ENDLINE STUDY AND FINAL EXTERNAL EVALUATION of the “Political Stabilization and Reform through Confidence Building and Inclusive Dialogue” project

Consultant Elections & Governance

Contract

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Background

Guinea-Bissau is a post-conflict country marred by political turmoil. Its cyclical instability is mainly the result of structural conflict factors at the political, institutional, security, and economic level that have not been resolved since the country’s independence. 14 November 1980, 17 October 1986, 7 June 1998, 12 April 2012, 24 November 2019, and 1 February 2021 all refer to episodes of political turmoil, which included political assassinations, executions, war, and successful and failed coups d’état, that have never been properly addressed. The incidents of political instability, fuelled by both internal disputes between political elites and direct interventions by the military, have undermined the capacity of the State to generate, negotiate and implement public policies and foster a culture of political dialogue and compromise.

The continuous episodes of instability reveal structural factors (root causes) that have not been addressed since the country’s liberation from colonialism, namely:

• The incomplete consolidation of the political system, and the lack of formal mechanisms to ensure strong and independent oversight and broad participation (beyond political elites) in policymaking, thereby, reinforcing patronage networks within the State that resist reforms;
• The entangled relationship of the military with political elites, which is contributing to the excessive weight of military budget on the State and their resistance to reform;
• The organization of the State, stemming from historical and geopolitical factors, and its dependency on external assistance, which makes the country more responsive to the needs and demands of donors, than those of its citizens;
• Undiversified and unsustainable economic system, which marginalizes large sectors of the population and continues to encourage inequality;

The situation is made worse by certain drivers or proximate causes that aggravate the political instability and make the conflict more complex. The main drivers are:

• The marginalization of women, youth, and rural constituents from decision-making. As a result, public policies do not reflect the needs and aspirations of the majority but serve the narrow interest of the political and economic elites to maintain power over the State and the economy;
• A fragile State that allocates resources and recruits personnel to the public sector through highly informal and irregular processes.
• Lack of a national dialogue and reconciliation process;
• Corruption and transnational organized crime impact on Guinea-Bissau’s political stability.

The Project

UNDP, WFP and UNFPA implemented the “Political Stabilization and Reform through Confidence Building and Inclusive Dialogue” project, funded by the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF).

The project aims to advance key peacebuilding priorities and enable better coordinated strategies and stronger partnerships related to political stabilization and reforms working simultaneously at the high, technical and grassroots levels. It does so by promoting trust and confidence building measures and in-country mediation efforts, and by enabling broader inclusive dialogue on the design and implementation of key reforms and on national reconciliation efforts, with the strengthening of change agents’ capacities nationwide.

The project expected results stipulated in the Project Document are:

Outcome 1: Effective and coordinated in-country confidence building measures, dialogue and mediation interventions from ECOWAS, UN, civil society and other key international actors strengthen political stabilization in Guinea-Bissau;

• Output 1.1 Support ECOWAS and ANP-led intervention efforts to foster effective inter-party and political leaders dialogue, involving women and youth;
• Output 1.2: Civil Society contributes effectively to Political Stabilization;

Outcome 2: Urgent reforms advanced through inclusive processes (as stipulated in the ECOWAS roadmap and Conakry Agreement)

• Output 2.1: Systemic reforms drafted and approved with effective lobbying, implementation strategies designed, monitoring mechanism established and training and communication strategies undertaken;
• Output 2.2: CSO stakeholders, government officials and political party leaders supported, and capacities built to enable effective engagement on the three reform processes;
• Output 2.3:Increase awareness on reconciliation by addressing unsolved past grievances and promote a common understanding of the past .

The project mains beneficiaries: Government, Parliament, Political Parties, National Investigation Institute, CSO. The project scope, budget, implementation timeframe, as well as further specific details of the project are available at: https://mptf.undp.org/document/download/24599

Objective of the assignment

The major objective of the assignment is to conduct and deliver two main products: an endline study and a final external evaluation, and so to assess the achievements of the project and to determine its overall added value to peacebuilding in Guinea-Bissau, including its relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, and impact. In assessing the degree to which the project met its intended peacebuilding objectives and results, the evaluation shall seek for evidence of peacebuilding results, highlight the strategies that have contributed to or hindered their achievement, and provide lessons learned and recommendations for future programming.

Both products will be of interest to UNDP, UNFPA, WFP, the Peacebuilding Support Office of the United Nations (PBSO) and its United Nations Peacebuilding Fund (PBF), UNOWAS, ECOWAS, the Government of Guinea-Bissau, civil society organizations, as well as to international donors and policy makers engaged in the country.

Scope of the endline Study and Evaluation

The geographic scope of the endline study and the evaluation will take place where the project has had activities, namely: Bissau, Bafatá, Buba and Cacheu.

The endline study should follow the same methodology of the baseline study held previously, ensuring that the data collected is comparable to the one collected before, which will be key for the final evaluation report. The baseline study can be found here

This endline study will cover key institutions which the project is engaging with, including Political Party members, Members of Parliament and Civil Society Organizations, among others. The endline study will be used as the baseline for the next phase of the project.

The evaluation should be conducted in accordance with the OECD DAC evaluation principles[1] as well as PBF specific evaluation criteria, assessing the results achieved vis-à-vis the indicators, and cover the whole duration of the project, between January 2020 and July 2022.

Several key evaluation questions are reported below for each of the OECD DAC evaluation criteria. During the inception phase, the consultant will be responsible for analysing, selecting, refining, and complementing them, compiling the final set of questions the evaluation will seek to answer, to be included in the final Inception Report. The gender dimension will require special attention for this evaluation and must be considered under each evaluation criterion.

Relevance

• Was the project relevant in addressing conflict drivers and factors for peace identified in a conflict analysis? If there were significant contextual shifts, did the project goals and approach remain relevant?
• Do the project expected results address the needs of the target groups? Are the activities and outputs of the project consistent with the intended outcomes? Was the intervention flexibly adapted to respond to evolving needs over time?
• What is the significance of the intervention as far as local and national commitments and priorities are concerned? Are the activities and outputs of the project consistent with the overall global and national gender priorities?
• To what extent the local population, beneficiaries and external observers perceive the intervention as relevant? Were they consulted during design and implementation of the project?
• Was the project appropriate and strategic to the main peacebuilding goals and challenges in the
• country at the time of the PBF project’s design? Did relevance continue throughout
• implementation?
• Did the project’s theory of change clearly articulate assumptions about why the project approach is expected to produce the desired change? Was the theory of change grounded in evidence?

Coherence

• To what extent the project was compatible with other interventions and complemented the work among different entities, especially with other UN actors in the country?
• Is the project consistent with the organizations’ past and future programming, and with Guinea-Bissau wide peacebuilding programming, including other PBF projects?
• How were stakeholders involved in the project’s design and implementation?

Effectiveness

• What has been the progress made towards achievement of the expected outcomes of the project? What specific results were achieved, both positive and negative? What major factors contributed to the achievement or non-achievement of expected project objectives?
• To what extent are beneficiaries satisfied with the results?
• Did the project have effective monitoring mechanisms in place to measure progress towards achievement of results? To what extent was the monitoring data objectively used for management action and decision making? Was the project monitoring system adequately capturing data on peacebuilding results at an appropriate outcome level?
• Have the project’s organizational structures, managerial support and coordination mechanisms effectively supported the delivery of the project? What are the recommendations for improvement?
• How appropriate and clear was the PBF project’s targeting strategy in terms of geographic and beneficiary targeting?
• To what extent did the PBF project substantively mainstream a gender and support gender-responsive peacebuilding?

Efficiency

• How efficient was the overall staffing, planning and coordination within the project (including between the implementing agencies and with stakeholders)?
• How efficient and successful was the project’s implementation approach, including procurement, number of implementing partners and other activities?
• What measures have been taken during planning and implementation to ensure that resources are efficiently used?
• Have the outputs been delivered in a timely manner? If not, how did the project team mitigate the impact of delays? Did delays create missed opportunities to address time-sensitive peacebuilding opportunities?
• Are the project and its components cost-effective? Could the activities and outputs have been delivered with fewer resources or within a reduced timeframe, without reducing their quality and quantity?

Impact

• What has happened as a result of the project and what is the evidence?
• What real difference has the interventions made to the beneficiaries?
• How many people have been affected?
• What results and changes in perceptions, attitudes, behaviours, relationships, expected and unexpected, can be observed at the end of the project? (Particularly in relation to: promoting trust, confidence building measures and mediation efforts among key political actors to reach political settlement and willingness to work for the country’s political stabilization; enabling broader inclusive dialogue on the design and implementation of key reforms (as per the Conakry Agreement), national reconciliation, and greater participation of women and youth in reform processes.)
• To what extend did the peacebuilding project approach to mediation efforts, inclusive reform process and greater participation of women and youth in such processes influence other stakeholders working in these sectors?

Sustainability & Ownership

• To what extent did the benefits of a programme or project continue after donor funding ceased?
• What were the major factors which influenced the achievement or non-achievement of sustainability of the programme or project?
• Did the intervention design include an appropriate sustainability and exit strategy (including promoting national/ local ownership, use of local capacity, etc.) to support positive changes after the end of the intervention?
• How strong is the commitment of the Government and other stakeholders to sustaining the results of PBF support and continuing initiatives supported under the Project?
• How has the project enhanced and contributed to the development of national capacity in order to ensure suitability of efforts and benefits?

Conflict Sensitivity

• Did the PBF project have an explicit approach to conflict-sensitivity?
• Were RUNOs and NUNOs’ internal capacities adequate for ensuring an ongoing conflict-sensitive approach?
• Was the project responsible for any unintended negative impacts?
• Was an ongoing process of context monitoring and a monitoring system that allows for monitoring of unintended impacts established?

In addition to the above standard OECD/DAC criteria, the additional PBF specific evaluation.

criteria below should also be assessed by the evaluation. Within the structure of the evaluation report, the below criteria may either be reflected separately or integrated into the above evaluation criteria. Regardless, the evaluation must identify specific evaluation questions on the below criteria.

Catalytic:

• Was the project financially and/or programmatically catalytic?
• Has PBF funding been used to scale-up other peacebuilding work and/or has it helped to create broader platforms for peacebuilding?

Gender-Responsive/Gender-Sensitive

• Did the project consider the different challenges, opportunities, constraints and capacities of women, men, girls and boys in project design (including within the conflict analysis, outcome statements and results frameworks) and implementation?
• Were the commitments made in the project proposal to gender-responsive peacebuilding, particularly with respect to the budget, realized throughout implementation?

Risk-Tolerance and Innovation:

• If the project was characterized as “high risk”, were risks adequately monitoring and mitigated?

How novel or innovative was the project approach? Can lessons be drawn to inform similar approaches elsewhere?

[1] OECD/DAC Evaluation criteria available at: http://www.oecd.org/dac/evaluation/revised-evaluation-criteria-dec-2019.pdf

Duties and Responsibilities

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant, under the overall supervision of UNDP’s Head of Governance Unit, is expected to perform the following activities:

For the endline study:

Under the technical supervision of the PBF Political Stabilization Project Manager, the consultant will:

• Use the existing questionnaires for surveys from the baseline study (one for each target group), interviews or focus groups discussions, which incorporate the different indicators of the Project’s results framework;
• Lead on the process of the endline study design, methodology, planning and quality control procedures;
• Provide a endline study validated by the project team which informs endline information for the key indicators of the project addressed;

For the Evaluation:

• Review documents and consult with the implementing agencies (UNDP, UNFPA and WFP) and the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office to better understand the project, including its design process, implementation aspects and expected results;
• Assess the project results and logical framework, narrative and financial reports, monitoring reports and the final report of the project;
• Prepare data collection tools (may include but not necessarily be limited to KIIs, focus group discussions, on-site field visits; surveys);
• Data collection tools should be based on a protocols reviewed by the project team;
• Conduct a comprehensive analysis of the project activities and results reported vis a vis evidence and data collected in the field to assess OECD’s DAC and PBF’s criteria;
• Assess partners views on UNDP, UNFPA and WFP current and future role in supporting political dialogue, including views on where UNDP, UNFPA and WFP have comparative advantages;
• Identify and document lessons learned, best practices, success stories and document and analyse challenges and possible weaknesses to inform future work of the implementing partners as well as UN Peacebuilding Fund in Guinea-Bissau;
• Organize a workshop session to provide a presentation (Submission of a PPT) to key stakeholders, including donors, the government and civil society organizations, to present and validate preliminary findings and recommendations in Portuguese;
• Produce a final report including the comments from the workshop session, among others;
• Record and transcribe interviews if needed;
• Finalize the report based on any additional comments received from UNDP, UNFPA, WFP, RCO, PBF and any other key stakeholders on the draft report.

Especially for the evaluation, the consultant is expected to assess all the project’s components, some of which were implemented at community level, where some of the project beneficiaries may only speak crioulo, and translation in these cases will be needed. Such translations costs should be arranged by the consultancy, included in the financial proposal and clearly stated in the technical proposal.

Particular attention will be paid to taking into account public health measures relating to the COVID-19 epidemic, and their impact on the methodology used. The consultant must present in its application the contingency and protection measures planned to guarantee the health of the teams and people involved, while allowing quality participation and inclusiveness.

Deliverables

The following deliverables are expected:

For the endline study:

• Inception report for the endline study (including but not limited to the identification and definition of the samples, questionnaires for surveys, interview guides and workplan) defined.
• Conduct the endline data collection/field work.
• Draft Report containing presentation and analysis of results.
• Baseline for phase II of the Project, build upon the results of the endline study.
• Final report validated by the project team, including revision and update of the project M&E Plan.

For the Evaluation:

• A methodological inception report, after 5 working days home-based and prior to the field-based component. The inception report should capture relevant information such as proposed methods; proposed sources of data; data collection procedures and tools, including interview protocols, which will be reviewed and approved by the project team. The inception report should also include a proposed schedule of tasks, activities, deliverables and background information. The inception report shall be reviewed and approved by the Evaluation Reference Group (ERG). The evaluation reference group will be composed of representatives of all direct fund recipients (UNDP, IOM, UNODC), the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office (through the PBF Secretariat) and the Peacebuilding Support Office managing the PBF (at a minimum);
• Following the field-based work, organization of a workshop session to present and validate preliminary findings and recommendations, in Portuguese. A draft report in English, after 15 working days in the field and 10 working days home-based; The first draft of the final report will be shared with the ERG for review and comments;
• A final evaluation report in English, including a Tracked Change version demonstrating changes from the draft report, 10 working days home-based after receiving comments on the draft report. The final accepted version of the report will reflect ERG’s comments. Where ERG comments are not fully integrated, the consultant will provide an explanation. The Final Report must be approved for quality by the ERG before payment for the final tranche.

Duration of the assignment

For the endline study: 5 days of field work in country; 15 days home based (including 5 days for documentary review and preparation of inception report; 5 days for in-country data collection; 7 days for further analysis and draft evaluation report preparation; 3 additional days for finalisation of the report responding to ERG comments).

For the final evaluation: 16 days of field work in country; 20 days home based; (including 6 days for documentary review and preparation of inception report; 15 days for in-country data collection and 1 day for presentation of preliminary findings; 11 days for further analysis and draft evaluation report preparation; 3 additional days for finalisation of the report responding to ERG comments).

The data collection for both the endline study and the final evaluation may be combined into one single fieldtrip to the Country.

The assignment must be conducted during 56 working days within the span of twelve weeks.

Competencies

• Strong analytical and communication skills, including ability to produce high quality practical advisory reports and knowledge products;
• Ability to produce high quality outputs in a timely manner while understanding and anticipating the evolving client needs;
• Ability to focus on impact and results for the client, promoting and demonstrating an ethic of client service;
• Ability to work independently, produce high quality outputs;
• Strong ability to write clearly and convincingly, adapting style and content to different audiences and speak clearly and convincingly;
• Strong presentation skills in meetings with the ability to adapt for different audiences;
• Strong analytical, research and writing skills with demonstrated ability to think strategically;
• Strong capacity to communicate clearly and in a concise manner;
• Strong inter-personal, negotiation and liaison skills;
• Excellent writing, research, analysis and presentation skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in law, economics, political science, international relations, human rights, development studies or other relevant social sciences.

Experience:

• Proven at least 10 years of experience in evaluating development or peacebuilding programs/projects;
• At least 5 years of experience conducting baseline/endline studies;
• Knowledge and demonstrable experience of evaluating PBF funded projects is an asset;
• Experience in designing and conducting qualitative and quantitative research in social area is required;
• Demonstrated experience with report writing is required;
• Acquaintance and involvement with peacebuilding or development programs/projects/activities, especially with UN/DP is desirable;
• Knowledge and demonstrable experience in at least one of the fields of democratic governance, political dialogue reform, political science, peace consolidation, reconciliation, national dialogue; including with UNDP is considered an asset;
• Demonstrable work experience in developing countries;
• Knowledge of Guinea-Bissau’s social and/or political context is strongly desirable;
• Experience in the use of computers and office software packages as well as web-based management systems.

Language:

• Fluency in oral and written English and Portuguese is required desirable.

Payment conditions:

The financial disbursement will be processed as follows:

• After approval and validation of Inception Report (20%);
• Following the organization of the workshop session (30%);
• Ffter submission of the draft report (20%);
• After submission and approval of the final report by the ERG (30%).

GUIDELINES FOR APPLICATION:

Required documents:

• A cover letter explaining interest and motivation for this assignment;
• A brief methodology on how you will approach and conduct the tasks, describing the tools and workplan proposed for this assignment; Proposals submitted should outline a strong mixed method approach to data collection and analysis, clearly noting how various forms of evidence will be employed vis-à-vis each other to triangulate gathered information. Proposals should be clear on the specific role each of the various methodological approaches plays in helping to address each of the evaluation questions;
• A financial proposal;
• A personal CV including past experiences in similar projects and at least 3 professional references.

Lump sum contracts: The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in instalments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e., upon delivery of the services specified in the ToR. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including travel, per diems, and number of anticipated working days).

Travel: All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the Individual Consultant wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.

In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Evaluation: Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodologies:

Cumulative analysis

When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.
• Technical Criteria weight – 70 points.
• Financial Criteria weight – 30 points.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70 points would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Evaluation criteria:

• Education background - 10 points;
• Experience and competences as defined in the ToR - 30 points;
• Understating of the ToR - 15 points;
• Methodology and overall approach - 25 points;
• Overall quality of the proposal (comprehensiveness, structure, language and clarity) - 20 points.

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Added 1 year ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: jobs.undp.org