HIHEA/026-2023/MEL : Terms of Reference for Endline Evaluation

Ref. No: HIHEA/026-2023/MEL

Title of Project: LIND INVEST I

Project Implementation Area: Uasin Gishu County

Task: End-line Evaluation

Type of Selection: Firm

Period: December 2023-January 2024

Duration: 35 days

Organization Background

Hand in Hand Eastern Africa (HiH EA) is a registered Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Kenya, working for the economic and social empowerment of its poorest citizens to enable program participants to lift themselves out of poverty. HiH EA is part of the Hand in Hand network. HiH EA works with the marginalized, vulnerable poor rural and peri-urban smallholder farmers (80% women) to help them lift themselves out of poverty through the power of entrepreneurship. The organization started operations in Kenya in October 2010 and is currently operating in 22 Field offices within 34 out of 47 Counties in Kenya. HiH EA has so far mobilized, trained and is training over 350,000 members (80% women, 40% youth) who have created over 300,000 enterprises and over 450,000 jobs. Hand in Hand’s model is based on setting up or mobilizing self-help groups, delivering enterprise skills through training, promoting financial access and providing linkage to broad markets. The HiHEA enterprise and job creation approach is based on a philosophy of self-help, providing training, skills and support to enable people living in poverty, particularly women, to build and sustain independent, market-based, economic activities. This provides for a higher level of income for them and their families, which in turn contributes to greater food security, better education for children, increased access to healthcare, improved housing and overall improved livelihoods.

Project Description

The Lind Invest project is a community uplift project implemented in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County. The project aims to improve the social and economic well-being of 7,500 residents of Eldoret in Uasin Gishu County, through diversification of their livelihoods and income. The project expected outcomes are: Outcome 1: Increased income through facilitating climate resilient enterprises and sustainable jobs creation. Outcome 2: Improved agricultural production and productivity through sustainable and climate resilient agricultural practices. Outcome 3: Strengthened micro enterprises through enhanced value addition and market and financial linkages. Outcome 4: Increased women’s economic empowerment. The project started in January 2021 and ends in January 2024.

The Assignment: Endline Evaluation

Purpose of the Evaluation

HIH EA is commissioning an End line evaluation to assess the project achievements in conformity with OECD DAC Evaluation criteria of relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability. This evaluation also seeks to compile, consolidate, analyze and synthesize existing and new project data to assess the extent to which the project has delivered the outputs and achieved the desired outcomes. The evaluation also aims at analyzing the social return on investment (SROI) emanating from the Lind Invest community uplift project, with a view to informing future strategic and operational decisions.

Objectives of the End line evaluation

• To assess the social returns from the investment in implementation of the project.
• To assess the relevance of the project design, in terms of meeting the needs and priorities of the beneficiaries.
• To assess the coherence of the project design, implementation and efforts made to minimize duplication of interventions in the area.
• To assess how well the project has achieved its planned and unplanned outcomes.
• To assess progress against expected outputs and outcomes relative to the implementation as well as the project’s contribution towards the intended impacts.
• To assess whether the project delivered and achieved outcomes within agreed budget and schedule.
• To assess the project’s direct and indirect benefits, and if any, unintended positive and negative consequences brought about by the project.
• To assess the extent to which benefits delivered by the project are likely to last post-project.
• To assess appropriateness of the implementation strategies and give recommendations to inform future similar projects.
• To document lessons learnt/knowledge generated and best practices that can be replicated to future similar projects. Also, assess what should have been done differently and should be avoided in such similar projects in future.

The study shall be guided by, but not limited to, the following overarching evaluation questions.

Approach and Methodology

The methodology chosen should demonstrate attention to impartiality and reduction of bias by relying on mixed methods approach (quantitative, qualitative, participatory etc.) and different primary and secondary data sources that are systematically triangulated. The evaluation must also be structured around the OECD DAC criteria for evaluation (specifically: Relevance, Coherence, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Impact and Sustainability), since the evaluation is summative. The evaluator must ensure all relevant project indicators are addressed comparably between baseline midline and endline. Additionally, the study will use Social Returns on Investment (SROI) method to measure the social impact values of the project. The consultant will be expected to provide details of how the social impact values will be quantified, analyzed and interpreted in line with the purpose of the study.

Ethical Considerations & Quality Assurance

The evaluation must conform to International ethical guidelines for research and evaluations. Accordingly, the selected evaluation firm will be responsible for safeguarding and ensuring ethics at all stages of the evaluation process. The evaluation firm will be responsible for managing any potential ethical risks and issues and must put in place processes and systems to identify, report and resolve any ethical issues that might arise during the implementation of the evaluation. Consequently, the consultant should ensure the assignment is designed and aligned to internationally accepted norms and standards of quality evaluation. The consultant should also clearly indicate challenges and dependencies that might be encountered and how each will be mitigated, to deliver a credible evaluation. All principles of evidence such as voice and inclusion, appropriateness, triangulation, contribution and transparency must be observed in the evaluation process.

Deliverables

HIH EA is seeking for an independent evaluator firm to undertake this assignment who will design the study methodology and prepare the data collection tools presented in an inception report. The evaluator will clean, analyze, visualize, and write a comparable (baseline and end line) report, drawing on insights from both the primary and secondary datasets. HIH EA will provide all technical documents necessary to ensure the assignment is completed successfully, including the project proposal narrative, baseline survey reports, logic model, and MEL Plan; a survey template with our standard indicator questions and answer options; list of stakeholders; and the HiH EA evaluation report template. The data collection tools prepared by the consultant must be consistent with the tools used at baseline and midline evaluations.

Role of the Consultant

The consultant will be engaged through a service agreement and will be required to undertake the following;

• Desk review of the project documents to understand the design
• Develop the sample design for the End line survey and any qualitative data collection
• Design/adapt/refine (as appropriate) the end line data collection tools – both quantitative and qualitative. The indicator data will be disaggregated appropriately into gender, age, literacy level, sub-county etc.
• An inception report detailing how the Endline evaluation will be conducted and presented to HiHEA.
• Conduct a pre-test of the tools and finalize, incorporating changes
• Identify and train the field supervisors and enumerators
• Plan the field work logistics
• Prepare survey implementation and questionnaire user guide documentation e.g. enumerator supervision manuals, etc.
• Supervise survey implementation and ensure quality control
• Clean and analyze all datasets
• Document at least one success story (most significant change story)
• Assess the project’s initiatives contributions to outcomes against Hand in Hand’s theory of change
• Write a concise End-line evaluation report, compiling the findings of both qualitative and quantitative datasets, and using the HiH evaluation report template provided.
• Submit raw, cleaned, and worked datasets to HiH in .xlsx or .csv format
• Submit the report in English for review and feedback
• Hold a validation workshop
• Incorporate feedback from HIHEA and HiH SWE.
• Submit a final report

Consultants Requirements

HiH EA requests consultants to submit proposals to respond to this Terms of Reference as outlined above. We expect the consultancy firm or consultant to demonstrate the skills and experience outlined below (or equivalent):

1. The lead consultant must have a background (atleast a Masters degree) in Social sciences, Project management, Community development, Monitoring and Evaluation, Statistics, and other closely related fields.
2. The consultant should have significant experience (atleast 10 years) in conducting social-economic evaluations in Kenya. Experience in conducting social returns on invest (SROI) will be an added advantage.
3. The evaluation team must have the capacity to ensure that gender equality is taken into account in all aspects of the evaluation (i.e. design, data collection, analysis and reporting) and thematic knowledge (e.g. agriculture, micro-finance, market linkages, value chains, etc.).
4. Strong and proven participatory qualitative and quantitative data collection, analysis and analytical report writing skills.
5. Proven track record on working with digital data collection approaches.
6. Proven capacity to assess unintended consequences of a project for different categories of stakeholders.
7. Knowledge, familiarity and experience of field work and data collection in rural areas of Uasin Gishu County, Kenya.