Background

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 State is unable to fulfil its mission to guarantee justice and security throughout the territory, particularly in rural areas and especially for women and children/youth. Since the independence, there has been a coexistence of both the formal justice system and forms of traditional justice system, based on customary law - which was recognized during the colonial period. The formal justice system is costly, slow and still widely discredited by the public, being viewed by many as manipulated and corrupt, serving only the needs and interests of the most powerful.

In order to overcome the shortcomings of the formal justice system, a large part of the population is instead resorting to the traditional fora of justice based on reconciliation and mediation. In this sense, it is critical to make available to the population effective alternatives disputes resolution means and mechanisms, including those used by traditional systems, while advancing and improving the responsiveness to rights guarantees and equity to all citizens, by promoting greater respect and adherence to human rights and gender equality by judges operating either in formal or in traditional justice settings. There is an enormous need to enable overall system efficiency as well as delivery of services to make sure that reformed system effectiveness will also impact more broadly when it comes to efficacy, equal rights enjoyment, and equitable access to judicial services for the population.

There is no legal framework within the formal judicial sector for the mediation, conciliation, or any other form of dispute resolution beyond court adjudication. There is currently no legal basis for homologation by the Courts of the agreements reached by traditional justice. On the other hand, it is unclear how the customary and formal systems should interface, and how jurisdictions boundaries should be defined between the two systems. This causes problems for the legal security of the population, as there is no coherence and low predictability of how cases will be handled.

The Project

The project “Supporting Political and Institutional Stabilization of the Justice Sector for Peace Consolidation in Guinea Bissau” is being implemented by UNDP and UNICEF: from January 2018 until April 2020. The overarching goal of the project is to increase the performance of the justice sector by contributing to a more effective and responsive justice sector in Guinea-Bissau. It builds awareness of the need for more accessible and efficient alternative methods of dispute resolution, enable their legal recognition and ensure complementarity between the formal justice system and the traditional justice system. Moreover, it contributes to the increased respect of human rights and improved access to justice through greater awareness and capacity building actions with regards to peaceful conflict resolution methods, in particular those based on healing, reconciliation, relationship preservation and mutual respect. The total budget amount is 1,4 million USD shared by the two recipient agencies.

Its main goal is to ensure that the population benefits from enhanced access to justice through strengthened alternative dispute resolution systems within informal and formal justice systems, and a strengthened interface between both systems, in line with international standards of administration of justice and human rights.

And the main aimed outputs consist of:

• ADR and Restorative Justice Practices in the Formal Justice system legitimized with the particular attention to Women and Child Rights;
• Key Stakeholders in traditional justice sector have increased capacity to engage in ADR and restorative justice in compliance with Women and Children’s Rights;
• The collaboration/complementarity between formal and traditional justice system is effective.

The main beneficiaries are the formal Judicial system actors, the traditional justice actors, CSO and the vulnerable populations.

Objective of the assignment

The objective of this assignment is to conduct a final external and independent evaluation of the project, collecting lessons learned and providing accurate recommendations on substantive aspects of the peacebuilding efforts for future and ongoing interventions.

This formative evaluation is important to the implementers and to the PBF, for three reasons: it is expected to provide an objective description of the results achieved and assessment of their effect, to ascertain whether the funding was used rationally and efficiently, and to contribute towards identifying valuable lessons to inform future projects currently being designed.

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant, under the overall supervision of the UNDP’s Resident Representative, and the technical supervision of the 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 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 interviews with key stakeholders and project beneficiaries and central and regional level;
• Conduct a comprehensive analysis of the project activities and results reported vis a vis evidence data collected in the field to assess its relevance, efficiency, efficacy, impact and sustainability;
• Assess partners views on UNDP and UNICEF Guinea-Bissau current and future role in supporting the rule of law and justice sector, including views on where UNDP and UNICEF have comparative advantages;
• Organize a workshop session to validate the draft-final evaluation report with key stakeholders, including donors, the government and civil society organizations, etc.;
• Draft a final report including the comments from the workshop, among others.

Deliverables

The following deliverables are expected:

• A methodological concept note, after 5 working days home-based;
• A draft report, after 15 working days in the field and 5 working days home-based;
• A 1-day validation workshop with the project coordination team and national stakeholders, up to 20 days after approval of the draft report;
• A final evaluation report including the inputs collected at the workshop, until 4 days after the workshop.

Duration of the assignment

The assignment must be conducted during 30 working days within the span of eight weeks.

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.

Required Skills and Experience

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;
• 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 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:

• Proficiency in Portuguese and English or French is mandatory;
• Knowledge of Creole constitutes an advantage.

Payment conditions:

The financial disbursement will be processed as follows:

• After approval and validation of Concept Note (20%);
• Following the submission of draft-report (40%);
• After delivering of the validation workshop (10%);
• After approval and validation 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;
• 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.