Consultancy Services: End Line Evaluation of the Gender-Based Violence Risk Mitigation and Nutrition Project and Learning Workshops (Bilingual)

May 10, 2019 | Action Against Hunger
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Established in 1979, Action Against Hunger (AAH) is a non-governmental organisation that aims to provide solutions to hunger. Their mission is to save lives by eliminating hunger through the prevention, detection and treatment of under-nutrition, particularly during and after emergency situations linked to conflicts or natural disasters. They focus on nutrition, health and healthcare practices; food security and livelihoods; water, sanitation and hygiene and advocacy across nearly 50 countries.

Action Against Hunger believes Gender Based Violence (GBV) is both the cause and the consequence of hunger. Therefore, as an active member of Call to Action[1] in order to fulfil its responsibility, AAH contributes to fill in the gaps identified at the GBV Call to Action.

AAH has established a solid foundation for the prevention and mitigation of GBV within its organizational priorities through pushing forward an organizational gender agenda. AAH has taken many steps forward, including the institutionalization of a gender policy and capacity building of all staff to create an organizational culture that promotes gender equality at all levels, and formation of a gender unit that supports and oversees the gender initiatives of all organizations across AAH network.

Action Against Hunger aims to enhance the overall accountability of humanitarian nutrition organizations towards gender-based violence and gender equality through focused GBV mainstreaming initiatives. Enhancing the Accountability for Gender-Based Violence with Humanitarian Nutrition Organizations project funded by the US Government’s Bureau of Populations, Refugees and Migration (BPRM) is a two-year project (September 2017 – September 2019) implemented in three pilot countries – Bangladesh, Mauritania, and South Sudan with the following main objectives: 

  • Objective 1: To improve the accountability of Action Against Hunger and our partners towards GBV and gender equality.
  • Objective 2: To improve the accountability towards GBV and gender equality within the Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC) and/or national nutrition coordination mechanisms.

The following are the key activities implemented under this project:

  • Conducting GBV and gender equality capacity building events for AAH and national organization staff globally.
  • Conducting capacity building events around Gender Minimum Standards (GMS) for AAH and national organization staff around 24 countries.
  • Conducting learning workshops and field pilot activities for GBV Integration benefitting 40 organizations –mainly Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC) members per country.

Purpose of the consultancy

AAH Gender Unit is seeking the services of an external consultant to conduct an end line evaluation of the Enhancing the Accountability for Gender-Based Violence with Humanitarian Nutrition Organizations project, as well as to develop and facilitate three learning workshops in three pilot countries – Bangladesh, Mauritania and South Sudan.

 Part 1: Conduct end line project evaluation

 Rational for the Evaluation

  • An evaluation is being conducted to understand the extent to which Action Against Hunger has been successful in implementing the Enhancing the Accountability for Gender-Based Violence with Humanitarian Nutrition Organizations project. The evaluation is expected to allow Action Against Hunger’s Gender Unit to better understand the intended and unintended outcomes of the project, best practices, challenges and recommendations for future. Moreover, the evaluation will identify the strengths and weaknesses of the project and form recommendations that can be used to inform decision-making for the rollout of a methodology to integrate GBV risk mitigation and gender equality in nutrition organizations. 

The specific objectives of the evaluation are: 

  • To assess how effective Action Against Hunger has been in achieving the objectives of the project;
  • To assess the extent to which results at output level have been achieved – intended or unintended-
  • To identify best practices and challenges that arose from project implementation.
  • To provide recommendations on the process of integration of GBV risk mitigation and gender equality and in nutrition and other humanitarian organizations.

Scope of work:

The consultant will carry out all major tasks in consultation with AAH Gender Unit. The consultant shall lead the process of evaluation design as per project requirements, data collection, entry, cleaning, and analysis under the supervision of AAH Gender Unit. Specifically, the consultant will be responsible for the following tasks:

  • Review the project and other relevant documents for performing the end line evaluation.
  • Induction with the program management team at ACF office, Toronto.
  • Design and draft the end line evaluation protocol, detailed methodology including representative sampling, qualitative data collection techniques, secondary data inputs, measure for data quality assurance, data cleaning and data management, data analysis and interpretation, data analysis technic and software to be used for analysis, ethical consideration and limitations and report generation and submit the evaluation protocol to AAH Gender Unit and finalize the document and incorporate feedback received from AAH Gender Unit.
  • Supervise the entire evaluation and check the quality, authenticity and completeness of each questionnaire.
  • Identify data quality and non-compliance issues timely at the field level and ensuring taking corrective measure immediately.
  • Prepare a concise report documenting the preliminary findings of the end line evaluation for review by the AAH Gender Unit and the country teams’ HQ.
  • Submit the final report by incorporating feedback from AAH Gender Unit.

Audience of the evaluation

The users of the evaluation are:

  • Direct users: Action Against Hunger Gender Unit and Action Against Hunger management teams in Bangladesh, Mauritania and South Sudan
  • Indirect users: US Government’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (BPRM), other humanitarian nutrition organizations.

The evaluation should provide information around the following criteria and be able to answer the questions below:

Effectiveness:  

  • To what extent were the project outputs and outcomes achieved in response to GBV and improvement of gender equality?
  • What factors contributed to the project success and factors that may have acted as impediments?
  • What were the capacity gaps in the course of implementation of the project?
  • What are the accountability mechanisms towards gender equality and GBV risk mitigation?

Sustainability: 

  • To what extent were project activities addressing longer term sustainability in order to respond to GBV issues and promote gender equality?
  • Assess the value of the project from Global Nutrition Cluster, gender focal points, Gender Champions, and other stakeholders? 

Deliverable

The following outputs are expected: 

  • Inception Report including end line evaluation workplan on a weekly schedule.
  • Detailed evaluation protocol/implementation plan, including details of both the technical approach (sampling methods, data collection tools, and key techniques to collect data against key indicators and targets, analysis, ethical considerations, limitation, etc.) and their implementation (schedules, activities, costs)
  • Complete set of clean data sets collected during the end line evaluation.
  • Draft end line evaluation Report for internal review
  • Final end line evaluation Report
  • A summary presentation or debrief on the final report and key findings for AAH Canada Gender Unit.

The format of the report should include: 

  • Front cover, table of contents, acronyms
  • Executive summary: (Max 2 pages)
  • Introduction: basic project data, map(s), background, purpose and methodologies used.
  • Finding and summary of results: including progress towards targets and comparison of end line measures to baseline and reference data.
  • Conclusions: highlighting issues from the data they may be of importance, interest or significance.

The key methods will include but not limited to:

  • Literature review of existing documents such as monthly, quarterly, and annual reports, project logic model, performance matrix, indicators, and other documentation such as reports from AAH country teams.
  • Conduct Focus Group Discussions involving the primary participants/beneficiaries of the project in-person in the field (three pilot countries) and online through online platforms e.g. Zoom, Skype, GotoMeeting or others.
  • Methodology for selecting the respondents (to be proposed by the consultant).
  • Conduct Key informant interviews with AAH Gender Unit, staff, country teams, Gender Focal points, Gender Champions, GNC, other partner organizations in person and online through online platforms e.g. Zoom, Skype, GotoMeeting or others.
  • Reporting writing, debriefing and feedback session for the country teams at the end of each eMeeting/call.

Part 2: Design and facilitate three learning workshops in pilot countries to share lessons learned and good practices

The objective behind combining the end line evaluation and the learning workshop under one consultancy is to inform the learning workshops in three pilot countries with the results and findings from the evaluation.

Overview

Three learning workshops will be organized in the project pilot countries (Bangladesh, Mauritania and South Sudan). The core objective of the learning workshop is to share Action Against Hunger’s experience in mainstreaming gender equality and gender-based violence in nutrition programs. The consultant will be expected to have the findings of the evaluation to inform the learning workshop. The audience of the workshops will be Enhancing the Accountability for Gender-Based Violence with Humanitarian Nutrition Organizations project teams in three pilot countries, Global Nutrition Cluster members, partner organizations, and relevant government staff.

The specific objectives of the learning workshops include:

  • Share lessons learned and good practices for mainstreaming gender equality and gender-based violence risk mitigation and prevention in nutrition programs. Identify transferable and relevant ideas for partner nutrition organizations to mainstream gender equality and gender-based violence risk mitigation and prevention;
  • To support in design, implementation, and delivery of lessons learned workshop in 3 pilot countries.
  • To produce materials required for the 3 learning workshops.
  • To prepare project lessons learned report that will inform the BPRM/GBV final report for donor and external audience.

Audience

The participants of the learning workshop will include Action Against Hunger staff in three pilot countries and partner nutrition organizations, including members of the Nutrition Cluster and/or national nutrition coordination mechanisms. Total participants should not exceed 25 people.

Deliverable

The following outputs are expected:  

  • Learning Workshop Methodology and Agenda
  • Three Learning Workshops for a maximum of 1 day
  • Draft Workshop Report (including all three pilot countries)
  • Final Workshop Report (including all three pilot countries) 

Time frame

This work will take place between June 20th, 2019 to September 29th, 2019

Reporting 

Weekly communication with the Senior Project Manager will be expected during the consulting period. The following outputs will be organized within the following timeline: 74 days

Payment Conditions

Payment by bank transfer in installments. The consultant will receive their payment in three installments:

  • 20% upon approval of inception report and/or approval of the learning workshop methodology.
  • 20% upon approval of draft evaluation report.
  • 40% after submission and approval of final evaluation and learning workshop reports.

Intellectual property

All writings, books, articles, artwork, computer programs, databases, source and object codes, and other material of any nature whatsoever produced in the course of this assignment produced in whole or in part by the consultant in the course of his/her service to Action Against Hunger shall be considered a work made for hire, or otherwise, and therefore Action Against Hunger’s property.

 Location of work 

The consultancy is home-based but will require travel to Bangladesh, Mauritania and South Sudan to conduct the learning workshops. On the field under the organization responsibility, the consultant will endorse and strictly follow the AHH security policy. 

Essential qualification and experience

  • Demonstrated experience in conducting and coordinating quality project evaluations.
  • Demonstrated facilitation skills in conducting learning workshop.
  • Knowledge of international standards and policies related to GBV including IASC GBV Guidelines.
  • A post graduate degree in gender, development studies or social sciences and demonstrating capacity to conduct reviews, interviews, consultations, and to produce quality documents.
  • Thorough understanding of humanitarian coordination, in particular the structure, work and outputs of Cluster Coordination.
  • Written and Oral skills in English and in French are a requirement for this consultancy.

Minimum Information to provide on the quotation:

  • Name, address, phone and contact person
  • Details of the offer
  • Total price
  • Currency of the offer
  • Validity of the quotation (Minimum one month)
  • Date and signature
  • Three professional references