Reporting to: Programme Manager, Interpeace Guinea-Bissau
Location: Guinea-Bissau (Bissau, with a planned mission in the regions, if allowed by the sanitary conditions)
Application closing: 30 August, 2020
Terms of reference : Final evaluation for the project « Towards a new balance in Guinea-Bissau: creating the space for a real participation of women in peaceful conflict management and in governance- No sta djuntos! »
Duration: September – October 2020
1- Introduction
Interpeace programme in Guinea-Bissau, seeks a consultant to conduct a final evaluation for its project “Towards a new balance in Guinea-Bissau: creating the space for a real participation of women in peaceful conflict management and in governance- No sta djuntos!”. The project have been implemented by Interpeace with its local partners, Voz di Paz, and funded by the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund to reduce the tensions generated by the female leadership promotion, while fostering a real transformation of women’s role in politics, civil society and Defense and security forces (DSF) in Guinea-Bissau.
2- Context
Interpeace
Interpeace is an international organization for peacebuilding that strengthens the ability of societies to manage conflict themselves in sustainable and non-violent ways. Interpeace designs and delivers its work tailored to each situation in partnership with local partners and communities, based on extensive consultation and research. Interpeace was originally established by the United Nations and remains its strategic partner. Beyond field-based peacebuilding, Interpeace also assists the international community – particularly the UN – to be more effective in supporting peacebuilding efforts worldwide. This includes contributing innovative thought leadership on peacebuilding policies and practices. Interpeace is headquartered in Geneva and has offices around the world.
For more information about Interpeace, please visit www.interpeace.org
Voz di Paz
Voz di Paz, Peacebuilding Initiative, is a Bissau-Guinean NGO active since 2007 in Guinea Bissau. Its objective is to stimulate citizen engagement to consolidate peace contributing to good governance, with a specific focus on the most vulnerable groups (women and young people). Voz di Paz has its headquarters in Bissau and has established a unique peace architecture across the country – a network of 10 Regional Spaces for Dialogue that can be called upon to prevent and resolve local conflicts fostering dialogue.
For more information on Voz di Paz, please visit www.vozdipaz.org
Guinea Bissau Programme
In 2007, Interpeace set up a peacebuilding programme in Guinea-Bissau in collaboration with its local partner organization Voz di Paz, with the long term goal to address obstacles to peace in Guinea‐Bissau by fostering a culture of dialogue and engaging all sectors and levels of society in the peacebuilding process.
Interpeace and Voz di Paz’s methodology is rooted in Participatory Action Research and has as a principle the inclusion of all actors in the peace-building process, according to international practices approved. Interpeace and Voz di Paz work aims to lead processes of conflict management and change that are integrated at all levels of society including local communities, civil society, government, and the international community (we call it a ‘Track 6’ approach).
United Nations Peacebuilding Fund
The UN Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) is the organization’s financial instrument of first resort to sustain peace in countries or situations at risk or affected by violent conflict. PBF funding covers different, mutually reinforcing sectors: dialogue and national reconciliation, strengthening of the formal and informal justice sectors, women and youth empowerment, as well as strengthening professional and conflict-sensitive media as a cross-cutting issue. The Multi-partner Trust Fund calculates that 51.5 Million have been allocated to Guinea-Bissau since 2008.
Every year, the PBF launches the Gender and Youth Promotion Initiative (GYPI), an expression of the Fund’s commitment to inclusive peacebuilding which aims to support the empowerment of women and the advancement of gender equality and to recognize the important and positive role young people play in peacebuilding. The current project, “Towards a new balance in Guinea-Bissau: creating the space for a real participation of women in peaceful conflict management and in governance- No sta djuntos “, has been launched as part of the GYPI in 2017.
3- Description of the project
In March 2017 Interpeace has launched the 18-month project “*Towards a new balance in Guinea-Bissau: creating the space for a real participation of women in peaceful conflict management and in governance*”, funded by the UN Peacebuilding Fund (PBF). A second 18-month phase of this project, entitled “*No sta djuntos! / We are together*”, started in October 2018 and is going to end in September 2020.
The project is nation-wide, being implemented in the 8 regions and in the capital city of Bissau. Its main goal is to tackle women exclusion from the decision-making process, by strengthening national women’s participation in governance and conflict management. It aims to do so by raising national awareness and by strengthening the capacities of female leaders in political advocacy, conflict mediation and facilitation of inclusive dialogues.
The project started with a first phase, which developed women’s self-recognition and individual empowerment, promoted dialogue and debate, fostered synergies and collaboration and increased women’s participation in party politics and recruitment in the Security and Defense Forces. After this first phase, an evaluation concluded that despite some progress, a degree of resistance, from men and from society as a whole, was uncovered, and these resistances were deemed harmful to peacebuilding in the country, as well as obstacles to the advent of a locally rooted female leadership. This analysis led to the revision of the project and the start of a second phase, with new activities, and a new logical framework and budget. This new phase aims to raise women’s and dedicated organizations’ awareness of the non-intentional negative impacts of their action.
Project Theory of Change
IF men and women leaders of political parties, civil society organizations (CSO) and Defense and Security Forces in the regions and in Bissau engage in a deep reflection and gain full awareness of the risks and opportunities of women’s integration for social cohesion,
THEN they will promote women’s inclusion in the decision-making to strengthen synergies instead of being divided
BECAUSE they will have understood that women’s promotion may generate divisions, but it may also strengthen peacebuilding in Guinea-Bissau in a win-win situation for all.
Overall goal, Outcome and Outputs
Defuse the tensions generated by the female leadership promotion, while fostering a real transformation of women’s role in politics, civil society and Defense and security forces (DSF).
Outcome 1
Strengthen the capacity and self-confidence of key men and women who are members of political parties, civil society and DSF, to improve the mitigation of division risks and promote social cohesion through women’s promotion.
Outcome 2
Strengthen the institutional capacities of political parties, civil society and DSF in Bissau to mitigate the risks of division and resistance and to maximize their contribution to social cohesion through women’s promotion.
Outcome 3
Increase the public awareness of the importance of women leadership in peacebuilding and of the good practices in the mitigation of division risks, and the public knowledge of the previously shared success stories of men and women.
4- Objectives and Contents
The main objective of the final evaluation is to assess the achievements of the project, including its relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact; to build evidence of peacebuilding results and to highlight the strategies that have contributed to, or hindered, their achievement; to design lessons learned from the project and to provide recommendations for future programming in the sector of women participation in conflict management and governance in Guinea-Bissau. The evaluation is also expected to assess the degree to which lessons learned from previous phases have been integrated into the current project.
The evaluation will be of interest to Interpeace, Voz di Paz, the Peacebuilding Support Office of the United Nations (PBSO), the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund (PBF), to international donors and policy makers engaged in Guinea-Bissau, as well as to national institutions.
Within the broader and country specific context, the evaluation will be guided by the 6 OECD DAC criteria[1] (https://www.oecd.org/dac/evaluation/daccriteriaforevaluatingdevelopmentassistance.htm) as further detailed below, and is expected to:
- Assess effectiveness and a potential measurable impact of the intervention on the target group.
- Identify and document lessons learned, best practices, success stories and document and analyse challenges and possible weaknesses to inform future work of UN Peacebuilding Fund in the area of participation of women in peaceful conflict management and in governance.
- Analyse the relevance of the Project objectives, strategy, and approach at the local and national levels.
- Assess organizational efficiency and coordination mechanisms in progressing towards the achievement of the project, including the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment results as defined in the intervention.
- Analyse and assess the strategies in place and contribute to identify additional strategies for replication and up-scaling of the project’s best practices.
- Assess the measures taken by the project (and identify new measures) to ensure national ownership of the project.
Key questions of evaluation and reflection
In a view to assess the level of achievement of the different project objectives in terms of relevance, impact, and effectiveness, key questions have been developed to guide the evaluation.
Relevance
1- To what extent has the project addressed relevant factors of conflict and tension as perceived by the actors and by the communities involved in the project? Special attention will be paid to gender
- To what extent was the intervention logic/overall strategy relevant in pursuing the programme’s vision?
- How did the project find synergies with other previous or ongoing initiatives to build on initial findings and maximize impact? How do project participants assess the added value of the project and its methodology compared to other past or ongoing initiatives in this field?
- What adaptations can Interpeace programme make over the next years to be optimally relevant to the changing context in the country with respect to gender promotion?
Coherence
- Is the project consistent with the organizations’ past and future programming, and with Guinea-Bissau wide peacebuilding programming, including other PBF projects?
Efficiency
- To what extent have the project’s design, strategies, activities, and time, human and financial resources been sufficient for meeting expected outcomes?
- How has the project adapted to changes in the context and emerging challenges during its implementation?
- To what extent do the programme partners have the sufficient capacities to achieve the programme outcomes? What areas of capacity strengthening are needed to elevate programme implementation?
Effectiveness
1- To what extent and according to which causal chains has the project strategy contributed to the expected outcomes and outputs of the project and to peacebuilding objectives? Please provide evidence.
- How could the possible variations from expected to actual outcomes and outputs be explained?
- What role did the participatory methodology of the VdP-IP play in achieving or not the expected results of the project?
- To what extent has the project been catalytic in addressing some of the root causes of gender inequalities in conflict management and in governance, especially those hindering women’s participation for peace and development?
- To what extent are the project approaches and strategies innovative for increasing women’s participation in peaceful conflict management and in governance in the context of peace and development? What – if any – types of innovative good practices have been introduced to achieve results in this field?
Impact
- What results and changes in perceptions, attitudes, behavior, relationships, expected and unexpected, can be observed at the end of the project? (Particularly in relation to: capacity and self-confidence of key men and women to promote women mitigating resistances and division risks, and to the level of public awareness of the importance of women leadership in peacebuilding and of the good practices in mitigation of division risks)
- How and to what extent has the project contributed to how partners and involved actors choose to behave?
- To what extent did the project bring about a better understanding on risks and opportunities of women’s inclusion in decision making for social cohesion? And what wasn’t but could/should be done to improve that understanding?
- To what extend did the Interpeace-Voz di Paz peacebuilding approach to women promotion influence other stakeholders working in this sector?
- What catalytic effects did the project generate?
- To what extent did the project contribute to increased participation of women in peace building efforts and decision making?
Sustainability
- Did Interpeace and Voz di Paz put in place strategies to foster the engagement of CSOs, political parties and SDFs and other stakeholders beyond the project work? How effective are strategies put in place for sustainability of impact?
- How likely are stakeholders and actors involved to sustain choosing to act differently beyond the support of the project?
- How can Interpeace programme in Guinea-Bissau maximize sustainability for impact beyond the project period?
- Are requirements of national ownership satisfied? Is the project supported by national/local institutions? Do these institutions, including Government and Civil Society, beneficiaries and other implementing partners demonstrate leadership commitment and technical capacity to continue to work with the project or replicate it to ensure continuity of peace-building efforts after the project closes?
- Did the intervention design include an appropriate sustainability and exit strategy (including promoting national/ local ownership, use of local capacity, etc.) to support positive changes in Gender Equality after the end of the intervention?
Continuous Learning
- What lessons could be learned from the implementation of this project to improve future projects on promotion of women participation in decision making and its importance and potentiality for peacebuilding in Guinea-Bissau?
To what extent have the conclusions and lessons learned from the evaluation of phase 1 of the project been integrated in the implementation of phase 2?
In relation to the need to identify and address resistance to women promotion at different level
In relation to the need of better manage partnership, synergies and collaborations at different level
In relation to the improvement of its advocacy work
In relation to the monitoring and documentation of strategic learning areas for the project
How can Interpeace program strengthen gender mainstreaming to promote peacebuilding and governance in a more inclusive manner in Guinea Bissau and abroad?
6- Methodology
The evaluator is expected to present, agree upon and apply a conceptual framework of analysis consistent with Interpeace’s peacebuilding and participatory approach.
The evaluator is encouraged to suggest a comprehensive methodology that includes the elements listed below (section 6 of this ToR) and others that the evaluators deem fit for meeting the evaluation objectives. The methodology for data collection should be described in the inception report.
The evaluator is expected to use participatory evaluation methodologies which may include but are not limited to: theories of change, interviews, focus group discussions, most significant change, outcome harvesting etc. The methodology used should also be gender sensitive.
Particular attention will be paid to taking into account public health measures relating to the COVID-19 epidemic, and their impact on the methodology used. The consultant must present in its application the contingency and protection measures planned to guarantee the health of the teams and people involved, while allowing quality participation and inclusiveness.
7- Steps and deliverables
The evaluation will be both an objective and a consultative/participatory exercise and is expected to involve the following elements.
While Interpeace anticipates the use of the elements listed below, the list is not exhaustive. The evaluation may include additional elements and approaches as appropriate for responding to the final evaluation questions.
Steps and deliverables here
8- Modality
Timeframe
The foreseen duration of the evaluation is approximately 30 working days with approximately 15 days spent in Guinea-Bissau between September and October 2020. The evaluation starting date is foreseen for the half of September 2020 with submission of the final report by the half of October 2020. The final timeframe will be agreed upon with the selected consultant.
Reporting lines
The evaluator conducts the final evaluation of the project and interacts directly with Interpeace and Voz di Paz. The evaluator reports to Interpeace’s Programme Manager for Guinea-Bissau. An overall lumpsum will be established in the contract as per prior agreement between Interpeace and the evaluator. This lumpsum covers costs related to international travel, accommodation, visa, communication, DSA during the fieldwork.
Location
Interpeace and Voz di Paz’s programme team is based in Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau.
The evaluator shall be prepared, as per prior agreement, to collaborate with Interpeace and Voz di Paz both remotely and on site in Bissau. Remote collaboration is established through emails, Skype and WhatsApp or land line telephone connection in the case of insufficient Internet connection in Bissau.
Interpeace’s responsibilities
- Providing a focal point at Interpeace for the evaluation, who may or may not travel with the consultant (time and funds permitting);
- Providing a focal point at Voz di Paz;
- Providing logistical support inside Guinea-Bissau;
- Arranging meetings with stakeholders;
- Providing relevant programme reports and documentation in advance;
- Providing success stories and testimonies to illustrate the types of change (see questions on impact) which can then be verified by the evaluator.
9- Qualifications
Selection Criteria
Interpeace and Voz di Paz are looking for an experienced international consultant with the following skills and experience at a minimum:
- Significant experience in conducting evaluations/assessments;
- Strong knowledge of and experience with conflict resolution and peacebuilding programmes;
- Demonstrated understanding of participatory processes and methodologies and experience in qualitative and quantitative data collection
- Experience working in Guinea-Bissau or other conflict or post-conflict environments.
- Excellent command of English (report writing) and Portuguese (conducting interviews and exchanging with the programme team).
- Ability to work effectively and inclusively with people of different culture, race, nationality, gender, political or religious belief, age, sexual orientation, disability, or marital status.
Qualified candidates may submit a narrative and financial proposal to ferrati@interpeace.org, silva@interpeace.org and vozdipazgb@gmail.com including:
- CVs and relevant experiences of all members of the consultant team as well as the roles provided for each for the consultancy
- Presentation of the methodology, based on the requests expressed in these Terms of Reference and taking into account gender
- Detailed budget including logistics costs as well as human resources consultancy – please note that the overall availability for this evaluation exercise is 20.000 USD.
Deadline for application is on 30 of August 2020. “Evaluation PBF II Guinea-Bissau” MUST BE included in the subject line of the application e-mail for the application to be considered.
Interpeace reserves the right to close recruitment ahead of the deadline, and applicants are encouraged to submit their applications as soon as possible. Interviews will take place the first weeks of September.
Please note that due to high volume of applications, ONLY short-listed candidates will be notified.
How to apply:
Qualified candidates may submit a narrative and financial proposal to ferrati@interpeace.org, silva@interpeace.org and vozdipazgb@gmail.com including:
- CVs and relevant experiences of all members of the consultant team as well as the roles provided for each for the consultancy
- Presentation of the methodology, based on the requests expressed in these Terms of Reference and taking into account gender
- Detailed budget including logistics costs as well as human resources consultancy – please note that the overall availability for this evaluation exercise is 20.000 USD.
Deadline for application is on 30 of August 2020. “Evaluation PBF II Guinea-Bissau” MUST BE included in the subject line of the application e-mail for the application to be considered.
Interpeace reserves the right to close recruitment ahead of the deadline, and applicants are encouraged to submit their applications as soon as possible. Interviews will take place the first weeks of September.
Please note that due to high volume of applications, ONLY short-listed candidates will be notified.