Title: Global consultant evaluator
Purpose: Mid-term review of the Free to be Me program (2021 – 2025)
Location: A global program, spread over 15 countries
Contract duration: March – August, 2023
Application deadline: February 10, 2023

About Free to Be Me

Free to Be Me (F2BM) is a 5-year program implemented in 14 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Additionally, the program has a focus on influencing the Dutch society. Free to Be Me aims to build and support a vibrant LGBTIQ+ civil society, that is able to successfully generate public support and influence governments, businesses and societal actors to become advocates for people of diverse Sexual Orientation Gender Identity and Expression and Sexual Characteristics (SOGIESC)’s human and socio-economic rights. With Free to Be Me, we focus on economic development issues affecting LGBTIQ+ persons, including unemployment, poverty, discrimination, including that which is institutionalized, pushing LGBTIQ+ persons out of educational institutions, legal hurdles, violence and neglect from governments that stand in the way of prosperous communities.

The Free to Be Me program is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affair and consists of three consortium members – Positive Vibes, ILGA World and Hivos and three technical partners – Sogicampaigns, Global Interfaith Network and Workplace Pride who all form the Free to be Me Alliance. Hivos is the lead party.

Anchored on the principle of local ownership, at the heart of the program is the Community of Action (CoA) in each of the 14 countries. The CoA is a platform for the members of the community not only to convene but also implement the in-country ToC and program activities together. The program also works with multiple partners in each country through direct granting and regranting through the country host organizations.

The program ​​has been running since 2021 and is set on the precipice of adaptive management. The Free to be Me Theory of Change (ToC) focuses on four pathways of change:

1. strengthening the foundations of movements in each country
2. influencing norms and building public support
3. legal and policy change
4. socio-economic empowerment

The strongly interlinked pathways will enable the program to achieve its strategic objective which aims to build a vibrant LGBTIQ+ civil society, successfully generate public support and influence governments, businesses and societal actors to become advocates for LGBTIQ+ people’s human and socioeconomic rights; thus leading to the improvement of the socioeconomic position of LGBTIQ+ people.

The specific objectives include

Intermediate outcome 1: Foundation: In scoping and core countries, LGBTIQ+ civil society is vibrant, stronger, more self-confident and diverse and in core countries also sustainably resourced, with the capacity to lead on legal and policy changes

Intermediate outcome 2: Societal leaders, influencers, media and the general public increasingly and openly support the rights of LGBTIQ+ people (mainly core countries).

Intermediate outcome 3: At least five core countries have made significant legal or policy progress- changes abusive or criminalizing laws, ended impunity and/or adopted protective laws and policies, leading to the reduction of violence against LGBTIQ+ people.

Intermediate outcome 4: Socioeconomic development programs are increasingly accessible for and geared towards the needs of LGBTIQ+ people in core countries

Following the guidance of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 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 lead the midterm evaluation of the Free to Be Me program in all 14 countries including the global advocacy efforts, and our role in influencing the Dutch society.

About the mid-term review

The aim of this mid-term review is to enable the Free to Be Me alliance 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 and purpose 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 suggest 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 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 Free to be Me participatory grant-making processes, outlining key lessons learned and alignment to the intentions of ensuring LGBTIQ+ groups’ access resources to advance their rights and are at the driver’s 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 program in the final two years of implementation at the different implementation levels.
6. Further, the Mid-Term Review (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 Free to Be Me and the rigor of the final evaluation to ensure alignment with IOB criteria prescribed by the Ministry.

Geographical scope

The program is implemented in 14 global south countries including: South East Asia region, Southern Africa region, East Africa region, West Africa region Middle East and North Africa region and at a 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 MTR. 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 programme 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 Free to be Me alliance 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 Free to be Me alliance members and the ministry and or embassies? How and why has this worked or why not?

Program and governance structures

4: Program governance verses program needs

4.1: How have the current governance and staffing structures served the needs of the program and what if any are the areas of improvement needed to ensure its optimal performance?

Implications

5. Recommendations

5.1: 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 Free to Be Me ToC)?

5.2: 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 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 MTR will take six months (March 2023 – August 2023) as outlines 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 Free to Be Me 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 on feedback from Free to be Me evaluation team and validation meetings.

MTR schedule

Activities/Phases		Period	Timeframe
1	Inception phase	1 month	March- April
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	June/ Aug

 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

MTR budget

We propose you share a financial proposal of not more than 70,000 euro for the entire assignment.

Way of working

The evaluation team will work in close collaboration and consultation with Free to Be Me DMEL lead and reference team.

Desired qualifications and skills

The team lead of the team of consultants should have the following requirements and the other team members should have the relevant complementary skills.

1. At least 10 years’ experience in program evaluation in social justice/ human rights context and proven accomplishment in undertaking evaluations including leading evaluations of multi-stakeholder programs.
2. Relevant postgraduate degree in relevant discipline or demonstrated ability to work at a similar level (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 analyze qualitative data
5. Experience in working with theories of change in advocacy programmes
6. Good understanding and demonstrated experience in evaluating LGBTIQ+ and gender equality, diversity and inclusion and human rights – related programs/project.
7. Excellent written and spoken English.

How to apply

In case of any queries, interested candidates can send in their queries to freetobemeafrica@hivos.org and cc sgithaiga@hivos.org and sali@hivos.org by  January 27, 2023.

Interested and qualified candidates can send in their application including their detailed expression of interest detailing their proposed methodology, samples of relevant previous work done etc, detailed proposed budget, workplan and CVs to freetobemeafrica@hivos.org Kindly ensure you title the application: “F2BM Mid-Term Review Consultancy”. Please send in your application not later than February 10, 2023.

Annexes

Annex 1: Extra Information on SCS MTRs

Annex 2: IOB Evaluation Quality Criteria 2020

Annex 3: Strengthening Civil society IATI Indicator guidelines

Annex 4: Free to Be Theory of Change