Consultant for midterm Review

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

TO: 

Date of issue: 27 November 2015

RFP no.: 46

Contract title: Consultancy for midterm Review of Sustainable agricultural development among smallholder and marginalised farmers in far western hill of Nepal 

Closing date: 10 December 2015

Contracting Authority:

DanChurchAid
Jhamshikhel, Lalitpur 
Kathmandu
Nepal,

Contact person:

Krishna Bahadur Thapa
Tel:+977 5013505
E-mail:kbth@dca.dk

TERMS OF REFERENCE

For

Mid-Term Evaluation of EU NSA/DCA Sustainable Agriculture Development for Smallholder and Marginalized Farmers in Far-Western Hill of Nepal

1. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT:

DanChurchAid has been implementing Sustainable Agriculture Development for Smallholders and Marginalized farmers in Far-Western Hill of Nepal with financial support from European Union for the period of 36 Month starting from 21st  Feb, 2014 to 22 Feb 2017. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to improved food security and nutrition of smallholder and marginalized farmers through increased agricultural productivity, access to market and participation of targeted farmers, institution, related CSOs in the decision making process. The project is being implemented in 6 VDCs of Doti (Gaguda, Dhirkamandu and Satpheri) and Achham ( Kalika, Darna and Bardadevi) Districts. This project is being implemented having partnership with two technical partners i.e. Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development (LI-BIRD) and Food-First Information and Action Network Nepal (FIAN-Nepal) and two local implementing partners i.e. Malika Bikas sangh Association*Malika Development Organization (MDO) in Achham and Equality Development Center-Nepal (EDC) in Doti. This project aims to capacitate 2515 small and marginal farmers HHs in the areas of moderns agricultural technology and skills, small scale infrastructure development, farmers institution formation and strengthening, enhance farmers linkage and coordination with district level government office, market center through farmers institution like groups, agriculture marketing cooperatives, farmers’ federation, district level right to food networks. Moreover, aims to scale up agricultural production and commercialization of agricultural output.  

The farmers are facing challenges of low production caused by traditional way of agriculture practices and timely unavailability of modern technology and agricultural inputs. Male counterpart of the farmers were seasonally migrated to the India for manual works. This further exacerbate the drudgery of women in household and agricultural works. There is a felt deficiency of technical manpower and know how about modern ways of agricultural farming. Most of the farmers are engaged in subsistence level of farming due to the lack of agricultural market and linkage of farmers with market center. In addition, unequal distribution and lack of access to the resources and services is the another constraint for agricultural development in remote areas. The facilities provided to the small land holding farmers by the state are not often reached to them mostly due to lack of awareness, less participation and social discrimination. Felt or perceived deficiency in different aspect of agriculture based livelihood of the farmers include lack of technological knowledge, improved production inputs (Seed, Fertilizer, tools, irrigation etc.), formation and strengthening of farmers institution (Groups, Agriculture Marketing Cooperatives, farmers’ federation and right to food Network etc.) and promotion of farmers linkage and participation in decision making forum, crops diversification etc. among others. Lack of sustain and year round efficient transportation facilities for agriculture product marketing are the pertinent issues of the farmers in working areas. 

2. EVALUATION PURPOSE AND USE:

The broader purpose of the Mid-term evaluation is to find out the direction and status of the project how it ensure effectiveness, efficiency, relevance and impact with respect to the right holders groups and resources involved. Empirical finding of the evaluation reports will be useful document for the management team to assess larger program scope, impact, capacity, quality assurance, appropriateness, effectiveness and will take necessary corrective action to make the project more effective in rest of the period in coordination with the various stakeholders at national, districts and local level under which the Sustainable Agriculture Development project has been implementing in two District. The Mid-term evaluation would highlight key lessons learned and principal recommendations in order to contribute towards the sustainability of project. The evaluation is a part of DCA’s own accountability measure to document key learning for future references too.

More specifically mid-term evaluation aims to answer following evaluation purpose which are as followings:

• To review and assess the results of the project in compare to the stated goal and objectives;
• To review and assess indicators and monitoring/reporting process for project results and outcomes as noted in the proposal and logical frameworks;
• To identify value addition by DCA both in terms of inputs and processes, and opportunities for further support
• To review institutional sustainability of activities and outcomes at project level and means to ensure this
• To present recommendations, both at activity and management level for the remainder of the project period.

3. EVALUATION SCOPE:

Mid-term evaluation of this project will basically carried out to find out the trend and status of project relevancy, connectedness, coherence, coverage, efficiency, effectiveness at project output/outcome level as applicable within 1.5 years of project implementation. The review will take place in the month of November 2015. It will cover all four project partners, entail field visits, discussions with relevant stakeholders at district and national level, and local communities. Activities under review will be all those noted in the proposal and logical framework as well as those that relate to the evaluation purpose noted earlier. 

4. TASKS OF CONSULTANT:

Major Tasks:

• Assess the projects performance and progress so far against the log frame and the project objectives. How effectively the project has addressed the needs and rights of the target groups?
• How appropriate are the project approach and interventions towards meeting the project specific objectives
• How realistic, appropriate and achievable are the project’s log frame indicators?
• What lessons are learnt so far, and has the project tuned itself to match with them to benefit rest of the project period? Has the project been able to document and disseminate good practices?
• How effective is the project strategic including capacity development strategies for partners, farmers groups and leader farmers.
• How appropriate is the project implementation modality- working in partnership, management structure of the project and the partner, working with the national, district and local government
• Do the project’s current strategies support for the integration of gender, marginalize and small farmers in the development process, and promote equal access of target groups to and control over opportunities?
• How do the key stakeholders, including DCA project staff, partners and farmers groups perceive the project strategies, approaches, and the start-up activities (Appropriateness, timing, and targeting) undertaken by the project?
• Is the coordination mechanism at district, national and project level (Including within DCA from regional level to project lelvel) adequate and appropriate?
• How efficiently has the project resources been utilized (Input/output/time), and how transparent are the project actions and decisions?
• How cordial is the project relationship with the partners, community, EU and others key stakeholders?

Specific Tasks:

• Prepare the project evaluation methodology, tools, indicators and check list questionnaires to gather information for the evaluation
• To evaluate the project against the project document, log frame, project plan and budget
• To review all project documents including project proposal, plan and budget, procurement plan, detail implementation plan, progress report, interim reports, logical framework, field visit reports, partnership agreements and project baseline survey
• To carry out the field visit in all project districts and conduct meeting and interaction with the partners, farmers groups, district and VDC level concern stakeholders
• To analyze the primary and secondary information related with the sustainable agriculture development, food security of the marginalize and small farmers to find out the efficiency, effectiveness, relevance, and impacts of project including the sustainability aspects.
• Evaluate the contribution of the project to foster sustainability of agriculture production through technology transfer, infrastructure development, farmers institution formation and strengthening, agriculture input support etc among others as against the project activities.
• Evaluate the capacity building aspect of project partners and farmers groups, networks and institution to contribute the sustainability of project activities
• Highlights the project outcomes, achievements, success indicators, impact, learning and provide the recommendation for the betterment of ongoing project
• Assess the extent to which project activities and achievements are progressing towards sustainability 
• Assess the replication strategy of the project

5. KEY EVALUATION QUESTIONS:

To facilitate this process, some guiding questions related to evaluation purpose/objectives are provided below. The evaluation team is required to address these guiding question in qualitative and quantitative aspects to assess the project achievements against the set targets. The team should also look into any deviations from the set targets with reference to the quantification of achievements in the project log frame. The team should also conduct an assessment of the risks and assumptions made in the project log frame for continued relevance, validity and to see if any new risks have evolved.

Relevance

Key question:

• To what extent is the sustainable agriculture development project relevant to the identified need of small and marginalize farmers ?

Sub questions:

• Was the need analysis of marginalize and small farmers relevant and appropriate? Is it still or Changed? How we can cope with changing context of the farmers?
• In what ways does the sustainable agriculture development project contribute to the program goals? (Geographically, thematically etc. among others)

Effectiveness

Key questions:

• To what extent were the stated objectives/outcomes or outputs achieved? 
• What factors have contributed to achieving or not achieving intended outcomes?
• What factors contributed to effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the project’s partnership strategy?
• How well did management systems (Finance, human resources, procurement etc) operate to support the project?
• How effective is  the partnership between DCA and the partners? Can something be improved? For instance with regards to communication, financial management, reporting, capacity building etc.

Efficiency

Key questions:

• Could we have achieved the same with fewer resources? Or could we have achieved more results with the same resources?
• What are the overall costs of the project compare to the number of beneficiaries?

Impact

Key questions:

• What has been the impact at beneficiaries or right-holder level (output and Outcomes level where applicable at this stage)?
• What are the most significant changes in the lives of the rights holders, their relation to the duty bearers, or the practice of the duty bearers that can be attributed to the project? Gives the trend analyzing till date project progress.

Sustainability

• Are the benefits from the project, especially at right holders’ level likely to continue after the finalization of the project? Why and why not?

6. STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT

This section should describe which specific stakeholders will be involved in the evaluation and in what way. The guideline can help you plan this. Remember that the more involved stakeholders are from the begening of the exercise, i.e. the design of the ToR, the more likely it is that they will respond to the evaluation and recommendations. The evaluation manager (Partners or DCA) can choose to present a draft ToR to stakeholders in order to focus the discussion but the risk is that this will limit the discussion too much. The evaluation manager can also choose to open the process completely, by brainstorming with the stakehokders on the key issues to be assessed during the evaluation. In this case a prioritization exercise must be undertaken in order to focus the evaluation as much as possible.

• The beneficiaries, small and marginalize farmers groups
• The partners, project implementation staff of partners
• The technical partners staffs
• Central level project steering committee and project management committee at joint project office
• District Development Committee, Village Development Committee, District Agriculture Development Office and their sub-center staffs.
• EU coordinator responsible for the project
• DCA project staff and DCA  South Asia staff responsible for the project

7. EVALUATION METHOD

This section may provide the overall evaluation approach and method for conducting the evaluation, as well as data sources and tolls that will likely yield the most reliable and valid answers to the evaluation question within the limit of resources. Final design and methods for the evaluation will be developed having consultations amid DCA project team, partners, evaluators, and others concern stakeholders. The evaluation will be undertaken by an individual consultant, who will focus on the programme, conceptual review, organizational assessment as well as one looking at a roadmap for the future. They will develop a guideline/questionnaire as a basic framework for the review, which will include methodologies of information gathering, range of documentation for review etc.

Evaluation process and Procedures

• On signing the contract, review the project documents including the project proposal, log frame, project plan and budget, progress reports and partnerships agreements.
• Review the supplementary sources of information such as baseline survey report, project documents and progress reports, program operational guideline etc.
• Develop a detail plan for the evaluation process, field visit schedule and review processes and develop the methodology , and share with the contact persons of DCA for approval before heading to field work. The work plan should clearly describe the evaluation process including tools to be adopted for data collection and analysis
• Meeting with central level partners. DCA project staff, technical partners, district and local level governments, implementing partners in districts. 
• Organize an initial  briefing session with project team and partners staff to get their inputs for the evaluation at the Kathmandu, project office Doti and project district.
• Information required should be gathered primarily through qualitative methods and participatory approaches with involving all key stakeholders of the project. To the extent appropriate, this review should follow the evaluation format and methodology prescribed by EU or DCA
• Conduct interview with key persons from farmers groups, leaders farmers, social mobilizer, and official from DDC, DADO, VDC, ASC and related development actors,
• Conduct a debriefing meeting at Kathmandu with project team and partner staffs, and representative from EU, SWC to share the findings and seek feedbacks
• Prepare and submit draft report and final repot of mid-term evaluation

Methodology of Evaluation;

• Document Review
• Meeting with the project team for the finalization of methodology
• Meeting and discussion with partners organizations at national and district level
• Meeting and discussion with project management committee at joint project office level, related stakeholders at district and local level
• Field work and direct observation
• Use relevant participatory methodology and tools such as seasonal mapping, mobility mapping, and trend analysis etc.
• Focus groups discussion
• Semi-structured questionnaire
• Key informant survey
• Debriefing
• Sharing draft report for inputs
• Produce final report

8. EVALUATION DELIVERABLES:

Key deliverables, or tangible products, the evaluation team will be accountable for producing at the minimum includes:

• Evaluation Plan (Inception plan, inception report):
• Draft Evaluation Report
• Final Evaluation report
• Others knowledge products or facilitation of knowledge sharing events etc. among others.

9. EVALUATION TEAM COMPOSITION REQUIREMENT:

Section 7 and 4 should help you identify what types of skills are needed on the team. Priority should be given to local  and national experts. 

The team as a whole should possess following expertise at least:

• Proven expertise on the subject matter and the cross cutting issues such as right based approach and gender
• Proven experience from NGO and CBO based development assistance in the country in question
• Proven evaluation skills such as indicator development, sampling, participatory evaluation methodology, focus groups discussion and interview etc.
• Proven team leader and report writing skills
• Proven knowledge and experience of sustainable agriculture development, sustainable livelihood, food security, marketing and value chain approach of agricultural product, have thorough knowledge on community based organization, civil society organization, cooperatives movement and role of agriculture cooperatives in agriculture development etc. 
• The consultant must possess extensive experience in evaluating sustainable agriculture development project, farmers and organizational capacity building aspect.
• Experience with faith based organization in general and DCA in particular is an assets
• DCA and its partners will support for the consultant, and will participate in information collection and organizing workshops and meeting at national, district and local level.

10. EVALUATION TIMEFRAME

This section describe the all tasks and deliverables for which evaluator or the evaluation team are responsible and accountable. Below time frame suggestive here are indicative for the consultant to carry out their evaluation works.

Please submit your proposal by uploading it by e-mail to kbth@dca.dk and also can request for detailed proposal via the same e-mail address. Deadline for application is 10th December 2015.