Deadline: 18 January 2021 (4pm)

Background

CAFOD and its partners Mavambo Orphan Care, Mashambanzou Care Trust, and St. Alberts Mission Hospital (CHBC) is implementing the Putting Children First project in Harare and Mashonaland Central with funding from Caritas Australia. The project aims to improve access to rights by children in the targeted communities by working with children to enhance their understanding of their rights and working with the community at large to build their capacity to create and foster an enabling environment for children and women to see their rights fulfilled. The project further aims to increase the capacity of communities and households to protect children through improved attitudes and behaviours as well as enhancing household income through income-generating activities. The programme also focuses on service providers with the aim of ensuring they deliver a better-quality service through improved engagement with the community and being more accountable to the communities they serve.

Outcomes of the project are as follows: Improved capacity of 18000 community members and households for prioritisation of child protection (through improved knowledge, attitudes and practices on child protection and GBV and increased household income); Improved knowledge of 3000 youths of their rights and commitment to their responsibilities towards the community, the environment and themselves; Increased accessibility of services for children and women to fulfill their rights.

Outcomes of the project are as follows: Improved capacity of 18000 community members and households for prioritisation of child protection (through improved knowledge, attitudes and practices on child protection and GBV and increased household income); Improved knowledge of 3000 youths of their rights and commitment to their responsibilities towards the community, the environment and themselves; Increased accessibility of services for children and women to fulfill their rights.

Purpose of the Consultancy Assignment

The purpose of the Mid-Term Evaluation is to assess progress towards the achievement of the project’s set objectives and benchmarking this against Baseline data collected at inception. The Consultant is expected to undertake the following key activities: Generate evidence (both quantitative and qualitative) for assessing progress made towards the achievement of objectives/outcomes against the project Baseline data collected in 2019; Assessing and documenting the project Relevance, Effectiveness, and Efficiency against its Theory of Change as well as the COVID-19 context and projecting the likelihood of the project to deliver on its intended outcomes in the second half of the implementation period; Assess the project’s approaches to safe, accessible, dignified and inclusion and evidence how this has improved the quality of lives of women, men, girls and boys in the communities; Assess the sustainability factors for the project and offer options the continuation of the project benefits after the project cycle.

Methodology and Scope of work

The evaluation should adopt a mixed methodology including the use of both quantitative and qualitative [participatory evaluation methods] approaches in inquiry and data collection. Data collection will be conducted in the operational area of the three implementing partners that is Mbare, Hopely, and Glen Norah (for Mashambanzou Care Trust), Caledonia, Mabvuku and Tafara (for Mavambo Orphan Care), and Centenary district (for St. Alberts Mission).

Key tasks of the consultant would include the following: Desk review of project documents and relevant literature; Production and presentation of an inception report; Finalisation of the methodology of study and timelines for fieldwork and reporting; Fieldwork: pre-testing of designed tools, training of enumerators and data collection in the three districts; Reporting -production and presentation of the draft and final report as well as submission of data analysis syntaxes.

Deliverables

Inception report and PowerPoint presentation; Draft report and PowerPoint presentation; Final report; Case studies/Stories of Change/Datasets.

Requirements

The following is expected of the Lead Consultant: Hold an advanced degree in Social Sciences, Child Protection, and other Development related field; Experience in work on child protection and safeguarding; Demonstrated capacity to conduct research using both quantitative and qualitative approaches; Proven ability to produce high-quality reports that can be shared with donors.