Title: Global consultant, evaluator
Purpose: Mid-term review of the We Lead Program (2021-2025)
Location: The program is implemented in nine countries in Africa, the Middle East and Central America
Contract duration: March – August, 2023
Application deadline: February 8, 2023
Budget: 70,000 euro

About We Lead

We Lead is an inspiring and innovative program that aims to improve the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRH-R) of young women. It focuses on four specific groups of young women: those living with HIV, those living with disabilities, gender and sexual minorities and those affected by displacement. Through mutual capacity strengthening, the program puts these young women as rights holders in the driver’s seat while supporting them to make sustainable changes for their SRH-R.

The program is implemented in nine countries in Africa, the Middle East and Central America, by a consortium of six civil society organizations. The We Lead consortium consists of Positive Vibes, Restless Development,  Marsa, FEMNET, the Central American Women’s Foundation and is led by Hivos. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands is also part of the partnership. ­

Anchored on the principle of local ownership, at the heart of the program is the Community of Action (CoA) in each of the nice countries. CoAs are safe spaces for rightsholders, not only to convene but also implement the program activities together. We Lead works with multiple partners in each country through direct granting and regranting through the Country Community of Action Host organizations.

The program has been running since 2021 and focuses on four pathways of change expecting to contribute to:

1. stronger, inclusive youth led SRH-R, civil society organizations and movements
2. public support for rightsholders’ SRHR
3. accessible SRHR information and services
4. laws and policies respect and protect young women SRHR.

The strongly interlinked pathways will enable the program achieve its strategic objective which aims at building a vibrant young women, rightsholder-led civil society that successfully generates public support and influences governments, health service providers and societal actors to become advocates for SRH rights for young women and girls that are living with HIV, displaced, living with ­disability and gender & sexual minorities.

Intermediate outcomes

Intermediate outcome 1: Strengthened CSOs are inclusive of or led by young women from four rightsholder groups, and work together in a Community of Action, to defend and promote their SRH-R.

Intermediate outcome 2: The general public increasingly acknowledges and supports young women’s SRH-R.

Intermediate outcome 3: Health service providers are more aware of the SRH-R needs and situation of rightsholder groups, and increasingly provide accessible, comprehensive, high-quality, inclusive and respectful SRH-R information and services.

Intermediate outcome 4: Duty-bearers increasingly design, adopt and implement laws and policies that respect and protect the SRH-R of young women from rightsholder groups

We are looking to conduct a mid-term review of the program focusing on programmatic and partnership collaboration evaluation. We, therefore, seek to recruit a team of international evaluators to implement the midterm evaluation of the We Lead program in all nine countries, including the global advocacy efforts.

About the mid-term review

The aim of this mid-term review is to enable the We Lead consortium and the ministry to review the program’s progress, reflect on changes in context and to learn and consider what this means for the Theory of Change at regional and global program level between 2021 and mid-2023 in order to make improvements and course correct where necessary for 2024- 2025. In addition, the stock-taking will also focus on assessing the partnership collaboration in the program.

The specific objectives are

1. Programmatic assessment: The review should focus on how the regional and global programs have adapted to context (the Theory of Change (overarching and in-country ToCs), and include risk analysis (SEAH, fraud and corruption). Further, the review should assess what the regional and global programs’ contribution to outputs and outcomes suggests about their potential to achieve the strengthening civil society and thematic results framework basket indicator targets. In addition, the review will also examine what this suggests about whether assumptions in their theory of action hold and support regional, global and overall program Theories of Change (ToCs). At the same time, it will also consider crosscutting themes (gender, youth, climate), challenges, lessons learned and good practices, sustainability.
2. Partnership and collaboration assessment: the review should focus on leading from the south, partnership with the consortium partners, ministry and the embassies, lessons learned and good practices.
3. Assessment of the effectiveness of the program and governance structure, highlighting gaps and possible areas of strengthening.
4. Review the We Lead local ownership approaches /structures including participatory grant-making processes, outlining key lessons learned and alignment to the mutual capacity strengthening intentions of ensuring rights holders advance their rights and are at the drivers seat.
5. Based on the findings, propose recommendations for improvement, course correction and adjustment of direction and outcome targets, strategies and/or interventions and sustainability and ownership This is with a view to enhance the overall effectiveness and efficacy of the programme in the final two years of implementation at the different implementation levels.
6. Further, the MTR team will offer recommendations on how to strengthen the quality of the Design Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (DMEL) processes and data (with a keen focus on learning) to enhance the evaluability of We Lead  and the rigor of the final evaluation to ensure alignment with IOB criteria prescribed by the Ministry.

Geographical scope

The program is implemented in nine countries in the Global South including: Africa region (Kenya, Uganda Mozambique, Nigeria and Niger) Middle East and North Africa region (Jordan, and Lebanon), Latin America (Guatemala and Honduras) and at global level (international advocacy including engaging the Dutch society). We expect to sample all these countries during the review.

Mid-term learning questions

Below are the broad learning questions to be explored during the mid-term review. The questions will be contextualized for each region. The learning will explore whether we are doing things right (process), whether we are doing the right things (results) and lastly, what the implications of these learnings are for course corrections at regional and global program level.

Programmatic

1: ToC, context analysis and risk analysis

1.1: Has the context or our understanding of the context changed since the program started? Has this influenced any adaptations/course corrections to date? Will it influence any course corrections in the future?

1.2: Are we implementing the program activities as planned? Are they resulting in the quantity and quality of results expected? How and why, or why not?

1.3: How have we mitigated or managed risks (including SEAH, fraud and corruption) and what effects has this had.

Achievements of desired outcomes

2: Achievement of output and intermediate outcomes linked to SCS and thematic results framework indicators

2.1: Are our outputs likely to contribute to expected outcomes, including on crosscutting themes (gender, youth, climate)? How and why or why not?

Partnership collaboration

3: Leading from the south, partnership with the ministry and the embassies

3.1: How have we been aiming to establish trusting, respectful and equitable relationships and governance arrangement among the different types of partners? How or why have they worked or not and how is that affecting our programme results?

3.2: What approaches have we used to encourage more equal power dynamics between members of We Lead consortium and in-country partners? How and why have different approaches worked or why not?

3.3: What approaches have we used to establish strategic relationships between the We lead consortium members and the ministry and or embassies? How and why has this worked or why not?

Program and governance structures

4: Program needs

4.1:How have the current governance structures served or not the needs of the program and what if any are the areas of improvement needed to ensure its optimal performance?

Implications

5: Based on the MTR findings (learning and reflections) is there a need to update targets and or the Theories of Change (in-country ToC and the overall We Lead ToC)?

5.1: What if anything, do we need to adapt to improve processes (including learning, DMEL, Capacity strengthening, safety and security) and approaches including local ownership and leadership by the southern actors.

Proposed methodology

We propose to consider using quantitative and qualitative methods following participatory approaches involving the various stakeholders and partners in the program. We propose to follow the general OECD criteria and the guidance documents provided by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign affairs (as annexed below: IOB evaluation quality criteria, extra information on the SCS MTRs (including its assessment by MFA) and SCS IATI Indicator guidelines). We further suggest using mixed-method and participatory approaches for data collection

1. Review of relevant program documents.
2. To evaluate effectiveness, attribution and/or contribution consider contribution analysis, general elimination methodology, process tracing and/or realist evaluation.
3. Key informant interviews with relevant program staff and other key stakeholders and partners.
4. Focus group discussions with the country teams.

Data analysis and validation

Propose appropriate data analysis, triangulation and validation methods to ensure validity and reliability.

Proposed MTR process

The entire process of the Mid-Term Review (MTR) will take six months (March 2023 – August 2023) as outlined in the MTR schedule below.

The process should include the following steps/phases;

1. Inception phase: will cover inception meeting, desk review of key program documents. Submission of inception report and finalization of methodology and evaluation design based on feedback from We Lead evaluation team
2. Data collection phase: (mixed participatory approaches) at different implementation levels.
3. Data analysis and reporting phase: To include analysis of data collected and sharing of preliminary findings and presentation of draft report, and validation at country level, drawing conclusions and recommendation.
4. Finalization and validation phase: Validation meeting and finalization of MTR report based feedback from We Lead evaluation team and validation meetings.

Tentative MTR schedule

Activities/Phases		Period	Timeframe
1	Inception phase	1 month	February-March
2	Data collection phase	3 months	April – June
3	Data analysis and reporting phase	2 months	June-July
4	Finalization and validation phase	1 month	August

Deliverables

1. Inception report
2. Preliminary findings
3. Draft report/s
4. Presentation of draft report in-country validation meetings and global validation meeting
5. Final MTR report

Way of working

The evaluation team will work in close collaboration and consultation with the We Lead DMEL lead and reference team.

Desired qualifications and skills

The team lead of the team of consultants should have the following requirements (complementary skills by other team members is an added advantage):.

1. At least 10 years’ experience in program evaluation in social justice/ human rights /SRHR context and proven accomplishment in undertaking evaluations including leading evaluations of multi stakeholders programs
2. Relevant postgraduate degree in relevant discipline (gender, development and social studies, sociology, monitoring and evaluation).
3. Demonstrated experience in evaluation of global program(s) across various regions/multiple countries.
4. Strong analytical capacity to review and analyse qualitative data
5. Experience in working with theories of change in advocacy programs
6. Good understanding and demonstrated experience in evaluating gender equality, diversity and inclusion and human rights for SRHR – related programmes/project.
7. Excellent written and spoken English. 

How to apply

Interested and qualified candidates can send in their proposal detailing their proposed methodology, samples of relevant previous work done etc, detailed proposed budget, work plan and CVs to welead@hivos.org.  Kindly ensure you title the application: “We Lead Mid-Term Review Consultancy”. Please send in your application not later than February 8^th 2023.

 Annexes

Annex 1: 2022-09 Extra information on SCS MTRs

Annex 2: SCS IATI indicator guidelines

Annex 3: WeLead Overarching TOC