Consultant – Final Evaluation Coherence programme Ethiopia
Caritas Nyeri
Ethiopia, Kenya
Role description
1. Introduction
Ethiopian Catholic Church – Social and Development Commission Soddo branch (ECC-SDCO/S) and Adigrat branch (ECC-SDCO/Ad)
Belgian Government.
‘triple nexus
2. Object of the evaluation: COHERENCE Ethiopia
2.1 Program objective, results and activities
kebeles
Damot Woyde district (Wolaita)
kebeles
Irob district (Eastern Tigray)
specific objective
kebeles
kebeles
first result
social cohesion
- Conducting a rapid gender context analysis at community level (1 in each intervention area);
- Organizing in groups and training of 180 community cohesion and gender empowerment agents on peace building, conflict management and facilitation skills;
- Organizing community dialogue sessions on peace and conflict management and gender equity (while applying the household transformation method);
- Rehabilitating and expanding water piping to address existing water access conflict (Wolaita);
- Planting tree seedlings on communal land between communities as a joint, social cohesion enhancing activity (Tigray);
- Providing energy-saving stoves for 300 households (Wolaita).
- Supporting households in income generating activities and household asset building;
- Organizing, training and equipping savings and and internal lending groups (SILCs) to enhance solidarity, savings and resilience;
- Selecting specific Household Asset Building Packages (HABP), providing technical and basic business training of HABP-SILC groups, and supporting households in financing business plans by means of subsidy.
- Organizing volunteer smallholders in “community learning groups” (type of farmer field schools) and providing orientation training on Resilience Design (RD);
- Facilitating self-assessments based on local knowledge, practices and exchange;
- Increasing soil fertility with appropriate durable techniques identified using a RD approach;
- Supplying farm-resilient seeds and biological catalysator (for compost making) (Tigray);
- Providing energy-saving tools for households with special needs;
- Conducting quality monitoring and group learning of RD-related activities implemented at farm-level through community learning groups or famer field school groups.
- With regard to social cohesion: 1,900 households (1,000 in Wolaita, 900 in Tigray) of which 1,327 are male-headed (787 in Wolaita, 540 in Tigray) and 573 female-headed (213 in Wolaita, 360 in Tigray), 4 peace and social cohesion and gender equity promoting groups, and 180 peace and social cohesion agents / community leaders (elders, religious leaders, women and youth representatives, …) (75 in Wolaita, 105 in Tigray);
- With regard to rural economic development (household asset building): 830 poor households (400 in Wolaita, 430 in Tigray) with priority for female-headed and landless households, and 49 SILCs (20 in Wolaita, 29 in Tigray);
- With regard to disaster risk reduction (resilience design): 800 smallholder households (600 in Wolaita, 200 in Tigray), with a priority for smallholders vulnerable to climate change;
- Government technical staff.
- The population of the 2 kebeles (Endamosa and Hareze Sabata) in Eastern Tigray and of the 2 kebeles (Kindo Koyo and Mayo Kote) in Wolaita;
- Government services and local authorities of the 4 kebeles;
- Authorities of Irob and Damot Woyde districts.
- Identifying lessons learned in the introduction and adoption of social methodological innovation in view of future programming by CI.be and its partners;
- Ensuring accountability towards donors and other stakeholders, by rendering public the results of program performance assessment.
- Implementation and coordination teams of partners ECC-SDCO/Ad and ECC-SDCO/S;
- CI.be staff at regional offices and head office and partner staff involved in joint development programming;
- Staff of other development actors (through publication of the final evaluation report on the CI.be website);
- DGD, the program donor (accountability).
- To what extent was the nexus approach adopted by the program appropriate and adequate foraddressing the target groups’ priority needs? [DAC criteria: coherence and sustainability]
- To what extent were the pathways of change and assumptions (theory of change) and the intervention logic (results framework) coherent, plausible and feasible?
- To what extent were the three innovative approaches (village peace agents, gender transformation and community learning groups) critical in the adopted design of the nexus approach? To what extent did they contribute to integrating the three pillars of the nexus (synergies between the pillars)?
- To what extent did the innovations fall short in reaching the different vulnerable groups targeted by the program (LNOB)?
- What have been the roles and contributions of the three innovative approaches (village peace agents, gender transformation and community learning groups) in achieving program outcomes? [DAC criteria: effectiveness and sustainability]
- To what extent and how have the three innovative approaches beeneffective in bringing about behavioral changeandadoption of new practices at target group level? Which are the factors that were conducive to these changes? Which factors can be identified that have hindered or slowed down changes?
- To what extent did the 3 methods function better than other existing alternative methods in achieving program outcomes?
- To what extent and how are the three innovative approaches transformative? Can we see early signs of enduring changes in norms and systems?
- To what extent has the program created enabling mechanisms to sustain the positive effects induced by the three innovative approaches?[DAC criteria: coherence and sustainability]
- How appropriate was the process of introducing the three innovative approaches within the targeted communities? Did the program learn from and adapt these innovative approaches or other activities during their implementation? What was the contribution of the MEAL process in this?
- To what extent do the stakeholders of the intervention – including government actiors and target groups – take ownership of the results achieved by means of the three innovative approaches and how committed are they to sustaining these results after the program’s closure?
- To what extent has the program built capacities of key stakeholders (implementing partners, government sector offices and target groups) required to institutionalize the innovative approaches without forsaking grassroots ownership and leadership and allowing continued flow of benefits?
- Operationalizing the nexus;
- Achieving program outputs and outcomes;
- Sustaining outcomes and institutionalizing approaches.
- A preliminary evaluability assessment, which should demonstrate the main conditions and limitations that the evaluation will face in achieving the planned objectives and in finding answers to the questions posed. It will also indicate how evaluability problems can be solved;
- The general theoretical-methodological approach that will guide the final evaluation;
- A proposal for accompanying the documentation process (case studies) that the project teams will engage in themselves in complement to the final evaluation and for integrating that documentation in the approach and conduct of the final evaluation itself;
- A proposal for an analytical framework/evaluation matrix for the external evaluation, including evaluation questions, evaluation criteria, means, and sources of information. This matrix is a tool for the implementation of the evaluation questions, but does not replace the theoretical-methodological approach that will guide the evaluation and that should be presented in a clear and differentiated way in the proposal;
- A description of the evaluation techniques and tools that will be used to collect, classify, analyse and present the required data. The use and analysis of existing and accessible quantitative data is expected. The use of quantitative methods requiring the collection of primary data by the evaluator is not requested.
- The theory of change and the program proposal including the results framework;
- Baseline survey report;
- Internal narrative annual reports, performance scores and lessons learned (2023-2025, and draft documents for 2026);
- Monitoring data collected and reports produced by the implementing partners;
- Resource persons at the level of CI.be and implementing partners.
- Facilitating the evaluator’s access to relevant sources of information (documentation, data, people);
- Facilitating communication between the evaluator, program implementation teams and partners, and other stakeholders;
- Monitoring and quality assurance of the process.
- A methodological “framing note” specifying the approach and methods that will be used by the evaluator to collect the required data and information;
- A provisional evaluation report presented for discussion and comment to CI.be and the implementing partners;
- A final evaluation report taking into account the remarks made on the provisional report and/or adding in annex the collection of comments not taken into account, accompanied by the reasons for not doing so.
- Table of contents ;
- List of abbreviations and acronyms;
- Executive summary (maximum 1 page, including main findings and recommendations, with interpretation);
- Key information on the program and the methodology used;
- Well-argued findings on the evaluation questions and DAC criteria (analysing the collected and accessed data);
- Conclusions and recommendations, including a synthetic table presenting findings – recommendations – targeted actor (maximum 4 pages);
- Annexes: Terms of Reference; implemented work program (activities, list of people and organizations met, …); list of documentation consulted; inventory and documentation of lessons learned; comments not taken into account, with reasons for not taking them into account.
- Program design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, including outcome harvesting;
- Organisation of participatory evaluations;
- Capacity building of grassroots institutions and empowerment;
- Technical expertise areas:
- HDP nexus and conflict-sensitive development;
- Gender equity and empowerment;
- Agroecology;
- Social cohesion and peacebuilding (small p);
- Rural development and social technology innovation;
- Proficiency in "results-based management" and "theory of change" methods;
- Geographical experience in Ethiopia and knowledge of the local context (Wolaita, Eastern Tigray);
- Knowledge of local languages.
- The methodological approach and understanding of the terms of reference;
- The proposed approach to the practical organisation of the evaluation (indicative timetable of the different phases);
- The qualifications and experience in the different fields mentioned above of the expert and team members proposed for the evaluation.
- The overall package price (10%); the score (NPX) for the price of offer X will be calculated as follows: NPX = 10 x (lowest bid price)/(bid price X);
- The average price for a day's service (10%); the score (NPMX) for the average price for a day's service of offer X will be calculated as follows: NPMX = 10 x (lowest average price)/(average price of offer X). The average price per day of service will be calculated by dividing the sum of salary/per diem/accommodation for the evaluation team by the number of days of service offered.