South Sudan: End of Project Evaluation

Project Title: Promoting Peaceful Co-existence and Capacity Building for Women and Youth Economic Empowerment in Twic East, Duk and Uror Counties of Jonglei State, South Sudan.**

1.0Background

The Lutheran World Federation Department for World Service (LWF-WS) South Sudan Program has been operational in the country since 2004. LWF/WS has experience working in different localities in South Sudan. Its competence in response to emergencies and development has local, regional and international experience as demonstrated by the regional response to the recent South Sudan December 2013 crises. In South Sudan LWF-WS works in three states of Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity in collaboration with local authorities and community organs and has endeared it well in the local setting. In Jonglei State, LWF/WS emergency response to the 2013 crisis to date has delivered the anticipated results of contributing to the coverage of basic NFI, and food security (through cash transfers, WASH, seed, fishing twines among others) needs for the internally displaced persons and host communities. Since the start of the conflict in December 2013 1.66 million people are displaced in South Sudan, 642,199 are refugees in neighbouring countries and 3.9 million people are facing severe food insecurity (OCHA, November, 2015). An on-going protracted economic crisis has continued, with estimates suggesting that the economy will contract by 7.5 per cent in 2015.

Thoughtfully as displacement becomes protracted, the likelihood of IDPs, returnees and armed groups occupying host communities property and land increases, which in turn lays the ground for future conflicts undermining further developmental efforts for the concerned parties. There is also growing evidence of International Humanitarian Law/Human Rights (IHL/HR) abuses of civilians as part of the emerging dynamic of political/ethnic violence. Protection actors continued to monitor spontaneous movements by both IDPs and South Sudanese refugee returnees to which this project was designed to respond to.

1.1Introduction to the project

The humanitarian response needs that Church of Sweden project has been responding to includes lack of cohesion and peaceful co-existence among the IDPs, Returnees and the host communities: the misunderstanding and mistrust among the groups affect humanitarian action and reintegration to create peace full co-existence and development orientation, supporting the awareness on protection of children, girls and youth. Inadequate awareness among the communities on child rights, child protection and gender equality: Communities have inadequate information on their basic rights/freedoms and rights of children, child safety and gender equity in particular. Thus, are easily misinformed and therefore unable to participate fully in the developmental discourse of their country and mistreat children and female. This has been caused by, severe conflict/violence, displacement and dysfunctional State institutions; disruption of traditional structures and systems; lack of civic awareness initiatives for citizens (both men and women) and food governance; minimal access of local people to information on changes happening across the region in terms of development rights of children, sexual and gender based violence, and empowerment and equity for women. The burden on women with huge responsibility in fulfilling households needs, gender based violence and early marriage and lack of opportunities to access education, vocation training, and functional literacy to empower them to claim their rights and provide them with new skills to start up their own small business or be employed in business.

LWF/WS has been responding to needs of vulnerable IDPs, returnees and host communities children (girls and boys), young people (youth female and male) with an overall goal of Promoting peaceful co-existence, protection and sustainable livelihoods for women and youth by Promoting Economic Empowerment of Vulnerable Women and Youth, peaceful co-existence among 12,410 beneficiaries composing Host communities, Returnees and IDPs and Community Based Protection for children, Youth and Girls in Twic East, Duk and Uror Counties, Jonglei State.

• 240 VSLA Members
• 70 members of community based structure on Protection and peace
• 100 school club members
• 12,000 people benefited from Awareness raising by community structures

Indirectly people living in the above mentioned counties (six payams –subdivision of counties) benefited from the intervention.

2.0Purpose of the Evaluation

The overall objective of this evaluation is to measure the effectiveness, efficiency, relevancy, sustainability, baseline, impact, and timeliness in integrating protection, psychosocial and peace building initiatives and the value adding of this integration. The set targets of outputs and outcomes among others the progress made against these and the emerging changes in the wellbeing of the beneficiaries. LWF/WS has been responding to needs of vulnerable IDPs, returnees and host communities children (girls and boys), young people (youth female and male) with an overall goal of Promoting peaceful co-existence, protection and sustainable livelihoods for women and youth by Promoting Economic Empowerment of Vulnerable Women and Youth, peaceful co-existence among 12,410 beneficiaries composing Host communities, Returnees and IDPs and Community Based Protection for children, Youth and Girls in Twic East, Duk and Uror Counties, Jonglei State. The findings will be used to inform future improvement and quality of similar interventions among the conflict affected children, young people, IDPs and the host community delivery of the response and management of resources during implementation, Best practices and lessons learnt.

2.1Specific objectives for the evaluation are;

§ Establish the economic gains of household among the Spontaneous Settlement IDP groups through established economic empowerment modalities (VSLA) for Vulnerable Women

§ Acertain the extend to which peaceful co-existence of children, young people among IDPs Returning IDPs was promoted

§ Acertain the functionality of the Systems for accountability and monitoring, established Comunity based structures.

§ Establish the existence and level of engagement of the established community based structures

§ Assess and confirm the number of beneficiaries identified, selected/supported and the extent to which the beneficiary selection criteria and LWF World Service right based approaches were adhered to

§ Determine the timeliness with which the project activities were implemented (prepositioning of response materials/commodities)and the effectiveness in the use of resources

§ Elaborate the process used by the project team in monitoring the progress of the project implementation and establish achievements made against all the output and outcome indicators

§ Establish the emerging changes in the well-being of the beneficiaries

§ Assess the collaboration and coordination mechanisms adopted during the implementation of the project and the extent to which these added value

§ Document Best practices and lessons learnt for future scaling up.

3.0Evaluation Scope and Methodology:

The consultant will develop evaluation methods and data collection tools for discussion and approval by LWF-WS Programme Technical Team. LWF recommends these to include among others: - Review of Church of Sweden (CoS) Project document, CoS progress report, training reports, financial reports, and other relevant report. The overall evaluation approach should be participatory employing re known participatory methods and should ensure active participation of primary and secondary target beneficiaries, Community structures, staff, local authorities and other key stakeholders. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are suggested.

Therefore, evaluation is expected to establish appropriate responses to the following evaluation questions:

3.1Relevance & quality of design

· Does the project proposal conform to the goals of LWF country strategy?

· Is the project design appropriate for the geographic area?

· Is the intervention logic coherent and accurate?

· Have recommendations from previous evaluations been incorporated in the design?

· Were any lessons learned from previous projects in the area used?

· Are the indicators of progress and impact in the design of good quality?

3.2Efficiency of implementation

· Did the project start in time?

· Were all key staff in post maintained through project life?

· Were all inputs delivered in time?

· Were inputs of acceptable quality?

· Was the implementation methodology used appropriate?

· How was the cooperation between local government authorities and LWF?

· What was the local government’s assessment of this intervention?

· What was the chiefs’ assessment of this intervention?

· Did LWF get good cooperation from relevant local leaders?

· Was access to project areas acceptable by stakeholders?

· Have most of the project outcomes been achieved to an acceptable standard?

· Have the community contributed in cash and/or in kind to the project?

· Was the budget been spent according to the proposed budget lines?

· Was the rate of spending acceptable?

3.3Effectiveness

· To what extent were activities listed in the proposal contributing to achievement of the project specific objectives - attainment of outputs and the project outcomes?

· Have there been any un-planned effects and are these good or bad?

· Has coordination with other development actors been effective?

· Have the effects of the project been felt equally across the whole project area or are some areas neglected?

· Have the effects of the project been felt equally across the project stakeholders or other stakeholders neglected?

· What project component/s were more effective and why?

· Was the technical design effective and appropriate for that environment?

3.4Impact

· To what extent have beneficiaries, including duty bearers benefited from project outputs and outcomes?

· Has the project changed beneficiaries’ lives in any meaningful way?

· To what extent have the duty bearers/ local government institutions benefited from the outputs and outcomes?

· To what extent have local leaders benefited from the outputs and outcomes?

· In what ways have local markets benefited from the project?

· To what extent is the impact sustainable over a longer term?

· Has the project increased or decreased dependency on outside intervention?

3.5Potential sustainability

· To what extent can the outputs be expected to be sustainable over longer time?

· What characteristics make the outputs sustainable or unsustainable?

· Do the local government authorities fully support the initiatives taken by the project?

· Do the local community leaders/ chiefs fully support the initiatives taken by the project?

· To what extent are the target communities contributing to the sustainability of the initiatives?

· Has special effort been made to educate and train women to assume decision-making roles?

· Are the Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) working as intended?

· Did the project design include practical exit strategy?

3.6Evaluation Approach:

In principles, the consultant is expected to develop the evaluation methodology but the expectation is that the incumbent will adopt an inclusive and participatory approach in which key project staffs have a chance to meaningfully participate in the evaluation process. In light of the foregoing, it is recommended that:

· The entire exercise is structured to adopt joint planning sessions with project staff, program briefings by management staff in line with the log frame, project document, and the country strategy. Others include focus group discussions, key informant interviews with stakeholders and Government representatives in each county.

· The communities to be visited will be chosen from the beneficiaries, based on the different types of activities that have been implemented in that community. This is to ensure a convincing assessment of project sites accessibility, cost effectiveness, ability to mobilize the respondents within the consultancy period.

· Using different methods, the consultant is expected to collect relevant data and to triangulate information thus ensuring greater validity of information. Groups that will provide the required data include the LNGOs, INGOs, LWF program staffs, the community groups, Government representatives and special interest groups within the community (such as Flood Task Forces, VSLA groups etc. Secondary data from previous reviews, progress reports, proposals, and other related documents will be taken into account.

3.7Expected outputs from the Evaluation

A.A Technical proposal that encompass among others:-

§ A 3-5 pages font size 11, theme font Calibri body, inception report on the proposed assessment one week into the Evaluation at field level.

§ A debrief session will be held with the program staff at the end of the field visit – both in the field and in Juba. The debrief sessions will provide a summary of the outcome of the evaluation and recommendations.

§ A power point debriefing on Evaluation findings and recommendations in Jonglei and Juba

§ Draft and final report (LWF will provide inputs in the draft report)

§ Final Report (To be approved by LWF)

§

4.0Proposed Evaluation activities scheduling.

Below is the proposed itinerary during the evaluation:

Activity/ Milestone

Duration

Consultant preparation

01^st Mar. 2017

Consultant travels

06^th Mar. 2017

Meeting with project management team in Juba – administrative matters, reviews of background documents, tools finalization etc

06^th Mar. 2017

Field work - Twic East and Duk counties.

07^th Mar. 2017

Debrief

15^th Mar. 2017

Preparation of draft report and distribution to LWF

20^th Mar. 2017

Final report to LWF

28^th Mar. 2017

Total days

4.1Terms and Conditions

· Logistics: LWF will cover the cost of the consultant’s travel to the field and back, including food, and accommodation.

· Professional fee: Interested consultants are expected to provide a budget for the exercise. LWF will consider proposals that are within the approved rates as per its policy on professional fees.

· Tax and insurance: 10% income tax payable to GOSS shall be deducted from the consultant’s fee during payment.

· A contract will be signed by the consultant upon commencement of the evaluation which will detail additional terms and conditions of service, aspects on inputs and deliverables including LWF’s Code of Conduct, Child safe guarding principles

· Data collection and data processing costs are included in the account of the consultant. The consultant is expected use his/her own computer.

4.2Consultant experience

Brief explanation about the consultant(s) with particular emphasis on previous experience in similar work; profile of the consultant(s) to be involved in undertaking the consultancy; proposal for undertaking this assignment as detailed in the TOR is required. A financial proposal including - cost estimates for services rendered including daily consultancy fees. The consultant should meet the following criteria:

§ Higher university degree in relevant field with over 10 years’ experience in food security and livelihoods programming in fragile countries

§ Knowledge on community vulnerability; Disaster Risk Reduction, humanitarian Aid; LRRD ; Rights Based approach and participatory approaches

§ Strong understanding of South Sudan context (specifically the context in Jonglei State), policy and advocacy work

§ Excellent written English;

§ Knowledge of local languages is an added asset

NB: Consultants and Service providers to LWF are subjected to the Code of Conduct and child protection compliance

Applications Deadline: Interested qualified applicants should submit electronic copies at the latest date of 24^th Feb 2017 to lwfdws.consultancy@gmail.com

Child Safe Guarding:

LWF is a child safe organization and is fully committed to promoting the realization of children’s rights including the right to protection from violence and abuse. We therefore, have particular responsibilities to children we work and come into contact with to keep them safe from any harm or risk. In line with LWF policy, any appointment is contingent on thorough criminal record checks.