarian aid, and influencing policy. For the past 20 years we have strengthened rural livelihoods through environmental awareness, training, technology transfer and innovative humanitarian projects in pursuit of a peaceful, self-reliant, and greener future. Currently, Adeso has programs in Somalia, Kenya and South Sudan.

Adeso is an exciting and dynamic organization experiencing managed rapid growth. It offers sound employment conditions with opportunities for personal growth and development.

POSITION SUMMARY

Adeso is seeking a consultant competent enough and specialized in evaluating integrated food security and livelihood, and peace buildings projects to evaluate the YEIP project in lower Jubba of south Somalia. The consultancy is for a period of 20 days to begin in the last week of March 2015 and will include desk review, field data collection, data analysis, report writing and presentation of the findings to Lower Jubba and PDQU team in Nairobi. Adeso encourages consultancy firms or groups who can assign one consultant specialized in food security and livelihood, and peace buildings to send in their technical and financial proposal.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

The Employment Intensive Project for youth in Lower Juba is funded by the Somalia Stability Fund; a multi-donor pool fund supporting peace and stability in Somalia and designed to strengthen local stability, improve the co-ordination of international support and enhance its delivery. The Fund’s objectives were to support representative & responsive local governance and to support the resolution and mitigation of conflicts.

Adeso’s initiative through this fund was in the spirit of strengthening local stability in the region that was focusing on the rehabilitation of infrastructure through cash-for-work activities and the construction of youth friendly and income generating micro-projects. The project was also used to build the capacities and partner with youth groups.

Adeso understands employment intensive work as the creation of rapid, short-term employment opportunities for the target groups that contributes to community economic recovery. The project focused on the rehabilitation of identified low-cost communal assets in the target locations. In this context, the intensive employment works aimed at empowering vulnerable groups including the 270 HHs of unskilled and unemployed youth to improve their livelihoods. 105 HHs from Dhobley and 165HHs in Afmadow. The infrastructure project focused on building community resources and contribute to an overall reduction in poverty levels.

Adeso successfully managed to complete all the planned activities tied to this project despite the different external challenges and made significant progress with the overall successful project completion. Some of the districts were experiencing limited infrastructure rehabilitations and recurrence conflicts. Adeso maintained close coordination and good working relationship with the communities and local authorities in order to ensure access and timely implementation of the project.

OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The main purpose of this assessment is to determine whether the project main objectives with regards to impacts were met including determining the progress made towards achievement of specific objectives of the project, its impacts on the lives of beneficiaries who have been directly involved in the project activities, including their families, communities, and local authorities on the response of policy makers at local and national levels after the end of the implementation period. The assessment will also help determine some impacts signs the project has produced on the main target communities, in terms of meeting livelihood needs, resolution and mitigation of conflicts, and as well as enhancing and strengthening of local stability. The final evaluation will also gauge the level of community and other stakeholder participation and ownership of the implementation process including the identification of the intended and unintended outcomes, best practice and lesson learned as well as challenges arising from project implementation. In addition, the evaluation will come up with conclusions and recommendation on the way forward. The assessment will be referenced against the project baseline to determine the extent at which the objectives, target outcomes and impacts have been achieved.

SCOPE OF WORK

YEIP project evaluation will be done through visits to project sites in Lower Juba region of Somalia; indirect data collection will be done through extensive literature review; direct data collection through extensive HH interviews, government officials, and communities’ informants from different livelihood groups who have been involved either directly or indirectly in the project. Specific guided areas of focus are as follows:

1. Appropriateness

· The evaluation must report back on the appropriateness of this particular intervention in meeting the objectives.

· Were the activities developed necessary and were the way they were implemented appropriate to the context and culture.

· Was the choice of objective appropriate to the context?

1. Connectedness

· Does this fit within international priorities such as the millennium development goals?

· Does the project fit within wider organization and other stakeholder’s programmes?

· Did the work of Adeso compliment the activities of other stakeholders, such as INGOs, NGOs and UN agencies in the project sites or adjacent villages?

1. Coherence

· Did the activities complement one another?

· Does a success in one activity increase the potential success of another activity?

· How well did Adeso link the activities on the ground?

1. Coverage

· Evaluate the coverage of the project.

· Is the coverage too small to have an impact or is it too large that the benefits are spread too thin to have impact?

· How has the coverage effected other aspects of the project such as monitoring?

· Was the area the right area chosen for this sort of projects?

1. Effectiveness

· How well did the project design meet the objectives and extent to which the objectives were achieved?

· Was the number of beneficiaries reached by the various activities acceptable?

· Were the activities implemented well?

· Could there have been better ways of implementation that may have led to improved outcomes?

· To what extent the external assumption in the proposal hold true and how well were the mitigating measures put in use?

1. Efficiency

· Evaluate project activity management and implementation, and resource allocation and utilization (Including human resources and financial management).

· Evaluate the involvement of stakeholders in the design of projects and identification of gender equalities and women empowerment support areas.

· How realistic is the potential sustainability of the infrastructures constructed or rehabilitated and groups supported.

· Evaluate the gender balance in relation to beneficiary participation and benefits.

· Assessment of value of internal controls i.e. monitoring tools, information management, activity plan and implementation.

1. Impact signs

· Determine the impacts of the project activities to improve infrastructures and enhancing capacity to government officials in the target population.

· Assessment of the impacts of the project activities to increase number of empowered men, women and children representing their communities.

· Evaluate the impacts signs on conflict mitigation as a result of the project design.

· Highlight any unintended impacts of the project.

1. Sustainability

· Evaluate the design of the project in relation to sustainability and replicability.

· Evaluate whether the project activities implemented will live beyond the life of the project period and continue to contribute to improving the target regions.

· Efficiency of activities geared at sustainability.

1. Lesson learnt

· Identify lesson learnt and give recommendations of general and specific nature which are useful to Adeso for the planning, preparation and implementation of enhancing government capacities, youth employments, and gender equalities in future.

METHODOLOGY AND PROCESS

The methodology will be further defined by the consultant, and revised at the outset of the consultancy. The elements in the methodology to include, direct and indirect data collection, analysis and cross referencing, formulating recommendations and lesson learnt. To the extent possible, field data should be collected using participatory appraisal techniques. District local authorities, such as elders, women units, youth groups, minorities and other community members, in addition to government partners from the respective line ministries should be included. The following are expected to be considered while developing evaluation methodology:

· Literature of different secondary data and reports from the project.

· Review of existing M&E reports of Adeso, and other project related documents.

· Presentation on evaluation methodology to program manager and program quality team and modify the changes in methodology based on the feedbacks.

· Develop data collection tools and framework to guide the process of data collection.

· Field work visits; the consultant can explore possibility of having short term local personnel having access to field location under direct supervision arrangements for data collection.

· In case of consultant plans to have independent arrangement of deployable team should be provided and should be reflected in the proposal budget.

· Consultant should submit detailed work plan for the stipulated period of consultancy arrangement.

POSSIBLE FIELD WORK

The consultant will prepare an evaluation schedule to operationalize and direct the assessment for the stipulated period of consultancy. The work plan will describe how the assessment will be carried out, bringing refinements, strategy, specify and elaboration to the terms of reference.

Consultant will need to provide his/her own travel plan insurance and the same will be applicable to personnel independently deployed for data collection.

DELIVERABLES / EXPECTED OUTPUTS

· Initial work plan and proposal for study (Including study methodology and process of data collection), to be presented.

· Final work plans and data collection for approval prior to field work in Lower juba; A work plan for this assignment should be developed in relation to the methodology suggested by the consultant , and the number of days set for this assignment. This will include a one day briefing on the findings to get input from project and program staff, as well as build consensus around the recommendation.

· Interim evaluation report with preliminary analysis and observations, submitted for feedback and comments.

· Presentation of the main findings of the draft evaluation report for final consensus building to the field team in Lower juba, and Adeso program development and quality team in Nairobi for comments;

· Final Evaluation report in English ( 3 hard copies and soft copy on CD ROM)

EXPECTED PROFILE OF THE CONSULTANT

· Have an advanced degree and experience in Social Sciences, Law, Conflict Management and Peace-building, protection programming and evaluation, or development evaluation.

· Demonstrable experience in leading evaluations of humanitarian programs responding to major disasters, with specific emphasis on cash programming and conflict resolution;

· Knowledge of strategic and operational management of humanitarian operations and proven ability to provide strategic recommendations to key stakeholders;

· Strong analytical skills and ability to clearly synthesize and present findings, draw practical conclusions, make recommendations and to prepare well-written reports in a timely manner;

· Experience in qualitative data collection and analysis techniques, especially in emergency operations;

· Excellent working knowledge of Somalia and the Horn of Africa.

· Proven ability to conduct field studies and to write clear and concise research reports in English. List of publications may be requested.

· Good interpersonal skills and understanding cultural sensitivities;

· Readiness to travel to Somalia and conduct direct standard monitoring and evaluation activities

EVALUATION AND AWARD OF CONSULTANCY

Adeso will evaluate the proposals and award the assignment based on technical and financial feasibility. Adeso reserves the right to accept or reject any proposal received without giving reasons and is not bound to accept the lowest or the highest bidder. Only those shortlisted will be contacted.

Applications should be submitted not later than 15^th March 2016. Adeso will conduct interviews on an on-going basis. All applicants must meet the minimum requirements described above. Only short listed candidates/firms will be contacted. Adeso is an equal opportunity employer. Each application should include the following:

· CV (s) with details of qualifications, experience, telephone number and names of three referees (preferably those having worked for in similar assignments);

· Technical proposal that summarizes your understanding of the TOR and proposed methodology;

· Financial proposal providing estimates of all assessment costs including daily consultancy fees in US$. Daily consulting rate is negotiable, although should be commensurate to Adeso consultancy terms and standards; and

· The foreseen work plan for the days.

Applications not including all of the above information will not be reviewed.

All applications should be sent to Adeso at consultancy@adesoafrica.org with the subject line: “**YEIP Final Evaluation**”. Applications should be submitted no later than 15^th March 2016.