Tender for evaluation of Islamic Relief Afghanistan’s home based education for women project, August 2019

Islamic Relief Worldwide

Islamic Relief is an international aid and development charity, which aims to alleviate the suffering of the world's poorest people. It is an independent Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) founded in the UK in 1984.

As well as responding to disasters and emergencies, Islamic Relief promotes sustainable economic and social development by working with local communities - regardless of race, religion or gender.

Our vision:

Inspired by our Islamic faith and guided by our values, we envisage a caring world where communities are empowered, social obligations are fulfilled and people respond as one to the suffering of others.

Our mission:

Exemplifying our Islamic values, we will mobilise resources, build partnerships, and develop local capacity, as we work to:

Enable communities to mitigate the effect of disasters, prepare for their occurrence and respond by providing relief, protection and recovery.

Promote integrated development and environmental custodianship with a focus on sustainable livelihoods.

Support the marginalised and vulnerable to voice their needs and address root causes of poverty.

We allocate these resources regardless of race, political affiliation, gender or belief, and without expecting anything in return.

At the international level, Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) has consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council, and is a signatory to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Code of Conduct. IRW is committed to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through raising awareness of the issues that affect poor communities and through its work on the ground. Islamic Relief are one of only 13 charities that have fulfilled the criteria and have become members of the Disasters Emergency Committee (www.dec.org.uk)

IRW endeavours to work closely with local communities, focussing on capacity-building and empowerment to help them achieve development without dependency.

Please see our website for more information http://www.islamic-relief.org/

Appendix 1

The evaluator should assess the extent to which:

1. The project concept was appropriate to the problems it was supposed to address, taking into account the prevailing political and social economic situation in Afghanistan (relevance)

2. The intervention was based on participatory assessment of the situation and affected population (relevance)

3. Community members participated in project development and implementation and ensure the inclusion of vulnerable populations (relevance)

4. The project benefited from replication and longer term commitments (relevance)

5. Community resources were identified and mobilised? (efficiency)

6. Coordination took place with relevant education authorities and stakeholders (efficiency)

7. Monitoring and evaluation systems were built into the project design (efficiency, effectiveness)

8. Sustainability been considered in planning and execution of activities particularly in respect to institutions, formal and non-formal, as well as technical and cross cutting issues? (sustainability)

9. The intervention was designed to strengthen national education and women’s empowerment programmes? (sustainability)

And provide answers to:

What changed? How did Islamic Relief contribute to the change? From whose perspective has it changed? How do we know it has changed? (impact)

The evaluation needs to consider evidence of:

• overt human rights-based approaches framing country programme;

• strategic alignment of project with country-based education sector plans;

• strong rationale for the technical soundness of activities;

• consistent consideration of cross-cutting issues;

• a theory of change underpinning project design;

• deep connection to participatory processes.

On the basis of the above, the evaluator will,

• Measure the extent to which the project is successful in achieving its purposes. Analyse strengths and weaknesses of the project and identify lessons learned.

• Develop detailed recommendations how Islamic Relief can achieve better project outcomes and its strategic objectives in the education sector

Suggested Report Layout (Consultants are invited to offer alternative layouts):

Executive Summary: Max 3 pages (this should be publishable externally – so should contain summarised key findings and recommendations)

Methodology of the evaluation and any challenges or limitations: 2 pages max:

Introduction – 3 pages max: Overview of the project(s) including relevant charts, tables and graphs to summarise and illustrate key data succinctly.

Mapping of project – max 6 pages: Data and narrative, supported with appropriate graphs, charts and tables to reflect the mapping of project and analysis. Where there are chart or tables created to support analysis but not included in the main report, please share as an annex or separate file.

Theories of change/logic models underpinning projects – based on project logic models/logical frameworks, most significant/prominent case studies

• Outcome and impacts planned and achieved for the projects:

• common results planned and achieved

Comparison with external best practice, institutional donor education programme objectives and ToCs – gaps and opportunities for IR.

Other key features of project – max 4 pages: Stand-out features of projects; innovations, use of technology, sustainability features; features that highlight impact on women and children or older persons, persons with disability etc. Adoption of conflict sensitivity, Disaster Risk Reduction/climate change adaptation and resilience mainstreaming and alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (may be conceptualised as Climate Sensitive Risk-informed Development’). To what degree have these elements been value-adding to realising project outcomes, impact and sustainability objectives?

Feature of project – max 8 pages: discussion of aspects of project given in annex 1

Further field study needed – max 3 page: Implications for further developing IRW’s education programming in Afghanistan and globally both within development and emergency contexts.

Conclusions and recommendations – max 3 pages:

• Provide an assessment of the outcome measure, impact and sustainability

• Highlight best practice and innovations and stand-out features

• Highlight core weakness, limitations, key learning and recommendations

• Recommend way forward for IR global education programming to align with best practice, donor priorities, contribution to relevant SDGs

• Include recommendations on outcome measurement and impact assessment methodologies to incorporated within projects to allow for better outcome and impact measurement of new projects and programmes

Full report – max 32 pages including executive summary.

Project Background

Islamic Relief’s Global Strategy 2017-21 identifies a mission to “Promote integrated development and environmental custodianship… regardless of race, political affiliation, age, gender, abilities or belief, and without expecting anything in return”. Our vision includes “Empowering local communities to overcome poverty and vulnerability”. To do this “We aim to complement humanitarian work with a stronger portfolio of longer-term integrated development programmes across our core programme countries, improving the lives of poor and marginalised people (of all faiths and none) through this work”. The global strategy states that “by 2021 we will have completed consultation on and development of a strategy to make a significant impact on educational attainment from both a programme and resource mobilisation perspective. The global strategy further states, that by 2021 we would have ‘developed an IR strategy for a significant contribution to educational attainment within the countries in which we work.’ This outputs from this assignment will contribute to the development of an IRW educational strategy and inform short to medium term funding and programming priorities, plans and actions related to enhancing the effectiveness and impact of IRW educational programmes globally.

Islamic Relief implements a wide range of education projects globally in humanitarian, conflict and development contexts. Examples of type of education related projects and interventions range from support to formal basic/primary education, early childhood education development, through to teachers training, improving school infrastructure including classrooms, water, hygiene and sanitation, support for children with special needs such as those with living with hearing and sight disabilities, provision of basic education to agro pastoral and pastoralist children who have no access to formal schools through a staggered curriculum transforming of the non-formal schools into formal schools where the government had allocated budgets to support to and for tertiary education and technical and vocational educational centres. The project under consideration here extends the portfolio to home-based adult learning.

Objectives

The aim of this consultancy is to provide a detailed evaluation of Islamic Relief’s Home based Education for Women project in Afghanistan against its stated objectives and specific criteria of holistic, integrated design and delivery.

The project is a long-term intervention which is reaching its conclusion at the end of the year. While the focus for the evaluation will necessarily be on the most recent two year segment of the initiative, it will be expected to investigate and analyse previous projects especially with a view to assessing longer term outcomes and impacts. The objectives for this consultancy will be mainly summative, capturing evidence of its impact on educational attainment and its effect on the women’s lives, and drawing out learning that can contribute to an understanding of the current status, approaches, gaps and potential opportunities in further developing IRW’s education programming globally both within development and emergency contexts

This consultancy will involve document reviews, emailing, field observations, face to face interviews, focus groups, virtual- and tele-meetings and other means of eliciting quantitative and qualitative data. The resulting reports will inform programme, policy and advocacy development, regional and country coordinators, programme managers and officers and the global education advisor on appointment to support situation analyses, funding, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of education related work throughout the organisation.

Consultancy Goals

1. To provide primary evidence of outcomes and programme impact[1], potential and achieved, to support Islamic Relief to achieve better project outcomes and its strategic objectives in the education sector

2. Islamic Relief will be able to utilise this information to inform its programme, policy, advocacy and planning towards its contribution to SDG4 (and related goals) and support its funding positioning.

Implementation Framework

Consultants are invited to propose the specific methodology as part of this call. In general, it is envisaged this will involve document reviews, emailing, field observations, face to face interviews, focus groups, virtual- and tele-meetings, distributing and analysing the results surveys, and other means of eliciting data to achieve the goals above.

· Please refer to annex 1 for the specific scope of assignment highlighting key questions this evaluation seeks to answer and suggested final report outline.

· The consultant is expected to propose a suitably robust methodology through which areas highlighted in annex 1 can and will be most readily extracted, analysed, synthesised and reported back, within a 3 month consultancy time period, to provide a contribution to understanding of the current status, approaches, gaps and potential opportunities in further developing IRW’s education programming globally both within development and emergency contexts.

· The proposal should also take into account projects may lack evaluation reports and other baseline or end line data; and if ongoing may not have final reports. In such situation, the consultant should consider and propose suitable alternative methodology which can be used to determine project details and provide indicative, relevant and credible findings and recommendations.

Policy Framework

The consultant will be expected to work within and abide by Islamic Relief’s policy frameworks on communications, information management, human resources etc. and will be obliged to sign an agreement assuring the confidentiality of data and information utilised and collected in pursuance of the consultancy. The consultant will be sensitive and compliant to any requirements of GDPR.

The consultant will abide by and observe Islamic Relief’s Child Protection Policy and if appropriate provide evidence of criminal record check clearance or equivalent

The report will be produced for internal audience but may be edited and adapted for external publication by IRW for wider communication and learning purposes.

Reporting Framework and Schedule

Brief reports (written or oral) on progress against implementation plan weekly for the duration of the project.

Deliverables

Deliverables for this project would be;

1. Written implementation plan agreed with Programme Impact and Learning Manager within one week of commencement.

2. Workshops in both countries building capacity to conduct participatory evaluations

3. Narrative account, not exceeding 32 pages describing the projects and potential approaches, gaps and potential opportunities in further developing IRW’s education programming globally both within development and emergency contexts.

4. Executive summary incorporated in the above, not exceeding 3 pages

5. Soft copies of any substantial MS Excel or Word documents or other documents created to support mapping and analysis from which the findings in the main report have been extrapolated – including any tables, charts, graphs etc.

Accountability

The consultant will be responsible for conducting the activities and delivering the outputs set out in this terms of reference and will coordinate all activities with and through the Programme Impact & Learning Manager, regional desks and country offices. The Programme Impact & Learning Manager is responsible for facilitating access to all relevant and available documents (proposals, donor reports and evaluation reports) and wider staff necessary for the consultant to conduct these activities and deliver the outputs.

Required competences

Required Competencies of the consultant would be;

1. Have a broad understanding and experience of conducting participatory evaluations, outcome and impact assessments and reviews using a variety of methodologies and conducting desk reviews and studies.

2. Must have experience in accessing and managing diverse data, and extracting relevant information from them and drawing appropriate conclusions and recommendations

3. Must be able to converse with stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds in order to elicit specific information

4. Will have either significant technical and/or practical field-based or relevant academic experience of the Education Sector in the context of international development and emergencies and be able to us this knowledge to construct effective enquiries and order information received.

5. Will write informatively and succinctly in English

6. Respect the values of Islamic Relief

Project outputs

The consultant is expected to produce:

• A detailed work plan developed with and approved by IRW, setting out the detailed methodology and deliverables prior to commencing the desk review.

• A full report with the following sections:

a) Title of Report: Evaluation of Islamic Relief Afghanistan Home-based Education for Women project

b) Consultancy organisation and any partner names

c) Name of person who compiled the report including summary of role/contribution of others in the team

d) Period during which the review was undertaken

e) Acknowledgements

f) Abbreviations

g) Table of contents

h) Executive summary

i) Main report – max 32 pages (please see indicative layout in annex 1 below – consultant is invited to propose most suitable report structure layout)

j) Annexes

· Terms of reference for the review

· Profile of the review team members

· Review schedule

· Documents consulted during the desk review

· Persons participating in the review

· Field data used during the review

· Additional key overview tables, graphs or charts etc. created and used to support analysis inform findings

· Bibliography

k) The consultant will be required to visit IRW HQ and provide feedback on and answer questions about the findings from the desk review. This meeting can be attended remotely by the consultant via video conference where the consultant is outside the UK or based on request from the consultant.

Required inputs

The following are the key inputs:

a) Stakeholders to be involved include:

· IRW and IRW-field staff (in person and through remote communication by Skype / Zoom etc.)

· Primary stakeholders (learners and families)

· Communities, teachers, government officials

b) Relevant IRW proposals, narrative reports and evaluation reports/documentation

c) External secondary information and data as appropriate

d) IRW (2018) Desk review and mapping of IRW global education projects and intervention outcomes and impact

Timetable and reporting duration

The consultancy will be for a maximum of 25 working days and commence by September 2019 and will be completed by no later than 31^st January 2020.

Action

By when

Who

Tender live date

6^th August 2019

IRW

Final date for submission of bid proposal

20^th August 2019 (1pm)

Consultant

Proposals considered, short-listing and follow up enquiries completed

21^th August 2019

IRW

Consultant interview and final selection

28^th August 2019

IRW

Meeting with the consultant and agree on an evaluation methodology, plan of action, working schedule

17^th September 2019 (120 minutes);

Consultant/IRW

Submission of Inception Report

24th September 2019 (1 working day)

Consultant

Desk Review , Field visits, draft report

1^st October – 30^th December 2019

Consultant

Submission of the first draft to IRW for comments

14^th December 2019

Consultant

IRW responses to draft report

7t^h January 2020

IRW

Final report submitted to IRW (1 working days)

14^th January 2020

Consultant

Presentation of the report to IRW management

2.5 hours (date TBC)

Consultant

Contract duration: Duration to be specified by the consultant (max 15 days preferred)

Direct report: Programme Quality Department

Job Title: Consultant: Education Impact Mapping

The Programme Impact & Learning Manager acts under the authority of the Head of Programme Quality who has the ultimate responsibility for the conduct of activities under this consultancy.

The consultant will communicate in the first instance with and will forward deliverables to the Programme Impact & Learning Manager.

Proposal to tender and costing:

Consultants (single or teams) interested in carrying out this work must:

a) Submit a proposal/bid, including the following;

i. Detailed cover letter/proposal outlining a methodology and approach briefing note

ii. CV or outline of relevant skills and experience possessed by the consultant who will be carrying out the tasks and any other personnel who will work on the project

iii. Example(s) of relevant work

iv. The consultancy daily rate

v. Expenses policy of the tendering consultant. Incurred expenses will not be included but will be agreed in advance of any contract signed

vi. Be able to complete the project within the timeframe stated above

vii. Be able to demonstrate experience of outcome reviews, mapping and impact assessment/evaluation approaches for similar work

Terms and conditions

Payment will be made in accordance with the deliverables and deadlines as follows:

· 25% of the total amount – submission of the inception report

· 25% of the total amount – submission of the first draft of the evaluation report

· 50% of the total amount – submission of the final report including all outputs and attachments mentioned above

We can be flexible with payment terms, invoices are normally paid on net payment terms of 28 days.

Additional information and conditions of contract

During the consultancy period,

IRW will only cover:

· Consultancy fees

· Travel and accommodation costs and per diem

IRW will not cover:

· Tax obligations as required by the country in which he/she will file income tax

· Any pre/post assignment medical costs. These should be covered by the consultant

· Medical and travel insurance arrangements and costs. These should be covered by the consultant

Note:

Preference will be given to consultants who are able to demonstrate capacity to bid for future contracts extending the participatory evaluation process for Tunisia Child Friendly Schools up to 2024

[1]We recognise that “seeking evidence to evaluate the impact of individual interventions towards improved learning is not considered useful. Firstly, the complexity of contributing factors makes evaluation conclusions elusive. Secondly, there is significant global consensus that the focus of education aid should be on the effectiveness of the education system as a whole. Education is, after all, a system, not a collection of inputs. While the inputs are important (i.e. training teachers, providing textbooks, building schools), it is how effectively these resources are used that determines student learning impacts. It follows that the attention of our evaluation efforts should also be on education system effectiveness rather than individual donor effectiveness”. EENET Desk Review and Mapping of IR Education Projects p.29

For further information or to download the tender documents then please visit our website on the following link;

https://www.islamic-relief.org/tenders/open-tenders/tender-for-evaluation-of-islamic-relief-afghanistans-home-based-education-for-women-project-august-2019/

Consultancy contract

This will be for an initial period that is to be specified by the consultant commencing from August 2019 (exact date to be mutually agreed). The selected candidate is expected to work from their home/office and be reporting into the Programme Impact & Learning Manager.

The terms upon which the consultant will be engaged are as per the consultancy agreement. The invoice is to be submitted at the end of the month and will be paid on net payment terms 28 days though we can be flexible.

All potential applicants must fill in the table beneath in Appendix 2 to help collate key data pertaining to this tender. The applicant must be clear about other expenses being claimed in relation to this consultancy and these must be specified clearly.

For this consultancy all applicants are required to submit a covering letter with a company profile(s) and CV’s of all consultants including the lead consultant(s).

A proposal including, planned activities, methodology, deliverables, timeline, and cost proposal (including expenses) are expected.

Other relevant supporting documents should be included as the consultants sees fit.

All applicants must have a valid visa or a permit to work in the UK (if travel is required to the UK).

Tender dates and contact details

All proposals are required to be submitted by Tuesday 20th August 2019 1.00pm UK time pursuant to the attached guidelines for submitting a quotation and these be returned to tendering@irworldwide.org

For any issues relating to the tender or its contents please email directly to tendering@irworldwide.org

Following submission, IRW may engage in further discussion with applicants concerning tenders in order to ensure mutual understanding and an optimal agreement.

Quotations must include the following information for assessment purposes.

1. Payment terms (as mentioned above)

2. Full break down of costs including taxes, expenses and any VAT

3. References (two are preferred)

4. Technical competency for this role

5. Demonstrable experience of developing a similar project

Note: The criteria are subject to change.

Appendix 2

Please fill in the table below. It is essential all sections be completed and where relevant additional expenses be specified in detail. In case of questions about how to complete the table below, please contact tendering@irworldwide.org

Cost evaluation of consultancy for evaluation of Islamic Relief Afghanistan’s home based education for women project, August 2019

Applicants/lead consultants name

Full company trading name

No of proposed hours per week

No. of proposed days

Preferred days

Earliest available start date

Expected project finish date

Non preferred days

Day rate

£

Total cost for consultancy in GBP (less taxes and expenses

£

Expenses (flights)

£

Expenses (accommodation)

£

Expenses (transfers)

£

Expenses (in country travel)

£

Expenses (visa)

£

Expenses (security)

£

Expenses (food)

£

Expenses (print/stationary)

£

Expenses other (please specify)

£

Total expenses

£

Total VAT or taxes

£

Total cost for consultancy in GBP (inclusive of taxes and expenses)

£

Note

The applicant is expected to take responsibility for paying full taxes and social charges in his/her country of residence.