Terms of Reference for the End-Term Evaluation for ActionAid Tackling Barriers to Girls’ Education Project in Kishushe, Taita Taveta County

Background Information

Despite the Kenyan Government’s efforts towards achieving education for all, Kenyan girls continue to experience several challenges which prevent them from accessing free and compulsory education, including parental bias towards sons, cultural norms and harmful traditional practices. Girls are not generally encouraged to go to school and are instead considered to be caregivers in the family home and assigned to domestic and childcare responsibilities. For those who go to school, dropout rates are high due to issues such as sexual harassment, early marriage and early pregnancy. 2 out of 3 girls who join form one (around age 14) do not make it to form four, the end of secondary education. Combined with poverty, these factors continue to negatively impact girls’ participation in education, resulting in poor learning outcomes, lack of technical skills and lost livelihood opportunities replicating the cycle of poverty for future generations.

Girls in Kishushe, Taita Taveta County, are among the most vulnerable in the whole country and are at very high risk of failing to complete even primary education. They face several obstacles like being sold off by family members for dowry while still in primary school, Child pregnancy as a result of peer pressure and sexual violence. Often parents keep their daughters out of school to undertake housework; fetch water, sell charcoal among other chores and give boys the priority of attending school.

Introduction

ActionAid’s work on VAW/G is guided by our Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA). It is anchored on the recognition that VAW/G is a violation; it violates their human rights to life, dignity, health and bodily integrity. We therefore work with communities to completely reject VAW/G being aware that challenging violence needs to take place at all levels. We create awareness and educate communities about how violence infringes on girls’ rights and the protection provisions of the law; We support girls at risk of VAW/G and the survivors and affected to demand action by local and national governments.

Project Information

Tackling barriers to girls’ education responds to the need to highlight and address Violence against women and girls (VAW/G) in Taita Taveta Counties as well as focus on building women’s leadership and income generation skills for a holistic approach to women’s development and that of their communities. The project started on April 2018 and will be ending on 31st March 2022. It is funded by IF International Foundation, managed by ActionAid UK and implemented by ActionAid-Kenya (AAK) in partnership with its local partner Sauti ya Wanawake Pwani through the local chapters namely, Kishushe, Paranga and Wundanyi.

The project’s goal is to ensure that 625 girls can challenge violence and overcome some of the barriers that prevent them from achieving their potential and build alternative livelihood options.

The project has three main objectives:

1. To empower 325 girls in school to challenge violence and continue their education.
2. To raise awareness for 2,500 community members on the importance of education for girls and tackling violence against them.
3. To support the economic empowerment of 300 out-of-school girls and young mothers by building alternative livelihood options.

In line with ActionAid’s Accountability Planning and Learning Systems (ALPS), the project team plans to conduct an end – term evaluation of the project to ensure compliance with our commitments and measure achievement against set targets and baseline data to assess the progress and direction. Details of indicators to be measured can be seen in the project log frame document.

Purpose and focus of the End-Term Evaluation

Purpose of the Evaluation:

ActionAid International Kenya seeking qualified consultant(s) to conduct an independent end-term evaluation of the Tackling Barriers to girls’ education project in Kishushe. The interested firms/senior consultants should have extensive technical expertise on Women and Girls rights, Girls’ Education Rights, protection and gender equality to conduct the evaluation.

The overall purpose of the end – term evaluation is to assess the achievement of the project objectives and impact, generate lessons learnt and provide recommendations for future programming. The evaluation is also expected to assess the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impacts and sustainability of the project and develop a sustainability strategy for the project. The data and information will provide evidence for filling the results framework of the project to effectively support achievement of its planned outcomes. The aim of this assignment is to conduct, with the guidance of the project documents and log frame, determine whether the project has viably met its mandate to reduce barriers to girls’ education in target communities. It will also determine the effectiveness of AAIK’s primary partners engagement and community stakeholder participation, including the involvement of rights holders and duty bearers on executing their roles towards tackling barriers to girls’ education.

Focus of the Assignment:

The consultant will work with his/her team and with the support of information, data and documentation from AAIK and its partners, constitute, examine and document the change that has been felt in the project’s implementation period in line with its objectives. In addition, the consultant will be required to interact with the project beneficiaries to document impact and most importantly the most significant change. Experience in developing monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) systems using a feminist lens is required to ensure delivery of this assignment.

The focus of the assignment include:

1. Assessment of the impact, relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability as per the OECD DAC criteria of the project to the beneficiaries and the communities in the 4 years of implementation.
2. Using the Sustainable Livelihoods MEAL Framework, assess the effectiveness of the project in improving incomes and economic empowerment for the project beneficiaries. Looking at instances of:
3. Increased income/ earnings/ savings at individual/household/group level
4. Improved well-being at individual/ household/ group level
5. Recovery of dignity e.g., improved social status, reduced vulnerability
6. Improved food security, nutrition
7. Improved education, knowledge, and skills necessary for production
8. Enhanced access to productive assets e.g., land, cattle, goats
9. Enhanced access to credit/wages
10. Improved access to secure shelter, energy, communication
11. Membership to networks and connections, formal and informal groupings, spaces for participation in decision making, leadership positions
12. Identification of key achievements, opportunities, challenges, lessons learnt and recommendations during the project implementation.
13. Documentation of key case studies of individuals, communities, and stakeholders on how the project changed their lives.
14. Assessment of the partnerships and level of engagement by key stakeholders like the County Government.

Scope of the Evaluation

The project is being implemented in Taita Taveta County by 3 partners namely: Sauti ya Wanawake – Kishushe, Paranga and Wundanyi. The consultant will work with the Local Rights Partners (LRP) team and local partners to agree on a sample size and the actual location for field visits and data collection.

Evaluation Approach and Methodology

The consultant will be responsible for producing a comprehensive mixed-method methodology as well as a detailed work plan for delivering the end – term evaluation. It is expected that the review will entail both a desk review of existing documents and data, FGDs and KIIs both in person and conduct a field trip to each of the project implementation areas. A proposal with clear and detailed approaches and methodology should be submitted and will be part of the assessment for selecting the successful consultant. All data, qualitative and quantitative, collected and reviewed through the end – term evaluation must be disaggregated by sex, age, disability and locations. The successful consultant will be expected to operate within AA global feminist principles, safeguarding and child protection policies.

ActionAid fully expects all evaluations to be carried out in line with our Evaluation Standards (OECD DAC) to ensure consistency with our Human Rights Based Approach. The evaluation team must prioritize women’s and girls’ experiences/ views and ensure that data collection is conducted in a gender-sensitive and culturally appropriate manner. The evaluators will also be expected to travel to the project areas for the assignment.

Careful attention must be paid to the evaluation and teasing out of livelihood outcomes especially in relation to the impact of the project in improving the economic status of the beneficiaries.

Liaison and Coordination

AAIK will provide the overall guidance and supervision of the task through its Program Team. The consultant (s) will work closely with the LRP coordinator- Kishushe, MEL coordinator and programs team. The overall accountability of this work rests with the Programs and Strategy Lead at ActionAid Kenya.

Expected Outputs

The agreed outputs of the evaluation are:

• An end – term evaluation report of no more than 40 pages, (excluding annexes) as a Word document written in clear and concise language. The report will include:

• Cover page (title of the evaluation report, date, name of consultants)
• Table of Content
• Executive summary of no more than 4 pages outlining the purpose of the evaluation, main points of analysis, key findings, conclusions and recommendations
• Retrospectively reconstruct and enumerate baseline data for the project and target population
• Introduction outlining the background to the intervention and the end-term evaluation
• Purpose and objectives of the end-term evaluation
• Methodology/approach and limitations of the evaluation
• Findings (progress against targets; data analysis, including gender analysis; response to evaluation objectives and specific evaluation questions)
• Findings and recommendations
• A sustainability strategy for the project.
• Annexes: details of data collection tools, schedule of field visits and meetings; list of people interviewed; bibliography of key documents consulted; TOR for the end -term evaluation

• The report must allow for a management response from ActionAid, outlining areas that we agree with and will take forward in the project; responding to areas requiring improvement; outlining any findings that we disagree with which have not been resolved through comments on the draft report, and indicating how learning will be taken on board in this project.

• The end – term evaluation team is required to make a presentation of key findings and recommendations – presenting initial thoughts/findings before leaving field site; and presenting overall findings in person or remotely after further analysis

• A PowerPoint presentation summarizing key findings and recommendations that can be used to disseminate findings within ActionAid and with external stakeholders.

• The raw data (all transcripts, quantitative data, data collection tools) must be handed over to ActionAid together with the evaluation report.

• Photos should be provided to ActionAid in high resolution JPEG format, to be catalogued by ActionAid on Stories hub according to our photo guidelines. The evaluation team must ensure photos are obtained in line with ActionAid guidelines on consent.

• Diagrams/flowcharts/infographics developed by the evaluation team can be included but the original artwork should also be submitted as separate files along with the evaluation. Note ActionAid reserves the right to modify artwork as appropriate.

Expected timetable:

The consultant will prepare an evaluation work plan that will operationalize and direct the end-term evaluation. The work plan will describe the evaluation to be carried out, bringing refinements, specificity and elaboration to this ToR. The expected duration of carrying out the assignment is three weeks. This will be approved by the Programs and Strategy Lead as the agreement between parties for how the evaluation will be conducted.

Budget:

The evaluator is expected to give a detailed breakdown of the budget which should align with the evaluation workplan and showcase value for money.

Travel & accommodation and logistics:

Official transport shall be availed where possible, and or travel expenses reimbursed based on actual and realistic costs. However, the consultant shall seek consent prior to incurring travel expense(s) if not provided with official transport. Accommodation shall be provided by AAIK at the venues of the assignment

Evaluator qualifications

We are looking for an evaluator with the following key skills and capacity. These criteria will be used to assess applications alongside applicants’ technical proposals.

General criteria:

1. A master’s degree in social sciences.
2. At least 5 years of experience in carrying out evaluations especially using outcome harvesting methodology and evaluation design with a feminist lens.
3. Proven experience in participatory approaches to designing monitoring and evaluation processes.
4. Demonstrable expertise on women’s rights, Gender Based Violence and gender equality
5. Thematic expertise in HRBA
6. Geographical expertise and knowledge of Taita Taveta County.
7. A financial proposal with a breakdown of professional and administrative costs which offers good value for money while maximizes potential efficiencies to deliver the outputs within budget.

Technical criteria

1. Experience in qualitative methods and analysis, participatory research, action research
2. Experience in quantitative methods and analysis
3. Demonstrated experience evaluating livelihood programmes
4. Evidence of strong downward accountability mechanisms used with project stakeholders/research participants to actively share results and learning
5. Evidence of use of ethical considerations and methodological measures for that respect the rights of all stakeholders
6. Evidence of successfully designing and managing large-scale, rigorous and robust research processes and evaluations
7. Evidence of producing clear, concise and high-quality reports in English.

Application process

All applications should include the following documents:

• A covering letter or expression of interest – highlighting relevant experience and skills to the specific evaluation, and the reasons for interest in the work.
• A brief technical proposal with a cover letter demonstrating how they understand the assignment, the methodology and tools for use, and how the evaluator or evaluation team meet the consultancy requirements and expertise specified. They should also include a detailed workplan of how they intend to undertake the assignment. (1page Cover letter and 8 pages maximum for the proposal)
• A separate financial proposal with a clear distinction between fee rate and expected logistics costs (3 pages maximum)
• The CV(s) of the lead consultant and the team of applicant(s).
• Examples or links of two similar works. One of the links/examples MUST be to past work revolving around evaluation of a livelihood’s programme/project.
• The names of at least 2 previous clients to contact for references.