Terms of Reference Evaluation of 3 Raising Her Voice Projects

Evaluation Overview:

Oxfam's Raising Her Voice (RHV) is a DFID funded programme to promote the rights and capacity of poor women to engage effectively in governance at all levels through increased voice and influence and more effective institutional accountability. RHV is a global programme that is being implemented through 17 country projects and one Pan-African project. 

As part of a larger organisational undertaking to better capture and communicate the effectiveness of its work, Oxfam GB (OGB) has randomly selected three Raising Her Voice projects - Raising Mozambican Women’s Voices (Mozambique); Promoting Women’s Rights Across Africa (Pan-Africa); and Local Partnership for Rural Development (Albania) - and desires to rigorously assess their effectiveness. 

The wider Raising Her Voice programme is coming to an end this year, and, in addition to serving as the final evaluation for each project, the evaluations of these 3 projects will feed into the final evaluation exercise for the global programme. As such, efforts will be made to ensure coherence with ongoing evaluations of other Raising Her Voice projects, as well as compliance with the DfID reporting requirements. 

These evaluations will use a predefined qualitative research protocol, Process Tracing, to assess the extent to which: a) changes that the project was seeking have taken place; and b) whether there is evidence that the project contributed to these changes. Guidelines outlining the core evaluation protocol have been prepared, and OGB is seeking an experienced external evaluation team to lead on the implementation of this methodology in these three contexts. 

These projects are being grouped into one tender to encourage a consistent and rigorous approach to their evaluation, stemming from both a good understanding of the global Raising Her Voice programme and its overarching Theory of Change, and proficiency with the predefined Process Tracing research protocol. It is expected that using the same evaluation team for all three with further enable consistency and comparability between the reports, and, where possible, facilitate economies of scale. 

The evaluation will be co-managed by the project teams and OGB’s Programme Performance & Accountability Team, and overseen and supported by one of OGB’s Global Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning advisors.

Projects:

Promoting Women’s Rights Across Africa

Promoting Women’s Rights Across Africa supports the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights Coalition (SOAWR) to accelerate ratification, domestication and implementation of the African Women’s Rights Protocol across the continent. SOAWR is made up of 39 organisations from across Africa, including all Raising Her Voice country partners Specifically, the Pan-African project aimed to influence: 
· Ratification of the Africa Women’s Rights Protocol, without harmful reservations, in at least three Raising Her Voice countries. 
· Domestication of the Protocol in at least five Raising Her Voice countries and increased ring-fenced funding for aims contained in the Protocol by at least four national Governments. 
· Improved capacity of all branches of the state, ensuring that Governments have the necessary skills and mechanisms to implement the Protocol effectively 

Raising Mozambican Women’s Voices

In Mozambique, ‘Raising Mozambican Women’s Voices’ has aimed to strenghten the role of women and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in promoting and protecting womens rights (in particular those related to Gender Based Violence) and increase government accountability to womens rights. The overall objectives of the project were: 
· Raising Awareness of citizens, particularly women, about their rights and exisiting mechanisms to hold government to account
· Promoting and strengthening a coordinated and active women's movement in Mozambique
· Working to influence relevant legislative framework, to ensure descriminatory laws are reformed and new laws on issues such as Domestic Violence and Women’s Inheritance are approved

Local Partnership for Rural Development

In Albania, a project named “Local partnership for rural development” worked in 3 regions (Shkodra, Vlora, Dibra) to establish Local Action Groups (LAG) in line with EU models, and support women in rural communities to engage with development issues .The overall objectives of the project were: 
· Local government, rural stakeholders and communities have information, capacities and support to foster local partnership for actions and advocacy on rural development
· LAGs in the three regions have the capacities to plan and implement actions/investments to support local development to represent the perspectives of women as well as men.
· LAGs in three regions are empowered to advocate for effective measures and investments to reduce poverty and develop their communities
· Rural women and men in the target regions, other local and national stakeholders are regularly informed on LAG initiatives by the use of traditional and innovative communication tools

Key Tasks

In line with the core evaluation protocol that has been prepared, key tasks include:

1. Undertake a process of (re)constructing the intervention’s theory of change, in order to clearly define the intervention being evaluated – what is it trying to change (outcomes), how it is working to effect these changes (strategies/ streams of activities) and what assumptions is it making about how it will contribute to these changes (key assumptions)

2. Work with relevant stakeholders to clearly specify the most recent intermediate and final outcomes the project expected (or is seeking) to achieve 

3. Systematically assess and document what was done under the project to achieve the targeted outcomes.

4. Identify and evidence which of the selected intervention outcomes have actually materialised, as well as any relevant associated outcomes. 

5. Undertake “process induction” to identify salient plausible causal explanations for the evidenced outcomes. 

6. Gather required data and use “process verification” to assess the extent to which each of the explanations identified in Step 5 are supported or not supported by the available evidence. 

7. Write a narrative analytical report to document the above research processes and findings. 

8. Summarise aspects of the above narrative analysis by allocating project/campaign “contribution scores” for each of the targeted and/ or associated outcomes. 

Key Qualifications, Skills, and Capabilities

The evaluation team should have the following qualifications, skills and capabilities (or make clear how they intend to complement their own qualifications, skills and capabilities to address any gaps):

1. Demonstrable experience of producing high-quality, credible evaluations (examples required) 

2. Proven track record in undertaking advocacy evaluations, or equivalent, particularly ones involving coalitions or complex partnerships 

3. Strong skills and experience in qualitative research methods in general and exploring causal links between campaigning activities and policy outcomes in particular

4. Familiarity with women’s empowerment and governance work

5. Strong understanding of/ experience with the 3 projects contexts, including a good understanding of: the African Women’s Rights protocol in Mozambique and other African contexts; the structures and politics of the African Union; and the development issues and LAG approach in the Albanian context 

6. Solid understanding of the civil society sectors in the project contexts (and/ or ability to link in with local expertise to complement evaluation team’s skill set as required)

7. Knowledge of community investment based on participatory needs assessment approach

8. Capacity to organise all relevant logistics to effectively carry out the assignment (including project management and quality assurance, and any sub-contracts)

9. Ability to communicate in Portuguese and Albanian essential (expectation that this may be met by subcontracting or the use of translators)

10. Ability to write concise, readable and analytical reports with an understanding of public communications

11. Experience delivering evaluations of similar DfID funded programmes desirable

Time Commitment

· It is anticipated that the evaluation of each project will take approximately 20-25 working days to complete, spread across approximately 2.5 months, as dictated by stakeholder availability

· The evaluation will commence on or before November 1, 2012 

· The final evaluation report for Mozambique should be completed and submitted by December 14, 2012

· The final evaluation report for Albania and Pan-Africa should be completed and submitted by January 14, 2013

Deliverables

For each project:

· Final evaluation report of publishable quality that details evidenced findings and documents the research processes, including a summary of programme learning considerations that can be used to inform programming going forward (with expectation of 2 draft evaluation reports for comment)
Note: summary/ synthesis report not requested

· Summary of narrative analysis in the form of ‘contribution scores’ for each of the targeted and associated outcomes

Along with written feedback on the evaluation team’s experience of using the Process Tracing methodology

Indicative Budget

The indicative budget for this evaluation is approximately £24,000 including VAT, as an agreed price for the totality of the work, with the evaluation team expected to manage the number of days spent on the evaluation and all expenses associated with trips to the various countries and any sub-contracts. 

Submitting an Expression of Interest 

Oxfam invites bids from individuals with the experience and skills described above. Tenders must include:

1. A cover letter of no more than 2 pages introducing the evaluator(s) and how the skills and competencies described above are met, with concrete examples as appropriate. Please also use this cover letter to indicate availability at critical periods.
2. A 1-page budget covering all major anticipated costs, including where the team may need to subcontract to local evaluators for issues of language or contextual/ thematic expertise 
(note: Oxfam prefers to pay an agreed price for the totality of the work including the field trips, and it is likely that this would be paid in phased instalments.)
3. CVs detailing relevant skills and experience of no more than 2 pages, including contactable referees (Where subcontracting to local evaluators is proposed, please either provide the CVs of local evaluators where relationships exist or indicate the process that will be used to identify and recruit such evaluators)
4. Details of Project Management and/ or Quality Assurance arrangements
5. One example of a relevant previous evaluation (one each for joint bids)

Tender should be sent to PPAT@oxfam.org.uk and received no later than 5pm GMT, Wednesday October 3, 2012

Short-listed candidates will be contacted on or before October 8th, 2012 and invited to interview that week October 9-12, 2012) 

Intellectual Property

As per clause 9 of Oxfam’s standard consultancy contract (see annex C) ownership and copyright of all data, drafts and final products will be the sole and exclusive property of Oxfam Great Britain.