VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT FOR CONSULTANCY

Concern Worldwide is an Irish-based non-governmental, international, humanitarian organization, dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries. Concern is currently recruiting the below post:

Job CODE: 22-003 NC (You must quote this code on your application)

Job Title: FINAL EVALUATION OF THE IRISH AID PROGRAMME GRANT IN LIBERIA – CONSULTANT

Location: Montserrado and Grand Bassa Counties.

Reporting To: PD, Programmes Coordinators and programmes team

Job Purpose: This is the Final Evaluation of the 5 year Irish Aid Programme Grant(IAPG) 2017-2021 (now extended to 2022) in Liberia. The evaluation will be led by a Lead Evaluator and their relevant required team recruited through this ToR. This evaluation of the IAPG funded Accelerating Nutrition and Sustainable Agriculture and Resource Management (ANSARM) programme in Liberia will be used by Concern Worldwide’s country team for learning and in order to feed into the design of future programming. Certain aspects of the programme such as community ownership, community action planning, the ‘We Are One’ gender transformative approach and the WASH work need to be examined closely to make recommendations on sustainability issues before proceeding to the next 5 year programme cycle

Background

Liberia faced significant issues in 2021 with stagnant economic growth of -2.9%1, inflation not at a manageable level (11% in 20222) and a deteriorating food security situation. Unpublished food security assessments for 2020 and 2021 conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), WFP and FAO, indicated that up to a 2.3million Liberians are not meeting their basic food needs. Cadre Harmonise did two country visits in 2021 and raised that during the lean season 939,3813Liberians will be in stage 3 or 4 of the IPC food insecurity categories (serious and urgent). A shocking increase considering food security in Liberia prior to COVID-19 was relatively stable with fluctuations up to approximately 150,000 people on a seasonal basis. According to the latest Demographic Health Survey of Liberia done in 2019-2020 Rivercess and Grand Bassa Counties have among the highest levels of malnutrition in the Country and Concern’s recently reviewed Risk and Vulnerability Analysis placed both counties in the bottom four across all these indicators in Liberia.

Restricted movement related to COVID-19 public health measures in 2020 impacted upon access to health services. Inter-County restrictions, combined with curfews and restrictions on numbers of people at public gatherings, also significantly impacted upon livelihoods. Farmers struggled to access inputs and markets leading to major losses in incomes at the same time as prices rose sharply. As transpired during the Ebola crisis, the school closures also increased the risk to children of physical and emotional abuse, with young girls in particular at higher risk of GBV and teenage pregnancies. Liberia recorded a 50% increase in gender based violence in the first half of 2020. Between January and June, there were more than 600 reported rape cases.4 Although the President of Liberia declared a state of emergency there has been no follow up of note. More broadly the situation for women in Liberia remains challenging with 67% of women earning less than their husbands and 11% of households women not included in household decision making.

Description of the Irish Aid Programme in Liberia

The ANSARM programme in Liberia is an integrated nutrition programme with Livelihoods, WASH and gender equality. The overall aim of the programme is to ensure communities adopt sustainable social, health and economic practices with a focus on increased return on productive assets, reduction in risks and vulnerabilities and promotion of gender equitable attitudes and practices. The main objective is to reduce the prevalence of malnutrition through improved agricultural practices and WASH initiatives, especially for diarrhoea exacerbated malnutrition, while promoting gender equitable attitudes that enhance access to productive assets. The programme includes natural resources management linked to agriculture and safe water supply by promoting environmentally sensitive agricultural practices and ensuring sustainability of water resources. The expected outcomes of the programme focus on addressing the three dimensions of poverty through the lens of Concern’s (2010) policy paper: “How Concern understands Extreme Poverty” (HCUEP). These are assets and returns on assets, inequality and especially gender inequality and risk and vulnerability. The expected outcomes are; (1) Target households and communities have improved and sustainable food and livelihoods security; (2) There will be sustained improved WASH knowledge, attitude, and practice and reduced instance of water-borne illness and diseases in target communities; (3): Increased gender equitable behaviours in target communities and households within target communities; (4): There will be improved nutrition and health for mothers and children under-5s (U5s) in target households; and (5): Concern Liberia has contributed to advocacy efforts to promote and support effective sub national governance. The approach was designed to strengthen community ownership of the programme using Mother Groups (MG), Community Savings and Loans Associations (CSLA), water management committees and identifying change makers at community level to tackle gender transformation. The model combines a comprehensive nutrition curriculum with a community savings and loans association approach that empowers the community to own their own improvements and includes interventions that address gender-based violence. Gender transformation is implemented using the We Are One (WAO) gender transformative approach designed by a South African NGO specialising in gender equality, prevention of GBV and HIV. The ANSARM

programme targets 150 communities across three cohorts in Grand Bassa and Rivercess counties reaching an estimated number of 35,550 direct beneficiaries (21,330 female and 14,220 male). The beneficiary households are highly vulnerable consisting of poor young female-headed households; children under five years; the Elderly, disabled, chronically ill; and/or poor farmers.

Evaluation objectives and scope

The objective of this evaluation is to provide an assessment of the ANSARM programme in Liberia against each of the DAC criteria that will feed into the next round of Irish Aid programming in Liberia. The evaluation should focus on the design, implementation, activities and results of the ANSARM programme Liberia and will cover the time period from 2017 to quarter 1 2022. This evaluation will be used by Concern Worldwide’s country team for learning and in order to feed into the design of future programming, including from other donors and should therefore offer concrete and targeted recommendations for improving programming going forward.

Evaluation questions

Relevance

∙ Was there an appropriate contextual analysis carried out to inform programme design, which was based on Concerns Understanding of Extreme Poverty?

∙ Did the Theory of Change (ToC) hold true? What was the intended results chain and did the actual results follow this intended result chain? ∙ How appropriate were the chosen interventions and programme design to the situation and needs of different stakeholders at different levels (micro meso and macro, and considering the needs of men, women and others identified as vulnerable to hazards in the programme area)? ∙ Did the organisation adapt appropriately in response to changes in the context (especially COVID-19), needs of participants/beneficiaries and lessons learnt during the implementation of the intervention?

∙ What was the level of participation of programme beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of the programme? Was an adequate Complaints Response Mechanism (CRM) system in place?

Coherence

∙ Was the programme and associated outcomes relevant, appropriate and strategic to national goals and Concern policies and guidelines? ∙ Was the invention carried out in co-ordination with others, and what was the extent to which the intervention added value while avoiding duplication of effort?

∙ What were the synergies and interlinkages between the intervention being evaluated and other interventions carried out by Concern, as well as the consistency of the intervention with the relevant international norms and standards to which Concern adheres?

Efficiency

∙ Did the intervention use the available resources (both human and financial) in the most efficient manner to achieve its outputs? Could things have been done differently and how?

∙ Was the programme M&E system fit for purpose?

Effectiveness

∙ Were the outputs and outcomes achieved and to what degree (assessed through a baseline/end line indicator data comparison against results framework/logical framework targets, monitoring data, and data collected in the evaluation)?

∙ Was the programme logic well thought through and did the activities lead to the desired outcomes?

∙ What steps were taken to address issues of inequality and ensure the interests of the most marginalised were taken on board during programme planning, implementation and monitoring? How effective was the ‘We Are One’ gender transformative approach?

∙ How effective were the WASH (including Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS)) activities in achieving the desired outcomes and how can this be improved?

∙ Did the programme successfully achieve results in each dimension of extreme poverty and what are the potential implications of this? ∙ Did the programme have any unintended and unexpected consequences, and if so have these been addressed in the programme and how? ∙ Give recommendations on aspects of the programme that could lend themselves to being scaled up more broadly in Liberia Impact

∙ What indications are there of significant changes taking place beyond the programme – both positive and negative? ∙ How have the programme interventions impacted differently on men and women, boys and girls, people with disabilities (and other vulnerable groups as identified) in the programme area?

Sustainability

∙ Are the results sustainable? Will the outputs and outcomes lead to benefits beyond the life of the existing programme? ∙ Did the programme enhance local ownership and capacity to influence policy?

∙ How might we do things better in the future? Which findings may have relevance for future programming or for other similar initiatives elsewhere?

∙ Where interventions are coming to a conclusion, the evaluation should review any exit strategy and the appropriateness of this.

Methodology

The Lead Evaluator will be an external consultant who will lead the evaluation process, assess available documents and quantitative data, conduct primary qualitative data collection, analysis findings and produce the evaluation report for the ANSARM programme. The Lead Evaluator will be expected

to develop an appropriate work plan for the evaluation and needs to ensure it is relevant to the country context. The work plan must be as participatory as possible under the current conditions, involving different stakeholders including beneficiaries, partners, Concern staff and other stakeholders.

The prescribed methodology will include the following activities:

∙ Detailed document review including Country Context Analysis; ANSARM Theory of Change; ANSARM Programme Toolkit (which should include updated M&E plan); ANSARM Results Frameworks 2017-2022; Report of ANSARM Mid Term Review/Evaluation ∙ Assessment of achievement of indicators under each outcome using existing quantitative data from Concern Digital Data Gathering (DDG) system, summarised on the Irish Aid Zoho Dashboards, as well as assessment of other available monitoring data

∙ Key Informant Interviews with Key Programme staff; partner staff; relevant local authorities; key programme participants/community leaders

∙ Focus Group Discussions5 with programme participants (appropriately disaggregated). Where focus groups are not possible, remote data collection with programme participants should be considered

Expected products/outputs (including critical elements to be addressed in a final report)

Final Report

The outputs of this evaluation will include a final evaluation report which will contain:

∙ An executive summary (no more than 3 pages)

∙ An appraisal of how well the programme has fared against each of the DAC criteria using the following grading scale, where: 5 – Outstanding/Exceptional Performance

4- Very good overall performance (above expectation)

3 – Good overall performance s (as expected)

2 – Acceptable performance but with some shortcomings

1- Barely acceptable performance with some major shortcomings

0- Totally unacceptable performance or insufficient data to make an assessment

∙ Targeted recommendations for improving future programming

The report should follow the template in Annex III and should be no more than 25 pages (15 pages focused on findings and conclusions against DAC criteria). Briefings and Presentations

An in-country briefing with Concern Worldwide Liberia country team should also be held to give a preliminary overview of the main findings. A virtual meeting (e.g., Zoom; MicroSoft Teams or Skype) should also be held with country teams to discuss feedback on the draft Evaluation report,

before the report is finalised and signed off by the Regional Director. A PowerPoint presentation (or similar) must be prepared for each briefing and shared.

Data

Data gathered during the evaluation, including references to all quantitative and qualitative data sources must be provided, along with any data sets used in data analysis included in the final report, as well as notes, recordings, images, etc from key informant interviews and focus groups for validation and quality assurance.

Reporting lines

In-country reporting will be to the Programme Director, keeping the Country Director as well as the MEAL Coordinator and the ANSARM Programme Coordinator informed throughout.

Composition, skills and experience of the Evaluation team

ANSARM Lead Evaluator

The Lead Evaluator will have the following responsibilities:

∙ Lead planning and preparations for country programme data collection and collation, ensuring all permissions necessary for conducting data collection and collation have been granted and are adhered to (including any ethical clearance/permissions).

∙ With Concern country programme staff and programme implementers identify key informants for interview and focus group participants, coordinate and support stakeholder engagement

∙ Conduct in-country data collection (observations, KIIs and FGDs etc) and collate data

∙ Facilitate key in-country meetings/workshops with Concern country programme staff and other key stakeholders were necessary ∙ Conduct ANSARM country programme evaluation data analysis and interpretation

∙ Write ANSARM country programme evaluation report

The Lead Evaluator should have the following skills and experience:

∙ Experience of conducting evaluations of country programmes

∙ Technical expertise relevant to the ANSARM country programme

∙ Experience of qualitative data collection methods, including participatory approaches

∙ Experience of working remotely with a distributed team, including providing support to colleagues at a distance ∙ Ability to assess the quality of programmatic data collection systems, analyse budgets, results frameworks, M+E reports and surveys, and other documents.

∙ Experience of writing evaluation reports to a high standard, in English

∙ Experience of working as part of an agile team

Plan for Evaluation implementation (including timelines)

The evaluation of the IAPG ANSARM programme in Liberia will be carried out in Q1-Q2 2022.

Duration of evaluation will be approximately 4 weeks and will include

∙ 0.5 week desk review of documents,

∙ 2 weeks field work to include initial orientation with teams, all primary qualitative data collection, preliminary analysis and briefing with country teams on initial findings and recommendations,

∙ 1 week for data analysis and to produce draft report

∙ 0.5 week for virtual presentation and incorporating feedback in Final Evaluation Report

During the evaluation the Lead Evaluator will have access to the programme team and MEAL team as required.

How to Apply

Interested evaluators need to submit the following:

∙ Evaluation Plan, including a timeline and methodology

∙ Evaluation Team, their Roles and Responsibilities and Level of Effort

∙ CVs of evaluators and examples of previous similar work

∙ Comprehensive budget and costings. Proposals submitted without a detailed budget will not be considered.6

These documents should be submitted to John Reid (john.reid@concern.net), Ciara Begley (Ciara.begley@concern.net) and Joseph Odyek (joseph.odyek@concern.net).

Budget and financial proposal should be inclusive of VAT/GST/Sales Tax, and/or Withholding Tax as applicable. Consultants should notify Concern if they propose/are required to charge taxes. Where so notified Concern will pay such VAT/Sales Tax (if any) as may be chargeable subject on the receipt of an appropriate VAT invoice. The consultancy fee will be subject to a 15% Withholding Tax for the Liberia Revenue Authority unless proof of exemption can be provided. (Note: if the consultant is based outside Liberia, Concern will purchase an economy return airfare the cost of which should not be included when quoting fees inclusive of daily rates, administration, and meals, likewise Concern will cover the cost of a relevant visa where applicable)

Annexes

1. Programme logical framework
2. Programme Participant Protection Policy(P4)

iii. Country Report Structure

Annex i. High Level Logframe ANSARM programme Liberia 2017-2022

Annex II Programme Participant Protection Policy(P4)

Annex III – Report Structure

Title Page

Executive Summary

1. Introduction

1.1. Background to the Country Programme

1.2. Background to the IAPG Activities In-country

2. Methodology

2.1. Objectives of the Evaluation

2.2. Methods Used

2.3. Limitations

3. Results

3.1. Relevance

3.2. Effectiveness

3.3. Sustainability

3.4. Impact

3.5. Efficiency

3.6. Cross-Cutting Issues

4. Lessons Learned & Recommendations 5. Appendices

DAC Appraisal Scale

The Evaluation Team is required to provide an appraisal of how well the programme has fared against each of the DAC criteria used in the evaluation, using the following grading scale, where:

∙ 5: Outstanding/Exceptional Performance

∙ 4: Very good overall performance (above expectation)

∙ 3: Good overall performance s (as expected)

∙ 2: Acceptable performance but with some shortcomings

∙ 1: Barely acceptable performance with some major shortcomings

∙ 0: Totally unacceptable performance or insufficient data to make an assessment

This scale is applied to each of the DAC criteria, considering the three different levels of influence (micro, meso, macro) and an overall performance score. The results of this appraisal are presented in summary form on the Title Page of the report and in detail form at the start of each sub-section discussing each DAC criterion.

The following format must be used on the Title Page of the evaluation report:

Programme scores against DAC criteria

The following format must be used to present the DAC criteria assessment at the start of each sub-section in Section 3: Results:

How to apply:

By email to: liberia.hr@concern.net with the JOB CODE 22-003 NC – FINAL EVALUATION OF THE IRISH AID PROGRAMME GRANT IN LIBERIA – CONSULTANT clearly in the SUBJECT LINE.

By Hand to: HR Department, Concern Worldwide, Building Number-5 Andalucía’s Complex Compound Number-2, Between 6th & 7th Streets Sinkor Beachside, Behind Home City Furniture Store, Monrovia.

JOB CODE 22-003 NC – FINAL EVALUATION OF THE IRISH AID PROGRAMME GRANT IN LIBERIA – CONSULTANT

Interested evaluators need to submit the following:

∙ JOB CODE 22-003 NC – FINAL EVALUATION OF THE IRISH AID PROGRAMME GRANT IN LIBERIA – CONSULTANT ∙ Evaluation Plan, including a timeline and methodology

∙ Evaluation Team, their Roles and Responsibilities and Level of Effort

∙ CVs of evaluators and examples of previous similar work

∙ Comprehensive budget and costings. Proposals submitted without a detailed budget will not be considered

CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS IS Monday 7th MARCH 2022 @17:00GMT, application received after this time will not be considered.

Any Question(s) in relation to the ToR please send to the following emails: (john.reid@concern.net), (Ciara.begley@concern.net) and (joseph.odyek@concern.net).

Download: you can download a copy of the advert at: 22-003 NC – FINAL EVALUATION OF THE IRISH AID PROGRAMME GRANT IN LIBERIA – CONSULTANT

ONLY SHORTLISTED CANDIDATES WILL BE CONTACTED.

WOMEN ARE HIGHLY ENCOURAGED TO APPLY.

Concern Worldwide is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications from all sections of society. While all applicants will be strictly assessed on their individual merit, qualified women are particularly encouraged to apply.