UNDP Jobs - 58489- National Consultant –Final Evaluation of Support t

National Consultant –Final Evaluation of Support to the Electoral Cycle in Sierra Leone 2011-2014

Location :

Freetown with field work in the provinces, SIERRA LEONE

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

04-Aug-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

30 working days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

30 working days

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

Project Background:

The Project “Support to the Electoral Cycle in Sierra Leone” (hereafter referred to as “the Project” was formulated based on broad consultations held with the Government of Sierra Leone and a wide range of Donors, Development Partners and Civil Society in Sierra Leone. In formulating the Project, emphasis was on previous experiences that emerged from lessons learned from previous electoral cycles; and the UN Needs Assessment Mission (NAM) that addressed the political and technical context for holding the 2012 elections. Essentially, the Project was formulated based on the key principles of national ownership of the electoral process, sustainability, cost effectiveness, capacity development to build professional institutions rather than replace capacity, timeliness of interventions, use of a coordinated approach, identification of risks and a mitigation strategy from the outset, and application of lessons learned from previous electoral cycle.

The Project budget was approximately USD 45 million covering a period of four (4) years from 2011 till 2014. The Project funds were managed through a multi donor trust fund to support institutional development and thereafter election management of the key fundamental institutions notably: the National Electoral Commission (NEC); Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC), District Monitoring Committees (DMCs), Sierra Leone Police (SLP)/ Chiefdom Police/Fire Force, Prisons, Office of the National Statistics (ONS), Judiciary, Independent Media Commission (IMC), National Commission for Democracy (NCD), Human Rights Commission for Sierra Leone (HRCSL), All Political Parties Youth Association (APPYA), Media, Inter Religious Council, and Arts for Peace and Musicians, among others. The Electoral Offences Court (EOC) focused on pre-election offences and petitions as well as campaigns and registration.

Project Interventions:

The Project supported the Presidential Elections; Parliamentary Elections; Local by-elections; and follow up (e.g. boundary delimitation post-election). The Project further led to the initial preparatory activities for the establishment of a Civil Registration System in Sierra Leone.

The Project focused on three key areas notably

Institutional Strengthening: enhancing the institutional and management capacity of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) and Political Party Registration Commission (PPRC) through the improvement of the electoral administration as a whole including among key strategic areas of assistance, legal reform, strategic planning, voter registration, institutional strengthening, results management systems, regional networking, electoral dispute resolution, and management of electoral stakeholders. Inclusive Participation: expanding levels of electoral and democratic awareness and participation prior to the next general and local elections particularly for underrepresented and

disadvantaged segments of society (in particular women, youths and children living with disabilities); and working through political and other stakeholders such as Political Parties, Civil Society and the Media; reducing the level of political tension; and promoting a more conciliatory and consultative political and electoral process.

Conflict management and electoral security: improving the access to and administration of electoral disputes. Strengthening capacity of Office of the National Security (ONS) and Sierra Leone Police (SLP) to ensure peaceful elections.

Project Management and Coordination

The Project was directly implemented (under Direct Implementation Modality (DIM)) by UNDP Sierra Leone in consultation with program beneficiaries and program partners and under the oversight of a Project Steering Committee, which was the overall decision making body. The Project steering committee comprised of Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MOFED), Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), National Elections Committee (NEC), Political Parties Registration Committee (PPRC), National Electoral Watch (NEW) representative, Donors, United Nations and other stakeholders. Other coordination mechanisms included: the sub-committee for the oversight of voter registration, Civil Society Organisations (CSO) forum, and the Program Management Unit.

Financial Arrangements

Because the Project was multi-donor supported, the Project was resourced through a purpose-specific basket fund modality where partners operationalised their respective contributions to the basket mechanism through third party cost sharing arrangements or trust fund arrangements. The main purpose was to ensure effective coordination among contributing parties as well as reduction in transaction costs through harmonised financial and narrative reporting.

Objectives of the Evaluation

The Government of Sierra Leone in collaboration with UNDP and its Donors and Development Partners have identified a critical need to assess the impact of the “Support to the Electoral Cycle in Sierra Leone” Project; and produce recommendations for future electoral assistance programs. The evaluation is expected to improve the effectiveness of potential subsequent electoral assistance programs supported by UNDP and its donor partners in strengthening electoral systems and process in Sierra Leone. The evaluation is further expected to draw lessons learned from the electoral process and management in Sierra Leone. This feedback will be fundamental in providing guidance towards organising future elections in a more effective, efficient and sustainable manner. With a total Project budget of approximately US$45,000,000, UNDP, Donors and Development Partners would specifically like to assess challenges faced and attempts made to solve them; what value the project has added to the electoral process in Sierra Leone and the relevance of the strategy used in the delivery.

Specific Objectives

Specifically, the evaluation aims to accomplish the following:

Review the performance of the Project in achieving the outputs as per the Project Document and their contributions to outcome level goals;
Identify factors, which facilitated or hindered the achievement of results, both in terms of the external environment and those internal to the NEC, PPRC, DMCs, SLP, ONS, IMC, NCD, HRCSL, APPYA, NEW, e.t.c and document lessons learned at various implementation stages. This should include but not be limited to assessing the strengths and weaknesses in Project design, management, coordination, human resource, and financial resources;
Assess the appropriateness of the Project strategy including the Project institutional/ management arrangements and the basket fund modality to reach the intended outputs and outcomes;
Establish the extent to which the approach and implementation of the Project contributes to sustainable electoral management in Sierra Leone;
Define the extent to which the Project addressed cross cutting issues including gender, human rights and conflict prevention and management
Make clear and focused recommendations that may be required for enhancing the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability of a future electoral assistance programme.

Scope of Evaluation

In assessing the Project, the evaluation will take into consideration

Regarding the validity of the Design and Relevance the extent to which the Project activities matched the priorities and policies of the target group, recipient and donor.

The key questions will include:

Did the Project respond to the real needs of the beneficiaries? Were the planned project objectives and intended results (i.e. outputs and outcomes) relevant and realistic to the situation and needs on the ground? Were the problems and needs adequately analysed?
How well did the Project design take into account local efforts and make use of existing capacity to address issues? Did the Project’s original design fill an existing gap that other ongoing interventions were not addressing?
Were the objectives of the Project clear, realistic and likely to be achieved within the established time schedule and with the allocated resources (including human resources)?
Was the Project design logical and coherent in terms of the roles, capacities and commitment of stakeholders to realistically achieve the planned outcomes?
How appropriate and useful were the indicators described in the Project document for monitoring and measuring results? Were the means of verifications for the indicators appropriate?
To what extent were external factors and assumptions identified at the time of design?
Was the Project designed in a flexible way to respond to changes / needs that could occur during the implementation?
Was the level of stakeholder commitment sufficient to foster constituents’ involvement in promoting conflict sensitive, gender balanced and human rights based approaches?
Was the strategy for sustainability of impact defined clearly at the design stage of the Project? If so, what was the methodology / approach taken appropriate to the context?
Recommend specific objectives that should be addressed in future if the project was continued Regarding Achievements and Implementation and Development Effectiveness: the extent to which the Project activities have attained its objectives.
What were the development results (i.e. against planned outputs and outcomes) of interventions, taking into account the institutional development of the local and relevant national partners?
Which aspects of the Project had the greatest achievements? What were the supporting factors? What are the main lessons learned from the partnership strategies and what are the possibilities of replication and scaling-up? How can the Project build or expand on achievements?
In which areas does the Project have the least achievements? What have been the constraining factors and why? How can they be overcome?
To what extent have interventions addressed gender and Human Rights issues?
How effective was the collaboration between the participating organizations and what has been the added value of this collaboration?
How have stakeholders been involved in Project implementation? How effective has the Project been in establishing ownership especially with reference to the three components of the Project
Regarding Effectiveness of management arrangements and efficiency of resource use: Efficiency will measure the Project outputs -- qualitative and quantitative -- in relation to the inputs. Key questions will include:
Have resources (funds, human resources, time, expertise, etc) been allocated strategically to achieve the relevant outputs and outcomes? Have resources been used efficiently?
Were Project funds and activities delivered in a timely manner?
Were management capacities adequate?
Assess the criteria and governance aspects related to the selection of beneficiaries and partners institutions, including NGOs.
Did the Project receive adequate political, technical and administrative support from its local and national partners?
How has the role of UNDP added value to the project? If found relevant, how and in what areas should it be improved?
Has relevant gender expertise and Human rights approaches programming been sought? Have available gender mainstreaming tools been adapted and utilized? Have any Human Right’s programming initiation or toolkit been introduced to local planners?
How effectively did the Project management monitor Project performance and results?
What has been the quality of documentation and dissemination of knowledge within the Project?

Impact and Sustainability of the Project

In assessing the impact and sustainability of the Project, the evaluation will look at the positive and negative changes produced by the Project’s development interventions, directly or indirectly, intended or unintended. This will involve the main impacts and effects resulting from the Project’s activities on the local social, economic, environmental and other development indicators. The focus will be on both intended and unintended results and will also include the positive and negative impact of external factors, such as changes in terms of economic, political and financial conditions.

On sustainability the Project will measure whether the benefits of the Project’s activities will likely to continue after donor funding has been withdrawn.

Some of the key questions will include:

To what extent did the Project make a significant contribution to the stabilization of Sierra Leone and democracy and durable development of electoral institutions?
How effectively has the Project built necessary long-lasting capacity of electoral bodies at national and local levels to plan, initiate, implement and monitor within the context of a country in transition and evolving socio-economic environment and fluid political contexts?
Are these institutions more enabled to functional independently because of capacity building of UNDP or not?
To what extent were sustainability considerations taken into account in the execution and conduct of the Project’s activities? Was there an exit strategy and, if so, what steps have been taken to ensure sustainability and to what extent the exit strategy was successfully implemented and why?
Are the Project results, achievements and benefits likely to be durable? Are these anchored in national institutions and can the partners maintain them financially at the end of the Project?
Can the Project approach and results be replicated and scaled up by national partners?
Assess sustainability of the Project outcome and its long term impact, and how sustainability can be strengthened.

Duties and Responsibilities

Methodology of the Assignment-Duties and Responsibilities

Based on UNDP guidelines for evaluations, and in consultations with UNDP Sierra Leone, the evaluation will be inclusive and participatory, involving all principal stakeholders into the analysis. The evaluation will consider the social, political and economic context which affects the overall performance of the outcome achievements.

During the evaluation, the consultant is expected to apply the following approaches for data collection and analysis:

Desk review of relevant documents including progress reports and any records of the various opinion surveys conducted during the life of the Project;
Key informative interviews with the NEC and other key electoral bodies and UNDP Senior Management and Project Staff;
Briefing and debriefing sessions with the former Project Steering Committee;
Interviews with partners and stakeholders, government officials, service providers including media houses, CSO partners, political party officials, the NEC Commissioners and staff, Political Parties Registration Committee (PPRC), National Electoral Watch (NEW), Development Partners (within the basket and those outside the basket), strategic partners (those providing electoral support outside the basket), experts on governance reforms, among others;
Interviews with key Project stakeholders and partners in elections and civic education e.g. National Commission for Democracy (NCD), Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone (HRCSL), PPRC’s District Monitoring Committees etc. (as deemed necessary).

She/he will perform the following tasks:

Review documents;
Provide contextual knowledge and analysis of Sierra Leone’s electoral reforms and good governance
Participate in the design of the review methodology;
Data collection;
Assessment of indicators’ baselines;
Actively participate in conducting the analysis of the outcomes, outputs and targets (as per the scope of the evaluation described above), as agreed with the team leader;
Draft related parts of the review report; and
Assist the team leader in finalising the report through incorporating suggestions received on the draft and in relation to the assigned sections.

Deliverables:

The consultant is expected to deliver the following outputs:
Inception Report detailing the Evaluation Theory of Change, Evaluation Design Matrix, methodology, work plan and proposed structure of the report;
A draft evaluation report;
Final report, including a 2-3 page executive summary, and with evidence based conclusions on each of the evaluation objectives, as outlined above and lessons learned and key recommendations for future electoral support programmes in Sierra Leone. Annexes including among others the Terms of Reference for the evaluation as well as methodology and list of questions used during the interviews and list of key informants.

The consultant shall present the draft report at a wrap up meeting with UNDP and NEC representatives, to validate the report. The evaluators shall present their final report following this meeting after incorporation of feedback at validation meeting with NEC and UNDP and possible subsequent amendments.

A detailed evaluation program will be developed by the NEC, PPRC, DMCs, SLP, ONS, IMC, NCD, HRCSL, APPYA together with UNDP on the basis of proposed evaluation methodology and work plan developed by the consultants during the inception phase. The consultants shall be responsible for setting up meetings with various stakeholders including the various officials of NEC, PPRC, DMCs, SLP, ONS, IMC, HRCSL, APPYA, NEW, etc.

UNDP will share with the consultant key Project materials before the start of the field work. The consultant will review the documents prior to the commencement of the field work. The NEC and UNDP shall brief the consultant, prior to signing the contract, on the objectives, purpose and output of the evaluation. An oral briefing by the consultant on the proposed work plan and evaluation methodology will be done and approved prior to the commencement of the evaluation process. The NEC and UNDP will provide guidance in identifying, contacting and arranging for discussions and meetings with stakeholders.

The consultant will report to the Project Steering Committee comprising of representatives of the main EBF partners and the newly arrived Governance Team Leader in UNDP. The Consultant will submit three reports at the end of the assignment to: the Project Steering Committee, UNDP Country Director; Chair of the NEC.

Timeframe

The detailed schedule of the evaluation and length of the assignment will be discussed with the Consultant prior to the assignment. The estimated duration of the Consultants’ assignment is up to 30 working days. Desk review and inception (1 week); Field Work (3-4 weeks); Preliminary Report (1 week); Validation of Preliminary Report and Feedback from key stakeholders (1 week); Final Report (1 week).

Payment Modalities:

1st Payment upon signing of contract;
2nd Payment upon submission of Preliminary Report with Validation and Feedback from Key stakeholders;
3rd upon submission of final report.

Competencies

Knowledge and understanding of theories, concepts and approaches relevant to evaluation, programme management and development intervention;
Strong analytical and communication skills;
Strong ability to write clearly and convincingly, adapting style and content to different audiences and speak clearly and convincingly;
Ability to independently conduct research and produce high quality practical advisory reports and knowledge products;
Ability to work as part of a team, sharing information and coordinating efforts within the team and various stakeholders.
Ability to consolidate information from multiple sources;
Strong organizational skills;
Sound judgment, strategic thinking and the ability to manage competing priorities.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced university degree in political science, international development or related field.

Experience:

At least seven years work experience in the areas related to electoral reform and or good governance in Sierra Leone;
Sound knowledge and understanding of politics and the specifics and developments in electoral reforms in Sierra Leone;
Previous experience working on democracy related programs in Sierra Leone.

Language:

Fluency in English and strong ability to write in English.

Evaluation Criteria:

Criteria against which the successful consultant will be assessed and their percentage weighting are as follows:

Minimum required educational qualification (10%);
Substantial professional knowledge and practical experience (40%);
Brief Methodology of Approach (50 %).

Application Procedure

Qualified and interested candidates are hereby encouraged to apply by submitting the following:

A Cover Letter of Interest;
A completed P11 form which could be downloaded from http://sas.undp.org/Documents/P11_personal_history_form.doc
Detailed achievement based CV;
Technical Proposal-Brief Methodology of Approach;
Financial proposal reflecting the consultancy fee in Leone (SLL) currency and any other anticipated expenses that may be incurred to accomplish the required work.

Important Note:

Kindly upload all of the above as one single PDF file.