Website Keepers Zambia Foundation
Terms of Reference (TOR)
Annual Project Evaluation for Community Action for Climate Resilience
Period under evaluation: October 2021 – September, 2022
Dates of evaluation: July – August, 2022
Purpose of the evaluation: Provide a final assessment of the project in achieving project objectives and delivery of results; strategies and implementation modalities chosen; partnership arrangements, constraints and opportunities. It should also provide lessons learnt and good practices; and recommendations for future similar project in terms of strategies, institutional arrangements, and any other area.
Position type: Consultancy
Evaluation: Annual Project Evaluation of a Community Action for Climate Resilience Project – Voice for Climate Action (VCA) in Rufunsa and Chongwe Districts of Lusaka Province
Location: Chongwe, Rufunsa and National Office
Provisional time frame: Approximately 20 working days
Tentative start date: July, 2022
KZF and Partner approval of evaluation inception report with methodology and timeframe
July, 2022
Deadline for submission of final evaluation report: August, 2022
Project Context and Background
Keepers Zambia Foundation (KZF) is a non-profit making Zambian Non – Governmental Organization (NGO) working with with Edutainment Health Foundation (EHF) implementing a Community Action for Climate Resilience project in Chongwe and Rufunsa districts. The project is funded by Hivos under VCA Alliance. The project focuses on 3 key areas: energy, food system and gender and social inclusion targeting people with disabilities, youths, women and women groups.
The project aimed at reducing over exploitation of forests for energy and food. The over dependence on forest for energy and food has greatly contributed to climate change, affecting the ways of livelihood for rural population especially women and girls who shoulder the responsibility of accessing and using energy for the purpose of cooking, lighting and heating.
The loss of forestry that is estimated at 300,000 hectares annually has affected the production of food, but also biomass as its main energy source. This has forced people, especially women and girls, into unsustainable means of earning income such as charcoal burning and selling of firewood.
Women are key in the energy and food chain as collectors and users of forest products but have little say in household energy decisions. Disproportionate exclusion of women in climate actions has a negative impact on addressing climate change, therefore the project planned to include 75% women as project beneficiaries.
Purpose of the Project and Objectives
The project overall objective is to contribute to enhanced gender balanced climate resilience, and energy security at districts and national levels.
To achieve the above purpose, the project has two specific objectives, namely:
i. Strengthen community capacity in climate actions and justice for amplifying voices and gender lens to energy solutions, and
ii. Strengthening food system approaches and governance to demand policies which support climate resilience.
The project has been running for a year therefore KZF and its partner EHF is seeking qualified and suitable individuals or firms to conduct an annual project evaluation in order to assess the impact the programme has made in Chongwe and Rufunsa Districts.
Purpose of the Evaluation
The purpose of the annual project evaluation of the Community Action for Climate Resilience project – Voice for Climate Action (VCA)- is threefold, namely:
i. Give a final assessment of the project in achieving project objectives and delivery of results; strategies and implementation modalities chosen; partnership arrangements, constraints and opportunities;
ii. It should identify lessons learnt and good practices to inform future implementation; and
iii. Provide recommendations on how best clean energy advocacy can be rolled to bring about high impact
Key questions:
i. To what extent did the project consider the needs of different groups in the programme design (gender, age, disability, ethnicity and religion?)
ii. Is the response considered appropriate according to the needs and priorities of the affected population?
iii. To what extent was the project able to reach the most vulnerable groups?
iv. Has community capacity in climate actions and justice for amplifying voices and gender lens to energy solutions been strengthened?
v. To what extent have the local women voices been amplified through media?
vi. Have the Women Climate Action Groups engaged law makers, policy makers, partners, key stakeholders and gatekeepers?
vii. To what extent have the food system approaches and governance to demand for policies which support climate resilience been strengthened?
viii. Have the different organisational levels added value? Is the implementers’ role in the partnership appreciated beyond monitoring? Please provide examples.
ix. What are some lessons learned, best practices and specific recommendations for future programming?
x. How can KZF and its partner EHF adapt its approaches to ensure a more appropriate execution for better results in future programming?
xi. Is the programme addressing issues of climate change, gender equality, and inclusion, with a special focus on inclusion of PWD; to what extent is their participation in the programme?
Scope of the end of project evaluation
The evaluation will focus on the implementation period (October 2021 – September, 2022) . The evaluation should assess all key outcomes and outputs that have been produced since the start of the project.
To carry out the annual project evaluation, the consultant should choose an appropriate methodology in line with research ethics and procedures. The consultant will set the evaluation criteria to meet the purpose and the scope of the evaluation focused on learning.
The evaluation should be based on the established OEC DAC and European Union Evaluation group system – wide norms and principles. Assessment quality and relevance of design, effectiveness, efficiency of planning and implementation, project outcomes and impact and prospects for projects sustainability was undertaken.
The consortium suggests that the methodology should be participatory, with full involvement of key stakeholders, including community participants [project beneficiaries], KZF staff, and district officials in the areas of operation, CSOs and other relevant actors.
The timeframe to carry out this assignment is 20 days.
Expected deliverables
Deliverable 1: Submission of inception report – to include data collection methods and tools (covering both desk-based and remote data collection)
Deliverable 2: Summary of overall preliminary findings and conclusions presented to KZF and EHF
Deliverable 3: Draft of final report
Deliverable 4: Final report submitted to KZF and EHF (including all annexes) – August, 2022
The project evaluation report should not be more than 30 pages with an executive summary of maximum three pages with a focus on key findings, conclusion and recommendations.
Qualifications of the evaluation team
The evaluation team will work closely with KZF and EHF field Staff on the planning and implementation of the review, including practicalities related to field trips and interviews with stakeholders. The Consortium strongly encourages the consultant with a strong record in conducting evaluations to carry out the task.
The consultant should have relevant academic qualifications at Master’s Degree level or higher. Additionally, the following is what is expected of the consultant:
- The consultant must have experience and knowledge of the following areas: results-based management, energy, food security, livelihood, gender and social inclusion approaches;
- Experience in working with marginalised and priority populations. Experience conducting research on women and youths (especially girls) will be considered an asset;
- Consultant must have proven experience and expertise in both quantitative and qualitative methods and proven experience of successfully undertaking project end line project evaluations;
- Documented experience in conducting developmental evaluation processes;
- Be experienced in participatory methods; and
- The consultant must have sufficient language skills to perform the evaluation.
Interested Consultants should submit their proposals with three (3) traceable references via e-mail to : Finance and Administration Email: [email protected], [email protected]
before 15th July 2022, 17:00hrs and addressed to:
Keepers Zambia Foundation
Roma,
Lusaka