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Posted date | 23rd July, 2024 | Last date to apply | 30th July, 2024 |
Category | Consultancy | ||
Status | Closed |
Final Project Evaluation
An INGO is currently looking for consultancy services from reputable firms/individuals for its project titled Strengthening of learning and protection of children living in slum areas of Islamabad. Interested Organizations/Consultants should apply with their profiles, technical & financial proposals and their tax/registration certificates. Only shortlisted Organizations/consultants will be contacted. Detailed ToRs and project details are as under.
Project Information
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1. Introduction
This document outlines the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the end evaluation of the Strengthening of learning and protection of children living in slum areas of Islamabad project. The evaluation aims to assess the project's performance against its objectives, identify key achievements, challenges, and lessons learned. The evaluation findings will inform future project development and implementation.
2. Introduction of Solidar
Solidar Suisse is a non-profit civil society organization based in Switzerland, active in the areas of development cooperation and humanitarian aid, committed to achieving a socially, politically, and economically just society. In its development cooperation work it is specialized on the topics of ‘decent work’ and ‘democracy and participation’. Solidar Suisse presently has over 60 projects running in four continents. Solidar Suisse was founded by Swiss labour unions and the Social-Democrat Party. It is a member of the SOLIDAR Network, which comprises over 50 European relief agencies and development NGOs.
Solidar Suisse started working in Pakistan after the floods of 2010. Solidar Suisse in Pakistan has been supporting;
a) the education and protection of the children who are the most vulnerable to the worst forms of child labour, violence and exploitation and
b) the humanitarian assistance to the most marginalized people who are the worst affected by natural disasters/human calamities.
Since 2010, Solidar’s humanitarian assistance activities have supported over half a million vulnerable people including the most marginalized communities in different parts of Pakistan.
Solidar Suisse is implementing the Project Strengthening of learning and protection of children living in slum areas of Islamabad, Pakistan. The project aims at enhancing the capacities of teachers, children, and parents, fostering self-reliance in sustaining the holistic well-being of children. The initiative concentrates on providing access to education while establishing robust protection mechanisms.
3. Background of the Project
The WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on January 30, 2020. The first case of COVID-19 was reported in February-March 2020 followed by country wide strict lockdown measures including closure of schools. The year 2020 and 2021 saw various variants of COVID-19 affecting different areas. The education of children was among the worst affected areas. However, after September 2021, lockdown measures were relaxed and CSOs were encouraged to continue or re-initiate their activities for vulnerable communities taking particular measures related to COVID-19 and its impact on children learning and protection.
The lack of adequate education, training and employable skills are known to be the major reasons causing such vulnerabilities. People living under the shadows of such vulnerabilities remain too enfeebled to have their children attend schools and equipped with employable academic and vocational credentials. Resultantly, according to UNICEF latest report of July 2021, 22.8 million children remain out of schools. These out-of-school (OSC) children remain highly vulnerable to abuse, violence, trafficking and the worst forms of child labour. Also, an enormous majority of the children who attend public/private education system/schools are found to be in severe need of enhancing learning outcomes in addition to be subject to abuse, violence and exploitation. Eventually, the children within the age bracket of 5-16 years form one of the most disadvantaged groups of society.
The children living in slum areas in particular are amongst the most marginalized segments of the population and the COVID-19 pandemic has further deteriorated the learning and protection of these children. Those who are yet able to attend schools are;
a) on the verge of dropping-out due to declining household incomes and
b) having limited access to quality learning.
All in all, disadvantaged children remain struggling in mastering the basic skills in literacy and numeracy. Children belonging to vulnerable communities are not offered an effective conducive learning environment at homes either. Lastly, children before the pandemic and after the pandemic are not the same; the pandemic has taught new lessons not only in education but in all other fields. The pandemic has had transformative effects on education as use of new technologies was widely emphasised during the pandemic for continuation of learning/education process. However, such a disposition further emboldened the fundamental inequalities of digital divide between the children of haves and have-nots, as marginalized communities had little/no access to such technologies[1].
Additionally, the COVID-19 severely let down the overall learning outcomes.
It is in this context, that Solidar Suisse proposed project in four slum areas of ICT intending to target 3000 children, 12 schools, 104 teachers and communities aiming at enhancing;
a) teachers’ capacities to improve learning outcomes and retention of children in schools,
b) children’s competence to improve their protection by means of strengthening their preventive [to abuse and violence] competence, and
c) communal support to anchor and sustain interventions meant to espouse children’s overall well-being/welfare particularly focusing on access to quality education and effective protection mechanisms.
The details about target beneficiaries and locale is given in table below:
Project Location: |
Islamabad, Capital Territory, Pakistan |
Project Duration |
February 2022 to July 2024 |
Total Beneficiaries: - 6000 children - 30 low-cost schools/non-formal education centers - 250 teachers - 200 members of CCPMs committees (mothers and other community members) |
Note: The initial project period was two years, however, it was extended for six months thereby enhancing the overall targets as well.
4. Project Objective:
The overall approach of this project was to strengthen the competence of teachers, children, parents and community organizations/CSOs to become self-reliant in terms of sustaining capacities to espouse children’s overall well-being/welfare particularly focusing on access to quality education and effective protection mechanisms. The school/education system hence becomes the collective place to gather and strengthen all these stakeholders.
5. Project Location
The project was implemented in four slum areas of Golra, Bari Imam, Pir Wadhai and Khanna Pull encircled in the below map of Islamabad. Project locations and beneficiaries were selected through a comprehensive assessment intended to reach out to the most disadvantaged groups of children in four clusters of slum areas namely Golra, Bari Imam, Pir-Wadhai and Khanna Pull. In particular, the assessment identified 12 schools’/education systems where children of these slum areas ought to arrive [known as catchment area within government’s educational parlance] to access education.
6. Evaluation Objectives/Key Questions to explore
The overall objective of the evaluation is to provide a comprehensive and independent assessment of the Strengthening of learning and protection of children living in slum areas of Islamabad project. The specific objectives/questions are as following:
Project performance evaluation
How was the initial project set up, and its approach utilized throughout its cycle? How have we, if any adapted our approach when/if we have identified emerging needs? How the project has been adaptive in managing the implementation?
- to what extent did the project succeed in taking into account the very specific context of slum areas of the project's target groups?
- What concrete changes have been brought in by the project in the life of children in terms of ensuring learning and enhancing protection prospects.
Promoting dialogue with stakeholders
- Involving teachers in the evaluation process, to know about how they have benefitted from the project (training, capacity building, coaching etc.)
- Having a dialogue with the parents who have appreciated the need of education and protection for children need to be consulted to understand what moved them and be the agents of change and motivate others in the community.
Enabling learning process
- enable learning by identifying key challenges and lessons learned, particularly in relation to the changing post-covid context and the situation of slum community life
- Analyze factors that contributed to or hindered project performance.
- To share key recommendations for helping build future projects.
7. DAC Criteria/ Key Evaluation Questions
DAC Criteria |
Evaluation questions |
Relevance |
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Coherence |
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Effectiveness |
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Efficiency |
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Impact |
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Sustainability |
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8. Key Stakeholders for the evaluation
The following is a list of key stakeholders. The evaluators will have to do sampling for conducting field visits and interviews with the potential beneficiaries and stakeholders. The selected evaluator will propose his methodology for conducting interviews/FGDs with teachers, children, selected community members (CCPMs) and other stakeholders based on the level of involvement and importance in during the inception phase in consultation with Solidar country team.
External stakeholder |
Level of involvement |
Expected change / impact due to the project |
Students / Children (Phase 1: 4,000) + (Phase 2: 2,000) = Total 6,000) |
High |
High – Enrolment of out of school children, Orientation of children on child protection, Overall child welfare with regards to overcoming learning barriers |
Teachers (250) |
High |
High – strengthened competencies (subject based teaching, multi grade teaching, student assessment’s, classroom management, Non Formal Education methods/ curriculum) |
CCPM Members/ Mothers (200) |
Medium |
Medium – awareness raising of mother groups on child protection, overall well-being and education of children |
School Management (30) |
Medium |
Medium - the collaboration and coordination for project implementation. |
Internal stakeholder |
Level of involvement |
Degree to which they will use the evaluation results |
Project team |
High |
High - for future programming |
9. Evaluation Methodology
The evaluation will employ a mixed-methods approach, utilizing both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Specific methods may include:
- Document review: Project documents, reports, monitoring data, and relevant literature.
- Key informant interviews: Interviews with project staff, beneficiaries, stakeholders, and partners.
- Focus group discussions: Discussions with beneficiaries and stakeholders to gather their perspectives.
- Field visits: Visits to project sites and interact with beneficiaries.
The specific data collection methods will be further elaborated upon in the evaluator's inception report.
10. Evaluation Deliverables
The evaluation will deliver the following outputs:
- Inception Report: A detailed plan outlining the evaluation methodology, data collection tools, and data analysis plan.
- Draft Evaluation Report: A comprehensive report presenting the evaluation findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
- Presentation: A presentation summarizing the key findings and recommendations for stakeholders.
- Final Evaluation Report: The final report incorporating feedback received on the draft report.
11. Evaluation Timeline (August 2024 – September 2024)
The evaluation is expected to be completed within 40-45 days following the signing of the contract.
Phase |
Timeframe |
Activity focus |
Phase 1: Inception |
Until 10th August |
Includes inception meetings, initial interviews with key stakeholders, including Solidar Suisse coordination offices and partners, and first scan of strategic and project documents. The Inception Report submitted at the end of this phase will finalise agreed criteria, methodology and assessment framework, data collection tools and project visit schedule, with provisional agreed dates for Phase 3. |
Phase 2: Desk study |
Until 15h August |
Review of key documents and establishment of key objectives to be verified, including project-level output/outcome objectives. |
Phase 3: Primary research and drafting of preliminary project feedback report/ reviews
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Until 25th August |
Primary research to assess the criteria / evaluation questions agreed in the inception phase. A preliminary report will be developed and finalised after validation meetings with the project team, where key findings are discussed and feedback, where appropriate, is incorporated. It is critical for Solidar Suisse that the reviewers ensure meaningful participation and ownership of initial findings, while also allowing dialogue for learning with project partners/ Stakeholders. |
Phase 4: Analyses and reporting
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Until 10th September |
Analysis will combine the insights from the desk study, primary research and additional data collection. A draft Final report will be produced and submitted for comment to Solidar Suisse. |
Phase 5: Validation and Report Finalisation
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Until 15th September |
Final validation will take place with Solidar Suisse staff in Islamabad and Zurich after the draft final report is submitted. Feedback from this validation session, where appropriate, will be incorporated before the final version of the report is submitted.. |
12. Evaluator Qualifications
The evaluation team should possess the following qualifications:
- Demonstrated experience in conducting project evaluations, preferably in the education and protection sector.
- Understanding and familiarity with the slum life and its challenges
- Strong understanding of monitoring and evaluation principles and methodologies.
- Experience in using mixed-methods research approaches.
- Excellent analytical and communication skills.
- Fluency in Urdu and English
The evaluation team would be given following support from Solidar
- Provision of project documents/ Reports
- Facilitation in conducting KIIs and FGDs with key stakeholders
- Sharing the locations of partner schools
13. Confidentiality and Ethical Considerations
The evaluation will be conducted following ethical considerations research principles. All data collected will be treated confidentially and anonymized where appropriate. Informed consent will be obtained from all participants in the evaluation.
14. Contents of the Proposal
We invite interested organizations/firms to submit the following application documents for conducting this evaluation:
a) Expression of interest addressing expertise and track record – max 2 pages;
b) Proposed methodology, rationale, and work plan
c) Financial proposal in lump sum must be submitted in PKR and inclusive of all applicable taxes;
d) Organization’s brief and relevant profile.
15. Logistics and Procedures
Solidar will facilitate the evaluator/s for identification of project locations and reaching out to the beneficiaries for data collection, visiting communities and conducting meetings with other stakeholders. The evaluator/s would be required to make all travel and logistical arrangements using their own resources. Solidar wouldn’t be able to extend any support for making such arrangement. The cost must be included in the overall budget. Solidar would only assist in access to beneficiaries or authorities involved in the evaluation.
The evaluator/s would be responsible for compliance with all tax and social security obligations resulting from this contract and has to cover for required insurance coverage on its own account and expense. The evaluator/s may become legally obliged to contribute to the public pension insurance of his/her country of residence. It is understood that such contributions are not payable by Solidar and are to be borne by the evaluator/s itself.
16. Approval Process
The final evaluation report will be submitted to Solidar Suisse’s Headquarters for review and approval.
Apply By:
17. Submission Procedure
- The technical and financial proposals should be sent to [email protected] before COB 30 July 2024.
- Participation to this process is purely voluntary.
- The organization reserves the right to withdraw the process at any stage and to reject any/all quotations without assigning any reason thereof.
- Only shortlisted bidders will be contacted.
- Only email queries would be entertained. Any direct/telephonic contact will be tantamount to automatic disqualification.
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