Individual National Consultancy Mid-term Evaluation of the Natural Resource Management, Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation and Disaster Resilience Portfolio

This opening expired 1 year ago. Do not try to apply for this job.

UNDP - United Nations Development Programme

Open positions at UNDP

Freetown (Sierra Leone)

Consultant

Application deadline 1 year ago: Monday 14 Nov 2022 at 23:59 UTC

Open application form

Contract

This is a National Consultant contract. More about National Consultant contracts.

Daily Job Alerts: Stay Updated, Stay Ahead with Pro Membership

UN Talent Pro

Details

Background

Natural Resource Management, Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation and Disaster Resilience Portfolio

Basic evaluation information

Evaluation Title: Mid-term Evaluation of the Natural Resource Management, Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation and Disaster Resilience Portfolio

Department/Unit: Sustainable and Local Economic Development

Duration: 25 working days

Type of Contract: National Consultant

Location: Freetown with travel to the regions

Background

Sierra Leone is endowed with substantial natural resources of croplands, forests, rangelands, freshwater, wetlands, biodiversity, wildlife, fisheries and mineral resources. However, while these resources have continued to build the economy of the country, their unsustainable use over these years have resulted in environmental degradation (flooding, windstorm, landslides, erosion, wildfire, and climate change risks, etc.). To support the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL), UNDP is working closely with relevant Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs), INGOs NGOs, CBOs, and Private Sector Institutions on strengthening environmental governance, climate change mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk management issues through the Natural Resources Management (NRM) Portfolio. NRM portfolio is a 4-year initiative that aims to enhance natural resource management, to build the resilience of the country to climate change impact and disaster risks through an integrated approach that ensures synergies across a broad range of relevant stakeholders.

Basic portfolio information

Portfolio Title: Natural Resource Management, Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation and Disaster Resilience Portfolio

Department/Unit: Sustainable and Local Economic Development

Project ID: 00117364

Contributing outcome and output

United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2020-2023 Outcome 1: By 2023, Sierra Leone benefits from a more productive, commercialized and sustainable agriculture, improved food and nutrition security, and increased resilience to climate change and other shocks.

Country Programme Document (CPD) Output 1.1: Relevant ministries/departments/agencies have strengthened capacities to enforce inclusive regulations and gender-responsive policies on conservation of protected areas in coastal and urban planning and development.

CPD Output 1.2: Capacity of ministries/departments/agencies in natural resources management at national and local levels strengthened to ensure sustainable use of environmental resources including livelihoods.

CPD Output 1.3: Capacity of ministries/departments/agencies in natural resources management at national and local levels strengthened to ensure sustainable use of environmental resources including livelihoods.

CPD Output 4.3: Vulnerable communities in targeted districts are enabled to harvest safe, clean and drinkable rainwater

Portfolio dates

Start: 1 January 2020

Planed end date: 31 December 2023

Portfolio Planned Budget: USD 11,620,000 (estimated to be mobilized)

Portfolio Expenditure: USD 1,982,367.00

Funding sources: Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), United Nations Development Programme

Implementing Partners

Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Land, Housing and Country Planning (MLHCP), National Protected Area Authority (NPAA), Ministry of Mines and Mineral Resources (MMMR), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources (MFR) Ministry of Water Resources (MWR), Sierra Leone Maritime Administration (SLMA), National Disaster Management Agency, Sierra Leone Meteorological Agency (SL-MET), Forestry Division, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), National Water Resources Management Agency (NWRMA), National Minerals Agency

Supervisor: Programme Specialist

The portfolio Theory of Change (TOC) reflects and responds to current conditions in global sustainable development efforts. This portfolio piloted an innovative approach to improving environment and natural resources management, by bringing the most up-to-date expertise into existing environment and natural resources projects. Portfolio ToC is stated below.

If institutions are strengthened to develop, review and enforce policies, utilize weather, climate and disaster risk information, adopt best NRM practices including sustainable management of water resources, promote alternative livelihoods for efficient energy and enhance monitoring, then natural resources can be managed, efficiently to reduce disasters, poverty and inequality and to sustain healthy ecosystems.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope and objectives of evaluation

The evaluation will focus mainly on assessing the achievements of the various components within the NRM Portfolio. It will focus on assessing the impact of programme interventions spanning from 2020 to present. Specifically, it will examine the impact of UNDP’s support to monitoring of implementation of laws and regulation, enhancing coordination across ministries/agency boundaries including central-local coordination.

Specific objectives of the evaluation include:

Review the performance of the programme interventions in achieving the outputs stated in the programme document and their contributions to CPD outcomes.
Review of programme approach and coherence in delivering programme results.
Assess the factors that have been influenced community and national ownership of programme results and its sustainability.
Assess the knowledge, visibility and communication employed by both programme and government counterparts around the programme results.
Assess the appropriateness of the project strategy, implementation approach, and programme institutional/management arrangements.
Document best practices and lessons learned from the programme to feed into the next phase of the programme cycle.
Proffer concrete recommendations that may be required for enhancing the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability of a future programme.

Evaluation criteria and key questions

The evaluation will follow the Organization of Economic Cooperation Development (OECD), Development Assistance Committee (DAC)’s evaluation criteria – relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact

and sustainability. Partnership, Gender Empowerment and Social Inclusion (GESI) and human rights will

be added as cross cutting criteria. The guiding questions outlined below should be further refined by the

consultants and agreed with UNDP prior to the commencement of the evaluation: The assessment on the contribution of the projects to development results through its activities will be made in accordance with the following evaluation criteria:

Relevance

To what extent does the Portfolio respond to the priorities of the Government of Sierra Leone National Development Plan (2019-2023) and similar strategies, the UNDP Country Programme Document (2020-2023), United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation (UNSDCF) 2020-2023, donors’ strategies and the Sustainable Development Goals?
How does the support for project interventions contribute to the longer-term development results in terms of approaches, capacities, policies and strategies?
How relevant have project interventions been in leveraging support sustainable development?
Do the interventions meet the practical and strategic needs of all genders, persons with disability, and other disadvantaged and marginalized groups?

Coherence

To what extent the Portfolio is coherent with Government’s policies?
To what extent does the intervention support national legislation and initiatives that aim to improve gender equality and human rights? What lessons can be learned?
To what extent the UNDP Portfolio addressed the synergies and interlinkages with other interventions carried out by UN and other development partners?

Efficiency

Has the programme been implemented within its stated timeframe and cost estimates?
Did the programme interventions focus on the set of activities that were expected to produce significant results?
Were there sufficient (human and financial) resources allocated towards achievement of the programme objectives?
Were different resources allocated in ways that considered gender equality, and inclusion of person with disability and youth? If so, how were they allocated? Was differential resource allocation appropriate?
Was there any identified synergy between UNDP-funded interventions and other similar interventions that contributed to reducing costs while supporting results?
Has there been over expenditure or under expenditure in programme interventions?
Were there any unanticipated events, opportunities or constraints? What could be done differently in the future?
What measures were taken to assure the quality of development results and management practices, both in relation to process and products, and to partnership strategies?
What monitoring and evaluation procedures were applied by UNDP and partners to ensure greater accountability?

Effectiveness

Have the expected programme (quantitative and qualitative) results been achieved and what were the supporting or impeding factors?
Were the approaches, resources and conceptual frameworks relevant to achieve intended outputs?
What are the main lessons learned from the partnership strategies and what are the possibilities of replication?
To what extent have interventions’ objectives and results contributed to gender equality, women and youth empowerment and human rights in governance processes?
Which aspects of the interventions had the greatest achievements? What have been the supporting factors? How can UNDP build upon or replicate these achievements?
In which areas does the programme component have the least achievements? What have been the constraining factors and why? How can they be overcome?
Were the approaches, resources and conceptual frameworks used relevant to the achievement of planned outcomes/outputs?
What were the unintended results (positive/negative) of project interventions?

Impact

Are the portfolio interventions causing a significant change in the lives of the intended beneficiaries?
How did the portfolio interventions cause higher-level effects (such as changes in social norms or systems)? To what extent have impacts contributed to equal power relations between people of different genders?
Are all the intended target groups, including the most disadvantaged and vulnerable, benefiting equally from the portfolio interventions?
Are the portfolio interventions transformative – does it create enduring changes in norms – including gender norms – and systems, whether intended or not?
Are the interventions leading to other changes, including “scalable” or “replicable” results? How will the interventions contribute to changing society for the better?

Sustainability

To what extent were sustainability considerations taken into account in the design and implementation of interventions? How was this concern reflected in the design of the programme component and in the implementation of activities at different levels?
Were exit strategies programme interventions appropriately defined and implemented, and what steps have been taken to ensure sustainability of results?
How did the development of partnerships at local and national level contribute to sustainability of the results?
How were different stakeholders engaged in the design and implementation? Have interventions been implemented with appropriate and effective partnership strategies? What has been the nature and added value of these partnerships?
To what extent do mechanisms, procedures and policies exist to carry forward the results attained on gender equality, empowerment of women, human rights, and human development by primary stakeholders?

Human right, Gender e****quality and disability inclusion

To what extent have poor, indigenous and persons with disability, women, men and other disadvantaged and marginalized groups benefited from the project?
To what extent has the portfolio integrated Human Rights Based Approach in the design, implementation, and monitoring of the project? Have the resources been used in an efficient way to address Human Rights in the implementation?
Is the gender marker assigned to this project representative of reality?
To what extent has the project promoted positive changes in gender equality and the promoting the rights of women and persons with disability? Did any unintended effects emerge for women, men or vulnerable groups?

Evaluation methodology

The methodology mentioned in this section is indicative. The evaluators should propose a final detail methodological framework in the inception report based on the systematic review of the portfolio documents. Evaluator should adopt both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The qualitative data assessment should include the secondary project data to be collected and developed for more insight into the project's accomplishments and lessons learned. The evaluation stages include (i) desk review, (ii) prepare inception report, (iii) field visits to project’s provinces and districts, (iv) data analysis and interpretation, and (v) evaluation report writing and finalization.

The consultant/evaluators will be responsible for designing appropriate theory-based evaluation methodology including designing tools, developing questionnaire and other instruments for data collection and analysis based on programme theory of change. A kick-off meeting should be organized with UNDP and evaluation partners to discuss on data collection plan, expectations, and tools and techniques to be adhered for collection of primary information. The consultant should use, but not limited, the following methods for data collection:

Desk review

The evaluators should review portfolio documents which includes portfolio notes, project proposals, progress reports, consolidated quarterly and annual reports, minutes of project board meetings, project modification document, knowledge products, research, monitoring reports and legal review reports, communication and visibility reports, case stories, IEC Materials etc. Please see annex -1 for relevant portfolio documents. In addition, the evaluator will review literatures, relevant research, and donors’ and government’s reports.

Interview/Consultation

The consultants will conduct in-depth key informant interviews (online or virtual) to gather primary data from key stakeholders. For this, evaluator should develop checklist and evaluation questions. This includes interviewing representatives from donors and partners. The evaluators also conduct group interview, Focus Group discussion, with portfolio stakeholders and beneficiaries. Interview should also include relevant UN agencies and other implementing partners. While organizing interviews and consultations with beneficiaries, the evaluators should ensure the participation of women, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.

Field observation

Evaluator is expected to directly observe portfolio interventions in provinces and districts. This also includes observing the functioning of the project supported community and stakeholder’s groups, platform and infrastructures. The evaluators will follow the COVID-19 protocols during the mission. If field mission is not possible due to COVID-19 crisis, it should be discussed and mutually agreed with UNDP.

Case story

Using thematic case studies, evaluator may assess the impact of the project on the beneficiaries, particularly the benefits they accrued from the project and the visible changes in their lives, and overall well-being. The gender and social inclusion should be well considered while capturing and documenting the stories in the report.

Evaluation management and institutional arrangement

The principal responsibility for managing this evaluation resides with the UNDP Country Office (UNDP CO) in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The UNDP CO will contract the consultants and ensure the timely provision of per diems and travel arrangements within the country for the consultants. The portfolio team will be responsible for liaising with the consultants to set up stakeholder interviews, arrange field visits with missions.

Role (Who): Evaluation Advisory Group

Responsibilities (What)

The senior management will provide advisory role throughout the evaluation implantation. This group includes Resident Representative as Evaluation Commissioner, Deputy Resident Representative, Team Lead of Programme Support Unit and Cluster Team Leads. The key roles include:
Ensure the timely implementation of the evaluation plan through monitoring and advising the process
Safeguard the independence of the evaluation exercise and ensure quality of evaluations
Ensure that all steps in the evaluation process are applied as defined in the UNDP evaluation guidelines
Ensure that gender equality and woman’s empowerment and other cross-cutting issues are considered in all steps of the evaluation process
Ensure management responses are prepared for evaluation with time-bound key actions for their implementation
Approval of final terms of reference (TORs), final evaluation reports and management responses before final submission to the Evaluation Resource Centre (ERC)

Role (Who): Evaluation Manager

Responsibilities (What)

The principal responsibility for managing this evaluation resides with the UNDP CO in Sierra Leone. The UNDP CO will contract the consultants and ensure the timely implementation of the evaluation. The evaluator will directly report to the Evaluation Manager i.e., M&E Specialist in this case. The Evaluation Manager will assure smooth, quality and independent implementation of the evaluation with needful guidance from UNDP’s Senior Management.
Review ToR ensuring that they meet UNDP guidance requirements
Assure smooth, quality, and independent implementation of the evaluation with needful guidance from UNDP’s Senior Management.
Participate in hiring consultants by reviewing proposals and complete the recruitment process.
Organize a kick-off meeting/briefing with evaluation team.
Provide UNDP evaluation policies and guidelines to the evaluation team.
Ensure that the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) evaluation standards are adhered to, including safeguarding of transparency and independence.
Supervise, guide, and provide feedback and comments to the evaluation consultants.
Ensure quality of the evaluation.
Review the evaluation inception report, ensuring that it meets UNDP requirements.
Review management response and action plan.
Report to the senior management on compliance with the evaluation plan, completion of management responses and key actions and results of the quality assessment.
Upload the ToR, report and management response and action plan to ERC.
Monitor implementation of evaluation action plan and update the progress at ERC.

Role (Who): Portfolio Team

Responsibilities (What)

The portfolio team led by Programme Specialist consists of programme and support staff. Their key roles include:
Provide required portfolio documents.
Provide preliminary partner, stakeholder and beneficiary information.
Arrange all the field visits, stakeholder consultations and interviews as needed.
With evaluation manager, the portfolio team will further provide briefing to evaluation team
Provide comments and clarification on the ToR, inception report and draft evaluation reports.
Assist in circulating and getting the feedback on ToR, inception and evaluation report from stakeholders.
Respond to evaluation recommendations by providing management responses and key actions to all recommendations addressed to UNDP.
Ensure dissemination of the evaluation report to all the stakeholders including the project board.
Implement relevant key actions on evaluation recommendations.
Contact regional focal points to seek advice when dispute arises.

Role (Who): Evaluation Reference Group

Responsibilities (What)

Evaluation Reference Group (ERG) includes key partners and stakeholder including representatives from project management board. The primary roles of reference group are to support the evaluation process, provide feedback and direction in key stages. The key roles of ERG include:
Perform advisory role throughout the evaluation process providing inputs into and review of ToR, inception reports and draft evaluation reports.
Ensure that gender equality and women’s empowerment and other cross-cutting issues are considered in all steps of the evaluation process.
Ensure that the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) evaluation standards are adhered to, including safeguarding of transparency and independence.
Provide advice on the evaluation relevance, the appropriateness of evaluation questions and methodology, and the extent to which conclusions are credible, considering the evidence presented, and recommendations action oriented.
Support and provide input to the development of the management responses and key actions.

Deliverables and timelines

Under the direct supervision from Evaluation Manager and in coordination with the UNDP Program Support Unit (PSU), portfolio team and collaboration with relevant partners, the Consultants will accomplish the following deliverables in accordance with the stipulated timelines covering a total period of twenty-five (25) working days.

Deliverable

Inception report: An inception report detailing the evaluators’ understanding of the assignment and why, showing how each evaluation question will be answered by way of proposed methods, proposed sources of data and data collection procedures. These should be included in an evaluation matrix, a proposed schedule of tasks with activities and deliverables. Inception report should be prepared before going into full-fledged evaluation exercise

Timeline: 4 days

Payments: 20%

Draft report: The draft report should include desk review and data collection methodology used, analysis and interpretation with discussion in the prescribed report outline. The consultants should also present the draft report in debriefing session to discuss on initial findings and recommendations.

Timeline: 17 days

Payments: 40%

Second draft report: A revised report based on the comments from the stakeholder or validation workshop.

A PowerPoint Presentation for evaluation dissemination.

Final MTE report: A final report in prescribed format with annexes including the response in the evaluation audit trail form. The evaluation audit trial form can be sent separately to show that comments from the UNDP and its stakeholders are addressed properly.

Timeline: 4 days

Payments: 40%

Competencies

Evaluator competencies

This Mid-term evaluation will be conducted by two consultants (1 international and 1 national) who will work closely with the Country Office M&E Specialist, the portfolio team and government counterparts in the conduct and direction of the evaluation.

Corporate Competencies

Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality, and age sensitivity and adaptability.
Demonstrates diplomacy and tact in dealing with sensitive and complex situations.
Strong communication, team building, interpersonal, analysis, and planning skills.

Professionalism

Effective communication.
Problem solving skills.
Demonstrated ability to negotiate and apply good judgment.
Shows pride in work and in achievements.
Is conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results.
Superior leadership and strategic management skills with an excellent understanding of international development issues and knowledge of the UN system.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, in a multi-cultural setting; ability to conduct results-based management and reporting, objectivity and ability to analyze large multi-country data sets in short period.
Good understanding of gender and human right based approach, and skills, experience and commitment to gender issues including experience of conducting inclusive evaluation.

Planning & Organizing

Organizes and accurately completes multiple tasks by establishing priorities while taking into consideration special assignments, frequent interruptions, deadlines, available resources and multiple reporting relationships.
Plan, coordinate and organize workload while remaining aware of changing priorities and competing deadlines.
Establish, build and maintain effective working relationships with staff, partners and beneficiaries to achieve the planned results.
Experience working collaboratively in small teams with tight deadlines.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: Advanced university degree in Environment, Development Studies, Monitoring and Evaluation, Natural Resource Management, Policy Management or Social Science.

Experience:

7 years of in the field of international development experience, with least 5 years of experience in project/programme design and implementation.
Relevant professional experience in evaluation of environmental, climate change and disaster risk management and resilience or other relevant livelihood programmes at all levels.
Strong monitoring and evaluation background, sound methodological skills and knowledge of evaluation methods and techniques.
Extensive experience in working with the UN/multilateral development agencies and UNDP country offices.
Demonstrate experience in working with a variety of stakeholders.

Technical knowledge and experience of inclusive evaluation and other cross-cutting areas such gender equality, disability issues, rights-based approach, and capacity development

Language Requirements:

Ability to communicate clearly and concisely in written and spoken English

Ethical considerations

This evaluation will be conducted in accordance with the principles outlined in the UNEG ‘Ethical Guidelines for Evaluation’. The evaluator must safeguard the rights and confidentiality of information providers, interviewees, and stakeholders through measures to ensure compliance with legal and other relevant codes governing collection of data and reporting on data. The contractor must also ensure security of collected information before and after the evaluation and protocols to ensure anonymity and confidentiality of sources of information where that is expected. The information and data gathered in the evaluation process must also be solely used for the evaluation and not for other uses without the express authorization of UNDP and partners.

The evaluator will be held to the highest ethical standards and are required to sign a Code of Conduct upon acceptance of the assignment.

Submission of application

Qualified candidate is required to submit both technical and financial proposals through the link provided.

Technical proposal submission should include following detailed document.

Personal CV or P11, indicating all experience from similar consultancy, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the candidate and three (3) professional references.
Brief description (max. 1 page) of why you consider yourself as the most suitable for the assignment, and a methodology (max. 1 page) for how you will approach and complete the assignment.
Proposal containing a summary description of proposed strategy and how the strategy will ensure the achievement of the required tasks, proposed methodology, draft agenda for half-day session on discussing the findings of the evaluation (max 2-3 pages).
Example of works demonstrating the individual past experiences working on evaluations for the UN system (please share the document’s links)

Financial proposal: Financial proposals are expected to be realistic indicating the all-inclusive, fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs. No adjustment thereafter would be allowed.

For any further clarification, you may contact the Head of Procurement ([email protected]).

Evaluation criteria

Offers received will be evaluated using a combined scoring method, where the qualifications and proposed methodology will be weighted 70%, and combined with the price offer, which will be weighted 30%.

Criteria to be used for rating the qualifications and methodology

Technical evaluation criteria (total 70 points)

Proposed methodology of approach to the consultancy [25 marks].
Demonstrated experience in similar consultancy work especially in evaluation of environment or natural resource management and climate change in developing countries especially working within the UN system. [25 marks].
Demonstrated/evidence of relevant education and experience in Environment, Development Studies, Monitoring and Evaluation, Natural Resource Management, Policy Management or Social Science. [20 marks].

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the Technical Evaluation will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Financial evaluation (total 30 points)

All technically qualified proposals will be rated out of 30 points. The maximum points (30) will be assigned to the lowest financial proposal.

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

Annexes

Relevant documents and annexes will be shared with the evaluator after selection process is completed and the evaluator is on board. The relevant annexes include the following:

Annex 1: Documents to be reviewed and consulted

United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2020-2023
UNDP Sierra Leone Country Program Document 2020-2023
Government of Sierra Leone National Development Plan (2019-2023)
Portfolio documents
Theory of change and Result Framework
Portfolio and project reports
Annual workplans
Activity designs
Consolidated quarterly, annual and donor reports
Results-oriented monitoring reports and Back to Office Report (BTOR)
Portfolio meetings minutes
Project board meetings minutes
Technical/Financial monitoring reports
Other relevant communication materials and knowledge products such as research studies, policy brief, blogs, etc.