Background
War Child Canada works with war-affected communities to help children reclaim their childhood through access to education, opportunity and justice. War Child Canada has over 15 years of experience working in communities in conflict and post-conflict zones. All work is implemented in direct partnership with local communities, local NGOs and other stakeholders using a child-centered approach. War Child Canada currently works in Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Afghanistan and the Middle East, and is a registered Canadian charity based in Toronto.
Consultancy summary
War Child Uganda War Child Canada is currently implementing a two year peace-building project supported by USAID. Following a Theory of Change, the main project hypothesis is: “If youth are brought in to new and existing conflict resolution structures, and understand the advantages of those over violent resolution, then their desire to be active participants in conflict resolution will be increased.” All proposed activities are structured sequentially within the Theory of Change to ensure long-term impact. Specific objectives and additional information on the project will be provided to the consultant.
The goal of this assignment is to conduct a final evaluation of the project including successes, challenges and lessons learned against the performance measurement framework.
The consultant will propose their own methodology but it is expected that the evaluation will be implemented through documents review, key informant interviews, quantitative household surveys and focus group meetings. War Child Canada expects that the analysis will consider gender, child participation and protection.
The consultant will conduct and finalize the report in mid-October to Mid-November with final schedule and timeline developed after selection.
Approach and Deliverables:
• The consultant will finalize and lead an evaluation team. War Child Canada encourages the participation of its staff as well as those from its partners and of representatives from government ministries and community members in planning and conducting this evaluation.
• The consultant will review all project documents and existing data in advance to carrying out the final evaluation.
• While War Child Canada has developed this scope of work for the evaluation team and has tailored the approach to its needs with questions that are specific to the program, the consultant will finalize the evaluation approach, methods and tools to measure results.
• While the consultant will establish a core set of components to be addressed in this evaluation, War Child Canada has identified the following areas that must be included in the evaluation:
• Review of Technical Approach: relevancy of activities related to specific interventions as detailed in the workplan; progress toward results; effectiveness of the interventions; any changes in the technical approaches outlined in the workplan and rationale; unexpected successes or constraints.
• Community Mobilization: to what extent has the community responded to the different mobilization techniques employed by the project; how have these activities been used to refine program implementation plans; what kinds of barriers exist to prevent members of the community from benefiting from the project, and how have these been addressed; what factors in the political and socio-ecological environment (such as security, competing community priorities, etc.) have impacted the project’s ability to mobilize the community and what steps has the project taken to address these factors?
• Capacity Building: what capacity building efforts have been put in place for partners and other stakeholders, how have the organizational capacities of the local partner and other stakeholders changed since the beginning of the project? What factors/interventions have most contributed to those changes?
• Training strategy for participants: How effective was the training strategy? Is there evidence that suggests that the training implemented has resulted in new ways of doing things, or increased knowledge and skills of the participants?
• Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy: How effective was the monitoring and evaluation of the project activities? What system is in place to measure progress towards program objectives? How is the system of collecting, reporting and using data at all program levels? Were the indicators in the M&E plan relevant to the intervention over the whole project period?
• Project transition and sustainability: What does the beneficiary community say about sustaining project services after this project ends? Are partners able to replicate the P2P methodology?
• Behavior change in communities: Is the project’s approach to behavior change appropriate and effective? How was the project addressing current barriers to behavior change? Has the project developed any innovative approaches that have been particularly successful in changing behavior amongst specific target groups?
• Collaboration and relationships: To what extent has collaboration with key stakeholders been effective in achieving the project objectives? To what extent does the P2P foster collaboration?
• The consultant will identify and document lessons learned on successes, innovative approaches, challenges and learnings through a final report that includes:
• A one-to-two page executive summary
• The main accomplishments of the program under each objective (Objective 1 and Objective 2) including progress against program targets.
• Lessons learned, constraints, challenges and areas that need further attention
• The capacity-building impact of the program both with local partners and project beneficiaries.
• Prospects for sustainability of program outcomes
• Proposed recommendations on how War Child Canada can build on successes and incorporate learnings in to future programming
Experience, skills
Key requirements
• Demonstrated experience conducting independent evaluations for humanitarian or development programming, including experience of evaluating USAID funded initiatives.
• Proven experience performing and supervising both quantitative and qualitative data collection in complex environments
• Thorough understanding of Theory of Change and the ability to review a project and synthesize information based on ToC
• An understanding of complex humanitarian, early recovery or development programming in conflict affected environments
• Strong and demonstrated facilitation and interpersonal skills
• Strong writing skills and proven experience delivering high quality reports
• Technical knowledge of at least one of War Child Canada’s program areas is desirable
Travel
Travel to Uganda required to conduct the evaluation
HOW TO APPLY:
Application process
Interested applicants are invited to send an expression of interest electronically including:
Curriculum vitae
Accompanying cover letter outlining relevant experience and skills
Proposed methodology and timeline
Proposed fee to complete the required deliverables
Confirmation of availability
Email: jobs@warchild.ca
Please ensure your application email has the subject heading of ‘‘Uganda Evaluation’
War Child Canada is committed to providing a work environment in which all individuals are treated with respect and dignity. Final candidates will be vetted in accordance with War Child Canada’s Child Protection Policy, including appropriate reference and security checks.
Only those applicants selected for an interview will be notified. No phone calls please. For more information about War Child Canada, please visit www.warchild.ca.