South Sudan: Consultancy – Final Evaluation of the Pro-Resilience Project

Apr 15, 2019 | Catholic Organization for Relief and Development Aid
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Catholic Organization for Relief and Development Aid (Cordaid) is an international organization, which is a proud and active member of Caritas Internationalis, a global confederation of over 160 catholic organizations, working at the grassroots in almost every country in the world. Cordaid focuses its efforts in some of world’s most conflict-torn and volatile countries by promoting equality and social inclusion, increasing the resilience of people and societies and by strengthening the social contract between citizens and their governments.

In South Sudan Cordaid operates in four regions (states) of: Upper Nile, Eastern Equatoria, Unity State and Western Bahr-El-Ghazal. We have 6 field offices: in Torit Town and Chukudum Town in Eastern Equatoria, Wau and Raja towns in Bahr El Ghazal region and Malakal Town in Upper Nile State, implementing programs in the thematic areas of; health care, security &Justice, Humanitarian aid, Resilience and Disaster Risk Reduction.

In the former Upper Nile state, Cordaid in collaboration with South Sudan Development Agency (SSUDA), a local NGO partner, have implemented a project funded by the European Union (EU) in a name of “Pro-Resilience Action (PRO-ACT. The three-years project covered the period as from; December 8, 2015 to 7 Apr 2019, and targeted communities in the counties of Fashoda, Malakal, and Manyo.

Therefore, Cordaid is sourcing for a competent individual/consulting company with a strong background in Agriculture & Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR), to carry out an end of project evaluation in the project locations mentioned above.

The overall objective of the Pro-Resilience Action (PRO-ACT) project is to improve food security and disaster resilience of 3,000 vulnerable households in the selected conflict-affected areas within the 3 counties.

Project’s information

Title of the Call for Proposals

• Pro-Resilience Action (PRO-ACT): building resilience through crisis prevention and post-crisis response strategy

Project Location

• South Sudan; Upper Nile State; in the 3 counties of Fashoda, Malakal, Manyo (in 9 selected communities / payams)

Project’s overall objective

"To improve the food security and disaster resilience of vulnerable population groups in the conflict affected Upper Nile State (3 counties) of South Sudan"

whereas the Specific Objective is defined as:

"To enhance the capacities of 9 disaster-prone communities to sustainably produce, utilize and/or access nutritious food in Fashoda, Manyo and Malakal counties of Upper Nile State"

To achieve these objectives the project focuses on 2 interlinked results:

• Improved knowledge and capacity of 9 communities in 3 county government departments and local NGO to enhance food security and disaster resilience in an integrated manner (incl. peace building and disaster prevention).
• Enhanced food security of 9 communities (3,000 households) through the implementation of food security and disaster resilience measures, including improved agricultural and veterinary practices, income generation, natural resource management, access to clean water and peace building.

Target Population and beneficiaries.

• Direct beneficiaries: 18,000 persons (3,000 households)

Estimated life of Project

• 8 December 2015 to 7 April, 2019

Evaluation Objectives and Main Users

The overall objective of this evaluation is to assess the extent to which the PRO-ACT project has achieved its intended outputs, outcome and potential impacts, measured against project objectives and set targets. The final evaluation will also measure achievements to date in terms of the efficient implementation of all the planned activities based on the agreed budget and detailed implementation plan. The evaluation will also ascertain the relevance, effectiveness, and sustainability of the project’s results. It will also review and assess the internal and the external (with local partners and other actors) coordination mechanisms in place, document human stories (success stories), and lessons learnt based on a robust analysis of routine monitoring data.

Specific objectives of the end of project evaluation:

• To assess the achievements made towards the overall goal and specific objectives of the project based on the project logframe (referring to the final logframe updated by EU) and achievements for each specific result and indicators, and define the main factors influencing the achievement (or non-achievement) of the objectives.
• To evaluate project efficiency in comparison with the project cost, project effectiveness, relevance, sustainability, and including the level of synergies/integration/complementarities with other projects in the project areas.
• To measure the extent to which the project has been accountable to the local needs of the target beneficiaries and community members.
• To critically assess the major strengths, limitations and best practices of the project and draw lessons to be shared with other stakeholders and for future programming purpose.
• To draw recommendations from lessons learnt to inform similar future program planning and improvements of Cordaid and other stakeholders’ future interventions.

Methodology, Tools and main Deliverables

The end of project evaluation data collection methods will include both qualitative and quantitative methods. The consultant will be responsible for defining and carrying out the overall project evaluation in line with EU DEVCO evaluation methodology for projects. This will include specification of the techniques for data collection and analysis, structured field visits and interactions with beneficiaries and the evaluation team. The end of project evaluation tools, methodology and findings will be reviewed and validated by Cordaid Project and MEL Teams for approval before use

http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/node/71165

http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/how/evaluation/evaluation_reports/reports/...

Evaluation approach and main deliverables

The evaluation process will be carried out in five phases: an inception phase, a desk phase, a field phase, a synthesis phase and finally a dissemination phase. Deliverables in the form of reports and/or slide presentations should be submitted at the end of the corresponding stages.

The evaluation will be based on data and information gathered from both primary and secondary sources. Secondary sources will mainly comprise relevant project documents, progress reports, baseline evaluation/midterm evaluation reports, databases and other relevant sources. Primary data will be collected from a representative sample among beneficiaries and key stakeholders in each of the project counties/Payam’s/Boma’s.

Other detailed methodology and field work schedule will be worked out in consultation with Cordaid, SSUDA and the consultant.

Primary Data

The collection of primary data will involve mostly mix methods, especially household questionnaires, Focused Group Discussions (FGD), Key Informant Interviews (KII) and Observation. Whereas for secondary data reviews. Data will be summarized and analyzed from project progress reports, routine monitoring reports and data bases.

Some of the key stakeholders that must be targeted through the primary data collection include:

A statistical reasonable sample size of the Households of beneficiaries which include; women, adolescents, IDPs, Returnees and People with disabilities.

Government officials, Project implementation staff, NGO partners and local leaders will be targeted for KII and FGDs.

Secondary Data

The process, retrieving existing documents and data, will include: a desk review of existing literature including the project/program/initiative proposal, reports, implementation plans, MEL data, formal policy documents, official statistics, and other relevant quantitative and qualitative secondary data that will support the evaluation implementation strategies. Information will be provided to the external evaluation team as per the proposed evaluation schedule.

Deliverables

• Inception presentation / report on developed evaluation tools and plans on how the consultant will conduct the evaluation
• Weekly Progress Report of activities, describing activities undertaken during the week and highlighting challenges met and solutions put in place to mitigate them;
• A narrative final evaluation report. It should include an executive summary, value of the objectives/ Indicators assessed, photos and quotes on key community voices, sections on context, sampling methodology, the adopted sampling methodology, findings (including table showing measurement of end of project results against the baseline data/activity. It should also include clear end of project performance measured against the baseline information, challenges and recommendations.
• Annexes with the following information:
  • Raw data of the qualitative and quantitative assessment in complete data set (Excel/SPSS)
  • Findings on the integration of gender, disability, resilience, and engagement with local administration and other stakeholders
  • Approximately one-hour evaluation summary in format of PowerPoint presentation and discussions to be delivered at Juba office.

Quality of the Final Evaluation Report

Besides the provisions of the article 8.6 of the Global Terms of Reference, the quality of the final report will be assessed by the evaluation manager using a quality assessment grid. Please note, the QAG has to be filled online in the Evaluation Module after reaching an agreement on the final report (see annexe III and guidance).

Management and steering of the Evaluation

• The evaluation will be managed by Cordaid Resilience Programme Manager at Juba with support from the MEL team. The following are going to be involved directly and indirectly in the evaluation process, through the following functions;
• The consultant will be in direct charge of his evaluation team and updates Cordaid accordingly on the progress of the study.

The Cordaid and SSUDA project teams will ensure that the evaluation team has access to and has consulted all relevant information sources and documents related to the project/programme.

Cordaid Project/MEL team will ensure that the evaluation questions and tools are validated.

The consultant will ensure that the findings are discussed and comments by individuals on improvements are included into the report.

The consultant will document all findings on; conclusions, lessons and recommendations from the evaluation.