UNDP Jobs - 61179- Consultancy for the Terminal Evaluation of Democra

Consultancy for the Terminal Evaluation of Democratic Goverance Project

Location :

Abuja, NIGERIA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

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

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

30 Days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

30 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

Candidates who previously applied need not re-apply.

The Democratic Governance for Development (DGD II) is a joint donor-funded project managed by UNDP in support of deepening democracy in Nigeria. It is funded with contributions from the European Union (EU), the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and the UNDP.

The project provides technical and financial support to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), civil society organizations, and institutions such as the judiciary, the media, national and state assemblies, and political parties as a means of strengthening accountable and responsive governance institutions, and consolidating democratic governance in line with international best practices. It has 4 main components as outlined below.

Component 1. Promoting Credible, Transparent and Sustainable Electoral Processes — DGD II seeks to promote sustainable electoral processes through engaging the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to improve INEC’s institutional capacity; strategic planning and operational competency; staff professional development; voter registration; strategic engagement with electoral stakeholders to promote political party reform; legal reform involving the legislature; civic education; election monitoring and observation; and gender mainstreaming in the electoral process. The project also supports the capacity of the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIEC) to promote credible local elections through strengthening the normative frameworks for the management of elections by the SIECs, inter-SIEC peer-learning and enhanced cooperation between INEC and the SIECs.

Component 2. Improving the Democratic Quality of Political Engagement — Efforts in this Component aim to improve the democratic functioning of political parties, professionalizing their administration, strengthening inter-party dialogue and enabling political parties to effectively engage with the electoral and democratic processes. DGD II activities in this component are geared towards developing the capacity of the parties to engage constructively in electoral and democratic processes. This will be achieved by delivering two outputs, namely: (1) Capacity of political parties strengthened, and (2) improved effectiveness of targeted National Assembly Committees/Processes.

Component 3. Enhancing Participation by Women, Youth and other Marginalized Groups — This component seeks to support ongoing legal reform to promote affirmative action and women’s empowerment and political participation through supporting political parties to strengthen internal processes geared to advancing the role of women within the party structures; training women to organize and mobilize public support for their election to public office; and supporting elected women to become effective role models and drivers of change to promote affirmative action and address gender gaps especially in the National Assembly.

Component 4. Strengthening the Channels of Civic Engagement — DGD II supports CSOs and media efforts to champion governance reforms, confront corruption, advocate respect for human rights, and promote and defend democratic processes and institutions through improving institutional capacities of CSOs to develop and engage in a wide range of deepening democratic governance initiatives, including advocating for electoral reforms, disseminating information on and monitoring government performance in addition to supporting civic education and election observation.

Evaluation purpose

UNDP commissions evaluations to capture and demonstrate evaluative evidence of its contributions to development results at the country level as articulated in both the Nigeria UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) and UNDP country programme document (CPD). These are evaluations carried out within the overall provisions contained in the UNDP Evaluation Policy. In line with the Evaluation Plan of UNDP Nigeria, this terminal evaluation of the DGD II project is to assess the progress in the implementation of the project, what worked what did not and why? Look at challenges faced and ensure accountability for the overall results. The lessons learned and recommendations from the evaluation will be used in the design of any similar development support in the future.

The UNDP Office in Nigeria is commissioning this evaluation under its good governance programme to capture evaluative evidence of the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability, which can be used to strengthen existing programmes and to set the stage for new initiatives.

Objectives and Scope of the Evaluation

The main objective of this evaluation is to assess the achievements of the DGD II project results and to draw lessons that can both improve the sustainability of benefits from this project, and aid in the overall enhancement of UNDP programming.

Specifically, the terminal evaluation will assess:

The relevance and strategic positioning of UNDP and other partners’ support to Nigeria on democratic governance.
The frameworks and strategies that UNDP has devised for its support on good governance, including partnership strategies, and whether they are well conceived for achieving planned objectives.
The progress made towards achieving election outcomes, through this specific project and advisory services, and including contributing factors and constraints.
The progress to date and what can be derived in terms of lessons learned for future election and governance support to Nigeria.
Make recommendations about design of any future electoral cycle support project based on lessons learned in the project implementation.

Duties and Responsibilities

The evaluation will cover the period from the inception of the project to its envisaged end that is 2012 to July 2015. The terminal evaluation will be conducted during the month of August 2015, with a view to consolidate the gains made while providing strategic direction and inputs to the preparation of similar projects in the future.

Questions guiding the evaluation

Relevance:

Was the initial design of the project adequate to properly address the issues envisaged in formulation of the project and provide the best possible support to the INEC?
Has it remained relevant?

Effectiveness

Are the project outputs appropriate, sufficient, effective and sustainable for the desired outcome?

Output analysis

Are the project outputs relevant to the outcome?
What are the quantities and qualities of the outputs, and their timeliness? What factors impeded or facilitated the delivery of the outputs?
Are the indicators appropriate to link the outputs to the outcome?
Has the outputs been delivered as planned?
Which aspects of the project have been most effective so far? Which ones are least effective?
What key challenges have hampered the delivery of intended outputs?
How can the effectiveness of support to the project be strengthened in future projects?

Efficiency:

Was UNDP support to the project appropriate to achieving the desired objectives and intended results? If not, what were the key weaknesses?
Has there been an economical use of financial and human resources?
Were the results delivered in a reasonable proportion to the operational and other costs?
Could a different type of intervention lead to similar results at a lower cost? How?
Did the monitoring and evaluation systems that UNDP had in place helped ensure that the project was managed efficiently and effectively?

Effectiveness

What evidence is there that UNDP support has contributed towards an improvement in national government capacity, including institutional strengthening?
Has UNDP been effective in helping improve governance at the local level in Nigeria? Do these local results aggregate into nationally significant results?
Has UNDP worked effectively with other UN Agencies and other international and national partners to deliver governance services?
How effective has UNDP been in partnering with civil society and the private sector to promote democratic governance in Nigeria?
Has UNDP utilized innovative techniques and best practices in its governance programming?
Is UNDP perceived by stakeholders as a strong advocate for improving government effectiveness and integrity in Nigeria?
Taking into account the technical capacity and institutional arrangements of the UNDP country office, is UNDP well suited to providing governance support to national and local governments in Nigeria?
What contributing factors and impediments enhance or impede UNDP performance in this area?

Sustainability:

Will the outputs delivered through the project be sustained by national capacities after the end of the project duration? If not, why?
Will there be adequate funding available to sustain the functionality over the short, medium and longer term?
Has the project generated the buy-in and credibility needed for sustained impact?

Resources, partnerships, and management analysis

Were project partners, stakeholders and/or beneficiaries involved in the design of interventions?
If yes, what was the nature and extent of their participation? If not, why not?
Was the structure and management of the project appropriate to achieving the desired objectives and intended results of the project? If not, what were the key weaknesses?
Has the intervention developed the necessary capacities (both human and institutional) for sustainability?

The evaluation should also include an assessment of the extent to which project design, implementation and monitoring have taken the following cross cutting issues into consideration:

Human rights

To what extent have poor, indigenous and tribal peoples, women and other disadvantaged and marginalized groups benefitted from UNDPs work in support of democratic governance?

Deliverables

The following deliverables will be expected from the evaluation team:

Inception Report, detailing evaluation scope and methodology, including data collection methods as well as approach for the evaluation. The inception report should also contain a detailed work plan with timelines for agreed milestones;
The Draft Evaluation Report which will be shared with Government of Nigeria, UNDP and funding partners for comments and input; and
The Final Evaluation Report, incorporating comments from stakeholders.

One week after contract signing, the evaluation manager will produce an inception report containing the proposed theory of change for UNDPs work democratic governance in Nigeria. The inception report should include an evaluation matrix presenting the evaluation questions, data sources, data collection, analysis tools and methods to be used. The inception report should detail the specific timing for evaluation activities and deliverables, and propose specific site visits and stakeholders to be interviewed. Protocols for different stakeholders should be developed. The inception report will be discussed and agreed with UNDP and other stakeholders before the evaluators proceed with site visits.

The draft evaluation report will be shared with stakeholders, and presented in a validation meeting that the UNDP country office will organise. Feedback received from these sessions should be taken into accountGender Equality

To what extent has gender been addressed in the design, implementation and monitoring of governance projects? Is gender marker data assigned to the project representative of reality?
To what extent has UNDP governance support promoted positive changes in gender equality? Were there any unintended effects? Information collected should be checked again data from the UNDP country office’ Results-oriented Annual Reports (ROAR) during the period 2012 - 2015.

Based on the above analysis, the evaluators are expected to provide overarching conclusions on UNDP results in this area of support, as well as recommendations on how the UNDP Nigeria Country Office could adjust its programming, partnership arrangements, resource mobilization strategies, and capacities to ensure that the governance portfolio in general fully achieves current planned outcomes and is positioned for sustainable results in the future. The evaluation is additionally expected to offer wider lessons for UNDP support in Nigeria and elsewhere based on this analysis.

Implementation Arrangements

The UNDP Nigeria country office will select the evaluation team, and will be responsible for the management of the evaluators. UNDP will designate a focal point for the evaluation and any additional staff to assist in facilitating the process (e.g., providing relevant documentation, arranging visits/interviews with key informants, etc.). The Country Office will take responsibility for the approval of the final evaluation report. The M&E Specialist in the Country Office will arrange introductory meetings within UNDP and Unit Head will establish initial contacts with government partners and project staff. The consultants will take responsibility for setting up meetings and conducting the evaluation, subject to advanced approval of the methodology submitted in the inception report. The UNDP country office will develop a management response to the evaluation within six weeks of report finalization.

While the Country Office will provide some logistical support during the evaluation, for instance assisting in setting interviews with senior government officials, it will be the responsibility of the evaluators to logistically and financially arrange their travel to and from relevant project sites and to arrange most interviews. Planned travels and associated costs will be included in the Inception Report, and agreed with the Country Office.

Competencies

Functional Competence:

Excellent Communication,facilitation and presentation skills in English;
Strong organizational awareness,client orientation and government advisory skills;
Execllent expernce in issues affecting human rights especially in developing nations;Strong awareness in the latest deveopment on methodoligies and capacity development methods on social research and human rights;
Strong drafting and reporting skills in English

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

University degree in public administration, political science/elections studies, economics, development planning, business administration, law or other relevant qualifications

Experience:

Minimum of 10 years professional expertise in international development co-operation, governance issues, programme/project evaluation, impact assessment/development of programming/strategies; gender equality and social services
Extensive experience in conducting evaluations, with a strong working building/development and state building;knowledge on institutional capacity
Extensive knowledge of result - based management (RBM) evaluation, and participatory monitoring and evaluation methodologies and approaches;

Language Requirement:

Strong skills in written communication in English particularly in preparing issue -based papers and reports