In the last decade, Sierra Leone experienced improved investment to strengthen reform initiatives within the justice sector, human rights protection, peace and social cohesion. This was due to the recognition that supporting rule of law and human rights are prerequisites to achieving sustainable peace, promoting social cohesion and peacebuilding which contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The delivery of justice and human rights services as well as the maintenance of peace and social cohesion is shaped by persisting challenges relating to people’s access to justice particularly vulnerable groups including women and children, victims of human rights violation with an essentially polarized political environment that hampers the consolidation of peaceful initiatives. Poor and limited court infrastructure and paucity of legal personnel affect the capacity of justice sector institutions to respond to the justice needs and deliver services to the population. The Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone (HRCSL) is also challenged in carrying out its human right protection and promotion mandate amidst prevalent human rights issues in remote communities.

In 2020, the Rule of Law (ROL) and Sustaining Peace and Social Cohesion Portfolio Programme (2020-2023) was developed incorporating components to strengthen capacity of the HRCSL (2019-2020) to effectively deliver on its statutory mandate, enhance the ability of the Judiciary and the justice sector to expedite justice service delivery with focus on strengthening access to justice for women and girls at community level, and supporting initiatives geared toward promoting peace and social cohesion. The project seeks to contribute to the following four outputs:

1. Inclusive and gender responsive rule of law and human rights institutions and systems are strengthened to uphold human rights, expedite access to justice and security at national and local levels strengthened.
2. Social cohesion and security of local communities to prevent conflict and promote peace in Sierra Leone strengthened.
3. National policy formulation and implementation improved and inclusive.
4. Civil society and community peace and security structures’ capacity strengthened to address injustices and conflict in local communities.

In 2021, the support to strengthening capacity of the HRCSL phase II project was developed to span from April 2021 to December 2022.

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The evaluation will focus mainly on assessing the achievements of the various components within the Rule of Law, Sustaining Peace and Social Cohesion Portfolio document. It will focus on assessing the impact of programme interventions spanning from July 2020 to present. Specifically, it will examine the impact of UNDP’s support to the SLCS with a focus on the rehabilitation and reintegration of inmates as well as decongestion of overcrowded facilities including vocational training and earning scheme, water and sanitation within correctional centres, capacity strengthening of the civil society and Judiciary to address sexual offences, and support to IPCB and LAB provision of legal aid services to the vulnerable in rural communities and persons in detention.

Focus will as well be placed on efforts towards sustaining peace and social cohesion through key specific interventions including the support and impact of the Grievance Redress Committees (GRC) and Multi-Stakeholder Platforms (MSP), and Community Development Funds (CDF). The Assessment will also examine the innovative approach of partnership between private sector, government and civil society in conflict management. The consultancy will further explore the impact of programme support aimed at empowering youth at risk as resources for sustaining peace and community resilience in Tonkolili and Kenema districts in Sierra Leone through civic education, capacity building and increase their representation in local decision-making structures and providing psychoeducation on drug and substance abuse to increase reintegration and inclusion in decision-making of youth-at-risk. 

The evaluation of the support to the Human Rights Commission will examine project interventions relating to institutional capacity (technical, policy and legal) strengthening, complaint handling (mobile and office-based) procedures, HRCSL engagement on the UPR, Business and Human Rights (BHR), capacity building support to District Human Rights Committee (DHRCs) and the establishment human rights and peace clubs at district level.

Specific objectives of the evaluation include:

• Review the performance of the rule of law, human rights, and social cohesion programme in achieving the outputs stated in the programme document and their contributions to CPD outcomes.
• Review of performance of the sustaining peace and social cohesion interventions focusing on support for conflict management and youth-at-risk.
• Assess the factors that have been affecting national ownership and the outcome and its sustainability.
• Assess the knowledge and behavioural change of stakeholders and youth at risk on integration and involvement of youths and peace and social cohesion (Youth Empowerment).
• Assess the appropriateness of the project strategy, implementation approach, and programme institutional/management arrangements.
• Assess the contributions of the portfolio to enhancing gender equality, human rights and empowerment of youth and indigenous groups.
•  Document best practices and lessons learned from the programme to feed into the next phase of the programme cycle.
• Proffer concrete recommendations that may be required for enhancing the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability of a future programme.

Evaluation criteria and key questions

The evaluation will follow the Organization of Economic Cooperation Development (OECD), Development

Assistance Committee (DAC)’s evaluation criteria – relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact

and sustainability. Partnership, Gender Empowerment and Social Inclusion (GESI) and human rights will

be added as cross cutting criteria. The guiding questions outlined below should be further refined by the

consultant and agreed with UNDP prior to the commencement of the evaluation: The assessment on the contribution of the projects to development results through its activities will be made in accordance with the following evaluation criteria:

• Relevance of projects outputs.
• Effectiveness of project interventions in terms of achieving stated goals.
• Efficiency of project interventions in terms of use of human and financial resources.
• Sustainability of the results to which the project contributes.

Relevance

• To what extent does UNDP Rule of Law, Security, Human Rights and Social Cohesion Portfolio respond to the priorities of the Government of Sierra Leone National Development Plan (2019-2023) and similar strategies, the UNDP Country Programme Document (2020-2023), Embassy of Ireland Mission Strategy 2019-2023 and the Sustainable Development Goals?
• How relevant are the sustaining peace and social cohesion, the rule of law, security and human right interventions to the needs of Sierra Leone’s supply-side justice institutions and to demand side beneficiaries’ lives?
• How does the support for project interventions contribute to the longer-term development results in terms of approaches, capacities, policies and strategies?
• How relevant have project interventions been in leveraging the UPR recommendations to support sustainable development?
•  Does the intervention meet the practical and strategic needs of all genders, persons with disability, and other disadvantaged and marginalized groups?

Coherence

• To what extent the UNDP Rule of Law, Security, Human Rights and Social Cohesion Portfolio is coherent with Government’s policies?
• To what extent does the intervention support national legislation and initiatives that aim to improve gender equality and human rights? What lessons can be learned?
• To what extent the UNDP Rule of Law, Security, Human Rights and Social Cohesion Portfolio addressed the synergies and interlinkages with other interventions carried out by UN and other development partners?
• To what extent the UNDP Rule of Law, Security, Human Rights and Social Cohesion Portfolio interventions is coherent with existing gender policies and laws?

Efficiency

• Has the programme been implemented within its stated timeframe and cost estimates?
• Did the programme interventions focus on the set of activities that were expected to produce significant results?
• Were there sufficient (human and financial) resources allocated towards achievement of the programme objectives?
•  Were different resources allocated in ways that considered gender equality, and inclusion of person with disability and youth? If so, how were they allocated? Was differential resource allocation appropriate?
• Was there any identified synergy between UNDP-funded interventions and other similar interventions that contributed to reducing costs while supporting results?
• Has there been over expenditure or under expenditure in programme interventions?
• Were there any unanticipated events, opportunities or constraints? What could be done differently in the future?
• What measures were taken to assure the quality of development results and management practices, both in relation to process and products, and to partnership strategies?
• What monitoring and evaluation procedures were applied by UNDP and partners to ensure greater accountability?
• Were adequate measures were put in place during implementation to ensure efficiency of gender interventions? 

Effectiveness

• Have the expected programme (quantitative and qualitative) results been achieved and what were the supporting or impeding factors?
• Were the approaches, resources and conceptual frameworks relevant to achieve intended outputs?
• What are the main lessons learned from the partnership strategies and what are the possibilities of replication?
• To what extent have interventions’ objectives and results contributed to gender equality, women and youth empowerment, empowering indigenous and the vulnerable groups as well as impunity of SGBV crimes and human rights violations? 
• Which aspects of the interventions had the greatest achievements? What have been the supporting factors? How can UNDP build upon or replicate these achievements?
• In which areas does the programme component have the least achievements? What have been the constraining factors and why? How can they be overcome?
• Were the approaches, resources and conceptual frameworks used relevant to the achievement of planned outcomes/outputs?
• What were the unintended results (positive/negative) of project interventions?

Impact

• Are the portfolio interventions causing a significant change in the lives of the intended beneficiaries?
• How did the portfolio interventions cause higher-level effects (such as changes in norms or systems)? To what extent have impacts contributed to equal power relations between people of different genders?
• Are all the intended target groups, including the most disadvantaged and vulnerable, including women benefiting equally from the portfolio interventions?
• Are the portfolio interventions transformative – does it create enduring changes in norms – including gender norms – and systems, whether intended or not?

Are the interventions leading to other changes, including “scalable” or “replicable” results? How will the interventions contribute to changing society for the better?

Sustainability

• To what extent were sustainability considerations taken into account in the design and implementation of interventions? How was this concern reflected in the design of the programme component and in the implementation of activities at different levels?
• Were exit strategies programme interventions appropriately defined and implemented, and what steps have been taken to ensure sustainability of results?
• How did the development of partnerships at local and national level contribute to sustainability of the results?
• How were different stakeholders engaged in the design and implementation? Have interventions been implemented with appropriate and effective partnership strategies? What has been the nature and added value of these partnerships?
• To what extent do mechanisms, procedures and policies exist to carry forward the results attained on gender equality, empowerment of women, human rights, and human development by primary stakeholders?

Human right, Gender equality and disability inclusion

• To what extent have poor, indigenous and physically challenged, women, men and other disadvantaged and marginalized groups benefited from the project?
• To what extent has the portfolio integrated Human Rights Based Approach in the design, implementation, and monitoring of the project? Have the resources been used in an efficient way to address Human Rights in the implementation?
• Is the gender marker assigned to this project representative of reality?
• To what extent has the project promoted positive changes in gender equality and the
  promoting the rights of women and persons with disability? Did any unintended effects emerge for women, men or vulnerable groups?

Evaluation methodology

The methodology mentioned in this section is indicative. The evaluators should propose a final detail methodological framework in the inception report based on the systematic review of the portfolio documents. Evaluators should adopt both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative data includes project data. The qualitative data assessment should include the secondary project data for more insight into the project's accomplishments and lessons learned. In addition, the evaluators will collect qualitative data from the field through interviews and observation. The evaluation stages include (i) desk review, (ii) prepare inception report, (iii) field visits to project’s provinces and districts to collect data, (iv) data analysis and interpretation, and (v) evaluation report writing and finalization.

The consultants/evaluators will be responsible for designing appropriate theory-based evaluation methodology including designing tools, developing questionnaire and other instruments for data collection and analysis. A kick-off meeting should be organized with UNDP and evaluation partners to discuss data collection plan, expectations, and tools and techniques to be adhered for collection of primary information. The consultants should use, but not limited, the following methods for data collection:

Desk review

The evaluators should review portfolio documents which includes portfolio notes, project proposals, progress reports, consolidated quarterly and annual reports, minutes of project board meetings, project modification document, knowledge products, research, monitoring reports and legal review reports, communication and visibility reports, case stories, IEC Materials etc. Please see annex -1 for relevant portfolio documents. In addition, the evaluators will review literatures, relevant research, and donors’ and government’s reports.

Interview/Consultation

The consultants will conduct in-depth key informant interviews (online or virtual) to gather primary data from key stakeholders. For this, evaluators should develop checklist and evaluation questions. This includes interviewing representatives from donors and partners. The evaluators also conduct group interview, Focus Group discussion, with portfolio stakeholders and beneficiaries. Interview should also include relevant UN agencies and other implementing partners. While organizing interviews and consultations with beneficiaries, the evaluators should ensure the participation of women, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.

Field observation

Evaluators are expected to directly observe portfolio interventions in provinces and districts. This also includes functioning of the project supported community and stakeholder’s groups and infrastructures. The evaluators will follow the COVID-19 protocols while during the mission. If field mission is not possible due to COVID-19 crisis, it should be discussed and mutually agreed with UNDP.

Case story

Using thematic case studies, evaluators may assess the impact of the project on the beneficiaries, particularly the benefits they accrued from the project and the visible changes in their lives, and overall well-being. The gender and social inclusion should be well considered while capturing and documenting the stories in the report.

Deliverables and timelines

Under the supervision of the UNDP Rule of Law Programme Specialist, and in coordination with the UNDP Program Support Unit (PSU) and in collaboration with relevant partners, the Consultants will accomplish the following deliverables in accordance with the stipulated timelines covering a total period of Thirty (30) working days. 

Evaluation team and their competencies

This Mid-term evaluation will be conducted by two external independent consultants, one international (team leader) and one national expert. Both consultants shall be specialists on Justice and have knowledge of Justice and Human Rights initiatives in Africa. The International consultant will be responsible for the achievements of the objective of the evaluation and for the submission of the deliverable, whilst the national consultant will be providing overall support to the team leader, and any other task required throughout the evaluation process.

Corporate Competencies

• Display cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality, and age sensitivity and adaptability.
• Demonstrate diplomacy and tact in dealing with sensitive and complex situations.
• Strong communication, team building, interpersonal, analysis, and planning skills.

Professionalism

• Effective communication.
• Problem Solving skills.
• Demonstrated ability to negotiate and apply good judgment.
• Shows pride in work and in achievements.
• Is conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results.
• Superior leadership and strategic management skills with an excellent understanding of international development issues and knowledge of the UN system.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, in a multi-cultural setting; ability to conduct results-based management and reporting, objectivity and ability to analyze large multi-country data sets in short period.
• Basic gender understanding, skills, experience and commitment to gender issues.

Planning & Organizing

• Organizes and accurately completes multiple tasks by establishing priorities while taking into consideration special assignments, frequent interruptions, deadlines, available resources, and multiple reporting relationships.
• Plan, coordinate and organize workload while remaining aware of changing priorities and competing deadlines.
• Establish, build and maintain effective working relationships with staff, partners and beneficiaries to achieve the planned results.
• Experience working collaboratively in small teams with tight deadlines.

Ethical considerations

This evaluation will be conducted in accordance with the principles outlined in the UNEG ‘Ethical Guidelines for Evaluation. The contractors must safeguard the rights and confidentiality of information providers, interviewees, and stakeholders through measures to ensure compliance with legal and other relevant codes governing collection of data and reporting on data. The contractors must also ensure security of collected information before and after the evaluation and protocols to ensure anonymity and confidentiality of sources of information where that is expected. The information knowledge and data gathered in the evaluation process must also be solely used for the evaluation and not for other uses without the express authorization of UNDP and partners.

The contractors will be held to the highest ethical standards and are required to sign a Code of Conduct upon acceptance of the assignment.

Required qualification and experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree in Development Studies, Monitoring and Evaluation, Human Rights, Law, Peace Studies or Political Science for Lead Consultant.
• Advanced university degree in development, monitoring and evaluation or Political Science for the National Consultant.  

Experience:

• At least 7 years of international development experience in project /programme design and implementation and evaluation for the Lead Consultant.
• At least 5 years of experience in project/programme design and implementation for the National Consultant.
• Relevant professional experience in evaluation of rule of law and human rights and sustaining peace programmes or other relevant programmes at all levels. 
• Strong monitoring and evaluation background, sound methodological skills and knowledge of evaluation methods and techniques including inclusive evaluation approach.
• Demonstrate experience in working with a variety of stakeholders.

Language Requirements:

• Ability to communicate clearly in written and spoken English.