1.0 BACKGROUND
1.1 AAH Kenya Background
ACTION AFRICA HELP KENYA (AAH Kenya) is a non-governmental organisation that addresses development challenges in partnership with marginalized Kenyan communities mainly living in low income urban and rural settings including arid and semi-arid areas (ASALs). AAH Kenya is an affiliate country programme of Action Africa Help International (AAH-I), which has been operating in the East and Southern Africa region for more than 20 years implementing programmes in South Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, Somalia and Kenya.
1.2 Mara Project Background
Mara Division is located in Narok West Sub-County, Narok County, which borders Tanzania in the South. Narok County is among the richest counties in Kenya. Large-scale wheat farming is practiced in the high-potential zone and the world famous Masaai Mara Game Reserve occupies much of the County. Mara and Loita are the poorest divisions in Narok primarily covering the rangelands with low agricultural potential. Mara Division covers 4,964 km and has a population density of approximately 9 people per km2 which is divided into four wards: Mara, Naikarra, Siana and Ilmotiook.
AAH Kenya is implementing a two-year project known as the Mara Enterprise Development in Mara division. The project is funded by Bread for the World (BftW), Germany. The project’s goal is to support development of an ‘entrepreneurial mind-set’ in community members in the Mara area, in order to strengthen their resilience and capacity to lead their own development, with its main objective being to support development of an ‘entrepreneurial mind-set’ in community members.
The project is working in three intervention areas namely; support to women in trade by equipping them with business training. This is mainly through community radio listening sessions and training in bead work in line with market needs. Moreover, the training also aimed at product improvement so that they can fetch the better prices. A second intervention is by rendering support to Mara livestock producers through exposure visits, capacity building and market linkages. There has also been an effort to diversify the livestock production by introducing fish farming. To date, the project has supported the communities in setting up and stocking two fish ponds. All these interventions are geared towards improving household incomes for the communities in Mara division.
2.0 CONSULTANCY
2.1 Terms of Reference
AAH Kenya is seeking for the services of a consultant with an extensive experience in donor supported projects to carry out a mid-term evaluation for the project in Mara division.
The evaluation should give the extent of the impact of the Mara Enterprise and Market Development Project in the last one year.
The evaluation will target various project components. These include: Livestock value chain, bead work and other the women enterprises; and fish farming. This exercise will assist the organisational decision making on further interventions in project implementation.
2.2 Overall Objectives of the Mid-Term Evaluation
The overall objective of this evaluation is to provide the Mara project with an independent review of the status, relevance and performance of the project as compared to the project document. The mid-term evaluation results are envisaged to identify and describe the lessons learnt, summarize the experiences gained and recommend the approaches and methodologies for the remaining period of the project.
The evaluation should address the following:
§ Relevance: Review the relevance of the project in terms of Knowledge, Practice Attitude (KAP) and behavior change.
§ Effectiveness: Review the effectiveness of the project, to see whether the target population was reached with the intended interventions.
§ Efficiency: Examine if the project has been cost effective.
§ Performance: Examine the extent to which the project has achieved its immediate objectives, produced outputs and impact on the target group.
§ Success: Identify and document emerging best practices and lessons learnt in terms of the product and processes, sustainability and contribution made by the project in the development of local capacities.
Specifically, the Evaluation will aim to:
Identify and describe the main lessons learnt from the project performance in terms of:
§ Capacity building of local beneficiaries,
§ Efforts to secure sustainability,
§ Approaches and methodologies used.
Review the appropriateness and clarity of the roles and responsibilities of partners and the level of coordination between them.
Review the project concept and design with respect to:
§ The clarity of the addressed problems,
§ Soundness of the approaches adopted.
Evaluate the performance of the project in terms of timeliness, quality and quantity of the activities undertaken.
Assess sustainability of the project outcomes, benefits and recommend measures for its further improvement.
Identify key information and implementation gaps.
Assess the efficiency and effectiveness of resource utilization.
3.0 MAIN TASKS
The consultant is expected to undertake the following tasks:
Develop the survey design, methodology, tools, work plan schedule and budget to carry out the assignment in the targeted areas. This will be developed and finalized in consultation with the Project team.
Co-ordinate collection of data, analysis and interpretation.
Present a comprehensive draft evaluation report for validation. The report should provide detailed findings within each result area; provide key recommendations for implementation and management of the project.
The final report should be submitted to AAH Kenya in both hard and soft copies.
4.0 METHODOLOGY
The consultant is expected to adopt a mixed design methodology which will involve both quantitative and qualitative methods (which should include participatory evaluation approach).
The consultant is also expected to carry out an extensive literature review.
The evaluation design will be discussed with the project team.
5.0 KEY DELIVERABLES
Based on this TOR the consultant shall deliver the following:-
At the signing of the contract, the consultant shall provide an inception report detailing an understanding of the TOR, methods, and means (work plan and budget) of achieving the results of the evaluation. This must be accompanied by tools for data collection.
A draft report presented to the project team outlining all the findings and recommendations.
Hard and soft copies of the final reports.
The report above should provide practical measurable recommendations and outline the lessons learnt at the course of the project implementation.
All data collection tools.
Submit to AAH Kenya the final report for the assessment (bound hard copy and soft copies). The report should not be more than 20 pages excluding annexes.
Data sets used.
The final report should include at a minimum the following elements:
§ Executive summary.
§ Acknowledgement.
§ List of acronyms and abbreviations.
§ Table of contents.
§ Background; brief project description and context.
§ Evaluation purpose.
§ Methodology including sampling procedure and size.
§ Main findings per project component.
§ Lessons learnt recommendations and conclusion.
Annexes
§ Terms of Reference.
§ Work plan.
§ Survey instruments.
§ Sampling plan.
6.0 TIME FRAME
The assignment is expected to take a maximum of 12 working days effective 15th February 2016, and final reports should be submitted to AAH Kenya not later than 29th February 2016.
7.0 Evaluator’s profile and requirements
Hold a Master Degree in Development Studies, Entrepreneurship or any other related field.
Experience in consulting/ implementing of livelihood related and behavior change evaluations.
The consultant must be able to demonstrate experience in the systematic verification and analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data, preferably in a capacity building support context.
Demonstrated experience in evaluating donor funded projects.
Experience in report writing.
8.0 APPLICATION PROCEDURE
The interested candidates are requested to submit:
§ Proposal document which shows how the consultant intends to carry out the consultancy.
§ Curriculum Vitae.
§ Samples of previous work on projects evaluation.
§ Financial proposal.
All the above documents should be submitted toprocurement@actionafricahelp.org with the title MARA MID-TERM EVALUATION on the subject line.
9.0 EVALUATION AND AWARD OF CONSULTANCY
The proposal will be evaluated based on technical and financial feasibility. AAH Kenya reserves the right to accept or reject any proposal received without giving reasons and is not bound to accept the lowest or the highest bidder.
HOW TO APPLY:
Applications should be submitted to procurement@actionafricahelp.org with the title MARA MID-TERM EVALUATION on the subject line. Deadline for submission is 8 February 2016.