Complementary Action for Resilience Building (CARB) project is a multi-year emergency food security program funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA). It is a three-year project running from 15th January 2021 to 14th January 2024, with a goal to achieve improved food and nutrition security through adding value to existing pipelines in the target areas. The overall program value is USD 30 million. The project is designed to reach vulnerable people living in the program areas covering eight counties (six in Unity and two in Western Bahr El Ghazal (WBEG) in South Sudan. The project baseline data was collected in from 12 June to 6 July 2021.

CARB Project is implemented in partnership with five international non-government organizations lead by Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and its partners Danish Refugee Council (DRC), International Rescue Council (IRC), ACTED and its partner REACH. The integrated, multi-sectoral program includes activities that together restore rural livelihoods and food production; improve maternal and child nutrition; facilitate rapid humanitarian response and resilience coordination; and improve community resilience and social cohesion. All partners implement almost similar program activities in the target community, monitor results and share program performance on quarterly basis among others. Each partner brings specific technical expertise in improving food security and resilience in the program’s targeted locations. At the village level, the program works with village chiefs, project support committees, community DRR committee, volunteers and other local stakeholders. To enhance ownership and facilitate implementation, as well as achieve program integration and alignment, the program works closely at different levels with humanitarian actors and local authorities.

NRC hosts the consortium management unit (CMU) which is responsible for overall coordination and facilitation of harmonized strategy, planning, activity implementations and reporting. The CMU plays a neutral ground between implementing partners and the donor and reports to the steering committee. The Steering Committee comprises of country directors of each implementing partner. The steering committee plays a significant role to advice on strategic directions and policy guidelines of the program. Further information, is available in the project proposal, operations manual, work plan and M&E documents.

Key program activities include, farmers training and agricultural inputs support, distribution of agriculture inputs including seeds, farm tools; infrastructure maintenance; non-farm income generation skills training and building up of productive assets; savings promotion and access to loan; training and awareness education on nutrition and hygiene promotion; protection assistance, HLP assessments, monitoring, and advocacy, facilitation of community managed disaster risk reduction and support preparation of community disaster response plans; support GBV referral paths and GBV survivors, facilitate peace building events and intra/inter community dialogue, undertake conflict analysis and safety planning, facilitate and coordinate rapid response activity during emergency. To achieve its goal, the CARB project focuses on four purposes outlined below:

Restored rural livelihoods and increased food production
Improved food utilization through strengthened nutritional practices
Rapid response mechanisms (RRM) and humanitarian and resilience coordination platforms are strengthened to support shock-affected populations.
Enhanced community resilience and social cohesion
1. Theory of Change and Assumptions

The CARB theory of change (ToC) is briefly summarized as follows:

If households have increased food production and access to livelihood opportunities through resilience design systems that help restore productive agro-ecosystems; and if their nutrition and well-being is improved; and if they are buffered from climate extremes and extreme weather event; and if humanitarian response mechanisms are strengthened; and if social cohesion is improved, and the political, security and protective environment remains conducive, then households will be more resilient to shocks and stressors and have improved food and nutrition security.

The core assumption is that the framework and assumptions coupled with real-time, flexible rapid response programing will leverage household and community resilience to shocks and sustainable development over time. The key assumptions that determine the success of the project are:

COVID-19 does not deteriorate significantly
No new large scale displacements
There be steady returnee movement with peaks at key points
The security situation remains favorable for activities to be implemented
Partners are present in locations identified for expansion, synergy and are willing to collect data
Humanitarian access is largely maintained throughout project
1. Logical framework

The CARB logframe lays out how outputs will feed into outcomes and ultimately demonstrates achievement of results and the overall project objectives and intended impact. It conveys the strategy in terms of the cause-and-effect hierarchical linkages among results and explaining how the proposed theory of change (ToC) is going to be measured over time given the assumptions hold true. Table 1 presents the summary of the CARB conceptual framework.

Goal: Improved food and nutrition security through adding value to existing pipelines in South Sudan

**Purpose 1****: Restored rural livelihoods and increased food production

Sub-Purpose 1.1: Vulnerable HHs access relevant knowledge and complementary inputs for increased household-level food production

Sub-Purpose 1.2: Beneficiaries engage in profitable and market driven livelihood opportunities

Sub-Purpose 1.3: Harmful practices that constrain women and girls participation in livelihoods challenged.

Outputs:

HHs and communities trained on resilient, nutrition sensitive agricultural and fishery practices.
Complementary inputs distributed to households.
Households trained on improved post-harvest management techniques.
Research on household characteristics to inform participant selection and follow-up

Outputs:
Market functionality and labor market dynamics analyzed.
MSMBE established, trained and supported
Farmer market associations established
VSLA groups established and members trained
Targeted key market infrastructure rehabilitated

Outputs:
Referral pathways for GBV survivors strengthened.
Improved community awareness about GBV risk mitigation.
Community dialogues for GBV prevention facilitated

**Purpose 2****: Improved food utilization and nutritional practices

Sub-Purpose 2.1: Optimal hygiene and nutrition practices are adopted

Outputs:
Care groups established and trained
Cooking demonstrations provided
Hygiene promotion conducted

**Purpose 3****: Rapid response mechanisms, humanitarian and resilience coordination strengthened

Sub-Purpose 3.1:Strengthened monitoring and EWS to support timely and evidence-based humanitarian decision-making

Sub-Purpose 3.2: PfRR coordination mechanisms established or reinforced across project locations

Sub-Purpose 3.3: Emergency food security needs of conflict and disaster affected households met

Outputs:
Integrated Needs Tracking (INT) system updated and information products shared.
Climatic shock monitoring & production and sharing of information products.
SMART surveys and rapid multi-sectoral assessments with nutrition components carried out.

Outputs:
Existing and new PfRR coordination mechanisms are supported

Outputs:
Short term in-kind, cash and complementary assistance provided to households

**Purpose 4****: Enhanced community resilience and social cohesion

Sub-Purpose 4.1: Communities adopt strategies which increase their resilience to climate and disaster related shocks

Sub-Purpose 4.2: Community-level and individual capacities to manage existing social tensions and violence are strengthened

Outputs:
New and existing CMDRR committees established and trained
CMDRR committees facilitated to carry out Participatory DRR Assessments (PDRA)
Communities supported to develop and implement community action plans (CAPs)

Outputs:
Conflict analyses informing gendered conflict sensitivity considerations and programme targeting produced and disseminated.
Community safety planning (including review of local peace agreements and alternative dispute resolution mapping) conducted.
HLP assessments, monitoring, and advocacy carried out.
Intra- and inter- community dialogues that allow groups in conflict to constructively address root causes conducted
In-kind and capacity building support provided to existing peace and conflict management mechanisms
Awareness raising to address land rights issues, ensuring beneficiaries’ security of land tenure conducted
Awareness raising on social cohesion and marginalization through peacebuilding events

1. Geography and Target Beneficiary

The project is implemented in eight counties (six in Unity and two in Western Bahr El Ghazal (WBEG) in South Sudan. Table presents the summary of the target locations and estimated target households over the life of the project.

Table 1. Target locations and estimated households reached as of March 2022

State

County

Implementing Partner

# of Payams

Target HHs****[1]****

Unity

Mayom

NRC

15,300

Leer

NRC

WBEG

Wau

NRC

Unity

Rubkona

DRC

15,000

Guit

DRC

Mayendit

IRC

6,585

Panyjiar

IRC

WBEG

Jur River

ACTED

28,800

Total

65,685

1. Project performance against major output indicators

Annex 1 presents the performance of key output indicators as of June 30, 2022. Moreover, In October 2022, the consortium management unit will share the updated annual performance of the major output and outcome indicators and other performance reports with the selected consultant.2. Purpose and Objectives of the Evaluation

The main purpose of this mid-term evaluation is to assess the midway performance of the project intervention and suggest recommendations to improve project effectiveness and efficiency. The evaluation is mainly a process evaluation focusing on assessing how well the project is following implementation plans, quality of implementation, monitoring and meeting targets; the acceptability of the methods and strategies employed; participation of project participants in the implementation process, social and behavioral changes observed at beneficiary level and identify challenges faced. Specifically, the evaluation will focus on the following objectives.

Assess the relevance of the program for addressing food insecurity and household resilience to shocks, taking into account contextual changes that may have occurred since the activity began implementation. This entails reviewing the strategies that ensure that the target groups are reached by the activity, reviewing the theories of change, and assessing the risks, and assumptions made during the design of the activity;
Assess the quality of the inputs, quality of implementation and outputs and acceptability of perceived value to target beneficiaries and communities, effectiveness of the interventions implemented and identifying factors that appear to enhance or detract from the quality.
To present mid-course evidence of changes (intended and unintended, positive and negative) associated with activity interventions and outputs; and assess how well the activity is seeking out, testing and adapting new ideas and approaches to enhance activities’ performance and identify factors in the implementation or context that impede or promote the observed and intended changes.
To assess the level and effectiveness of coordination and collaboration within implementing partners and with other external organizations including actors that provide complementary services necessary to achieve the outcomes.
To review systems for capturing and documenting lessons learned and assess the extent to which they are used in project implementation and refining project design. This would cover assessing processes to use evidence including baseline results, annual results survey and monitoring data for adjusting project strategies
To determine the extent to which outcomes, systems and services are designed and being implemented to continue after the project ends and assess progress made on implementing sustainability strategies.
To determine the appropriateness and effectiveness of support for gender equity in terms of access to, participation in, and benefit from project interventions. Assess the extent to which project interventions target youth, support greater capacities for local governance and address sources of environmental risk.
Lastly but not least, to help inform scale up of the activity implementation to ensure that targets are met timely.
To recommend adjustments to the project design, resource allocation, activity management, or implementation that could improve the likelihood of achieving sustainable results based on the evidence collected.
The Evaluation Questions

The section outlines the key MTE questions, areas of focus, aspects to consider for each evaluation objectives and methods of investigation. The areas of focus and methods are illustrative and are not aimed at informing or constraining the investigation. They are provided to help position the evaluation team to stated intentions and areas of focus. These may be refined by the contractor as the evaluation plan is developed and approved by the consortium management unit and the technical working groups. The key evaluation questions for the specific objectives are outlined below.

Table 2. Key evaluation questions

Objective 1: Evaluate the soundness of the design

What are the strengths, challenges, and lessons learned of the activity management/ implementation so far? Are the assumptions made in the theory of change that informs program design still valid? What changes have occurred in the context since the activity began?
How well have the activity’s interventions met planned schedules, participant numbers, and outputs? What factors promoted or inhibited adherence to schedules? How were problems and challenges managed?

Objective 2: Evaluate the quality of the program
To what extent did the project resources lead to achieved results?
How well have the interventions met planned schedules, targets, and outputs? What factors promoted or inhibited adherence to schedules? How were problems and challenges managed?
In each technical sector, what are the strengths and challenges to the activity inputs, implementation of interventions and processes, the quality of outputs and the sustainability of the outcomes achieved?
How well do implementation processes adhere to underlying principles and activity protocols? What factors in the implementation and context are associated with greater or lesser efficiency in producing outputs of higher or lower quality?
Which interventions and implementation processes are more or less acceptable to members of the target communities and why?
To what extent are the project interventions meeting the needs of the target beneficiaries, specifically needs of women and youth?
To what extent are local authorities, formal and informal community leaders involved in activity interventions and included in ongoing program discussions?

Objective 3: Assess evidence of changes
What are the expected and unexpected, positive and negative changes do the community and other stakeholders associate with the activity interventions? Which factors appear to promote the apparent changes, and which have deterred intended changes? Are there signs of early change?
To what extent have interventions aligned with planned targets of participant, timelines and outputs? How were challenges mitigated or addressed?

Objective 4: Assess effectiveness of activity management, coordination and collaboration
What are the strengths of and challenges to the overall activity design, implementation, management, communication, and collaboration so far?
What factors appear to promote or challenge the activity operations or effective collaboration and cooperation among the various stakeholders?
What has been the effect of the various collaborative relationships cultivated by the activity toward enhancing the effectiveness or efficiency in use of resources?
How effectively has the activity taken advantage of the other complementary investments in the same space to achieve cumulative impact? What changes can be made in these collaborative relationships to further enhance effectiveness and efficiency?

Objective 5: Review systems supporting learning and adaptive management
How have the program management and the sector technical specialists used data to inform programmatic decisions, referral and follow up? What processes have been instituted to improve data collection and data quality?
How has the activity improved effectiveness or efficiency as a result of new ideas or approaches brought into the activities? How is information generated by the activity used to inform decision-making? How can this be made more effective?

Objective 6: Assess sustainability of the results
Has the project developed and implemented strategies to sustain the results of the interventions? What organizations, services or relationships are required to sustain the early evidences of changes observed by the review team?
Has the project identified the changes to be sustained, and the necessary services required to sustain these changes?
To what extent are formal and informal local leaders (whose support and understanding will be critical for continuing program initiatives once the project has ended) involved in project activities and included in ongoing program discussions and decision-making processes?
Are there proper identification of roles on who should be doing what for a sustainable exit for the program?

Objective 7: Assess gender and inclusivity of the program
How effective are program design and implementation mechanisms in addressing the cross-cutting issues of gender, governance, the environment and targeting of youth? What (if any) challenges have projects encountered in these areas that may not have been anticipated in the project design, and how have the projects responded?
In what ways is the project changing roles, relationships, communication and decision-making dynamics among women and men, young and old, in relationship to food security and resilience building at the household and community levels?
How were the findings and recommendations of different assessments (baseline, gender and conflict analysis and others) considered in the program strategy and project activities?
Have gender gaps and related concerns been addressed adequately? Is the project activities drawing on the potential of women, men, boys, and girls as much as possible?

**Objective 8***: targets are met timely*
How were the project activity performance in terms of achieving yearly targets and life of project targets?
Which activities were behind schedule and what are the major factors distracting the activity performance?
How were the consortium implementing partners were responding to accelerate the performance of the activities towards meeting the targets and implementation schedules?
What went well and what needs to be improved to achieve the overall project targets?

Objective 9: Conclusions and recommendations
Based on the findings from questions for objectives 1 to 8, how could the activity be modified to improve its acceptability to targeted beneficiaries and communities or the efficiency and effectiveness of its implementation?
How should the ToC and logical framework be refined or modified? What alternative approaches could have been adopted to achieve the same results with fewer resources?

In addition, to explore detail information for the specific sectors and project components, the contractor should develop additional sector specific questions streamlining with the project purposes and results.

Evaluation Methods
1. Survey design

The MTE will principally use qualitative approach combined with quantitative techniques to collect information from project participants and relevant stakeholders. The contractor will be responsible for defining and carrying out the overall evaluation approach. This will include specification of the techniques for data collection including key informant interview, focus group discussions, observations in the field, structured and semi-structured household interview, field visits and interactions with diverse beneficiary groups and program team.

The primary sources of the quantitative data includes desk reviews of the project documents including baseline reports, annual beneficiary based survey results, routine monitoring data, performance reports and assessments. In addition, small scale beneficiary based survey will be used to provide additional information on the changes in behavior, attitude, practices and knowledge being practiced and applied including improved farming techniques, maternal and child health/nutrition, hygiene practices, access to financial services and participation in saving and loan activities, participation in community conflict management and peace building activities and the perceived results of the peace building activities. The quantitative data will be used to provide additional information for making the conclusions from the qualitative survey.

The evaluation team should undertake extensive meeting and discussion sessions with the program team to be well acquainted with the project strategies, identifying key stakeholders including various target groups and beneficiaries, implementing partners, and other external collaborators as a key MTE informants. The MTE informants should include people benefiting from one or more program interventions. In addition, to ascertain impressions of the activities implementation and relevance of the program from outsiders, the evaluation must include individuals who have not directly benefited from the program intervention. This will help distinguish which reported and observed changes might be associated with activity interventions and those related to general shifts in the operating environment.

1. Sampling and sample size determination

Within each community, several subgroups will be selected for the qualitative focus group discussion (FGD) and key informants to better understand the effectiveness of key interventions in the project. The FGDs and key informant participants include but not limited to direct project participants, community leaders, farmers group, VSLA groups, mothers group, CM-DRR committee, volunteers, youth groups, and other project related stakeholders. Respondents for the focus group discussions will be randomly selected to minimize selection bias. Key informant interviews (KIIs) will be conducted with diverse groups including the USAID/BHA South Sudan mission staff, implementing partners, sub-national level government officials, community leaders and village chiefs, project support committee, DRR committee members, project steering committee members. In-depth interviews (IDIs) will be conducted with direct, and non-beneficiaries in targeted communities.

1. Data collection
2. Primary data

The collection of primary data will involve mostly qualitative methods combined with small scale quantitative sample survey using unstructured or semi-structured interviews and observations. The evaluation questions will be administered to purposively selected sample of intervention sites as well as discussions with members of a variety of stakeholder groups, including direct beneficiaries, and non-beneficiaries in targeted communities. The evaluation team will conduct qualitative in-depth interviews with key stakeholders and partners. Whenever possible, the evaluation team should conduct face-to-face interviews with informants. When it is not possible to meet with stakeholders in person, telephone and virtual interviews and meetings can be conducted. Among others, the evaluation informants include the following:

Consortium management unit (CMU) staff
USAID/ BHA South Sudan Mission Staff
Project staff from all partners including frontlines and country office team
Steering committee members
Local authorities (state and county level) and community leaders, chiefs
Community volunteers
Village Saving and Loan Association (VSLA)
Mother to mother groups, project support committee, farmers group, youth groups.
Other stakeholders and collaborators (example WFP, FAO)

In addition, to supplement the qualitative information, the contractor will conduct small scale beneficiary based household survey. To ensure representation of samples allocated across the target locations and project activities, the participant household size will be distributed using probability proportional to size (PPS) technique. The contractor should adequately explain the purpose, sampling methods, and potential biases and representativeness for the survey.

1. 1. Secondary data

The contractor will conduct desk reviews of existing project documents and literatures including project proposal, performance reports, baseline report, formative research and assessments, annual results survey report, M&E data, and other relevant quantitative and qualitative secondary data to establish and assess the theory of change of the project, implementation strategies, allocations of resources, progresses and relevant results.

Deliverables

The evaluation team shall deliver the following deliverables in accordance with their technical approach and specific evaluation design within the agreed timeline:

Inception Report – will include the proposed evaluation methods, sampling and sample size, key evaluation questions matrix, data collection instruments (English and all translations), sampling approach, timeline and roles, responsibilities, anticipated outputs and associated levels of effort of each of the evaluation team members.
The MTE contractor will prepare a key evaluation questions matrix based on the objective, key questions and methods to consider as part of the inception report. The key evaluation questions matrix (see example in table below) should identify more-detailed areas of focus for each question, aspects to consider within each focus area, and methods for investigation[2].

Example for Key Evaluation Questions Matrix

Area of focus

Aspect to consider

Methods of investigation

For evaluation objective 1. How well have the activity’s interventions met planned schedules, participant numbers, and Outputs? What factors promoted or inhibited adherence to schedules? How were problems and challenges managed?

Adherence to planned schedules

Start dates and rates of expansion of coverage for each intervention.
- Numbers and timeliness of planned participants and Outputs, e.g.:
- Formative research, barrier analysis, gender analysis, Various types of direct trainings,
- Development and progress of community action plans o Distribution of cash and goods
Use secondary data from routine monitoring, annual reports, and other reports to compare planned and actual start dates, numbers of outputs, and other targets, noting differences in achievements according to location, implementing partner, or sector.
MTE implementation plan - will include the detailed MTE process, timeline with detailed calendar of key activities and milestones, supervisor and enumerator training manual, field guidance, sampling approach and methods, data collection tools, data quality assurance and data analysis plan showing how each question will be analyzed from the data collected.
- Prepare lists of sites visited with types and numbers of informants at each, list of stakeholders interviewed and consulted.
- Limitations to the study
- Transcripts of interviews including focus groups, Key Informant Interviews, notes or products of observations or other quality methods, and clean raw data of household surveys.
- Evaluation data sets and related materials and Final MTR report approved by BHA.
- After the MTE field work is completed, the contractor will submit a draft report (in Standard English) to NRC/CMU for comments and feedback from consortium partners and donor.
- Debriefings with NRC and CARB implementing partners, USAID and other partners. The contractor will present the draft findings for validation.
- After responding to the comments, the contractor will submit the final report within 10 days for further review and approval by the program and BHA. The final report must adhere to the requirements of USAID/BHA evaluation reports template[3].
- The deliverables include, but not limited to, debriefing meetings and the presentations for diverse audiences including program team and USAID/BHA team.
- Regular updates - the contractor/evaluation team leader and his/her team will provide regular updates on progress with the evaluation to the CMU and implementing partners. The updates should be on at least a weekly basis, in person or virtually as appropriate. Any delays or complications must be quickly communicated to the CMU.
- Final Report - the contractor should maintain the requirements for the content, format, depth and length, overall quality and approved timelines. The evaluation team will edit and format the final report as appropriate to ensure a high-quality deliverables. The contractor should deliver all files, including, quantitative data sets (raw and refined products, if applicable, transcripts of qualitative data and others in an easy to read format; organize them professionally; and maintain naming conventions and labelling for the use of CARB program and donor.

Outline of the MTE Report

The contractor should follow the format given in the reporting requirement section (see below).

Format and Size - The report must not exceed 50 pages (excluding all annexes) in MS Word and use the standard page set-up, margin, fonts, and line spacing.
Cover Page, Table of Contents, List of Acronyms;
Executive Summary - must be a clear, specific and concise stand-alone document that states the most prominent findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the evaluation and gives the readers the essential contents of the MTE in two to four pages.
Introduction - must include MTE objectives, purpose, audience, and synopsis of task and MTE questions.
Methodology and study design - must describe the methodology and design of the MTE, constraints and limitations to the study process and rigor, and issues in carrying out the study;
Tabular summary and graphical presentation of quantitative and qualitative evaluation results;
Findings and Discussion - must present results from the MTE and associated evidences. Results must be analyzed and discussed, using findings from the qualitative and quantitative investigations in a complementary fashion;
Conclusions and Recommendations - must provide high-level conclusions about the food security situation, vulnerabilities, and capacities of the population and sub-groups, and contextual, cultural, and individual factors that influence the current situation. All conclusions must be based solidly on the presented findings.
Programmatic Limitations and Challenges - must provide a list of key technical and/or administrative limitations,
Annexes - must document all in complete manner, be succinct, pertinent, and readable

MTE Team Composition, Qualifications and Roles

The MTE will be conducted by an independent external contractor. The MTE team should comprise international team leader and sector specialists with expertise in relevant program sectors including food security, agriculture and livelihoods, maternal and child health and nutrition, WASH, disaster risk reduction, conflict management and peace building, gender and economic empowerment. The sector specialists must have significant program management and evaluation experience in developing country preferably in South Sudan and East Africa. The evaluation team should include at least one evaluation specialist with hands on experience in leading and conducting large scale multi-sector program evaluations of this nature. The evaluation team composition should enable the team to have a good local understanding, familiarity with USAID/BHA or FFP programming, gender mix, together with specialists who are experienced in the different technical sectors.

MTE Team Leader: The Team Leader (TL) will be the principal investigator of the MTE. S/he will provide oversight to the evaluation throughout the entire evaluation cycle. S/he will work closely with the CMU and project points of contacts of the implementing partners. The Team Leader should have extensive experience in using mixed evaluation (qualitative and quantitative) methods with strong facilitation and communication skills.

The team leader should have postgraduate degree and at least 15 years’ extensive development and humanitarian program evaluation with proven experience in carrying out large scale and multi-sector USAID/BHA/FPP funded program evaluations. S/he should have the ability to motivate and lead a multi-sectorial, multi-stakeholder and multi-national team.
In addition to evaluation expertise, the team leader should also provide sectoral expertise in one of the sectoral components promoted by the CARB project, preferably expertise in food security, agriculture and/or rural livelihoods. The evaluation team leader will take specific responsibility for assessing and analyzing the project’s progress towards quantitative targets if possible, performance, and findings of the primary data.

Responsibility of the MTE TL: The MTE TL should provide a technical and financial proposal to NRC/CMU with due attention to the details of methodology and strategies of the consultancy work outlined below:

The MTE TL will be responsible for overall management of the evaluation, including coordinating and packaging the deliverables in consultation with the other members of the team. S/he will provide leadership for the team, finalize the evaluation design, coordinate activities, arrange meetings, consolidate individual input from team members, and coordinate the process of assembling the final findings and recommendations. S/he will also lead the preparation and presentation of the key evaluation findings and recommendations to USAID/BHA and key partners.
The MTE TL will submit the draft report, present the report, and, after incorporating relevant comments, submit the final draft report to NRC/CMU within the prescribed timeline. The MTE contractor/team members will be responsible for adhering to national and local formalities and all security protocol while in-country.
The MTE contractor will be responsible for obtaining, and providing NRC with visa(s), written proof of health and accident insurance for all foreign personnel working with the MTE contractor in South Sudan. The TL is responsible for recruiting and training qualified and experienced researchers/specialists and data collectors/enumerators

Sector Specialists: The team members should have a minimum of ten years’ experience in international development and humanitarian programming and proven experience in carrying out large scale USAID/BHA/FFP funded program evaluations. The evaluation team should include additional sector specialists to address the remaining sectoral components not covered by the team leader. Among these sector experts at least one should have international experience and expertise in carrying out large scale projects or program evaluations. The other sector specialists may be either from South Sudan or from the region. The sector specialists will also participate in presenting the report to USAID/BHA and other stakeholder and be responsible for addressing pertinent comments. S/he will submit his/her contributions to the evaluation team leader within the agreed timeline. All the team members should have strong program evaluation experience, postgraduate in livelihoods, or DRR and development studies and related, strong qualitative (desired) plus quantitative research experience.

Evaluation Specialist: The evaluation specialist should have wide range of experience in carrying out evaluations of large scale multisector projects and programs focusing on food security, livelihoods and resilience programming, maternal and child health and nutrition, WASH, DRR, conflict management and peace building. S/he should have a postgraduate degree in economics, statistics, health, agriculture, economics and development studies, DRR and humanitarian studies and related field with a minimum of 10 years’ experience working with USAID/BHA/FFP financed development and emergency response programs in developing countries. Along with the MTE TL, s/he will co-facilitate and coordinate the data collection, analysis and ensure the quality of the evaluation approaches adopted by each thematic components to ascertain the fulfillment of the evaluation objectives in light of USAID/BHA evaluation policy and standards. S/he will also assist the evaluation team to meet information need for the specific sectors and focus of the evaluation in line with the MTE SoW. The Evaluation specialist will co-facilitate and participate in evaluation team meeting, key informant interviews, group meetings, site visit, and draft the sections of the report relevant to his/her expertise and role in the team. S/he will also participate in presenting the report to the program team and other stakeholders and be responsible for addressing pertinent comments by program team and other stakeholders. S/he will submit his/her contributions to the evaluation team leader within the prescribed timeline.

Role of the CMU and Implementing Partners

While the consortium management unit (CMU) will solely lead the overall coordination and facilitation of the MTE implementation, the implementing partner staff will serve as key informants to the evaluation and support the evaluation process by supplying secondary data, lists of program sites, sharing program documents, advising about local protocols, making logistical arrangements including accommodation and transportation for field data collection, connect the evaluation team with informants and community.

Implementing Partners should provide:

Lists of locations, types of activities, and numbers of direct and indirect beneficiaries for all activities;
Progress reports, in kind and cash transfer reports, training records, etc;
Maps showing project area, and community-level activity locations;
Arrange meetings between the evaluation team and beneficiaries, community members, authorities and community leaders;
Provide field contact details for key staff;
Provide administrative support: communication, photocopying, printing, etc.;
Advise about local protocols and permissions to gain entry to operational areas;
Provide advice and support related to travel, security conditions, local vehicles, and drivers for field work;

The Consortium Management Unit (CMU) will be responsible for:

Overall leadership, coordination and facilitation of the MTE;
Connect the MTE team with implementing partners;
Provide project document including proposal narrative and relevant attachments;
Annual performance reports, quarter reports and sources of performance indicators;
Annual work plan and financial information
Baseline report, assessments and formative researches;
Logical framework, MEAL documents, tools and manuals;
Organogram showing supervision/management roles and partnerships for each sector;
Provide Juba level logistical arrangement for the core team including accommodation, transportation, and printing, copying and office.

MTE Timeline

The MTE work will start on 1st October 2022 and end on December 20, 2022. The final report will be submitted to NRC on 20th December 2022. The MTE Contractor must provide the detail schedules and tasks along with the initial inception report in details.

Budget

The consultant will present his/her reimbursement / payment proposal, which will be subject to negotiation with the contracting party. Consulting fees should include any expense related to mobilization, food, workshops costs, logistical support and any expense derived from the consultancy process itself.

Ethical Consideration

Every member of the evaluation team must adhere to ethical evaluation guidelines as outlined in the American Evaluation Association’s Guiding Principles for Evaluators[4]. A summary of these guidelines is provided below:

Informed Consent: All participants are expected to provide informed consent following standard and pre-agreed consent protocols
Systematic inquiry: Evaluators conduct systematic, data-based inquiries
Competence: Evaluators provide competent performance to stakeholders
Integrity/Honesty: Evaluators display honesty and integrity in their own behavior and attempt to ensure the honesty and integrity of the entire evaluation process.
Respect for People: Evaluators respect the security, dignity and self-worth of respondents, program participants, clients, and other evaluation stakeholders. It is expected that the evaluator will obtain the informed consent of participants to ensure that they can decide in a conscious, deliberate way whether they want to participate.
Responsibilities for General and Public Welfare: Evaluators articulate and take into account the diversity of general and public interests and values that may be related to the evaluation.

Logistics and Administrations

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) will be responsible to provide overall administrative and logistics support to the mid-term evaluation team, such as coordinating with partners on travel; provide consultants with background documents, reports, data and other materials such as list of target lations. In addition, all consortium partners will provide administrative and logistical support for the MTE team in their respective locations including connecting with beneficiaries, local authorities, community leaders and project team and other stakeholders.

NRC/CMU will arrange lodging for the number of days spent in South Sudan as well as for time spent traveling to and from South Sudan/Juba. Additional expenditures will be reimbursed on the basis of expense reports backed by receipts, and will be included in the consultant’s proposed budget. Allowable expenditures consist of phone/fax charges related to the consultancy, photocopying, intra-city transport to meetings, and travel based on approved itineraries.

Application Process

Letter of interest describing qualifications
Technical Proposal and financial Proposal for the MTE
Curriculum Vitae of the Evaluation Team Leader, Sector Specialists and their job description
List of previously conducted similar evaluations and contact details for reference check.

Applicants should submit the application before September 2nd 2022.

Apply now

Added 1 year ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: nrc.no