Senior Consultant, Mid-Term Evaluation

Jun 11, 2018 | International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas
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The International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) will commission a mid-term evaluation of the project “Restoration of degraded land for food security and poverty reduction in East Africa and the Sahel: taking successes in land restoration to scale”. The International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) implements the project together with ICARDA the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). This evaluation aims to provide accountability and learning to the project stakeholders.

Context and Project Background

Land degradation currently affects over 40% of the world’s land resources, negatively impacting ecosystems and their ability to sustain productivity. Restoration of degraded land can be a key pathway to achieving food security and exiting poverty for some of the most vulnerable people living in Africa’s drylands. In order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN, successful restoration efforts need to be taken to scale, both reaching a larger number of farmers and covering larger areas (millions of hectares) over the coming decade. This research aims at transformative outcomes by placing farmers at the center of land restoration efforts.

The major challenge when scaling land restoration interventions is to adapt them to the wide range of ecological, economic, sociological and institutional contexts that exist across scales, from individual households to villages and landscapes. While specific technical interventions to restore degraded land may in themselves be simple, selecting, adapting and combining solutions to suit local contexts that will facilitate wide scale adoption, requires innovative new ways of engaging farmers and other stakeholders. This report documents significant advances in measuring performance of restoration options across contexts, revealing how appropriate, locally adapted options can impact food security and farm incomes and how different options are suitable for different farmers.

The European Union (EU)-funded grant (2000000976), which started in May 2016, and the complementing International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)-funded grant (2000000520) that started in March 2015 aim to address these challenges.

The overarching goal of the combined grants is to reduce food insecurity and improve livelihoods of poor people living in African drylands by restoring degraded land, and returning it to effective and sustainable tree, crop and livestock production, thereby increasing land profitability and landscape and livelihood resilience.

This project is developing innovative ways to achieve scaling by adopting a co-learning approach that accelerates development impact by embedding research in development initiatives where research methods are applied to document and monitor the experiences of farmers and then adapt technologies to the context of the farmers. This approach puts the farmer at the center of the implementation of key innovations to restore degraded land and increase food security, income generation and nutrition.

Through this project, over 6,000 farming households are involved in evaluating land restoration options on their farms, including options for soil and water conservation, tree establishment, post-harvest pest and disease control, community-based rangeland management and farmer managed natural regeneration (FMNR) with in-situ grafting and micro-dosing of mineral and farmyard manure on their farms.

The evaluations are done through structured co-learning amongst nested communities of practice that bring farmers, community facilitators, NGO and government extension staff, private sector actors and researchers together, to share knowledge and experience about what works, where and for whom on the ground. This represents a key change in the way development initiatives are implemented, giving a larger role to farmers in selecting and adapting options for scaling up and evaluating their performance. At the same time, structured dialogue helps development actors and researchers understand each other’s needs and expectations, leading to generation of timely research outputs that are incorporated in the development cycle. Furthermore, the project monitors interactions amongst research and development partners, allowing us to track the way research results and tools are being used by stakeholders.

There was significant progress toward all project outputs, which is summarized in the latest technical report submitted to the Donors on March 2018.

Rationale and objectives

The progress documented so far and the project potential call for an independent mid-term evaluation to assess the project effectiveness and potential areas to strengths.

The evaluation has two objectives (Accountability and Learning). This process aims to assess what has been achieved in terms of performance and effectiveness (accountability) and describe reasons behind the achieved results and consolidate lessons learnt and best practices for the remaining period of the project. The learning process should continue during the project implementation and be consolidated at the end of the project implementation.

Stakeholders

The evaluation should consider players in the project. The initial list presented (Annex 1) may be expanded before the interviews and focus groups.

Internal:

  • Project Management Unit at HQ level, first tier partners (CGIAR Centers) focal point in the implementation sites.

External:

  • Farmers (particularly women) to understand how the project succeeded in increasing their capacities and understanding. They will provide feedback in terms of success stories, failures and suggestions for improvements.
  • Partners with formal or informal agreements with any of the first tier partners. This includes contacts with ongoing development projects implemented in the same locations and the relevant development partners implementing them. Linked projects are important to demonstrate the comparative advantage and synergies developed with the project. Partners include the private sector representatives.
  • Project Steering Committee Members and Donors in their advisory role.

Scope

The evaluation will focus on project performance and effectiveness of the project team including key project scientists, representatives of collaborating institutions, and a nominee from EU-IFAD. The evaluation will refer to the period from 2015 to 2017. While the geographical scope covers all the project areas the actual fieldwork of the consultant will be limited to few sites selected using appropriate criteria.

Guidance documents are the IFAD Evaluation Policy and Manual[1].

Evaluation Questions

This document provides a set of initial evaluation questions along the IFAD evaluation criteria. The selected evaluator will refine them (based on the specific project objectives) during the inception phase.

Rural poverty impact

  • Has the initiative had the anticipated impact on the target group?
  • To what extent have beneficiary incomes changed as a result of the project?
  • In what way have household net assets changed due to the intervention?
  • What changes have taken place in household food security and nutrition and what explains such changes?

Project performance (relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of benefits)

  • Was the project design appropriate to meet the intervention’s objectives?
  • Was the project adjusted during implementation to any changes in context to retain continued relevance?
  • To what extent have the objectives of the project and its components been attained in quantitative and in qualitative terms?
  • What changes in the overall context (e.g. policy framework, political situation, institutional set-up, economic shocks, civil unrest) have affected or are likely to affect project implementation and overall results?
  • What factors in project design and implementation account for the estimated results in terms of effectiveness; are there valid alternatives?
  • How does the economic rate of return at evaluation compare with that at project design?
  • What are the grant costs per beneficiary (both at the time of appraisal and at the time of evaluation) and how do they compare to other IFAD-funded operations (or those of other donors) in the same country and/or other countries?
  • What are the total project management costs in relation to total project costs and how do they compare with similar projects?
  • Do project activities benefited from the engagement, participation and ownership of local communities, grass-roots organizations and the rural poor, and are adopted approaches technically viable?
  • Is there a clear indication of government commitment after the project closing date, for example, in terms of provision of funds for selected activities, human resources availability, continuity of pro- poor policies and participatory development approaches, and institutional support?
  • What are the chances that benefits generated by the project will continue after project closure and what is the likely resilience of economic activities to post-project risks?

Gender equality and women’s empowerment

  • What were the project’s achievements in terms of promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment?
  • What percentage of total project resources was invested in activities to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment and how does that compare with other projects funded by IFAD?
  • To what extent did the project define and monitor sex-disaggregated results to ensure that gender equality and women’s empowerment objectives were being met?
  • Was the project implementation structure adequate to support effective implementation of gender equality and women’s empowerment goals?

Innovation and scaling up

  • What are the characteristics of innovation(s) promoted by the intervention?
  • Are the innovations consistent with the IFAD definition of this concept?
  • Are the actions in question truly innovative or are they well-established elsewhere but new to the country or project area?
  • Have grants been used to promote innovation?
  • What evidence was used to justify scaling up, and were successfully promoted innovations documented and shared to facilitate scaling up?
  • Has IFAD proactively engaged in partnership-building and policy dialogue to facilitate the uptake of successful innovations?
  • Based on the information available, have these innovations been scaled up and, if so, by whom? If not, what are the prospects at the time of evaluation that they can and will be scaled up by the government, other donors and/or the private sector? What were/are the pathways to scaling up?

Environment and natural resources management

  • To what extent did the project adopt approaches/measures for restoration or sustainable management of natural resources?
  • To what extent did the project develop the capacity of community groups and institutions to manage environmental risks?
  • To what extent did the project contribute to reducing the environmental vulnerability of the community and built resilience for sustainable natural resource management that contribute to poverty reduction?
  • To what extent did the project contribute to long-term environmental and social sustainability; and by empowering and strengthening the capacity of community-based natural resource management groups to ensure sustainable natural resources management; and by ensuring strong stakeholder engagement, especially of vulnerable groups, in decision making affecting natural resources use?
  • To what extent did the project follow required environmental and social risk assessment procedures, including meaningful consultation with affected and vulnerable communities, and have complied with applicable IFAD or national environmental and social standards or norms, to ensure any harmful impacts are avoided or managed/mitigated through, where needed, the implementation of effective environmental and social management plans, including robust monitoring and supervision?

Adaptation to climate change

  • To what extent did the project demonstrate awareness and analysis of current and future climate risks?
  • What are the amounts and nature of funds allocated to adaptation to climate change-related risks?
  • What were the most important factors that helped the rural poor to restore the natural resource and environment base that (may) have been affected by climate change?

Partnership

  • Have the governments assumed ownership and responsibility for the project? Judging by its actions and policies, has the government been fully supportive of project goals?
  • During implementation did the governments and steering committee: (i) take the initiative to suitably modify the project design (if required); (ii) take prompt action to ensure the timely implementation of recommendations from supervision and implementation support missions?
  • Did the M&E system generate information on performance and impact, which is useful for project managers, and has appropriate action been taken on the basis of this information?
  • In what way has the Project Team facilitated the participation of NGOs and civil society, where appropriate, and what were the implications?

Evaluation Approach

Phases

Inception - August 2018 - (7 days)

  • It aims to prepare the evaluation team and lead evaluator. It includes desk review, inception mission, briefing, consultation with stakeholders, inception report drafting (evaluation matrix, methodology and data collection tools), and fieldwork plan.

Field work - August-September (14 days)

  • It includes introduction with key organizations, interviews, focus groups and visit to selected project sites, debriefing.

Reporting - October-November - (10 days)

  • It includes the preparation of the evaluation report, QA review and finalization.

Deliverables

The selected evaluator should submit planned deliverables as per table below. CGIAR Independent Evaluation Arrangement (IEA) Standards (http://iea.cgiar.org/resources/guiding-documents/) and formats should be followed.

Evaluation Deliverables / Submission Date

  • Draft Inception Report -30-August-2018
  • Final Inception Report -15-September-2018
  • First Draft Evaluation Report - 15-October-2018
  • Final Evaluation Report - 30-November-2018

Methodology

The methodology will be detailed in the inception report. It includes evaluation matrix and data collection tools. Methods, tools and sources should allow triangulation and impartiality. Comprehensive understanding will be ensured only through a full analysis of stakeholders. Field selection should be based on impartial criteria. It should consider budget and time constraints. For this reason it is not expected to analyze the entire set of activities and/or conduct extensive quantitative surveys. The desk review through available information in the project M&E system and interviews (individual and group) with key stakeholders will provide the preliminary findings while fieldwork will supply additional evidence.

Quality Assurance

CGIAR IEA has an Evaluation Quality Assurance (QA) framework available for all CGIAR Centers. It includes guidelines and formats. The evaluation manager will use the IEA framework to conduct the without interfering with the independence of the evaluation but only aiming to strengthen the results. Data validity, consistency and accuracy are responsibility of the evaluator.

A reference group is defined to provide feedback to the evaluation manager and team.

Organization

An external, independent evaluator will be recruited to ensure the credibility of the findings. The evaluator will have knowledge in evaluation methodologies and practical experience in complex evaluations. It is also expected to have experience in agriculture related fields with excellent communication skills. He will report to the evaluation manager who is responsible to draft this Terms of Reference (TOR), select the evaluator, prepare/manage contractual documents, assembling the initial documents for the desk review, support during the field mission, conduct the QA and consolidate and provide feedback on the reports.

The field teams are responsible to provide documents, be available for and support the fieldwork and facilitate the interaction with beneficiaries.

Dissemination

The evaluation report and the management responses will be presented to the Stakeholders and posted publicly on the project website. The project management team and country teams may organize follow-up workshops.

Background Documents

  1. Project Proposal
  2. Annual Technical report 2015-2016
  3. Annual Technical report 2016-2017
  4. Annual Technical report 2017-2018

Senior Consultant Profile

ICARDA is looking for one Senior Consultant who will work closely with the Evaluation manager and Evaluation analyst.

His/her tasks include:

  • Preparation of a short inception report that presents the evaluation design building on the ToRs;
  • Interviews with key stakeholders in the CGIAR Centers, donors, partners and any other institutions considered relevant;
  • Field visits to centers and selected sites (as required)
  • Preparation of the draft and final evaluation report;
  • Presentation of the evaluation findings to key stakeholders.

The assignment of the Senior Consultant will require 31 working days, including travel and work at home‐station, spread over a period of approximately 6 months from the preparatory phase of the evaluation.

The tentative schedule for the evaluation with estimated time requirement for the senior consultant is presented in the TOR.

Qualifications

  • Experience working in agricultural research for development
  • Experience in evaluating research programmes
  • Experience in programs and institutes targeting development outcomes
  • Excellent writing skills in English and good verbal communication skills
  • Excellent command of English verbal and written
  • Knowledge of French is a desired qualification

HOW TO APPLY:

Interested candidates should send their CV and a short cover letter outlining their most relevant experience for this assignment and including the daily professional rate by 22nd June 2018 to Enrico Bonaiuti, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Specialist, ICARDA, e.bonaiuti@cgiar.org.