Consultancy Service for Project Evaluation

1. Background

Church World Service (CWS) is an American NGO, which has been supporting Vietnam since 1954 with projects primarily focused on improving health services, access to clean water and sanitation, nutrition for children, education for ethnic minorities and disaster relief. Since 2015, and continuing now, the CWS team in Vietnam is coordinating with partners to implement “New Integrated Development and Essential Action (New IDEA) for ethnic minority communities in Vietnam”. This is a community development project with activities primarily focused on information-sharing, knowledge growth and skills development (capacity building) for awareness-raising and community mobilization leading to behavior change to achieve these objectives:

• Hygiene/sanitation: help families and communities have more sanitary/hygienic home and public (e.g., school) environments than in the past;
• Education: encourage and support quality, safe and student-friendly learning environments in schools;
• Health: enable and support quality, safe and patient-friendly clinic environments and practices;

The project is funded by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and CWS for activities in Phuc Thuan/Dai Tu district (Thai Nguyen province), Muong Te and Than Uyen districts (Lai Chau province), and Chiem Hoa districts (Tuyen Quang province).

2. The evaluation

2.1 Purpose and use of the evaluation

The project is nearing the end of its first five years (December 2019) and an external evaluation is being planned to review information/data and people’s ideas/comments to evaluate achievements and impacts for quality, accountability, learning and planning for the future.

Intended use of the evaluation:

• Report to ELCA about achievements and impacts over 4+ years (2015-2019);
• Use lessons learned and proven best practices/ models to share Vietnam’s learning/ improvement to other CWS country teams, and other NGOs;
• Identifying gaps in current programming, e.g. within WASH, or in related programming like WASH in health facilities or livelihoods support.
• Identify further resources, both material and technical, needed for the 5-year phase implementation wrap-up, and for future program design.

2.2 Key evaluation questions

- Project relevance and effectiveness

• How relevant (useful) were project activities (as designed and implemented) in addressing the rights and needs of project participants (beneficiaries);
• What value did project activities add in relation to Vietnamese government (national) development priorities;
• How satisfactory were project outputs, outcomes and results to participants (beneficiaries) disaggregated by group: students, teachers, families, leaders, et al.

- Participation of project partners (teachers, students, health workers, village leaders, citizens, government duty-bearers) in NEW IDEA

How many people (disaggregated by gender and age; and de-duplicated) joined project activities? To what extent did this meet the intended aim of having a participatory initiative where beneficiaries were catalysts and actors in their own development.

- Project achievements, successes, and impacts

• What has changed materially as positive results/successes related to NEW IDEA’s goal and objectives, e.g. types/ numbers of material improvements for water, sanitation, etc.
• From NEW IDEA’s goal and objectives, what has changed, verifiably, in people’s lives, e.g., more knowledge, new or improved skills, way of working, changed behavior?
• How many people benefited from the project: What do people who participated in activities say?
• What were the top 5 challenges in NEW IDEA; and what are 5 key lessons learned to overcome the challenges?
• Were there any unintended results or effects from NEW IDEA, either positive or negative?

- Project sustainability

• What activities and/or other impacts have been sustained in year 1/year 2 communities, where CWS support transitioned to local leadership?
• Can NEW IDEA intervention/activities be adapted and more widely replicated to other communities, including their schools and clinics?

- Gaps between future Government support and people’s rights/needs) and challenges in the districts that may need possible future programming

• What are gaps and challenges people in the district facing;
• What should possible future programming consider/ prioritize.

2.3 Methodology

The evaluation team leader is asked to design a detailed methodology, including field survey plan and participatory info-data collection tools, including interviews, focus group discussions, etc. to (1) review existing and (2) collect new info-data, both quantitative and qualitative.

The evaluation is scheduled for August to December 2019. As such, the field survey in select communes/villages will be in September and October.

Details of timeframe and of major steps must be clearly elaborated in the evaluation plan.

The design must include ways that the evaluators collaborate with CWS staff, partners and participants (beneficiaries), especially during the field surveys. All survey forms, info-data collection and analysis methods, draft and final reporting must be planned to be in consultation with CWS.

2.4 Reporting

Preliminary findings will be presented to community members and leaders in 3 local workshops, what the evaluator must design to elicit feedback and clarifications before the final report is written.

The final report, in Vietnamese and English, is due to CWS by December 18, 2019.

3. The evaluation team and requirements

A team of Vietnamese-led evaluation specialist/consultant is required. The team member(s), who are preferable Vietnamese, will report directly to their team leader. Together, the team will have these professional qualifications:

• Significant, verifiable experience in designing/developing project evaluations;
• Excellent inclusive/participatory communication and facilitation methods;
• Strong analysis and reporting abilities;
• Strong knowledge and practical experience in WASH/CLTS, including health/ hygiene education, promotion of sanitation at schools, clinics and in communities. Also, some team member(s) must be familiar with Vietnam’s basic education: school settings, teachers’ methodologies, etc.
• Strong understanding and work experience with ethnic minority people, particularly those in the north-northwest mountainous regions of Vietnam.

Interested candidates please send an application letter, a basic outline of a proposed plan, and detailed CVs of proposed evaluation team members to [email protected] , and cc [email protected] , no later than July 22, 2019.