Career Job Vacancies At ActionAid Zimbabwe For Social Sciences & Development Studies Graduates
END-OF-PHASE EVALUATION TERMS OF REFERENCE
PPL – TORCHES Project
Summary
ActionAid Zimbabwe is seeking the services of a Zimbabwe-based consultant to carry out a comprehensive end-of-phase assessment for the Peoples Post Code Lottery (PPL) funded project entitled Towards Resilient Communities with Health, Equality, and Safety for all (TORCHES). The primary task of the consultant will be to gather end-of-phase data against relevant indicators in the project’s logical framework.
Background
ActionAid is an international charity organisation that works with women and girls living in poverty. ActionAid Zimbabwe’s dedicated local staff are helping to end violence against women and girls and changing lives, for good. Poverty is complex, it is more than a lack of money. It is also a lack of choice and power. For women and girls, poverty means having fewer opportunities than men and boys, in the world’s poorest places this means living on the margins of society, often facing discrimination, exploitation and violence. The denial of women’s and girls’ rights is one of the biggest causes of poverty worldwide and a grave injustice. That is why we put the rights of women and girls at the heart of all we do.
The objective of the project
The Torches project is aimed at creating communities where women and girls, including people with disabilities, are free from violence and have amplified voices and agency. This will be achieved by successfully fostering personal and community reflection about power relations, nurturing power within and amplifying girls’ voices in schools and communities.
The project has 4 phases which are START, AWARENESS, SUPPORT and ACTION. The start phase ran from October 2020 to March 2022. Currently, the project is in the AWARENESS phase which runs from March 2022 to March 2023. The consortium partners are ActionAid Zimbabwe (AAZ), Forum for African Women Educationalists Zimbabwe (FAWEZI), Family Aids Caring Trust (FACT) and Leonard Cheshire Disability Zimbabwe (LCDZ). The project targets schools, community leaders, institutions, and community members. The project activities are being implemented in Chitungwiza, Nyanga and Shamva.
The Project Outcomes for the START phase were as follows:
Project outcome 1
Community members, community leaders and duty bearers have improved understanding of power, feel that they have the power within and demonstrate the use of power within and balanced power in community activities and in their lives
Outcome 2
Adolescent girls, their peers and their schools have improved their understanding of power relations and gender roles and taken action for change.
Outcome 3
People with disabilities are active participants in project activities in schools and communities.
Outcome 4
Improved accessibility and quality of referral services
Project outputs
- Community members’ understanding of and enthusiasm for SASA! materials increases.
- Opportunities created to reflect on the power and nurture power within through i. local activism ii. community leadership and iii. institutions.
- Institutions demonstrate an enhanced understanding of power and how it impacts service provision.
- Adolescent girls, their peers and their schools reflect on power and gender roles and develop the confidence to create change
- People with Disabilities are active participants in project activities in schools and communities.
- Community champions and mentors understand how to use and feel confident using safeguarding policy and referral mechanisms correctly.
The project Outcomes for the Awareness phase are as follows:
Project outcome 1
Deepened understanding of what power over is by community leaders, community members, and duty bearers
Outcome 2
Adolescent girls, their peers and their schools have improved their understanding of power relations and gender roles and taken action for change.
Outcome 3
People with disabilities are active participants in project activities in schools and communities.
Outcome 4
Improved accessibility and quality of referral services
Project outputs
- Community members’ understanding of and enthusiasm for SASA! materials increases.
- Opportunities created to reflect on power over through i. local activism ii. community leadership and iii. institutions.
- Institutions demonstrate an enhanced understanding of power over and how it impacts on service provision.
- Adolescent girls, their peers and their schools reflect on power and gender roles and develop the confidence to create change
- People with Disabilities are active participants in project activities in schools and communities.
- Community champions and mentors feel confident using safeguarding policy and referral mechanisms.
- Fruitful engagement with service providers on the quality provision of services and commitment to taking appropriate action
Objectives and purpose of the end-of-phase assessment
- To assess the impact of the project in the communities to date.
- To examine changes over time in communities and institutions’ knowledge of what they know, feel and do with regard to power within and power over.
- To assess the progress made towards achieving planned objectives and also provide an opportunity to make modifications to ensure the achievement of planned objectives within the lifetime of the project.
- The study will also provide information against which to monitor. This will lay a critical foundation for measuring change, understanding the project’s contribution to achieving this change, and drawing lessons learnt and best practices for future direction and project development.
Expected methodology
The consultant(s) will ensure that the quantitative survey tool is administered to the communities and institutions in the district areas where TORCHES will be implemented. The consultant will be issued with tools for the survey that have already been developed.
The end-of-phase data collection will entail field trips to the three project communities of Shamva, Chitungwiza and Nyanga. Appropriate sampling methodologies should be proposed for the identification of project participants to be consulted.
Data collection activities in the field will include administering of the community assessment survey tool to the sampled community members and the institutional assessment survey tool to institutional employees in the identified institutions.
All data collection activities should be designed in such a way as to ensure that they can a) be carried out consistently and reliably and b) be repeated at endline.
The detailed methodology must include:
Protocols and procedures for data collection.
Procedures for analysing quantitative data
Data presentation/dissemination of findings
Coordination roles and responsibilities
The selected consultant will be contracted by and report to ActionAid Zimbabwe; The PPL TORCHES Project Manager will be the key point of contact at AA Zimbabwe for the consultant and will be responsible for sign-off on key decisions.
Support provided by ActionAid Zimbabwe and the project partners will involve the following:
Introductory briefings with the consultant
provision of key project documents
provision of contact details and introductions to key stakeholders
facilitation of access to project participants.
providing technical advice on research approaches and ensuring deliverables meet agreed quality standards and grant requirements.
Further logistical support from ActionAid Zimbabwe and implementing partners relevant to data collection activities in the field will be agreed upon during the inception phase.
Provide Safeguarding training to the researchers
The consultant will do the following:
- Identify and prepare enumerators to assist with data collection in the field.
- Produce inception report for carrying out the end-of-phase study.
- Design appropriate study methodology and sampling.
- Recruit, train and manage data collectors and supervisors/team leaders.
- Oversee the data collection process to include: survey pre-test; and ensure effective management of data collection teams by supervisors.
- Code, encode and analyse collected data using the appropriate software.
- Produce and submit to ActionAid Zimbabwe’s project team a draft report on findings (per the required format and data request).
- Incorporate comments from the ActionAid Zimbabwe team into the draft report and produce a final report.
- De-brief the ActionAid Zimbabwe Team (after the initial field trip and upon submission of the draft report).
- Coordinate with the ActionAid Zimbabwe team to disseminate study findings to respondents and other stakeholders.
- Finalise a high-quality end-of-phase analysis report.
- Present findings to the ActionAid Zimbabwe team after the report submission.
- Review all relevant documents for the end-of-phase study
- Develop end-of-phase study design which includes survey methodology, interview protocol, data entry templates etc, as appropriate including a summarised manual for training Team Leaders and Research Assistants in consultation with ActionAid Zimbabwe PPL Project Manager and MEL Coordinator.
- Develop field work schedule in consultation with ActionAid Zimbabwe.
- Receive the completed data on a daily basis from data collectors and share the completed data with AAZ key contacts on a daily basis.
Expected Outputs and deliverables
The specific outputs for the consultancy will be:
Inception report and work plan, including a sampling strategy, data collection and analysis methodology.
Training on tools and methodology for enumerators
Data analysis of the collected data.
Draft and final end-of-phase assessment report of no more than 25 pages (excluding annexes) as a Word document, written in clear and concise English. The report will include:
Cover page
Contents table
Executive summary of no more than 2 pages, outlining the overall purpose and scope of the end-of-phase study, an overview of the methodology and key findings of the data collection and analysis
Purpose, objectives and scope of the end of phase assessment
Indicators measured with a corresponding data collection and analysis methodology
Limitations of the end-of-phase assessment
Key findings and analysis, disaggregated by gender and location
Annexes: data collection tools used, schedule of field visits and meetings; list of stakeholders, including project participants, consulted and/or interviewed, disaggregated by data collection activity; bibliography of key documents consulted; ToR for end-of-phase assessment
Summary slides/presentation material of the report in PowerPoint format
All raw data files in appropriate file formats
These Terms of Reference will form part of the consultant(s) contractual agreement with ActionAid Zimbabwe. The contract between the consultant(s) and ActionAid Zimbabwe will provide further detail on data ownership and intellectual property rights.
Reporting and accountability
The consultant will report to the PPL TORCHES Project Manager and will be managed by the MEL Coordinator.
The Report Format
The report should follow the following format:
Title page; acknowledgement; acronym list; list of figures and tables; executive summary (maximum 3 pages), project background, methodology used, findings and analysis, challenges, conclusions and recommendations; list of annexure;
The final report should be provided in an electronic format compatible with Microsoft Word for Windows and PDF.
Also, the report should be accompanied by a short PowerPoint presentation that highlights the methodology and key findings of relevance to the overall objectives of the assignment.
Budget
ActionAid Zimbabwe seeks a financial proposal that offers good value for money and that maximises potential efficiencies to deliver the outputs within budget. The consultant should prepare and submit a detailed budget for the end of the phase inclusive of all logistical, administrative and non-administrative costs.
Key reference
ActionAid Zimbabwe will make available to the consultant(s) the following key documents and information:
Key project documents.
Relevant ActionAid strategic frameworks.
Internal guidelines and policies, by which the consultant will be expected to abide
Contact details for key staff.
Evaluator Qualifications
General criteria:
Demonstrable expertise in women’s rights and gender equality, with specific thematic expertise on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG),
Geographical expertise in Zimbabwe and, ideally, in the project areas of Chitungwiza, Shamva and Nyanga.
Excellent spoken and written command of English and Shona
Technical criteria:
- Degree in social sciences, development studies or equivalent
- Experience in quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis methods.
- Experience in participatory research.
- Experience in designing and conducting evaluations.
- Evidence of strong downward accountability mechanisms used with project stakeholders/research participants to actively share results and learning
- Evidence of the use of ethical and safeguarding considerations and methodological measures that respect the rights of all stakeholders, including those with multiple, often overlapping vulnerabilities and disadvantages
- Evidence of successfully designing and managing large-scale, rigorous and robust research processes and evaluations
Track record:
Evidence of successful collaboration with NGOs
Evidence of client responsiveness, creativity and flexibility of approaches towards clients’ needs and/or challenges in research implementation.
Evidence of producing clear, concise reports in English and high-quality, published research
Scoring criteria
Consultants will be evaluated based on a cumulative analysis against a combination of technical and financial criteria. Consultants not meeting any of the minimum technical qualification requirements will be automatically excluded from the list of candidates. The maximum obtainable score is 100, out of which the total score for the technical criteria is 70 points (70%) and for the financial criteria is 30 points (30%). Only applicants who pass 70% of the maximum obtainable score in the technical evaluation will have their financial proposals reviewed. Financial proposals should provide a breakdown of all costs.
Application Process
We invite interested researchers or companies to submit the following application documents:
An expression of interest of no more than 10 pages, briefly addressing the track record relevant to the assessment and the degree to which the consultant(s) meet(s) the selection criteria. If a team of consultants is proposed, outline the anticipated roles of each team member.
Technical proposal for the evaluation study including proposed methodology and activities schedule/work plan, with the timeframe
CV(s) of applicant(s)
Financial proposal (separating consultant day rates and anticipated data collection costs)
Example(s) of previous similar works
Reference from a previous employer and/or client
Please note that applications which are incomplete will not be considered.
Qualified applicants should submit the above documents to jobs.zimbabwe@actionaid.org no later than 18.00hrs, 14 December 2022.