Guinea-Bissau has been in a vicious cycle of political instability since its independence, which primarily stems from a series of intertwined causes, including lack of access to justice and impunity. Despite the consecration of fundamental political, civil, economic and social rights by the Constitution, laws are barely implemented or enforced, resulting in limited and inequitable access to quality justice services for the population and an overall decline in confidence in the modern state system of justice institutions.

The negative impact of transnational organized crime, especially drug and human trafficking and related cross-cutting crimes, corruption and money laundering, has been recognized at the highest level by the Guinea-Bissau authorities, and the fight against it has become a national priority. In June 2018, the President of the Republic and the Government of Guinea-Bissau requested the support of the United Nations in the fight against organized crime.

In its resolution 2404, adopted on 28 February 2018, the Security Council (SC) expresses concerns at the range of challenges that weak and dysfunctional security institutions pose, including impairing the ability of the State to extend public security and rule of law within its boundaries, and noting that good governance and oversight of the security sector is important in ensuring that security institutions are capable of protecting the population. Furthermore, the UN Secretary-General, in resolution 2458 (2019) stressed that the consolidation of peace and stability in Guinea-Bissau can only result from a consensual, inclusive and nationally owned process, priority reforms in the security and justice sectors, and the fight against impunity and drug trafficking.

The Project

Considering the impact Drug Trafficking and Transnational Organanized Crime (DTOC) have in the development and stability of the country, as well as on the credibility and accountability of its institutions, the UN decided to support the national authorities to improve capacity for sustaining peace by supporting national actors in developing resilient national capacities and addressing conflict drivers that undermine social cohesion and that may lead to violent conflict. In this regard, UNDP, UNODC, IOM, UNIOGBIS-CDTOC, combined their expertise for an integrated, coordinated approach in strengthening national capacities to address drug trafficking and organized crime during the United Nations reconfiguration in Guinea-Bissau. In this sense UNDP, UNODC, IOM, are implementing the joint project “Strengthening the Justice and Security Sector response to drug trafficking and transnational organized crime to reduce insecurity in Guinea-Bissau”, funded by the UN Peacebuilding Fund (PBF).

The overall goal of the project is to reduce Guinea-Bissau’s vulnerability to drug trafficking and organized crime and to diminish the negative impact of such crimes on the fragility and dependence of the country’s security institutions, rule of law and local communities, hence reducing a major source of the country’s cycle of instability. 

The objective is to support Rule of Law and Security Institutions to more effectively prevent, investigate and prosecute drug trafficking and transnational organized crime, reducing the country’s sources of fragility.

The expected results of the project are:

• The National security agencies and justice sector actors improve their strategic and operational coordination capacity to prevent, investigate and prosecute drug trafficking and transnational organized crime.
• The Security and justice sector institutions have improved capacity to effectively investigate, prosecute and adjudicate drug trafficking / transnational organized crime cases.
• The democratic governance and civilian oversight over the security practices and institutions responsible to combat drug trafficking and transnational organized crime is enhanced.

The project’s main beneficiaries are Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) , judicial actors and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).

•           The project scope, budget, implementation timeframe, as well as further specific details of the project are available at: https://mptf.undp.org/factsheet/project/00119444 .

Objective of the assignment

The main objective of the final evaluation is to assess the achievements of the project and to determine its overall added value to peacebuilding in Guinea-Bissau, including its relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact and to define/identify the baseline indicators for the project´ next step.  In assessing the degree to which the project met its intended peacebuilding objectives and results, the evaluation shall seek for evidence of peacebuilding results, highlight the strategies and interventions that have contributed to or hindered their achievement, and provide lessons learned from the project and recommendations for future programming.

The evaluation will be of interest to UNDP, UNODC, IOM, the Peacebuilding Support Office of the United Nations (PBSO), the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund (PBF), the Government of Guinea-Bissau (namely the Ministry of Justice), as well as to international donors and policy makers engaged in the country. 

Scope of Evaluation

The evaluation will be conducted by the Evaluation Team composed of an International Evaluation Consultant (Team Leader) and National Evaluation Consultant. The International Evaluation Consultant is the primary evaluation lead and ultimate penholder and will lead the evaluation process, including the data collection and analysis methodology, and decide on planning and distribution of the evaluation workload and tasks. The National Evaluation Consultant will provide support to the International Evaluation Consultant throughout the evaluation process and assist with in-country data collection.

The geographic scope of the evaluation coincides with the project scope, namely: Bissau, Bafatá, Gabu, Oio, Cacheu, Biombo, Bolama, Quinara and Tombali.

The evaluation should be conducted in accordance with the OECD DAC evaluation principles[1] as well as PBF specific evaluation criteria, which have been adapted to the context, and cover the whole duration of the project, between January 2020 and August 2022.

A number of key evaluation questions are reported below for each of the OECD DAC evaluation criteria. During the inception phase, the consultant will be responsible for analyzing, selecting, refining and complementing them, compiling the final set of questions the evaluation will seek to answer, to be included in the final Inception Report. The gender dimension will require special attention for this evaluation and must be considered under each evaluation criterion.

Relevance

• Was the project relevant in addressing conflict drivers and factors for peace identified in the conflict analysis? If there were significant contextual shifts, did the project goals and approach remain relevant?
• Do the project expected results address the needs of the target groups? Are the activities and outputs of the project consistent with the intended outcomes? Was the intervention flexibly adapted to respond to evolving needs over time?
• What is the significance of the intervention as far as local and national commitments and priorities are concerned? Are the activities and outputs of the project consistent with the overall global and national gender priorities?
• To what extent the local population, beneficiaries and external observers perceive the intervention as relevant? Were they consulted during design and implementation of the project?
• Was the project appropriate and strategic to the main peacebuilding goals and challenges in the country at the time of the PBF project’s design? Did relevance continue throughout implementation?
• Did the project’s theory of change clearly articulate assumptions about why the project approach is expected to produce the desired change? Was the theory of change grounded in evidence?

?Coherence

• To what extent the project was compatible with other interventions and complemented the work among different entities, especially with other UN actors in the country?
• Is the project consistent with the organizations’ past and future programming, and with Guinea-Bissau wide peacebuilding programming, including other PBF projects?
• How were stakeholders involved in the project’s design and implementation?

?Effectiveness

• What has been the progress made towards achievement of the expected outcome of the project? What specific results were achieved, both positive and negative? What major factors, strategies and interventions contributed to the achievement or non-achievement of expected project objectives?
• To what extent are beneficiaries satisfied with the results?
• Did the project have effective monitoring mechanisms in place to measure progress towards achievement of results? To what extent was the monitoring data objectively used for management action and decision making? Was the project monitoring system adequately capturing data on peacebuilding results at an appropriate outcome level?
• How appropriate and clear was the PBF project’s targeting strategy in terms of geographic and beneficiary targeting?
• To what extent did the PBF project substantively mainstream a gender and support gender-responsive peacebuilding?

Efficiency

• Have the project’s organizational structures, managerial support and coordination mechanisms effectively supported the delivery of the project?  What are the recommendations for improvement?
• How efficient was the overall staffing, planning and coordination within the project (including between the implementing agencies and with stakeholders)?
• How efficient and successful was the project’s implementation approach, including procurement, number of implementing partners and other activities?
• What measures have been taken during planning and implementation to ensure that resources are efficiently used?
• Have the outputs been delivered in a timely manner?  If not, how did the project team mitigate the impact of delays? Did delays create missed opportunities to address time-sensitive peacebuilding opportunities?           
• Are the project and its components cost-effective? Could the activities and outputs have been delivered with fewer resources or within a reduced timeframe, without reducing their quality and quantity?

Impact

• What has happened as a result of the project and what is the evidence for this?
• What real difference has the project made to the beneficiaries?
• How many people have been affected?
• What results and changes in perceptions, attitudes, behaviours, relationships, expected and unexpected, can be observed at the end of the project? (Particularly in relation to: promoting trust, confidence building measures and mediation efforts among key political actors to reach political settlement and willingness to work for the country’s political stabilization; enabling broader inclusive dialogue on the design and implementation of key reforms (as per the Conakry Agreement), national reconciliation, and greater participation of women and youth in reform processes.)

Sustainability & Ownership

• To what extent did the benefits of a programme or project continue after donor funding ceased?
• What were the major factors which influenced the achievement or non-achievement of sustainability of the programme or project?
• 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 after the end of the intervention?
• How strong is the commitment of the Government and other stakeholders to sustaining the results of PBF support and continuing initiatives supported under the Project?
• How has the project enhanced and contributed to the development of national capacity in order to ensure suitability of efforts and benefits?

Conflict Sensitivity

• Did the PBF project have an explicit approach to conflict-sensitivity?
• Were the internal capacities of Recipient Organizations adequate for ensuring an ongoing conflict-sensitive approach?
• Was the project responsible for any unintended negative impacts?
• Was an ongoing process of context monitoring and a monitoring system that allows for monitoring of unintended impacts established?
• How effective was the project’s risk management strategy?

In addition to the above standard OECD/DAC criteria, the additional PBF specific evaluation criteria below should also be assessed by the evaluation. Within the structure of the evaluation report, the below criteria may either be reflected separately or integrated into the above evaluation criteria. Regardless, the evaluation must identify specific evaluation questions on the below criteria.

Catalytic:

• Was the project financially and/or programmatically catalytic?
• Has PBF funding been used to scale-up other peacebuilding work and/or has it helped to create broader platforms for peacebuilding?

Gender-Responsive/Gender-Sensitive

• Did the project consider the different challenges, opportunities, constraints and capacities of women, men, girls and boys in project design (including within the conflict analysis, outcome statements and results frameworks) and implementation?
• Were the commitments made in the project proposal to gender-responsive peacebuilding, particularly with respect to the budget, realized throughout implementation?

Risk-Tolerance and Innovation:

• If the project was characterized as “high risk”, were risks adequately monitoring and mitigated?
• How novel or innovative was the project approach? Can lessons be drawn to inform similar approaches elsewhere?

[1] OECD/DAC Evaluation criteria available at: http://www.oecd.org/dac/evaluation/revised-evaluation-criteria-dec-2019.pdf

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant, under the overall supervision of UNDP’s Chief Technical Adviser for Justice, is expected to perform the following activities:

• Review documents and consult with UNDP senior management and Rule of Law and Justice team members, OiC of the UNODC PO Bissau, IOM, and the Resident Coordinator’s Office to better understand the project, including its design process, implementation aspects and expected results;
• Review the project results and logical framework, progress and financial reports, monitoring reports and contribution agreements signed with partners;
• Prepare and conduct data collection tools (may include but not necessarily be limited to KIIs, focus group discussions, on-site field visits; surveys); Data collection tools should be based on protocols reviewed by the project team;
• Provide oversight to the national consultant in the organization of the field data collection, including the identification of sites to be visited;
• Record and transcribe interviews if needed;
• Conduct a comprehensive analysis of the project activities and results reported vis a vis evidence and data collected in the field to OECD’s DAC and PBF’s criteria;
• Assess partners views on IOM, UNDP and UNODC current and future role in supporting the rule of law and justice sector, including views on where IOM, UNDP and UNODC and have comparative advantages;
• Identify and document lessons learned, best practices, success stories and document and analyze challenges and possible weaknesses to inform future work of the implementing partners as well as UN Peacebuilding Fund in Guinea-Bissau;
• Organize a workshop session to provide a presentation (Submission of a PPT) to key stakeholders, including donors, the government and civil society organizations, to present and validate preliminary findings and recommendations in Portuguese;
• Produce a draft report including the comments from the workshop session, among others.
• Finalize the report based on any additional comments received from UNDP, RCO, PBF and any other key stakeholders on the draft report;
• Present  baseline indicators for the next phase of the project

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.

Deliverables

The following deliverables are expected:

• A methodological inception report, after 6 working days home-based work and prior to the field-based component. The inception report should capture relevant information such as proposed methods; proposed sources of data; data collection procedures and tools, including interview protocols, which will be reviewed and approved by the project team. The inception report should also include a proposed schedule of tasks, activities, deliverables and background information. The inception report shall be reviewed and approved by the Evaluation Reference Group (ERG). The evaluation reference group will be composed of representatives of all direct fund recipients (UNDP, IOM, UNODC), the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office (through the PBF Secretariat) and the Peacebuilding Support Office managing the PBF (at a minimum),
• Following the field work, organization of a workshop session to present and validate preliminary findings and recommendations, in Portuguese;
• A draft report in English, after 15 working days in the field and 11 working days home-based to analyse and write up the report. The first draft of the final report will be reviewed by the ERG for comments. The draft report shall not exceed 40 pages, plus executive summary plus annexes. The report will include a section on methodology with findings organised around Evaluation criteria, as outlined in these TORs. In providing the findings the evaluator will substantiate them by evidence and data. The report should not answer each bullet point question in the TORs individually but shall use them as a guide to provide strong cumulative analysis and findings for each criterion, avoiding repetition and focussing on overall progress.
• Presentation of baseline indicators for the next phase of the project.
• A final evaluation report in English, including a Tracked Change version demonstrating changes from the draft report. The final accepted version of the report will reflect ERG’s comments. Where ERG comments are not fully integrated, the consultant will provide an explanation. The Final Report must be approved for quality by the ERG before payment for the final tranche.

Duration of the assignment

The assignment must be conducted during 40 working days (including 6 days for documentary review and preparation of inception report; 20 days for in-country data collection and 1 day for presentation of preliminary findings; 10 days for further analysis and draft evaluation report preparation; 3 additional days for finalisation of the report following ERG comments) within the span of twelve weeks.

Consultant Profile

Competencies:

• Strong analytical and communication skills, including ability to produce high quality practical advisory reports and knowledge products;
• Professional and/or academic experience in one or more areas of the task at stake and knowledge on the management field;
• Ability to produce high quality outputs in a timely manner while understanding and anticipating the evolving client needs;
• Ability to focus on impact and results for the client, promoting and demonstrating an ethic of client service;
• Ability to work independently, produce high quality outputs;
• Strong ability to write clearly and convincingly, adapting style and content to different audiences and speak clearly and convincingly;
• Strong presentation skills in meetings with the ability to adapt for different audiences;
• Strong analytical, research and writing skills with demonstrated ability to think strategically;
• Strong capacity to communicate clearly and in a concise manner;
• Strong inter-personal, negotiation and liaison skills;
• Excellent writing, research, analysis and presentation skills.

Education:

• Master’s degree in law, economics, political science, international relations, human rights, development studies or other relevant social sciences;

Experience:

• Proven at least 10 years of experience in evaluating development or peacebuilding programs/projects;
• At least 5 years of experience in managing and implementing projects;
• Knowledge and demonstrable experience of PBF funded projects is an asset;
•  Experience in designing and conducting qualitative and quantitative research in the social area is required;
• Demonstrated experience with report writing is required.
• Acquaintance and involvement with development programs/projects/activities, especially with UNDP is desirable;
• Knowledge and demonstrable experience in the field of rule of law, human rights, access to justice and gender issues; including with UNDP is considered an asset;
• Demonstrable work experience in developing countries;
• Knowledge of Guinea-Bissau’s social context and/or rule of law and justice sector is strongly desirable;
• Experience in the use of computers and office software packages as well as web-based management systems.

Language:

• Fluency in oral and written English required , and proficiency in Portuguese is desirable;

Payment conditions:

• The financial disbursement will be processed as follows:
• After approval and validation of Inception Report (20%);
• Following the organization of the workshop session (30%);
• After submission of the draft report (20%);
• After submission and approval by ERG of the final report (30%).

Guidelines for application:

Required documents:

• A cover letter explaining interest and motivation for this assignment;
• A brief methodology on how you will approach and conduct the tasks, describing the tools and workplan proposed for this assignment; Proposals submitted should outline a strong mixed method approach to data collection and analysis, clearly noting how various forms of evidence will be employed vis-à-vis each other to triangulate gathered information. Proposals should be clear on the specific role each of the various methodological approaches plays in helping to address each of the evaluation questions.
• A financial proposal;
• A personal CV including past experiences in similar projects and at least 3 professional references.

Lump sum contracts: The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the ToR.  In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including travel, per diems, and number of anticipated working days).

Travel: All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel.  In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the Individual Consultant wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.

In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Evaluation: Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodologies:

Cumulative analysis

When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation;
• Technical Criteria weight – 70 points;
• Financial Criteria weight – 30 points.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70 points would be considered for the

Financial Evaluation.

Evaluation criteria:

• Education background - 10 points;
• Experience as defined in the ToR - 20 points;
• Competences as defined in the ToR - 10 points;
• Understating of the ToR - 15 points;
• Methodology and overall approach - 25 points;
• Overall quality of the proposal (comprehensiveness, structure, language and clarity) - 20 points.