The Equal Rights Trust is seeking a consultant for the evaluation of its Legal Assistance Scheme Project (LASP) in Kenya.
The Project has been implemented in partnership with the Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya (FIDA-Kenya) and seeks to address discrimination and violence against women by enabling Kenyan women to secure legal remedies and enhanced protection from discrimination through establishing free legal aid services at community level. These legal aid services are provided by paralegals working in 33 community-based organisations (CBOs) and focus on three areas in which women experience discrimination: inheritance of land and succession; domestic violence; and access to education.
The consultant will facilitate a critical analysis that will assess the Equal Rights Trust and FIDA-Kenya to challenge assumptions and ways of working, and explore challenging areas of our work. This will strengthen the effectiveness of future programming similar to LASP through reflection on lessons learned.
Areas of Evaluation
The two main areas the consultant will explore are as follows:
1. What difference has the project made to people’s lives.
2. How has the project made this difference.
More specifically, the consultant must use the following research questions to address these areas:
1. What difference has the project made to people’s lives (what, who, where, when)?
2. To what degree have project outcomes been achieved? Were there any unexpected
3. Who has benefitted (aggregated by gender) and in what ways?
4. Are those outcomes relevant to people’s needs?
5. Are they likely to be sustainable in the long term?
6. Have there been changes to practice and attitudes of decision and policy makers at the local level (e.g. police officers, children’s commissioners, court administrators etc.) to benefit the project’s target groups?
7. To what extent has the project contributed to the achievement of boarder objectives in the country where the project is working?
8. To what extent has the achievement of the outcomes been influenced by external context and other factors?
9. How has the project made this difference?

Scope of Work
The consultancy is estimated to take 50 working days and the consultant is expected to cover all implementation sites which are covered by LASP project (full details can be found in the Terms of Reference (ToR)).
The consultant will develop data collection tools relevant to the assignment (which will be reviewed by the Trust and FIDA-Kenya) and will make use of both qualitative and quantitative data to evaluate the period of 1 April 2011 – 30 September 2016.

Desired Qualifications
Interested candidates should meet the following minimum qualifications:
• A degree in law/social science with five years of experience in field work. Master’s degree in any field of human rights will be an added advantage;
• Proven track record of carrying out surveys including maintaining high standards of data collection, managing survey logistics, and training. References should be provided to this effect;
• Knowledge of and experience working on research projects that have at least one of the following cross-cutting themes: gender equality, social inclusion, sustainable development and/or good governance;
• Familiarity and use of Results Based Management frameworks in evaluation projects;
• Familiarity with both quantitative and qualitative research methods and analytical tools and research experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative research;
• Availability to travel to CBOs implementing the project, and ability to interact effectively with various project actors; and
• Excellent communication skills for report writing and presentation of research and evaluation projects backed by extensive technical reports and publications.

Terms of Engagement:
The consultant will be paid 40% of the total agreed amount upon commencement. Thirty per cent will be paid upon submission of a draft report, and 30% upon delivery of a final approved report. Please see the ToR for full details on the report and other deliverables.
The consultant will make their own arrangements for travel and accommodation and will be required to cater for their accident cover and personal insurance.

HOW TO APPLY:
Interested consultants should submit the following five documents by Sunday 13 November 2016:
• A letter of interest explaining why they are the most suitable for the work and confirmation of their availability for the duration of the contract;
• A brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work;
• CV(s) – the document should make explicit the role and responsibility of the candidate in any past research projects or evaluations of the same nature and include names of at least two references;
• One writing sample on a related topic (not more than 10 pages); and
• A financial proposal.

Proposals not meeting these requirements will not be considered. Please submit applications to:marianne.kristensen@equalrightstrust.org.
For full consultancy details, please download the ToR.