Background

After 70 years, Liberia saw its first democratic transition in January 2018 following general and presidential elections in October and December 2017 respectively, where 2.1 million people registered to vote; including 65% youth which constitutes more than half of the population. The number of registered voters increased more than the previous elections held in 2005 and 2011. The number of aspirants for political office were 1,024; inclusive of independent candidates and members of 23 political parties. The transition in 2018 coincided with the withdrawal of the UN peacekeepers in March after 14 years of peacekeeping.

The successful elections were without an agreeable framework and cost. In 2016 December, the UN Security Council requested the Secretary General to submit within 90 days a peacebuilding plan for Liberia that would strengthen the UN Country Team and sustain the gains made over the years, after the departure of the UN Mission. In 2017, in response to UNSCR 2333 (SC/12654: https://www.un.org/press/EN/2016/SC12654.doc.htm), the United Nations System in Liberia and the Government of Liberia in collaboration with national and international stakeholders developed a peacebuilding plan (https://unmil.unmissions.org/liberia-peacebuilding-plan-20-march-2017), which highlighted “Promoting Inclusive and Peaceful Elections in 2017” as one of the five core areas of the Roadmap for Liberia to demonstrate democracy and consolidate peace. Paragraph 21 of the plan emphasized the importance of credible election results contingent on the level of citizens’ participation and inclusivity, ensuring youth, women and marginalized groups are fully involved in the debate through civic education.  The plan reiterated Liberia National Election Commission’s role to ensure free, fair and transparent elections; and that all aspirants reject any form of violence during electoral activities.

To support the objectives of the plan, there were several international goodwill advocates based on specific donor focus.  The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), European Union (EU), Japan, Sweden, ECOWAS, United Nations System in Liberia, African Union (AU), and the United Nations Peacebuilding (PBF) were among countries and multilateral institutions that fully supported the actualization of the Peacebuilding Plan, which considered a twin transition (ushering in a new government and the final departure of UN Mission in Liberia).

Given the critical role of youth, who constitute 65% of the Country’s population, in preventing conflict and sustaining peace, the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) provided funding to enhance the participation of youth in the 2017 general elections in response to the first core objective of the Liberia Peacebuilding Plan and UNSCR 2250 through the Enhancing Youth Participation in the 2017 Legislative and Presidential Electoral Process Project.  In addition, PBF funding also sought to address and enhance women peace and security as provided per UNSCR 1325 before, during and after elections.

The Enhancing Youth Participation in the 2017 Legislative and Presidential Electoral Process Project (EYP) aimed to support youth in the electoral process through three priority areas:

1. Increased leadership and participation of young women and men in electoral and post electoral mechanisms and processes for peacebuilding at all levels;
2. Increased capacity and skills of young men and  women to monitor, prevent and mitigate electoral violence including gender-based; and
3. Increased capacity of the Peace-building Secretariat to provide effective oversight, coordination, monitoring, reporting, evaluation and communication on the achievement of the PBF investment contributing to the implementation of the Liberia Peace-building Plan, including current and future IRF projects that support it.

Activities towards the first two outcomes were completed in March 2018 as they accompanied the 2017 electoral process. The last outcome, which will be completed at the end of 2019, provides required support for current PBF projects. In this regard, UNDP seeks consultancy services to evaluate the project to determine whether and how the project achieved the set objectives. 

Evaluation Purpose 

The UNDP Office in Liberia intends to commission an outcome evaluation to assess the level of progress made towards achieving the project outcomes as articulated in the Project Document. The assessment will capture evaluative evidence of the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of the project to ascertain what has been achieved, how beneficiaries have been impacted by the interventions, and lessons learned for similar future interventions. Recognizing that the implementation of the first and second outcomes of the project was concluded over one and a half year ago, the evaluation will seek to determine the impact and lessons learnt by the project during this period. It will gather most of the data and information from reports by agencies, and discussions with project beneficiaries rather than the implementers. The assessment may not be able to conduct extensive field work as most of the implementing partners and other stakeholders might not be readily available and/or accessible. Nevertheless, the evaluation will consist of assessing the operation and the level of performance of the project in relation to the qualitative and quantitative objectives initially planned.

The specific objectives of this consultancy are thus to:

- Appraise the conformity of project interventions in relation to the expectations of the targeted beneficiaries;

- Compare the results obtained with regard to the previously defined objectives;

- Appreciate the changes attributable to project interventions;

- Identify impacts accruing to the project since the completion of outcome 1 and 2, and other planned activities;

- Note the use of disbursed funds in relation to the needs initially identified;

- Identify constraints related to the implementation of the project;

- Make recommendations aimed at consolidating the achievements of the project; and

- Draw general lessons from this project that will be useful to the participating UN agencies and the Government for future programs in the same area.

Evaluation Scope

The project evaluation will be conducted in January 2020, with a view of understanding how effective the project was in achieving its results contributing to peaceful elections in 2017 as well as the PBF Secretariat in its coordination role.

Specifically, the project evaluation will assess:

1. The relevance of the EYP project and UNDP’s support to the government’s youth and electoral process.
2. The frameworks and strategies that EYP devised for its support to youth and election and whether they were well conceived for achieving planned objectives; results  of coordination by the PBF Secretariat 
3. The progress to date under the outputs, any noted impacts, and what can be derived in terms of lessons learned for similar future projects.  

The evaluation will consider the pertinent impacts, outcomes and outputs as stated in the project document.

Considering the above, UNDP is seeking to hire two consultants: one international and one national to conduct an end of project evaluation.

Evaluation Questions 

Relevance:

The team of Consultants will evaluate to what extent the objectives envisaged by the project during its design meet the needs of the target population and emerge from the national priorities, which the project is linked to. They will also assess the project's coherence with the development objectives of UNDP’s Country Programme, particularly with regards to peacebuilding, the restoration of security and the promotion of human rights. The evolution of the context (political, security, economic, social, institutional) and its consequences on the progress of the program should also be reviewed considering:

• How appropriate for the context is the range of substantive areas in which the project is engaged?
• If the substantive areas are deemed appropriate for the context, how appropriate were they for the project to undertake?
• How well has the project aligned with government’s priorities?
• To what extent have the EYP’s selected method of delivery been appropriate to the development context?
• Has EYP been significant in influencing peaceful and safe elections among the youth?
• To what extent was the theory of change presented in the outcome model a relevant and appropriate vision on which to base the initiatives?

Effectiveness:

The evaluation will determine to what extent the project's actions have contributed to the achievement of the objectives set and the expectations of the beneficiaries. The analysis will also appreciate compliance with the implementation strategy and timeliness; and determine, among other things:

• What evidence is there that the project has contributed towards an improvement in national government capacity, including institutional strengthening?
• Has the EYP project been effective in helping improve youth development and contributing to peaceful elections?
• To what extent was the project’s targeting approach well justified and effective?
• To what extent have outcomes been achieved or has progress been made towards their achievement.
• What has been the contribution of partners and other organizations to the outcome, and how effective have the project’s partnerships been in contributing to achieving the project objectives?
• What were the positive or negative, intended or unintended, changes brought about by EYP’s work?

Efficiency:

The evaluation will evaluate the relationship between the different activities carried out under the project, the resources achieved/available. It will provide an assessment of the cost in terms of balancing the results achieved with the use of human and financial resources. To do this, it will analyze the specific organization of the project, the tools and resources used, the quality of the day-to-day management, the actions carried out by the different actors, the management and adaptation capacity of the managers in relation to the activities, the expected and achieved results and the overall implementation environment. The evaluation will aim to determine:

• Whether EYP’s approaches, resources, models, conceptual framework were relevant to achieve the planned outcomes?
• To what extent were quality outputs delivered on time?
• What was the project’s complementarity with any other initiatives in this area and any attempts it made for catalytic results?
• Was the staffing adequate for the implementation of the project?
• Has there been an economical use of financial and human resources?
• How did the project contributed to the success of the transition from UNMIL in an area of political sensitivity which UNDP took over?
• Did the monitoring and evaluation systems that EYP put in place help to ensure that activities and outputs were managed efficiently and effectively?
• To what extent are relevant national stakeholders and actors included in the programming and implementation and policy advocacy processes?:

Sustainability:

• This criterion will determine whether the positive results of the project are likely to continue. The sustainability of the project will be assessed according to the autonomy of the institutions and beneficiary communities and their ability to pursue outreach activities or initiatives beyond the support of the project.

• Specifically, the team of consultants will have to assess the conformity of the expected results in relation to the objectives pursued within the framework of the project. If not, what are the reasons and the consequences? Among others, the evaluation will seek to answer the following questions:

• How sustainable are the EYP Project interventions?
• What mechanisms were put in place by the project to support the government of Liberia to sustain improvements made through these interventions?
• To what extent has a sustainability strategy, including capacity development of key national stakeholders, been implemented?
• What indications are there that the outcomes will be sustained, e.g., through requisite capacities (systems, structures, staff, etc.)?Were alternative approaches considered in designing the project?

Impact:

The evaluation will assess the qualitative, and to the extent possible, quantitative indicative impact of the activities carried out so far under the project. This will be based on the logical framework of the project document but may, where appropriate, suggest other measures that it considers more relevant. Special attention will be paid to the analysis of the needs identification, field reports, end-of-activity reports of the operational partners implementing the project activities, and life changes resulting from the project.

The evaluation will aim to determine:

• To what extent has the project impacted behavioral and attitude change of youth towards peace, elections and security?
• What has happened as a result of the project interventions?
• What real difference has the activity made to the beneficiaries?
• How many people/communities have been affected?
• How will identified project impacts affect the human development given the country’s context and national priorities; and the achievement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?

Cross-cutting issues:

The evaluation will also seek to determine how cross-cutting issues were addressed during project implementation and their results. These include:

a) Human rights

• To what extent have poor, indigenous and tribal peoples, women and other disadvantaged and marginalized groups benefitted from EYP’s interventions?

b) Gender Equality

• To what extent has gender been addressed in the design, implementation and monitoring of the EYP project
• To what extent has EYP project promoted positive changes in gender equality? Were there any unintended effects?
• How did the project promote gender equality, human rights and human development in the delivery of outputs?
• What is the impact of women’s participation on electoral issues, and what’s the relevance of PBF support?

How has this project contributed to women’s social capital in the communities as peacebuilding actors?

Duties and Responsibilities

Expected Results/Outputs from the evaluation 

It is expected that the team of consultants will produce the following:

• An Inception Report: The consultants will submit a synopsis of the assignment and the proposed methodology. A final version will be submitted to UNDP Management no later than agreed timeline as prescribed in the schedule of work, following any additional inputs;
• Provisional Report: UNDP Management will expect a provisional Evaluation Report within one week after the end of the assessment either by e-mail or in a roundtable meeting. It will include a summary not more than 4 pages. The provisional report will be consistent with the required criteria as highlighted under Section 3 of this Terms of Reference. The report will be submitted to relevant stakeholders earlier for review, comments and subsequent validation, no more than four days.
• A final report should be prepared in word format (up to maximum 35 pages) within three weeks. The report must contain some visual aids (e.g. graphs, charts, photos, etc.) in PowerPoint format. The report should take into account comments from partners including PBF. The full final report is proposed to include the following sections:

• Title
• Table of contents
• Acronyms and abbreviations
• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• Background and context 
• Evaluation scope and objectives
• Evaluation approach and methods
• Data analysis
• Findings and conclusions
• Lessons learned
• Recommendations
• Annexes

Publication/Website: The report will be published both on UNDP’s website and MPTFO Gate Way. The consumers of the report include the Government of Liberia, partner agencies, donors and the general public.

Methodology 

The evaluation will be managed and supervised by UNDP in close collaboration with the LMPTF-PBF Secretariat. The evaluation consultants will work closely with the Team Leader of the Governance and Public Institutions (GPI) Pillar, and M&E Focal Points at UNDP and the Secretariat and all relevant partners to conduct a comprehensive desk review and organize interviews.  There will be an Evaluation Reference Group comprising UNDP, PBF Secretariat, Peacebuilding Office, National Election Commission, Messenger of Peace, NayMote Partner for Democratic Development, Institute for Research and Democratic Development (IREDD), Liberia Media for Democratic Initiative (LMDI) and Peace Building Support Office (PBSO) that will be contacted for feedback during the evaluation. The group will provide relevant comments and feedback on the content and quality of the evaluation which will be captured by the lead consultant to form part of the report.   

The evaluation consultants will comprise one international, who leads the evaluation of the project; and one national who will provide support. As lead, the International Consultant will develop approaches, methodology and information collection tools (i.e. evaluation methodology, the organization of focus groups and interviews ensuring the representativeness of stakeholders - civil society, partner institutions, target populations, etc.), in collaboration with the National Consultant. The National Consultant will play a major role in the data collection based on local knowledge and agreed methodology and tools.

The team will be provided with the below needed resource materials to enhance the evaluation: 

·         Project document;

·         PBF semi-annual and annual Reports

·         work plans;

·         monitoring plans;

·         Partners’ reports

·         Evidence of awareness (awareness materials, websites with audio and videos etc.);

·         Procurement plans;

·         field activity reports;

·         Liberia Peacebuilding Plan

·         UNDAF 2013-2019 (for indicators and baseline, etc.)

Prior to the evaluation:

Given that most of the anticipated data will come from written reports, the national consultant will begin working closely with the agencies and partners ahead of the arrival of the lead consultant to organize resource documents to assist the evaluation. , the consultants will submit for validation a technical file which includes the work plan and methodological approach that will be used during the evaluation. The lead consultant is responsible for all activities related to the program being evaluated, and the development of the approaches/tools, the preparation of the  methodology, the information collection tools, the organization of focus groups in a sound methodological manner to ensure that the selection of stakeholders (civil society, partner institutions, target populations, etc.) for interviews is reflective of the topography balance. The national consultant, ahead of the actual field work, will confirm appointments with key stakeholders on their availability for interview.

During the study:

The team of consultants will focus on facilitating interviews, identification and mobilization of stakeholders, and obtaining authorizations to conduct the assessment with national authorities. The consultant will communicate with UNDP on any unforeseen situation or challenge encountered during the course of assignment, and UNDP will address such challenge in keeping with the terms and condition of established policy or agreement.

After the study:

The team will present a provisional version of the results of the evaluation of the project for comments and validation of the national partners concerned. The consultants will submit a final report to UNDP and copy the LMPTF-PBF Secretariat, incorporating comments and inputs from PBSO, RUNOs, stakeholders, national partners. A management response will be provided by UNDP in close consultation with the LMPTF-PBF Secretariat within one month after the final report is submitted

The evaluation is expected to take 20 days for each of the two consultants, starting 15 January 2020. The final draft evaluation report is due the 03 of February 2020.  The following is an indicative breakdown for activities and delivery

• Review materials and develop work plan, Participate in an Inception Meeting with UNDP Liberia country office and Draft inception report – 7 days
• Review Documents and stakeholder consultations, Interview stakeholders, Conduct field visits, Analyze data, Develop draft evaluation and lessons report to Country Office and Draft evaluation report for stakeholder workshop presentation- 8 Days
• Present draft Evaluation Report and lessons at Validation Workshop, Finalize and submit evaluation and lessons learned report incorporating additions and comments provided by stakeholders and produce a final evaluation report – 5 days

Evaluation Ethics

The evaluation must be carried out in accordance with the principles outlined in the UNEG ‘Ethical Guidelines for Evaluation’ and sign the Ethical Code of Conduct for UNDP Evaluations. In particular, evaluators must be free and clear of perceived conflicts of interest. To this end, interested consultants will not be considered if they were directly and substantively involved, as an employee or consultant, in the formulation of UNDP strategies and programming relating to the outcomes and programmes under review.  The code of conduct and an agreement form will be signed by each consultant.

NOTE: The National consultant will work with a selected International Consulatant.

Competencies

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

Functional Competencies

• Demonstrate commitment to the values ??and mission of UNDP;
• Ability to exercise judgment in assigned tasks and to work under pressure in a timely manner;
• Excellent communication and report writing skills; Proficiency in oral and written English;
• Ability to conduct in-depth analysis and reach relevant conclusions in the specific area of this assignment;
• Should have the ability to work with people of different cultural background irrespective of gender, religion, race, nationality and age;
• Good computer skills (Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet, etc.).
• Excellent facilitation skills

Required Skills and Experience

Education: 

• University degree in social sciences, political sciences, public administration or related field;

Experience: 

• At least five (5) years of professional experience in project/programme evaluations, with adequate peacebuilding, regional and subject matter expertise.
• The candidate should have a minimum of 3 years of experience in programme development and/ or implementation;
• Knowledge and experience of the UN System is an asset.

Languages: 

Fluency in written and spoken English is required.

Duty Station

Monrovia with possible field missions to selected and accessible counties.

Conditions of the contract

Travel and DSA for overnight stay will be paid in accordance with UNDP standards and rules and on the basis of location.

The consultant should have own laptop and other relevant equipment needed to deliver the required task and prepare reports.

 Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments:

Consultant shall quote an all-inclusive Daily Fee for the contract period. The term “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, communications, consumables, etc.) that could be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment are already factored into the daily fee submitted in the proposal. If applicable, travel or daily allowance cost (if any work is to be done outside the IC’s duty station) should be identified separately. Payments shall be done upon verification and completion of deliverables and approval by the IC’s supervisor. In general, UNDP shall not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.

In the event of unforeseeable travel not anticipated in this TOR, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and the Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals:

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

(Please group all your documents into one (1) single PDF attachment as the system only allows upload of one document):

• Personal CV or P11 including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references 
• (blank form can be downloaded from http://www.eurasia.undp.org/content/dam/rbec/docs/P11_modified_for_SCs_and_ICs.doc);
• Cover Letter, outlining the main methodological approaches planned for the assignment
• Cover letter explaining why you are the most suitable candidate for the assignment 
• Two (2) samples of previous work (in English) similar to the assignment (links can be shared as well)

Technical proposal:

• Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment;
• A methodology, on how they will approach and complete the assignment.

Evaluation

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodologies:

 Cumulative analysis 

Award of the contract will 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  * Technical Criteria; [70 points]

Technical Criteria – Maximum 70 points

Criteria                                                                 

• Technical skills, given by qualifications and training record (Master’s degree (or its equivalent) preferably in civil engineering/construction or architecture 15 points
• Overall experience in the provision with the services given above 35 point
• Adequacy of competencies & skills responding to the Terms of Reference, (TOR) 20 points.
• Methodology relevance to the TOR 30 points

Financial Criteria - 30% of total evaluation – max. 30 points.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and requested to provide a financial offer

Qualified women and members of minorities are encouraged to apply.