Consultant – GFFO Mid Term Evaluation at Plan International

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian non-profit organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood, and enable children to prepare for – and respond to – crises and adversity. We believe in the power and potential of every child, but know this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination.

We are recruiting to fill the position of:

Job Title: Consultant – GFFO Mid Term Evaluation

Location: Maiduguri, Borno
Functional Area: Programme (Child Protection)
Reports to: Project Manager GFFO
Assignment Location: Borno State in (Kala-Balge, MMC, Jere, Damboa and Kaga) LGAs.
Travel Required: Yes
Grad: E

Role Purpose
Context:

• The complex and protracted Lake Chad humanitarian crisis has resulted in the displacement of more than 2.4[1] million people, half of them are children. Many are living in desperate conditions without access to food or clean water.
• Protection issues are of grave concern with evidence of violence against children as well as all worst forms of child labor. Women and girls face unabated Gender Based Violence (GBV). They have been targeted, abducted and held hostage, raped or forced into marriage. When they do manage to escape, some of them face stigma from their families and communities.
• The German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO) funded two phases of a regional project covering Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria which ended in the second half of 2018. To strengthen the achievements of these projects a 3year regional project also covering the three countries and running from 2018 to 2021 started on 1st November 2018.
• After half way of the project duration it is envisaged as per the Funding Agreement Document (FAD) to undertake a mid-term evaluation to provide an opportunity to make modifications to ensure the achievement of the project objectives within its lifetime.
• The present document outlines the terms of reference of the midterm evaluation for the current funded project which is implemented in Borno State in the following LGA’s (Kala-Balge, MMC, Jere, Damboa and Kaga).

Specific Objectives

The overall objective of this midterm evaluation is to assess the relevance, the coherence, the effectiveness, the efficiency and the sustainability of the project.

Objectives of the Evaluation

• To determine the extent to which the project objectives respond to beneficiaries’ and other stakeholders’ priorities
• To determine the extent to which other interventions both internal and external support or undermine the intervention, and vice versa
• To determine the extent to which the intervention is expected to achieve, its objectives, and its results, including any differential results across groups
• To determine the extent to which the intervention delivers results in an economically sound and timely way
• To determine the extent to which the benefits of the intervention are likely to continue
• To determine the extent to which the M&E, lessons learned and feedback data have been used to improve the implementation of the project.

Midterm Evaluation Questions:
To address the objectives of the mid-term evaluation it is expected that answers are provided to the following questions:

• How are the objectives and design of the intervention sensitive to the economic, environmental, equity, social, political economy, and capacity conditions in which it takes place?
• What are the synergies and interlinkages between the project and other interventions carried out by Plan International in the country, as well as the consistency of the project with the relevant international norms and standards to which Plan International adheres? How consistent is the intervention with other actors’ interventions in the same context?
• What is the progress made towards achieving its planned objectives?
• How cost effective is the delivery of the project outputs? How time effective is the delivery of the project outputs? How well is the project managed?
• What systems and mechanisms are being put in place to sustain the project benefits over time?
• How well has the internal monitoring system contributed to the evaluation and to ongoing programme implementation? How well have the feedback mechanism and the learning agenda contributed to ongoing programme implementation?
• What are the recommendations for improvement?

Key Stakeholders Involved:

• Plan International staff: These include the project staff from the regional project manager to the country staff and staff on other projects specifically to elicit inputs to the midterm evaluation questions.
• Children and youth and their families: These include girls and boys between 8 to 24 years old, as well as their families, who are in the different intervention areas. In addition to them, the community leaders and community groups will be heard.
• National civil society organizations (CSO) or implementing partners: As key actors at community level, they are going to make input into the evaluation with insights on the work they are doing with the community in the scope of the project and share their reflections.
• Relevant country-based coordination mechanisms and relevant government representatives: to provide their perspective on the intervention regarding the different questions.

Dimensions of the Role

• This evaluation will cover from the beginning of the project to when the consultant starts the exercise.
• The methodological approach to this exercise shall be generally a quantitative and qualitative mixed method approach with a convergent parallel design to validate findings using quantitative and qualitative data sources.
• Through survey instruments quantitative data will be gathered while qualitative methods namely Focus Group Discussion and Key Informant Interview will serve to gather qualitative data.
• The two types of data will create a solid foundation for drawing conclusions about the intervention. Before moving to the primary data collection, a literature review will be undertaken to shape the design of the questionnaires and interview guides.
• For the quantitative data collection, the same sampling size and method used during the baseline will be used.
• Both the quantitative and the qualitative approach will capture in appropriate ways views and opinions of females and males of different age categories (adolescent, youth and adults) and will include as much as possible people living with disability.

Expected Deliverables:
The expected outputs are:

• Data collection tools and a schedule of field activities.
• Draft report(s) for review with qualitative and quantitative data analysis interface in MS Excel or SPSS.
• Mid-term evaluation report in English.

The report must include:

• Title Page
• Table of Contents / Figures and Tables
• Abbreviations / acronyms page
• Executive summary (not more than 3 pages)
• Background and a short introduction to the project
• Methodology and limitations
• Findings
• Conclusions.

Qualification and Experience of the consultant / team

For this exercise, Plan International is looking for a multi-disciplinary team composed of at least one member having:

• Proven expertise in designing and conducting evaluations using participatory, selective techniques
• Proven expertise in child protection and gender-based violence
• Experience in conducting gender sensitive research with children and young people
• Relevant advanced university degree in education, social work or another related discipline.
• Experience in conducting studies in the West Africa Countries
• Fluency in English
• At least 10 years’ experience in evaluation of human development/humanitarian work

The consultant’s team shall prepare and submit:

• A financial and technical proposal including detailed curriculum vitae of each team member with three references (two professional and one personal)
• a proposal outlining how and when they intend to accomplish this task a detailed financial proposal

Application Closing Date
5.00pm, 19th May, 2020.