End-term evaluation consultant for the Make Way programme
Omschrijving
Position: End-Term Evaluation Consultant (Team)
Programme implementation contexts: Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, and the Regional and Global (Eastern and Southern Africa) implementation context
Location of lead consultants: flexible
Start date: January 2025
Contract duration: 12 months (due date for final ETE report: January 2026)
Budget: €75,000
Application deadline: 18 October 2024
Reports to: Make Way PMEL Coordinator, Wemos (Consortium Budget Holder)
About the Make Way programme
Make Way is a five-year programme funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the SRHR Partnership Fund, with a total budget of €27.4 million. Make Way aims to break down barriers to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) by promoting a new way of addressing SRHR issues: through an intersectional lens. Intersectionality is a way of understanding and explaining the complexities of inequity in the world, by focusing on how power and oppression intermingle with people’s circumstances and affect them socially, economically, and politically, among other dimensions of societal existence.
To drive the necessary changes, our five-year programme actively promotes innovation in SRHR lobby and advocacy (L&A) by applying an intersectional approach. By using adapted tools, we reveal and analyse the complexity of SRHR inequities and identify solutions. Next, we support mutual capacity strengthening with a wide range of organisations and their (youth) representatives to push for change. We also seek to widen civic space for youth facing compounded vulnerabilities.
Make Way works with an overall Theory of Change (ToC), which has been developed based on an overarching problem analysis, and six context-specific ToCs. With our overall Make Way Theory of Change, we are working towards our long-term outcome: a critical and growing mass of duty bearers and society at large is actively supporting intersectional SRHR. Our goal is to contribute to three types of impact
level changes:
• Duty bearers at various levels formulate or commit to implement policies that lead to intersectional SRH services.
• Marginalised youth collectively speak up about their rights, make informed decisions and hold duty bearers to account.
• Society respects and accepts marginalised youth’s SRHR.
Our programme works with three interrelated strategies in order to achieve our envisioned outcomes and to contribute to the three types of impact level changes:
• We diffuse innovative practices in intersectional SRHR advocacy.
• We strengthen the advocacy capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs).
• Through our lobby and advocacy, we widen the civic space for marginalised youth with compounded vulnerabilities to stand up for their SRHR.
The overall Make Way ToC is accompanied by a results framework, including specific indicators for all (sub-) outcomes and programmatic targets. Guided by the main programme ToC, each implementation context is using their own context-specific ToC and results framework to guide their work.
Purpose of the assignment
The Make Way programme will carry out an ETE covering the entire programme implementation period, to evaluate the programme from both a programmatic as well as a partnership collaboration perspective. The evaluation will focus mostly on the relevance, effectiveness, coherence and sustainability of the Make Way
programme, and will assess what the contribution has been of Make Way’s activities to changes or results at different levels in the countries and at the regional and global level.
Objectives
The ETE should be guided by the following objectives:
1. To describe and assess the extent to which the Make Way programme realised its overall programme ToC and its context-specific ToCs, how this was done, and what the contributions of the contextualised programmes to the overall programme have been.
2. To assess the partnership collaboration of the Make Way programme, specifically focusing on the coherence of the partnership and on ‘leading from the South’.
3. To collect lessons learned and identify good practices that could be replicated, and provide recommendations for strategic decisions to be made at organisational level and/or partnership level to consider in future partnerships similar to Make Way.
Practical considerations, deliverables, timelines
Consultancy team, approach, roles & responsibilities
We envision this consultancy assignment being implemented by an independent team that consists of a lead consultant (team), and consultants/researchers based in Make Way implementation countries. We welcome the consultants to present their ideas on how the team will be practically set up and how it will work together 1.
We expect that the main part of the work will be led by the lead consultant. They should be responsible for the collaboration with and the management of the consultants in the programme countries. The lead consultant should propose the consultants in the countries with whom to collaborate. The selection should be based on already established working relationships and previous collaborations, so the national consultants do not need to be recruited during the inception phase.
The application for this assignment should be submitted by the lead consultant, but should include detailed information about the team of consultants that will carry out the assignment (see submission requirements below).
Deliverables, key dates and timeline
Deliverables
The main output of the ETE process is the final Make Way ETE report, which will consist of one consolidated analysis and six sections for the implementation context analyses. The consolidated report will include an analysis of findings from the six implementations contexts, and the linkages between the countries and the
regional and global level context.
The final ETE report, including the consolidated analysis and six context analyses, will need to be written and delivered in English. We are open to discussing the feasibility and possibility of having (some of) the context analyses translated in national languages, if there is an interest in this by the programme, in particular by our CCGs, and we would like to discuss the option of having a presentation of the final ETE report by the consultants to the partnership, including reference group. We furthermore welcome the final ETE report to be written in accessible language and to be designed in a visually attractive way, so that it can be distributed among and used by different target audiences.
Requested competencies
The Make Way consortium wants to contract a lead consultant, researcher, organisation or institute to conduct the ETE. The lead consultant will collaborate with and manage researchers/consultants based in Make Way countries. The consultants involved in this assignment should have the following competencies (see below).
Desired profile of the applicant
Required:
• Master’s degree in a relevant discipline, e.g. social sciences.
• For the lead consultant, extensive experience is expected – a minimum of five years – in programme evaluations of (complex) development programmes, including programmes that work with a Theory of Change. For the other consultants in the team, at least three years of experience in the same area of work.
• For the lead consultant, a proven track record in setting up and managing evaluations of large multi-year multi-country programmes/partnership.
• Advanced skills in using social science research methods and applying qualitative research and data analysis methodologies in evaluations, specifically for lobby and advocacy programmes.
• Knowledge of and experience with working on evaluations on lobby and advocacy, in international development programmes.
• Knowledge of programming for sexual and reproductive health and rights.
• Excellent facilitation and coordination skills.
• Experience in organising virtual meetings/workshops (by making use of e.g. Zoom, Teams, Mural, Miro, or an equivalent) and using remote data collection methods.
• Excellent oral and written proficiency in English.
• Experience with data visualisation (tools) and report writing.
Assets:
• Affinity or experience with evaluations in (one or more of) the Make Way implementation contexts.
• Experience with participatory and/or youth-led evaluation methods.
• Specialist knowledge of/experience with working with intersectionality (theory).
• Understanding and affinity with one or more of the following topics: health systems (strengthening); working with minoritised (youth) groups; meaningful youth participation; and disability.
How to apply
Please make sure to read the full Terms of Reference of this position.
Annex 5 of the full Terms of Reference contains the sections of the online application form which we are asking you to complete with all relevant details of your proposal for this ETE consultancy.
Interested parties should submit the online application form in which they have completed information on the following components, of no more than 10 pages in total:
• A motivational statement for taking on this project, including an explanation of the track record of the consultancy team in evaluating complex (development) programmes on lobby and advocacy, SRHR or similar topics.
• Technical proposal which includes the following:
a. A suggested approach for addressing the ETE questions, including a suggested methodology for the collection and analysis of data, and an adapted timeline to the suggested approach including e.g. key milestones. This also includes any foreseen country visits, in-person meetings with programme
staff in-country, etc. Please also list what support or resources from the Make Way programme would be needed to ensure successful implementation of the evaluation.
b. A suggested approach for integrating elements of participatory evaluation methods and intersectional thinking in the ETE.
c. An overview of the proposed team of consultants, including local/in-country consultants or how these will be appointed, providing detailed information about the team explaining each team member’s proposed roles and the total time investments for each person for the duration of the project.
• A budget proposal, provide a detailed budget, breaking down rates per hour and the number of hours for each person, travel costs—air fare, per diem, accommodation, costs of FGDs, for example. Including transcription, venue, transport to venue, refreshments provided, translation of tools in local languages, etc.
• An explanation of suitability: explain your track record and why your team is suited for this evaluation project; what do you bring to the table that is creative, crucial, unique and/or special.
• Address cost efficiency: explain how your evaluation project is economical.
• Address CO2 emissions: explain how your evaluation project seeks to minimise emissions.
• Statement of independence signed by the lead applicant and collaborating consultant. To ensure the independence of the ETE, any and all consultants brought on to the project must explicitly declare that they have not been involved in the design or the implementation of the programme; that they are not or have not been affiliated with one of the consortium organisations and/or in-country collaborating
organisations during the design or implementation of the programme; and that they have not worked for the MFA in the past nor have been involved in the development of the policy framework that is guiding the Make Way programme.
In addition to the proposal, please submit:
• The CVs of the proposed key positions of the team.
• An example of your work on a previous similar assignment (e.g. an evaluation or research report).
Make sure that this is an example of a piece of work that is relevant for the Make Way end-term evaluation, and make sure that it is clear from the document that you / your consultancy firm were leading the assignment.
• Contact information of at least two references.
We especially welcome applications from consultants from our programme countries or from the wider Eastern and Southern African regions to apply to this assignment.
Please submit complete applications by using this online application form, no later than 18 October 2024.
The Make Way Programme Coordination Unit, in consultation with the ETE Reference Group, will review the applications. We expect a first round of interviews to be held towards the end of November 2024. A second round of interviews may be held in the beginning of December 2024. The successful candidate is expected
to start the assignment at the beginning of January 2025.
1 This includes an approach for who in the team of consultants will take on the ETE work for the Regional-Global context (as one of the six implementation contexts) as the scope of the work of this context is a bit different from the country contexts and as this is not an actual country which one can ‘be based in’.
More information?
For any enquiries ahead of submission, please contact Renée Bouhuijs, Make Way Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning coordinator, at renee.bouhuijs@wemos.org.