3

1 Background

Following the 12 January earthquake in Haiti, under the ACT appeal HTI-101, which covered the period of February 2010 – December 2011, a large number of organizations in the Action by Churches Together (ACT) Alliance were engaged in emergency-related operations. During the ACT Forum meeting on 18 November 2011, various members agreed to implement a joint program of rehabilitation called "Initiatives Les Palmes" (ACT ILP program), funded primarily by ICCO & Kerk in Actie from the Netherlands. Geographically, the program covers the region of Les Palmes, including Leogane, Gressier, Petit Goave and Grand Goave. The main objective of the Joint ACT Program is to make an effective contribution to the transition from emergency relief to long-term development in the Palmes area. The programme was formally launched in June 2012, and will last until December 2014.

In the concept note of the ACT ILP program, the following internal and external objectives have been formulated:

1.1 Internal objectives of the ACT program:
a. To promote the working together of Act Alliance members, local ACT partners and local government
b. To increase the visibility of ACT in Haiti
c. To promote the mutual learning between the ACT members regarding rehabilitation and reconstruction responses and extend such knowledge to the rest of Haitian society by facilitating active participation by university students and researchers in the projects;
d. To have a more effective rehabilitation and reconstruction response than the effectiveness of the individual members while establishing a resilient network able to respond better to future emergencies and manage everyday governance issues in a more collaborative manner.

1.2 External objectives of the ACT program:
a. To make an effective contribution to the transition from emergency relief to long-term development in the Les Palmes Region in Haiti,
To support activities in the following areas of intervention: Health; Education; Water and Sanitation; Protection; Risks and Disaster Management; Food Security; Livelihoods; Housing; Capacity Building.
b. To contribute in building capacity among local civil society and enhance the empowerment of local communities to plan, manage and implement rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts, defend their social and economic rights through concrete public policy discussions and proposals reflecting SPHERE, HAP and other norms as objectives.

The operational strategy of the program has been to fund rehabilitation projects in the region of Les Palmes through local NGOs (or international NGOs partnering with local NGOs as main implementing partner), community-based organizations including women's organizations, and local authorities. Funded projects cover the following areas: agriculture / food security, environmental protection, rehabilitation of rural roads, livelihoods, WASH, water management, capacity building and fiscal mobilization. The program is administered and managed in Haiti by the Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) and it works closely with a working group. Currently, the working group includes twelve (12) organizations including ACT Haiti member organizations, local NGOs, including women’s organizations, and representatives of municipalities in the region Les Plames.

2 DESCRIPTION OF THE ASSIGNMENT

This external evaluation aims to get an insight into the performance, results and lessons learnt of the program in the period 2012 – 2014, for the implementing partners in the ACT Initiative Les Palmes, the ACT ILP working group/ACT Haiti forum, the coordination agency NCA and the funder ICCO and Kerk in Actie, as well as for the ACT Alliance overall. Given that the set-up of the project has had the character of a “pilot” for its main funder ICCO, the evaluation should contain a focus on the organizational / management structures surrounding the program, in addition to the focus on the actual impact level.

2.1 OBJECTIVES
The main objectives of the evaluation are:
• To assess the relevance of the ACT ILP program:
- Has the ACT ILP program been in line with overall national policies and specific policies for the areas of intervention?
- Do the outputs produced in the various projects match the demand of target group?
• To assess the efficiency (i.e. to what extent an activity attains its objectives) of the ACT ILP as a programmatic intervention, and as a programmatic structure / set-up:
- Are the activities, outputs and indicators of the ILP program consistent with the expected outcome and internal and external objectives?
- What are the major factor(s) of achievement / non-achievement of the objectives?

• To assess the effectiveness (i.e. that the least costly resources have been used in order to achieve the desired results) of the ACT Initiative Les Palmes Program:
- Has the ILP Program been implemented in the most efficient way, compared to alternatives?
- Has there been sufficient staff capacity to manage the program?

• To assess the impact of the ILP program
- Which changes have the program achieved in terms of human development and people’s wellbeing?

• To assess the sustainability of the ILP program
-Will the outcomes and outputs produced through the ILP program function and deliver benefits over time?
-What could be done to increase the sustainability of the intervention?

N.B Given that the ILP program encompasses 17 individual partners /projects, the evaluators may want to include a sample of case studies of individual projects to be able to fully explore the different objectives of the evaluation.

2.2 Scope of the Evaluation
The evaluation will look at three (3) phases of the ACT ILP program, the initial phase its organizational set-up and its actual implementation:

• Initial phase of the ACT ILP program development level: meaning the start-up/concept note development of the ACT program (the start-up phase of the ACT ILP).
• The organizational set-up of the ACT ILP program: focus on the functioning and role of the ACT WG during program execution, selection criteria, review, role of ACT ILP TA/CA, coordinating agency (NCA) and donor agency (I&K).
• The implementation of the 17 projects under the ACT ILP program: a short (desk) review of the MIS of the implementing partners on the achievements made for the different thematic projects. Also achievements in the field of the different thematic projects will be reviewed. The project achievements should be triangulated with findings from case studies that indicate what kind of rehabilitation projects in Les Palmes have been executed, with what kind of organizations (CBOs, NGOs and Local authorities etc). This last part would be the focus of the evaluation from the perspective of the back-donor, SHO (Dutch Cooperating Aid Agencies).

2.2.1 More specifically the evaluation will focus on:
• The overall programme itself (link to concept note and its internal and external initial objectives), its objectives in relation to output, outcome and effect (both intended and unintended).
• The achievements and lessons learnt with regard to the chosen structure (efficiency and effectiveness) of the joint ACT ILP programme which will increase insight into the major lessons learnt for the ACT alliance of this joint ACT programme in Haiti.
• An indication of the overall project achievements (WASH, Food security, livelihood, economic development, capacity building, livestock, health, infrastructure etc.) the different thematic projects that fall under the programme objectives, outputs and immediate outcomes of the overall ILP program. Besides that more in-depth analysis of the case studies will be included.

3 METHODOLOGY

The methodology for the evaluation will include the (field and desk) review of project and program documentation, field visits, interviews and data collection.

The following sources of information will be used:
• Reviewing literature and documents (concept note, ACT ILP WG meeting reports, field visit reports, project documents, feuille de route, fiche résumé, project proposals, narrative and financial report, feedback I&K, etc.)
• Interview with key informants (different TA/PC, ACT ILP WG members, NCA, I&K)
• Focus group interviews / participatory data gathering techniques
• Questionnaires (for partners in ACT ILP)
• Case studies (including visit to specific project locations)
• Field visits to project locations (observations) for projects selected by the evaluator

The log frame of the program with the reference indicators can be used during field visits (random sample) and interviews.

4 MAIN STEPS FOR THE ASSIGNMENT

4.1 Designing analytical frame and selection process of case studies
• Develop overall log frame and indicators based on desk study and interviews with key informants.
• Formulate specific questions and criteria for measuring results of the ACT ILP program
• Do a random sample and select the case studies

4.2 Data collection and assessment
• Field visits, interviews, focus groups discussions done
• Additional desk research done
• Consultation through workshop

4.3 Preliminary analysis of data
• Compiling and sharing data among evaluators
• Identify lessons learnt
• Jointly review with the ACT ILP WG the preliminary analysis.

4.4 Reporting and final briefing (to ACT ILP and Partner)
• The report should to a large extent follow the structure of the objectives of the assignment (relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, sustainability), with appropriate sub-headings and graphics / figures, whenever relevant.
• The report should include an executive summary of maximum 1.5 pages, an introduction, and a final chapter on conclusions and recommendations. The recommendations should be based on lessons learnt from the evaluation based on the experiences from the ACT ILP program partners, the ACT ILP WG, and the beneficiaries, and could be directed at different groups of stakeholders, including the ACT Alliance, the ACT Forum Haiti, the international donor (ICCO) and the coordinating agency (NCA). The number of pages in the main reports should be limited to 20 - 25 pages with unlimited pages in annex.
• The report will not be made public, but shared amongst ACT Alliance partners, SHO, the ACT secretariat and the Working Group. However, the executive summary will be accessible to the public.

 

CONSULTANT’S PROFILE

The evaluation of this ACT ILP program requires an evaluation team of the (3) external consultants not involved in the set-up of the ACT ILP program with a good balance of sector and local experience, and a good understanding of gender-related aspects. The team leader should be an experienced independent consultant. The evaluators must collectively have:
 Extensive experience in monitoring and evaluation, preferably in earthquake settings
 Have an understanding of the relation between emergency aid and more structural aid
 Proven track record in publications of evaluations; excellent report writing skills
 Knowledge of the Haitian context
 The team leader should have at least 10 years of relevant experience, with a minimum of a master degree; with proven qualities of steering an evaluation and leading a team.
 Strong ability to stimulate and guide participatory process
 Familiar with the ACT alliance structure
 Excellent in English and good level of French- both written and spoken for international consultants; For the two (2) local consultants good level of French and Creole.
 Female candidates are particularly encouraged to apply

We accept to receive applications from teams of evaluators and from individual evaluators who would be willing to work in a team put together by NCA

Expression of interest along with at least one page description on how you propose to conduct the evaluation, CVs of all team members and a tentative financial offer, should be emailed to the following address by July 15, 2014