Background

In order to promote Democratic Governance in Cambodia, UNDP has developed the Strengthening Democracy Programme (SDP) for implementation within the new country programme cycle 2011-2015. The programme was designed to strengthen the formal and informal mechanisms for dialogue, representation and participation of youth, people with disabilities, indigenous people, women, and media in Cambodia’s current democratisation process and to ensure that national and sub-national institutions are more accountable and responsive to the needs and rights of all people living in Cambodia. To achieve the delivery of these results, SDP focuses on two key outputs:

  • Increased interaction and accountability of elected bodies to citizens through strengthened democratic processes and practices at national and sub national levels;
  • Strengthened capacity of civil society, media, and political parties, to act as conduits for citizen’s participation in democratic processes and decision making.

Since its inception in 2011, SDP has been implementing major initiatives as follows:

  • Multi-media youth education campaign initiative (Loy9) in partnership with BBC Media Action to promote youth civic awareness and participation;
  • Equity programme in partnership with TVK (Equity Weekly and Equity News);
  • Grant schemes to Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to implement a civic/voter education campaign to promote awareness and participation of people with disabilities and indigenous people in democratic election process. Current grantees are Khmer Youth Association/Cambodian Indigenous Youth Association (KYA/CIYA), Cambodian Disabled People Organisation (CDPO), and Building Community Voice (BCV).

After over two years of the project implementation, UNDP Cambodia wishes to commission a Mid-Term Review (MTR) to assess how effective its programmatic activities and strategy have been in achieving target outputs and, thus, contributing to Democratic Governance and CPAP outcomes and in making recommendations to improve the project performance in response to Cambodia’s development needs.

Duties and Responsibilities

The main purpose of the MTR is to assess whether the project is on course in line with outputs and outcomes of UNDP CPAP 2011-2015 and to make recommendations to improve the project performance as well as suggestions for steering SDP’s future strategy, e.g. adjusting project scope and approaches, work plan, partnership, cost-effectiveness and sustainability. MTR is also intended to provide UNDP Cambodia management team, relevant stakeholders and the project board with an independent review on progresses achieved through the implementation of SDP in contribution toward the expected development results especially in light of socio-political changes that Cambodia has undergone in recent years.

Specifically, the objectives of the MTR are to:

  • Assess SDP’s progress towards the achievements of the project outputs and contribution to the progress toward the outcome of Democratic Governance and CPAP;
  • Assess factors affecting the achievements SDP’s outputs and outcomes;
  • Assess SDP’s strategy used in achieving its intended outputs and contribution to the outcome, including partnership.
  • Drawing on the review’s findings, lessons learnt, and make recommendations on specific courses of action to improve the project efficiency and effectiveness through undertaking immediate remedial measures and prompt adjustments of the SDP project document and framework to reflect on current project context and situation with strong connection to the country programme action plan (CPAP) and UNDP Corporate Strategic Changes and Focus.

In particular, the MTR is required to answer the following main questions:

  • What are key achievements of the project against its expected outputs?
  • To what extent the grant schemes, the multi-media youth education campaign and the Equity Programme contributed to achieve the project outputs?
  • What are the factors that influence the performance of the project such as partnership, coordination with relevant agencies, and funding resources?
  • What are the recommendations for adjustment and for future direction of SDP?

In line with the above objectives, the scope of the MTR will:

  • Review progresses and assess the quality of the outputs achieved by SDP as of 2013 and will cover its activities at both national and local levels as appropriate;
  • Analyse the extent to which the delivery of the project outputs has so far contributed to the achievement of the outcome of democratic governance as stated in the project document;
  • Review and assess whether the project uses a proper strategic approach that contributes to the capacity development of national stakeholders engaged in the project implementation;
  • Assess whether the current project design including its intended results and output formulation, the project scope and the project management arrangement allow the project to move in the right direction to bring about the expected results, and its alignment of the present project context to the CPAP perspective and UNDP Corporate Strategic Changes and Focus;
Produce the outputs and deliverables as required in the ToR.

Deliverables/Outputs:

  • An inception report describing the MTR methodology and the work-plan;
  • Briefing, survey review, MTR draft report and debriefing presentation to UNDP;
  • Finalization of the MTR report (home-based);
  • SDP Prodoc/RRF updates (home-based).

Competencies

Functional Competencies:
  • Possess strong analytical skills and the ability to conceptualise, articulate and debate about governance issues with a positive and forward-looking attitude;
  • Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively with various partners including government, civil society, private sector, UN and other development donors;
  • Excellent organisational and time management skills;
  • Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work with people from different backgrounds to deliver quality products within short timeframe;
  • Be flexible and responsive to changes and demands;
  • Be client oriented and open to feedback.

Corporate Competencies:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
  • Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
  • Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
  • Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Advanced degree or Master’s degree in political science, public policy, development studies, economics, sociology or a related social science.

Experience:

  • Minimum 10 years of research experience in Mid-term review, project evaluations, strategic planning, preferably in the areas of democratic governance;
  • Sound knowledge of democracy and good governance, youth development, and media and substantive research experience;
  • Prior evaluation experience in Cambodia or in other countries in Southeast Asia would be an asset.

Language Requirements:

  • Proficiency in English language and proven report writing skills.

Important note:

Interested offeror is strongly advised to read the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, wich can be viewed at http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=11741 for more detail about term of references, instructions to offeror, and documents to be included when submitting offer.

Interested offeror/individual must submit the following documents/information:

Please note that UNDP Online Recruitment System allow only one uploading, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file.

FC: 04000