Overview of the Project
Saferworld in partnership with the Alliance for Communities in Hardship areas (ALCHA), the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (CJPC), the Organisation of African Instituted Churches (OAIC), Pamoja for Transformation, and the Pastoralist Integrated Support Programme (PISP) is undertaking a project titled “Building Effective Responses for Peaceful Elections in Kenya”.
The project which is funded by Department for International Development (DFID) and managed by Development Alternative Inc (DAI) focuses on reducing the potential for violence occurring before, during and after the 2017 general elections. The project will contribute to systemic conflict prevention and behavioral change by supporting state and non-state peace actors at national, county and community level to address conflicts directly and to advocate for others to do the same. The project is being implemented in five counties namely, Isiolo, Marsabit, Migori, Uasin Gishu and Trans Nzoia with specific activities targeting religious leaders and Civil Society organisations (CSOs) at National level.
The Project seeks to contribute to the following:
Impact: Free, fair and peaceful electoral processes around the 2017 general elections in Kenya.
Outcome: State and non-state actors at national, county and community levels respond effectively to the causes and incidents of violence and insecurity around the 2017 general elections.
Output 1: Peace actors at national level have increased knowledge and skills to identify and respond to election-related violence risks through direct action and influencing the actions of others
Output 2: Peace actors and institutions at county level have increased knowledge and skills to identify and respond to elections-related violence through direct action and networking with others
Output 3: *Communities in identified hotspots have enhanced skills to resolve any emerging conflicts and engage constructively and peacefully in electoral processes***Purpose and objectives of the evaluation**
The purpose of the end term evaluation is to assess the intended and unintended outcomes of the project and determine the level of the project’s contribution to these outcomes.
The specific objectives of the evaluation are to:
Identify and describe the outcomes (expected and unexpected) from the project implementation.
Establish the contribution (causal link which is either direct or indirect) of the project to the identified outcomes
Establish the status and potential of sustainability of the project after eighteen months of the implementation Identify good practices and lessons learnt related to the project operational contexts, actors engaged, strategies applied in the implementation and changes observed
Assess how the local implementing partners were involved in project management and how effective was the partnership
Evaluation questions
This evaluation seek to answer the following evaluation questions. The evaluator will be free to adjust or add to these questions to ensure sufficient data is collected?
Who are the different actors (the target actors or target group) who have benefitted or been involved in this project? What did each do/doing differently (change/outcomes), when and where?
Why each of the outcomes (actors acting differently) is/was significant to project context?
What is the project contribution to each outcome? What investment the project has done? Who else has contributed to these changes? Is there evidence?
How sustainable are the changes observed by the implementing partners as well as the actors engaged in this project?
Evaluation Methodology
This evaluation will exclusively use Outcome Harvesting (OH) methodology. The focus on the Outcome Harvesting evaluation is to interact with various categories of target actors with the aim of establishing how they have acted differently as a result of the project activities. It is expected that the evaluator will engage project team, local partner and target actors in the identifying and documenting significant outcomes realized during the project implementation.
The outcomes information will collected through:
Review the project documents including monitoring data on the outputs and outcomes and identify preliminary outcomes
Conduct interviews with project team to expound on the identified outcomes and generate more significant outcomes
Conduct interviews with staff of the local partners spread across 5 target counties and national level partners to further discuss already harvested outcomes and further identify more outcomes. The consultant will be expected to visit the five counties and hold partners’ interview and focus group discussions.
Hold focus group discussion with target beneficiaries at county level to further generate evidence on the documented outcomes
Hold an analysis workshop with project team to critically make sense of the identified outcomes and sample outcomes to be substantiated.
The consultants to identify the experts in elections management and peace building, then be given the selected outcomes to validate and give feedback report.
The evaluator will also be expected to use Most Significant Change methodology to collect at least 2 change stories per partner and select 3 Most Significant Change stories that will be part of the final evaluation report. These outcome monitoring methodologies must be described by the evaluator in the proposal clearly outlining how practically they will be used during the data collection.
Activity Schedule
The evaluation is expected to start from 30th November 2017 to 31st January 2018. This period includes the desk review, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, site visits to Isiolo, Marsabit, Migori, Uasin Gishu and Trans Nzoia counties,as well as outcome analysis and reporting writing.
Key expectations from evaluator
The evaluator will be expected to submit the following deliverables in time in compliance with standard requirements:
A 5 page inception report detailing the evaluation methodology, work plan/schedule and draft data collection tools.
A 3 page activity report explaining how the data collection process was done, challenges/limitation faced that may affect the findings and preliminary findings. To be presented to MEL coordinator a day after field visits to target counties.
Validation Workshop of evaluation findings with project stakeholders after generating the draft evaluation report. A short presentation of outcome findings, insights into contribution pathways and feasible recommendation must be shared with the project team a day before the validation workshop.
Final Evaluation report of no more than 20 pages (excluding executive summary, references & annexes). This will be presented to Saferworld in 2 hard copies and soft copy.
Most Significant Change Stories: At minimum of 3 – one-page Most Significant Change stories must be part of the annexes.
Other documents/materials such as raw data files, quantitative data files, transcripts of FGDs, photographs taken, outcomes matrix per partner, alteast 16 change stories.Management of the Evaluation process
The evaluation exercise will be managed by the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Coordinator – Kenya Programme and supported by the Project Manager, Project Officer and Project Assistant. Any matter related to evaluation process should be presented to MEL coordinator in writing. The evaluator will also be accompanied to the field by members of the project team to give any support if need be and if they are available.
Requirements
Saferworld is looking for an interested and experienced individual or a team of evaluators in support of this evaluation consultancy. The applicant must have:
Experience in conducting evaluations on peacebuilding, Conflict management, conflict sensitivity and/or other relevant sectors.
In depth knowledge of the Kenya context especially dynamics in the target counties during the elections period.
An advanced degree in developmental studies, peace and conflict management and other relevant field.
Demonstrable practical experience in monitoring and evaluation approaches. Practical experience in Outcome Harvesting, Most Significant Change and Utilisation focused evaluation tools will be an added advantage.
Knowledge of peacebuilding and conflict management processes and approaches
