Final project evaluation & capitalization

Consultancy Title Final project evaluation & capitalization

Title of the Project Regional Project: “Protection of the most vulnerable children affected by the Syrian crisis in Lebanon and Jordan.”

Location Jordan, Lebanon

Starting day December 2019

Duration 50 days

1. Presentation of Terre des hommes Created in 1960, the Foundation of Terre des hommes Lausanne (Tdh) mission is to come to the aid of children in need. It endeavours at all times to defend the rights of children, in times of war and natural disasters, or in less publicized situations of distress, regardless of their race, creed or political affiliation. Today, Terre des hommes Foundation is the largest non-governmental organization (NGO) for children’s aid in Switzerland. Besides, Tdh has development projects and emergency relief programs in more than 45 countries, including Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Syria. Tdh develops and implements field projects to allow a better daily life for over three million children and their relatives, particularly in the domains of health care, protection against exploitation, abuse, trafficking and violence. This engagement is financed by individual and institutional donations. Over the last fifty years, Terre des hommes has developed in two core areas: healthcare and child protection. Every year, Tdh offers sustainable solutions and a better future for over one million children and their relatives by focusing on two levels:

• providing direct aid worldwide for children in need, whereby projects are carried out under our own management or in partnership with local organizations;
• as an ambassador for children’s rights in Switzerland and throughout the world, through campaigns that promote the fundamental rights of children or that denounce violation of these rights, those contained in the Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by the UN in 1989.

Tdh Jordan was established in 2007 in response to the Iraqi refugee crisis. Since then the Migration program has evolved into responding to various emergencies that have afflicted the country at different periods in time, including the Syrian refugee crisis. In 2013 the organization established an Access to Justice program, focused on protecting the rights of children in conflict with the law aiming to orient the justice stakeholders towards a more child friendly and protective juvenile system. Currently the Tdh-L works with the Syrian refugees in the Emirates Jordanian camp (EJC), urban Syrian refugees and vulnerable host communities through several child focused interventions, covering geographical areas of Amman, Zarqa, Irbid, Mafraq and Jerash.

Tdh Lebanon is operating since 1977. In 2006, Tdh opened an office in Tyr to respond to the humanitarian needs from the 33-day war between Israel and Lebanon. Since then, the Migration program has evolved to respond to various emergencies affecting the country, including the Syrian refugee crisis. In 2017, Tdh established an Access to Justice program which focuses on protecting the rights of boys and girls in conflict and in contact with the law. Currently the Tdh-L implements a Child Protection (CP) program supporting the Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese communities, covering geographical areas of Beirut, Tripoli, Baalbek, Zahle, Saida and Tyr. The objective is to ensure that vulnerable children are protected from violence, including gender-based violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect through an equitable access to CP services.

2. PRESENTATION OF THE PROJECT

Geographic Regions of Operations Lebanon (Beirut/Mt. Lebanon, Beqaa), Jordan (Irbid, Jerash and Mafraq Governorates).

Beneficiaries The project intends to serve a total of 13,754 (8,734 in Jordan, 5,020 in Lebanon) beneficiaries.

Partners Lebanon: INSAN Association
Jordan: 8 CBOs from Irbid, Jerash and Mafraq

Objective By December 2019, 13,754 (8,734 in Jordan, 5,020 in Lebanon) children and caregivers affected by the Syrian crisis in Lebanon and Jordan improve their resilience through the provision of community based psychosocial support (PSS), Child Protection (CP) prevention activities and capacity building of local actors.

Expected Outcomes There are three expected outcomes:

• 5,250 (3,800 in Jordan, 1,450 in Lebanon) of the most vulnerable children from Syrian refugees and host communities have access to PSS and LS including referral services.
• 8,310 community members (4,800 in Jordan, 3,510 in Lebanon) are sensitized around CP concerns to mitigate risks faced by children within their communities.
• 194 persons (134 in Jordan, 60 in Lebanon) from 2 Jordanian community-based organizations, one Lebanese non-governmental organization and the community have the capacity to respond locally to increased CP needs after the two years training and support from Tdh.

3. Objective and Scope of the final project evaluation & Capitalization

The overall objectives of the final project evaluation and capitalization exercise are, at first level, to assess the performance of the project and capture project achievements and challenges, in order to inform future similar programming and also to provide an independent external analysis of the project to ensure accountability, and, at second level to identify the best practices and lessons learnt that will enable partners, beneficiaries and other key stakeholders to engage in learning process.

Specific objectives related to final evaluation and capitalization are:

1) To assess if and how the project has managed to attain intended outcomes and the overall project goal and what change it brought about in beneficiary lives.

2) To identify and articulate innovative initiatives, best practices and key learning’s from the capacity building component of the project at organizational level (Tdh), at partner level, and at community level.

3) To validate key findings with Tdh staff and partners’ members to bring a greater collective awareness among all key stakeholders and contribute to individual and collective action learning approaches.

The evaluation will be based on the evaluation criteria for humanitarian action from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) and on Terre des hommes Project Cycle Management Guidelines.

The evaluation will cover the entire period of the project – Sep 2017 to December 2019 in Lebanon and in Jordan – and all the geographical areas of intervention – Beirut, Mt. Lebanon and Beqaa governorates in Lebanon and Irbid, Mafraq and Jerash governorates in Jordan. All the projects’ components should be included in the evaluation scope.

Addressing the evaluation and capitalization objectives will require that the consultant provide answers to the following specific questions:

1) How relevant were the services provided by the project to the different target groups?

2) Did the project adopt the right partnering approach? How did the partnering approach contribute towards the impact the project had on the target beneficiary group?

3) What assumptions built into the project design had failed and what affect did it have on the project implementation and its impact?

Respondents Jordan and Lebanon (Refugee & host communities).

• Children (girls & boys)
• Families / Caregivers
• Community members
• Local actors (Community leaders, government officials)
• Implementing partners

Disaggregation: By location, sex, age and status (host, refugees).

CRITERIA & QUESTIONS FOR FINAL EVALUATION

Relevance

1. Was the regional approach adopted by Tdh for this project relevant?
2. Are objectives and services of the project in keeping with locally and nationally defined needs and priorities in the different context of both the countries?
3. To which extent the recommendations of the mid-term where translated in practice?

Effectiveness

1. To which extent did the activities meet the objectives and results set out in the project (as outlined in the logical framework)? 5. To which extent were synergies achieved with work carried out by other NGOs, government and local initiatives?
   1. What were the major factors influencing the achievement or non-achievement of the objectives?
   2. To what extent the mitigation measures set up to better meet the objectives and the results have been effective?

Efficiency

1. Were the activities and outputs of the project consistent with the intended impacts and effects? Impact
2. What changes (intended, unintended, positive, negative) are observed among the project target groups and what non-project related factors contributed to the change.

Sustainability

What processes and systems have been established by the project to support the continuation of key interventions?

The capitalization exercise would focus on the following questions

• Did Tdh collaborate with the right partners for this project? Was Tdh the right partner for those organizations? What was the added value for the partner in this collaboration? Did this partnership have an impact on the beneficiary, how?
• What has been the approach towards partners’ capacity building? What has or hasn’t worked, and gaps identified?
• What impact this capacity building approach had on the communities and target groups whom the program has been working with since the last quarter of 2017?
• What were the factors for success and challenges? What innovative practices were applied? Lessons learnt & best practices, recommendations by partners for future application of the model.

The questions listed above are to be conceived as guiding questions only and the evaluation team is not limited to them. The refining and further elaboration of the questions should be done by the evaluation team.

4. Intended users of the evaluation

The exercise is intended to primary for internal learning purposes. The Primary set of audience of the evaluation are the project implementing staff/partners, as well as the management teams in the field offices of Lebanon and Jordan. The key actors involved in the project, especially CBOs and NGO managers and volunteers are also included in the audience targeted. Findings from the study will be shared with groups of beneficiaries for validation purposes, and also a simplified version of the evaluation findings to be presented to beneficiaries using the accountability channels.

On a second stance, the Steering Committee of the Project, Management and support team based in Lausanne, Tdh-HQ: Head of MENA Region, MENA Regional Migration Manager, Finance Managers and Administrators; Quality and Accountability Department and Programmatic Department will be also a key user group.

Findings that can inform key policy changes will be shared with key stakeholders representing different government departments, and other influential spheres. Finally, the donors of the regional project (AFD and EU-Madad) could use this evaluation for their own accountability & reporting, influencing their own policy & programming. The summary of key findings will also be shared with other NGO coordination platforms for advocacy and knowledge sharing purposes.

5. Deliverables of the assignment

• An Inception report (20-25 pages) including:
  • the first elements coming up from the desk review, risks and limitations analysis;
  • the detailed methodology, including evaluation matrix and how questions will be addressed;
  • the draft data collection tools;
  • the work plan, including the list of persons to be interviewed;
• A preliminary report to be provided 5 days after the end of the field missions, and a final version 2 days after Tdh’s feedback;
• A final report incorporating:
  • An executive summary (max. 3-4 pages);
  • A narrative report (max. 30-40 pages), including a summary table with the main findings and recommendations (separate the short, medium and long term) and the lessons learned;
  • A PowerPoint presentation of the findings and recommendations
  • Annexes: Containing the technical details of the evaluation, as well as the terms of reference, surveys protocols and questionnaires, protocols of interviews and observation, tables or graphics, secondary review references, persons and institutions contacted, the transcripts (rendered anonymous) of interviews, focus groups, observation.

All documents should be written and submitted in English.

The primary data collection (quantitative and Qualitative) is collected by the Tdh field teams in agreement with the consultant.

6. Chronogram

The proposed evaluation consists of 50 working days including:

• Phase I: 1^st Briefing by Skype and Reviews of the secondary data: 10 days –> Inception Report;
• Phase II: Skype interviews with key stakeholders: 5 days;
• Phase II: Analysis & Final evaluation report writing: 15 days –> 1^stDraft of the Final Report;
• Phase IV: Finalization of the final evaluation report: 5 days –> Final Evaluation Report;
• Phase V: Capitalization workshops in both countries: 7 days (3 days in each country);
• Phase VI: Analysis & Final capitalization report writing: 5 days –> 1^stDraft of the Capitalization Report;
• Phase VII: Finalization of the final capitalization report: 3 days –> Final Capitalization Report

The assignment should be carried out in a period to be defined with the consultant, ideally starting by on 9^thof December 2019 and the final report submitted by the 27^th of January 2020.

7. Roles and Responsibilities

The evaluation will be conducted by 1 external consultant contracted by Terre des hommes.

The consultant will be in charge of:

• Defining the methodology of the evaluation and capitalization that will be validated by Tdh before being applied;
• Review, all key project documents such as reports and monitoring reports, KAP study report, mid-term review reports, and other external publications that can support the exercises;
• Leading the primary data collection and analysis work:
  • Developing the evaluation instruments, including MDC tools if and where applicable and conduct validation and field testing of the same;
  • Defining the same units and sample size;
  • Provide the Tdh teams in-country the tools, trainings and required guidance, follow-up on the data collection status and quality, by being in close coordination with the country focal point for the assignment, If Mobile data collection tools are used, then monitoring the quality remotely;
  • Developing a methodology and guiding the Tdh teams to validating findings with groups of beneficiaries and partners;
• Writing and submitting the first draft of evaluation report as well as finalizing it after the feedbacks provided by Tdh (cf. Tentative Workplan);
• Facilitating the Capitalization exercises in both Jordan and Lebanon with the participation of key stakeholders;

It’s also the responsibilities of the consultant to respect and fully integrate to his/her work the following ethical principles and considerations:

• The outcomes and conclusions of the evaluation must be correct, trustworthy, cross checked and open to scrutiny;
• The consultant must respect the privacy of the persons met and seek their informed consent to participate in the consultation; Specific procedures to seek informed consent from the children must be applied, adapted to the cognitive and emotional maturity
• The consultant must consider the level of vulnerability and protection status of the targeted beneficiaries and adapt their questions and attitude accordingly;
• Tdh has ‘the best interests of the child’ as its central theme of the consultancy. This is to be interwoven into all aspects. If during the process the consultant becomes aware of a child in need of protection and/or assistance, ‘the best interest of the child’ takes precedent over the desired outcomes of the consultancy. This consultancy should not put any child in danger and if a request is made for assistance or the consultant recognizes a risk, the appropriate resource agencies will be activated to assist the child when possible;
• The consultant must sign the Terre des hommes Child Safeguarding Policy (CSP) and Code of Conduct and be willing to adhere to its principles and expected practices. If a breach of the policy or code of conduct takes place the consultancy will be terminated immediately without any financial burden on Tdh.

Tdh will be in charge of:

• The costs and organization of flights, accommodations as well as movements to the field and in the field;
• The provision of a translator, if necessary;
• The coordinating with the consultant and leading the data collection process in-country;
• The mobilization of/ organization of meetings with key informants and beneficiaries;
• The provision of any additional information and clarifications as requested;
• The provision and facilitation of clear communication with the team and support by the team.

8. Profile of the consultant/team: qualifications and experience The consultant must have a strong background in the design, the implementation and the evaluation of humanitarian projects in protracted crisis.

Others requirements are:

• Experience in leading evaluations and capitalization exercises.
• Experience in working in the Child Protection sector in protracted crisis (and especially in PSS and Case Management, informal education, capacity building);
• Expertise in project cycle management, and project monitoring;
• Experience in community-based approach and capacity building project;
• Strong conceptual and analytical thinking;
• Excellent communication and writing skills in English. Arabic would be a strong asset (a translator shall be provided if needed);
• Excellent skills in operating in an intercultural environment;
• A successful experience in implementing and / or evaluating AFD and/or EU-Madad funded project would be an asset.

9. Budget

The consultant is required to mention in its application a daily rate in EUR, based on a total amount of 50 days required to carry out the consultancy. All other costs related to the consultancy (travel for in-country visit, accommodation, other logistical support) will be covered by Tdh. The payment will be issued in two parts:

1. 50% upon submission of first deliverable (inception report);
2. 50% upon acceptance of the final report.