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Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is an International non-governmental organization supporting relief and development work in over 99 countries around the world. CRS programs assist person on the basis of need, regardless of creed, ethnicity or nationality works through local church and non-church partners to implement its programs, therefore, strengthening ...
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Terms of Reference
Final Evaluation of Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods Project in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Sokoto, Kebbi, Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.
This Terms of Reference (TOR) provides the description and work to be done to conduct a final evaluation of the Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods Project. The work required by this TOR includes the design of the final evaluation and implementation. This TOR has the following sections: background; justification, scope; objective; evaluation questions; learning agenda questions; methodology; deliverables; qualifications; roles and responsibility; management arrangement; timeline; payment schedule; and submission guidelines.
Project Background
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is an international non-governmental organization supporting relief and development work in over 99 countries around the world. CRS programs assist persons on the basis of need, regardless of creed, ethnicity or nationality. CRS works through local church and non-church partners to implement its programs, therefore, strengthening and building the capacity of these partner organizations is fundamental to programs in every country in which CRS operates. CRS has worked in Nigeria for more than 25 years. Through local partners, CRS has implemented programs in almost all the states in Nigeria, demonstrating the agency’s extensive grassroots network and significant capacity to reach the rural poor. Focusing on agriculture, emergency response and recovery, and health, CRS is helping to strengthen health care systems, Catholic Church partners, other community-based organizations, and government institutions. CRS’s current projects are improving the lives of more than 1.4 million Nigerians.
CRS Nigeria is leading an exciting and innovative project designed to develop sustainable approaches to lift some of the most vulnerable households in Nigeria out of poverty. The project known as Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods Project is funded by USAID for a period of five years (from July 2013 to July 2018) for Northern Nigeria states of Sokoto and Kebbi and the Bwari Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory. The project is implemented by a consortium of non-governmental organizations, led by CRS Nigeria. The project is based in rural communities and targets 42,000 vulnerable households. The project consortium works closely with multiple stakeholders within government at state and local levels, and amongst private sector. The project also works with local civil society organizations and incorporates a focus on local capacity building for sustained service delivery in project locations. In 2017 the project was extended to the Northeast states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe to reach 10,000 vulnerable households.
CRS’ Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods Project engages communities in agricultural-led growth interventions, using a multi-sector approach to help the very poor households grow their agriculture production, incomes and improve nutrition. The project aims to improve agricultural practices, promoting post-harvest storage for nutrient rich crops already being produced, and market-oriented approach to diversification of production, ensuring all agricultural activities are adapted to specific agro-ecological and cultural context. The project also assists vulnerable families with income diversification and provision of participatory comprehensive nutrition activities at the community level. To help vulnerable families move along the Pathway to Prosperity, the project utilizes cash transfers to help meet nutritional needs, recover assets and overcome barriers to income-generating activities. For sustainability, the project strengthens the institutional capacity of government systems for implementing poverty reduction programs and reinforce accountability between government and the citizens. The project adopts a cohort approach to household interventions. The project has randomized the households benefiting in the project into three classes: A, B, and C. Although the intervention with each class overlapped with other classes, the project began with Class A, then Class B and later Class C. The project has been working with the whole 10,000 households in North East without disaggregating them into Classes. The North-East intervention is centered on improving agricultural practices with a focus on post-harvest storage for nutrient rich crops already being produced, and promotes a market-oriented approach to diversification of production through ensuring that all agricultural activities are adapted to specific agro-ecological and cultural contexts; as well as SILC (savings and loans) intervention.
Goal: The goal of the project is, “households in targeted states have reduced poverty”. At this goal level are five key impact related indicators on income, prevalence and depth of poverty, prevalence of stunting children and households’ dietary diversity. These goals are being achieved based on the collective outcomes and outputs of the project activities across four sectoral results areas of agriculture, growth in income, nutrition and social safety net and governance.
Intermediate Results (IR)
Justification of the final evaluation
This final evaluation is to be carried out as one of the evaluation procedures in the project activity monitoring and evaluation plan for assessing the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of the project outcomes as well as the strategies employed by the project for poverty reduction. As the project implementation has been completed, it is usual to carry out a detailed review to assess the project goal, determine the efficiency of the program operations in carrying out the agreed activities, assess the relevance of the project design considering implementation and changes in the operational areas and aspirations of the households targeted, and effectiveness of the sustainability measures put in place by the project and to answer some learning agenda questions. Generally, the evaluation study intends to measure programme performance against pre-agreed indicators. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the project to see if it has achieved the set goal.
Scope of the Evaluation
Objective of the Evaluation
The overall objectives of the evaluation is to evaluate the activities implemented for the Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods Project and its partners towards achieving the expected outcomes and to make recommendations on further replication of the project. The recommendations will suggest if deemed necessary – re-orientations and changes in the project design, scope and implementation approach and provide recommendations on management and methodologies to improve performance and delivery of similar or future projects. The evaluation will focus on assessing cost effectiveness of the project, and on the review of structures, processes and systems established during the implementation period.
In addition, the outcome of the evaluation will contribute to the learning documentation of the project. In achieving this, the evaluation will answer key learning agenda questions.
More specifically, the evaluation will:
Key Evaluation Questions
Impact:
To what extent have results contributed to a reduction in poverty of the rural and vulnerable households?
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What is the value of the project in relation to the needs of the rural and vulnerable households, reduction of poverty, increase in agricultural production and productivity, increase in income, improvement in nutrition status and stronger social safety net of rural and vulnerable households?
Relevance:
What is the relevance of the project in relation to the pathway to prosperity model, as well as the caseworker model, women empowerment, youth and adolescents and strengthening local systems?
What does current experience suggest about the appropriateness of the current strategy of the project? Does the strategy successfully address the key issues affecting the rural and vulnerable households that have participated in the project?
Efficiency:
Do the project use resources in the most economical manner to achieve expected results? Are any other economical alternatives feasible?
Effectiveness:
Does the project achieve satisfactory results in relation to stated objectives and expected results of reduced poverty with increased agricultural production and productivity, increased income, improved nutrition status and stronger social safety net of households?
What are the results of the project interventions – intended and unintended, positive and negative – including social, economic, and environmental effects on the rural and vulnerable households?
What proportion of the targeted population has been reached overall? Did the project reach the identified categories of vulnerable households to the same extent that it intended?
What key barriers have hindered reaching all the targeted households?
Sustainability:
Is the project intervention and its impact on households likely to continue when USAID assistance is withdrawn?
Will the project strategy be more widely replicated or adapted? Is it likely to be scaled-up?
Key Learning Agenda Questions
1. Does diversified agricultural production improve nutritional status of vulnerable households?
This question seeks to understand the improvements in the nutritional status of vulnerable households once agricultural production has been diversified. This will not only look at the impact of different crops, especially nutrient rich foods, for direct consumption but also generation of income needed to procure the amount and variety of food families needed.
The study was initially intended to be done be done as part of data collection and analysis by the Project M&E team but has now been incorporated into the final evaluation study. The baseline study and annual monitoring surveys will provide additional information to support the study process.
2. What are the contributing factors and barriers to increased local government investment in poverty reduction programs and services?
This study will be compiled based on project outcomes related to local government assessments, organizational capacity improvements, development and implementation of local economic development plans and some addition focus group surveys at community, local government and state levels.
Key Gender Evaluation Questions
To what extent has women’s engagement in market opportunities influenced their control over resources at the household level?
To what extent did women’s involvement in SILC influence their decision-making power over the use of income in the HH?
To what extent did women’s participation in project activities improve their participation and leadership in community activities?
In what ways did men’s participation in male social forums influence the relations in the HH?
Evaluation Methodology
Other indicators are:
Number of farmers using PICS bags, Anthropometric status of under-five children, Demographic and socio-economic household profile indicators, Household vulnerability indicators, Conditional cash transfer indicators and Home gardens
The evaluation will cover the entire range of partners within each result area of the project.
Sampling will be applied in selection of sites to be visited for meetings and beneficiaries.
Main Deliverables
This must at a minimum contain:
Required Qualifications
Roles and Responsibilities
Project Team
The project team will be responsible for providing the existing documents related to the project and logistics support to the consultant during the final evaluation field data collection and presentation to CRS.
Evaluation Consultant
The role of the evaluation consultant is to work closely with the project management team to develop the evaluation design and implementation – outlining the methodology, key evaluation questions, identify appropriate evaluation tools, develop the data collection instruments, carry out data collection, data analysis and writing the evaluation report. The consultant will present evaluation plan and findings to the project team. The consultant should use the key principles of gender analysis and participatory approaches when working with communities and project partners. S/he also should adhere to USAID evaluation principles and standards for conducting project evaluation.
Supervision
The MEAL team will be involved in all the phases of the final evaluation survey and will take supervisory role in ensuring quality and data integrity. Specifically, the team will be responsible for the recruiting of the survey team for data collection and other supervisory responsibilities.
Payment Schedule
Payment will be made to the consultant on submission of the final evaluation report. The consultant is expected to make a formal presentation of the report to the project team.
Proposal Submission Guidelines
Deliverables and Timeline
The survey is expected to take place within a period of not more than 53 days, commencing
April 9th to May 31st, 2018.
Deliverable
Description of Deliverable
Timeframe
Number of days
(1). Inception phase report which must include final research instrument and research methodology.
Inception phase (including review of research instruments and finalisation of methodology)
1st – 6th April 2018
6 days
(2). Final training manual, field activity report including sampling frame.
Primary research - Field work, including pilot and Training
7th-26th April 2018
20 days
(3). Data list and preliminary results
Data entry, Cleaning and analysis
27th April-May 11th 2018
10 days
(4). Final Evaluation Survey first draft Report.
Development of Draft Report for review by CRS
12th - 19th May 2018
8 days
(5). Final Evaluation Survey second draft report
Presentation of draft report
25th-28th May 2018
4 days
10
(6). Final Evaluation Survey Final Report
Final report (preparation and submission)
30th -31st May 2018
2 days
Total days
50 days
Offer Submission
Interested applicants must submit the proposal electronically compatible with MS Word, MS Excel, readable format, or Adobe Portable Document (PDF) format in a Microsoft XP environment; using the job title and ‘application code FE270218’ as the subject of their email E.g Final Evaluation of FTF Project in FCT, Sokoto, Kebbi, Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States FE270218.
Proposals shall be submitted by email only to tenders.ngr@crs.org. The deadline for receiving proposals is Tuesday February 27, 2018.
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