Consultancy and Training

SOS Children’s Villages Ethiopia

Background and Context

SOS Children’s Villages Ethiopia is a non governmental, non-political, non-denominational charitable child welfare organization. For the past 50 years, we have been working to build families for children in need, help them shape their own future and share the development of their communities.

Everything we do is based on the best interest of the child. We help vulnerable families care for their children and we work to prevent the breakdown of families. When children lose their own families parental care, we provide quality alternative care in SOS Families and other care options. We support young people in their efforts to become independent adults and succeed in life. 

We partner with donors, communities, governments and other organizations to reach the children who need support, when emergencies strike, we focus on providing humanitarian assistance, care and protection for children and families in coordination with the government and other relief agencies. We continuously measure the impact of our program.

Due to different socio-economic and demographic factors, children in Oromia region mainly in major districts including Hitossa have been found to be at risk of losing parental care and also totally lost parental care. Hence, children at risk have been left without any support at the time when they need great care and support,specialy children are denied of basic services including education and health. Among the different factors contributing to vulnerability of children are: poverty; a significant barrier to achieving even the most basic needs of such children where their caregivers are unable to support their children’s basic needs and children are coming to either drop out from schooling due to lack of parental support or engaged on some economic activities to supplement families income and becoming at risk of school dropout.

The project has five expected outcomes to be achieved until the end of the project period:

1.      Child-focused Community structures are strengthened to sustainably respond to the needs of boys and girls.

2.      Improved livelihoods of families to sustainably protect and care for 1500 children.

3.      Improved access to quality education for 1500 boys and girls.

4.      Improved access to clean water and health care services for 1500 boys and girls

5.      Community attitude and practice on gender transformed

SOS Children’s Villages Ethiopia  Addis Ababa Program Location, therefore, wants to hire an experienced and competent consulting firm to conduct a terminal Evaluation of the progress of the Sustainable Livelihood Development for Improved ChildCare and Wellbeing (SLD_ICCW) Project in Hetossa district Eteya 01,02 and Teromoye kebeles. Eteya is a town located about 150 KM southeast of Addis Ababa in Oromia National Regional  State, Arsi Zone zone.

Purpose of the Terminal Evaluation

Primary Objective

This Terminal Evaluation is to see how much the project is impacted the life of the project participants  across the five project outcomes, as stipulated in the logframe, to help the SOS CVE and the donor. Apart from this, the Terminal evaluation feeds forward for possible decisions to be made by the organization in implementing similar project and  to communicate result for the donor.  The evaluation has to answer the following key questions:

1.      What changes has the programme made in the lives of the participating children within our target group, their families and their communities?

2.      What changes has the programme made in strengthening the community structures to sustainabily respond to the needs of boys and girls?

3.      How relevant, effective, efficient, sustainable, coherentand participatory are the programme interventions?

4.      What lessons can be drawn from the programme that can be taken to further develop the programme?  

Specific Objective

The specific objectives of the Terminal Evaluation includes the evaluation of whether –

• The project brings about change among the life of target group and achieved its objectives,
• The results/outputs lead to the specific objectives,
• The project specific objectives were consistent with project participant’s needs and organization policy.
• Children most at risk of losing the care of their family are our target group
• Children have access to essential services for their healthy development
• Families are empowered to build their capacity to protect and care for their children
• Communities are empowered to respond effectively to the situation of vulnerable children and their families
• Project partners are empowered to respond to the needs of children, families and the expected level of achievement as intended by the project.
• Partnerships are built to achieve common goals
• Gender transformation?
• Planning, monitoring and evaluation makes project relevant and effective

Key Project Indicators and Evaluation approach 

The terminal evaluation should analyze the progress whether the programme has made against the agreed set of minimum indicators in the log frame discussed below:

Children who are at risk of losing the care of their family are enabled to grow within a caring family environment.

• % of targeted children are protected from neglect and abuse
• % of project participant caregivers who are self-reliant
• % of child participants within the specified target group
• % of targeted boys and girls who have met their basic developmental needs (education, health, food, shelter)

Children of participating families realise their developmental needs and rights by accessing essential services.

• % of children with stable and adequate shelter
• % of school age children are enrolled to school
• % of children with vital registration
• % of children accessed basic essential service
• % of children received immunization as per national standards
• % of school-going age children regularly attend formal or informal education

The families of child participants have the capacity and commitment to take care of their children.

• % of targeted families have improved parting skills and practice
• % 0f targeted household are above poverty line
• % of primary caregivers who ensure that the child gets 3 meals a day
• % of targeted household covered the basic needs of their children
• % of primary caregivers who ensure the child’s access to health care and treatment as required

Communities and/or local authorities/governments’ commitment and/or capacities are strengthened to promote and protect the rights of children to grow within a caring family environment.

• % children receiving economic and social support from social structures and CBOs
• % of increase of financial resources of the CBOs
• % of increase in saving culture of the partner SACCOs in empowering the member project participant and beyond.
• % of increase in capitals of the partner SACCOs
• % of communities where community structures have improved capacity to sustain programme interventions

An active network of stakeholders contributes to ensure that all children can grow within a caring family environment.

Moreover, the evaluation should look at the following:

Relevance

• To what extent is the programme focussed on our target group – i.e. the children most at risk of losing the care of their family?
• To what extent the programme responds to the needs and priorities of the programme participants?
• How well does the programme match national and partners/institutions policies?
• To what extent can the programme react to changes in context by adapting the intervention to remain relevant?

Effectiveness

• To what extent are the objectives of the programme being attained (or likely to be attained)?
• Were the intervention points correctly selected and served to meet the set objectives?
• To what extent have children remained in their families instead of losing their care? To what extent has, their quality of life improved.
• To what extent have families successfully left the programme since the beginning, i.e. became self-reliant? How many children and families have been reached over the whole programme period?
• What were the major factors influencing achievement or nonachievement of the outcomes?

Efficiency

• Is the relation between input of resources and results achieved appropriate and justifiable (cost-benefit ratio)? What are the annual running costs and the average costs per child per month?
• Have individual resources been used most economically? (e.g. tenders for the purchase of goods)
• How efficient is the project in terms of time in achieving the aspired results?
• Are there any alternatives for reaching the same result with less input?

Sustainability

• To what extent can activities, results and effects be expected result to continue after SOS involvement has ended.
• Is there progress towards SOS withdrawing from its direct involvement and handing over the full responsibility to run the programme to an implementation partner?
• Has the capacity of the implementation partner been developed?  If so, in what areas and how?
• To what extent KIPs are ready to take the ownership of the objectives and ready to provide support to the vulnerable groups in the community?
• What were the major factors that influenced the achievement or non-achievement of sustainability of the programme?
• How were cross-cutting topics considered in sustainability actions?

Participation

• To what extent are stakeholders (participant families, particular children, partners, local authority) involved in the implementation of the programme?
• To what extent is, the programme is monitored by key signatories in track the progress of the project?

Scope of the Terminal Evaluation 

The terminal evaluation will cover three communities in Hetossa district, Arsi zone Oromia regional state. There are 560 target families and 1500 children reside across Eteya 01, Eteya 02 and Teromoye kebeles under consideration for the terminal evaluation. Besides, three Community Based Organizations (‘Idirs’ in the project context) and three Saving and Credit Cooperatives will be part of evaluation. On top of that, seven government sectors that have been working in close partnership with the project are also included to witness the progresses with the implementations of the project. Added to these are four partner schools that have been receiving technical and material support from the project to be considered in the course of the terminal evaluation. It would be expected that subjects of the terminal evaluation would be scientifically selected from the range of stakeholders of the project per each category.

Methodology 

The consultant is expected to demonstrate clear understanding of the objectives of the assignment, design appropriate approach and methodology for carrying out activities and obtaining the results. The consultant is expected to highlight the evaluation procedure and explain the technical approach and methodology it would adopt to employ while carrying out the evaluation. 

In collecting the information, the consultant will generate both quantitative and qualitative methods that yields a more detailed and meaningful description of evaluating the situation of children, their families and the community representatives using different methods. Some methods are best suited for qualitative methods, such as gathering information on evaluation of perceptions and views of existing situations for vulnerable children, other areas are best suited for quantitative methods, such as those that involve numbers or percentages ratios etc. Hence, it is required to describe which method to use where and why. 

• The evaluation will collect and collate both primary and secondary data (policies, guidelines, conventions etc. related to all the indicators attached in the checklist). Under the primary data, both qualitative and quantitative data will be generated through structured questionnaire (for survey) and focus group discussions. Data will be also generated through interviews with relevant government and non-governmental resource persons. Program records on relevant data will be collected from the records and documents that will be reviewed. 
• Acceptable sample size of the caregivers and children in the targeted Households will be considered.
• Review of secondary data sources will be made
• When need arise, use SOS Children’s Villages Ethiopia documents and tools  shall be utilized

Language 

The inception/proposal, draft and main reports shall be prepared in English language. The contract signed with the winning consultant shall also be written in the English. However, the tool may have to be translated to Afan Oromo language.

Tasks of the Consultant

• Review of relevant documentation including the project proposal 
• Design the research methodology (data collection methods, field protocols, adaptation of global data collection tools, field work design including sampling design, data processing and data analysis, reporting and feedback) in consultation with the SOS, CVE, AA PL  Support Team, and submit an Inception Report to the organization. 
• Present the Inception Report to the SOS, CVE, AA PL  Support Team. Project Manager at different level within the organization and the location MERL Coordinator who will provide comments and feedback.  
• Incorporate comments and feedback to the inception report for finalization. The final inception report should contain the final study design and data collection tools. Relevant approvals from the SOS, CVE, AA PL  Support Team should be obtained. 
• Train and support the data collection team, Implementing organization and local partner staff involved in the projects, and ensure the smoothness of coordination between the consultant team, data collection team and relevant key stakeholders.
• Pre-test the data collection tools to ensure they are linguistically and culturally appropriate and are suitable for the study objectives. 
• Coordinate, support and supervise the data collection team to conduct the fieldwork according to the agreed research methodology, locations and schedules.
•  Analyse the data, and collect further data if necessary.
• Prepare first draft of the evaluation report and present to SOS, CVE, AA PL,  Support Team for review, comments and feedback. The organization (SOS,CVE ) will share the draft report with their respective team member and the donor if necessery?
• Finalize the Evaluation Report, incorporating all comments. The final report should be 30-35 pages
• Submit all electronic and hard copy data to SOS, CVE, AA PL  

Time Frame

Start and end date in total shall be 45 consecutive days

Ethical Standards and Intellectual Property

Ownership and copyright of all collected data and evaluation reports will be the sole and exclusive property of SOS Children Village in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa Program and restricted for public use. The consultant firm will submit all original documents, materials and data to SOS Children Village in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa program. SOS CVE is a child focused Organization and will always uphold the safety and wellbeing of children as it strives towards creating a better environment for children and their surrounding community. In ensuring this, SOS CVE will only consider those who are suitable to work with children. The selected consulting firm will sign the code of conduct or child safeguarding policy of SOS CVs before the commencement of the work. 

Required Skills, Qualification and Experience of Consultant Firm

The firm to carry out this assignment should have a thorough understanding of the situation of children without parental care or at risk of losing parental care, the legislation, governmental programs, policies and strategies related to this target group, child protection issues, in general, and the socio-economic situation in the country and the region. The firm should have proven competence and experience in conducting social researches, community based socio-economic and cultural events related baseline surveys, evaluations and producing high quality reports, etc.

• A social science background, e.g. higher education (MA, PhD) in development, education, economics, psychology, social-pedagogy, social work, or related field with at least 5 years of practical experience of each team member is required.
• A good understanding of community development work and the social welfare system in the country
• Ability to create good rapport with subjects of the assessment.
• The consultant firm should be a registered firm whose license has been renewed for the current Ethiopian fiscal year and/or Higher education research teams who will present letter of assignment from the university.
• Detailed CV of the consultant/firm with full description of the profile and experience
• At least two-three certificates or recognitions of  similar evaluation  previously conducted 
• good facilitation, organisational and interpersonal skills
• proven experience in participatory processes and data collection methods (including age appropriate data collection methods)
• strong analytical and conceptual skills
• A cover letter outlining the suitability of consultant or consultant firm for the assignment,
• Motivation and summarizing relevant experience

Lien