Iraq: Consultancy, End-term Evaluation for the Women and Girls Rebuilding

Nov 9, 2022 | Oxfam GB
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Oxfam is a global movement of people working together to end the injustice of poverty. Together we save, protect, and rebuild lives. And we won’t stop until every person on the planet can defeat poverty or any type of inequality or discrimination. We are an international confederation of 20 organizations (affiliates) working together with partners and local communities in the areas of humanitarian, development, and campaigning, in more than 90 countries. All our work is led by three core values: Empowerment, Accountability, and Inclusiveness.

Iraq's humanitarian context remains fragile. The country has been affected by multiple crises, including decades of cyclical violence, displacement, a contracting economy, the activities of armed groups, poor provision of public services and challenges to governance. In early 2020, Iraq was affected by twin shocks to its economy, with the COVID-19 pandemic and the drop in oil prices, which have contributed to growing socioeconomic vulnerabilities. Overall, the social, ethnic, and sectarian tensions will continue to contribute to the country's insecurity. Furthermore, the current political landscape of Iraq is unstable and evolving following the early parliamentary elections that were successfully held in October 2021, with the level of turning out to vote estimated at 40%.

Despite these constraints, the humanitarian context in Iraq has gradually transitioned into a new phase allowing humanitarian actors to plan and implement recovery and development interventions addressing community reconciliation, resilient livelihoods, as well as participation in governance structures and decision-making. The situation of many women and girls requires particular attention. The crimes committed by ISIL have left deep psychological scars on many women and their families. Displaced women continue to suffer sexual and gender-based violence in both in-camp and out-of-camps settings even while the military offensive by ISIL is over. Despite some progress in the legislative protection of women’s equal rights, most of the women in Iraq are affected by long-term social, economic and political exclusion exacerbated by deeply entrenched patriarchal values held by a large proportion of the population.

Women and Girls Rebuilding Iraq

The intervention (hereafter “project”) entitled Women and Girls Rebuilding Iraq implemented by OXFAM in Iraq contributes to shaping policy, decision-making mechanisms and peacebuilding processes at multiple levels with the specific objective to ensure women and girls play a significant role in the new rehabilitation and development agenda. The initiative is working with women and girls in the Kirkuk and Diyala governorates, both of which have endured a protracted conflict. Part of the project also takes place at the national level involving public policy engagement and advocacy on women's and girls' rights. The project is implemented in cooperation with Women's Rights Organizations (WROs) promoting transformative leadership in formal and informal governance structures. The initiative seeks to engage 9,000 vulnerable women and girls in Iraq. In addition, 40 men and boys from local communities are to be trained to act as role models for progressive masculinities. They will act as change agents in shifting attitudes and practices that hinder women’s equal rights.

Two intermediate outcomes have been envisioned for the project:

• Increased active participation of women and girls in public decision-making processes as transformative leaders.
• The improved social and political environment for the effective participation of women and girls in government structures.

Four immediate outcomes include the following:

• Increased access to leadership roles for women and girls in governance structures and better inclusion of women’s and girls’ needs and interests
• Increased support by community members, community leaders, and other opinion influencers (media, academia, practitioners, etc.) on women’s and girls’ participation in governance structures and decision-making processes
• Increased capacities of WROs to engage with decisions and policymakers and design gender-responsive policies integrating women’s and girls’ needs and interests
• Increased skills of WROs to design and implement gender-responsive programming and advocacy to support women’s and girls’ voices

The project works at 3 levels:

• Micro: individual capacity building and community engagement (involving both women and men);
• Meso: working with interlocutors, WROs and women’s rights defenders to improve the well-being of women and girls;
• Macro: work with opinion formers and policymakers for increased active participation of women and girls in governance structures.

Project status as of October 2022

The inception period took place in the first six months of the project. The COVID-19 pandemic affected the initial implementation in Year 1 requiring the team to request a 12-month No Cost Extension (NCE). As per NCE, the end of the project is expected in June 2022 with a 3-month closeout period ending in September 2022. The final evaluation will take place during the closing period. In terms of the activities undertaken in Year 1 (March 2019 – March 2020), the Project Implementation Plan was developed and validated by the donor in January 2020. Several studies were carried out in Year 1 including a study on barriers for women and girls to participate in governance and decision-making; a study on social norms and masculinities; a gender analysis; an outline of recommendations based on the Northern Iraq Livelihoods Assessment report; and adaptation of the Gender Action Learning Systems (GALS) methodology. These outputs contributed to rolling out awareness-raising sessions for women and girls at the micro-level along with community dialogues, awareness-raising sessions for men and boys, and GALS sessions. At the meso level, the project supported the capacity building of two implementing partners focusing on the partners’ capacity to engage in gender justice programming. Activities at the macro-level related to policy-related outputs largely on campaigns around international women's days, the Anti Domestic Violence Law, CEDAW reporting and other campaigns run by Oxfam's partnering WROs. The second phase of Women and Girls Rebuilding Iraq implemented after the parliamentary elections scheduled for October 2021. During this period, the project rolled out a Leadership Programme for women rights defenders to train them on requisite skills in policy and advocacy to enable them to conduct gender transformative campaigns with a more unified messaging and goal. Additionally, the project was allowed to implement 60 more MRM sessions and distribute grants to an additional 90 women after meeting the initial base target of 100 women. The project will finalise the implementation of activities by the end of December 2022 and a close-out period that ends in March 2023.

Objectives of the end-term Evaluation

The main objective of the End-term evaluation is to systematically review the overall achievement of the project, with a strong bias to the impact created towards the project’s outcomes, with detailed analysis of and provide recommendations on the overall design of the project, modifications, and specific actions that might be taken into consideration in future gender justice programming.

The final evaluation will also test the TOC of the project and the assumptions that were defined in the project design and how they influenced the change tracks. It will further provide an analysis of the project activities and how they contributed to achieving the project outcomes and outputs, and an analysis of challenges and opportunities that might have happened during the project duration. It will also capture the unintended results and unseen factors of change.

The evaluation shall conform to OECD/DAC’s Quality Standards for Development Evaluation. It will further identify and assess key internal and external factors that have contributed, affected, or impeded the achievements of the project, and how Oxfam and the partners have managed these factors. The objective of this evaluation is to establish the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability of implemented actions.

Specifically, the consultant will:

1. Assess the project progress against the intermediate and immediate outcomes as outlined in the project logic model.
2. Review the indicators and update the Endline qualitative and quantitative values in the Performance Measurement Framework (PMF).
3. Apply Development Assistance Committee (DAC) methodology as the evaluation criteria: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, coherence and impact to assess the project’s progress and recommend measures to improve the project’s implementation processes and its partnerships to meet project goals.
4. Assess the efforts of stakeholders, and interlocutors in support of the implementation of the project and how this category contributes to or against the success of the project.
5. Examine the extent to which the project has impacted the intended People We Work With () and the three levels leading to structural changes in micro, meso and macro levels.
6. To identify and assess key internal and external factors that have contributed to, affected, or impeded the achievements of the project, and how Oxfam and the partners have managed these factors.
7. Assess the likelihood of sustainability of the project outcomes and provide recommendations to strengthen the project’s sustainability.
8. Identify best practices, lessons learnt and strategic recommendations that are emerging from the project.

Scope of Work

The end-term evaluation will require the following key steps:

1. Review project documentation and engage with the project staff and partners’ representatives to familiarize yourself with the intervention.
2. Based on the understanding of the terms of reference and the project, prepare tools to collect quantitative and qualitative data in line with the objectives of the end-term evaluation.
3. Develop an evaluation matrix with respondents for each tool, while providing sufficient space for direct project participants, in addition to the project team, partners and other key stakeholders.
4. Based on the data collected, analyze to what extent the project activities have contributed to the achievement of the project’s immediate and intermediate outcomes and outputs.
5. Ensure appropriate context, gender and conflict analyses are part of the end-term evaluation process.
6. Identify recommendations that need to be implemented at the micro, meso and macro levels of the project that meet the project outcomes and contributes to its ultimate goal and future gender justice programming.
7. Are there any exceptional achievements of the project substantiated with evidence, such, as but not limited to, case studies and best practices? Detail this on a page and share it as an annex.

For full details on the Terms of Reference, please visit link below.

How to apply

Interested individuals, organizations, research or consultancy firms, with relevant experience and skills based on the ToR, can submit their Expression of Interest (EOI), including the following:

1. Cover letter of no more than 2 pages introducing the consultant /firm and how the skills and competencies described above are met, with concrete examples. Please also use this cover letter to indicate the consultants’ availability for the proposed period.
2. The technical proposal should include:
1. an interpretation of the objectives of the consultancy, a detailed methodology and a work plan.
2. It should also provide details on the organization/individual capacity statement, experience with similar assignments, CVs of the consulting team directly involved in the assignment, including their specific roles along with three professional referees which will be attached as annexes to the five pages.
3. The financial Proposal includes a one-page budget of the offer, covering all major anticipated costs.
4. Two examples of evaluation reports carried out in the past 2 years.
5. Statement on conflict of interest.
6. Statement on the OXFAM Code to be followed when interacting with project participants and other stakeholders during the assignment.

Any incomplete offer, i.e. not including one or more of the above items will be considered ineligible and not evaluated.

Individual applications for work in the form of a CV (with or without a cover letter) will be considered ineligible and not evaluated.

Please submit the EOI by midnight Iraq time by date 16th November 2022 Midnight. EOI will be reviewed on rolling basis until a consultant is selected.

to:irqconsultancy@oxfam.org.uk

with Conduct the End-term Evaluation for the Women and Girls Rebuilding Iraq Project in the subject line.

No EOIs will be accepted after the deadline.

All questions or clarifications of a technical nature are to be sent

to:irqconsultancy@oxfam.org.uk with [Conduct the End-term Evaluation for the Women and Girls Rebuilding Iraq Project] – clarifications in the subject line. no later than date 8th of November 2022, 5 pm.

TOR LINK https://jobs.oxfam.org.uk/vacancy/18320/description