Terms of Reference End Evaluation Strengthening of Political Parties in Somaliland (2022-2024)

1.    Background

This document outlines the terms of reference for the End Evaluation of the Strengthening of Political Parties in Somaliland action (01 September 2022 to 31 May 2024) funded by the EU delegation under the Non-programmable NDICI-Global Europe Crisis Response Action in Somaliland.

The Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy Somaliland (NIMD - Somaliland)

The Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy Somaliland (NIMD - Somaliland) is an International NGO newly registered in Somaliland and implementing Demoracy and Governance Programs.

NIMD’s head office is based in The Hague, The Netherlands, and serves as the head office of the NIMD global network. Since 2000, NIMD has worked on democratization, striving to promote peaceful, just and inclusive politics worldwide through programmes and initiatives designed to strengthen democratic systems and bring people together across divides. NIMD passionately believes that inclusive democracy is the only system capable of serving the interests of all, and helps achieve this goal by working with political actors to ensure they are genuinely responsive to the needs of their citizens.

The Action aims to prevent conflict and support reconciliation and trust-building between political actors in Somaliland at a critical time of rising tensions. The Action is designed to avoid escalation of these simmering tensions by focusing on trust-building and dialogue[1] between political actors, and by capacitating democratic institutions and training individual (aspiring) politicians, with a specific focus on inclusion of women in political and decision-making processes. The Action supports political parties in ensuring compliance to new and current legislation. Moreover, the Action contributes to stability and a conducive political environment for a free and fair electoral process in Somaliland, including promoting democratic values through outreach and public engagement. The Action aimed to strengthen the gradual transition from clan-based to issue-based politics that is already slowly materializing in Somaliland.

The Overall Objective of the Action is to achieve:

Reinforced capacity and willingness of political and civic actors in Somaliland to prevent (simmering)

conflicts and engage in dialogue for peaceful and democratic development.

Based on the overall objective, four distinct longer-term outcomes with related pathways are designed to contribute to this. The four Outcomes are:   

1. Enhanced trust and dialogue among political parties, and between parties and civil society

2. Strengthened capacity and inclusivity of political parties and democratic institutions

3. Increased capability of women to participate in decision-making processes

4. Enhanced support for democracy and strengthening of the democratic culture in Somaliland

2.    Purpose of the Evaluation

NIMD Somaliland want to commission an external in-depth evaluation of the project in accordance with the general terms of the EU agreement. The External Evaluation aims to assess achieved objectives and results linked to the overall objective, and provide relevant findings, lessons learned, best practices, and recommendations that would help guide future interventions. The final evaluation should follow OECD/DAC criteria and assess various aspects of the project, including relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence, impact, sustainability, appropriation/ownership, and gender sensitivity.

Specific aspects of the project's performance to be evaluated include:

1.      Assess progress made against ToC/result framework

2.      To assess NIMD responsiveness to obstacles and challenges, adjustments made to project design, and implementation within the project.

3.      To assess sustainability of results and impact, considering the dynamic context.

4.      To document achievements, Lessons learned, good practices, innovations, success stories, and challenges experienced during project implementation.

2.1 Scope of work

The evaluator(s) will develop a detailed methodology for the external evaluation, highlighting aspects such as research design, ethical considerations, sampling strategy, and data collection in targeted project areas. This methodology will include tools for both primary and secondary data analysis. The final report will consist of both quantitative and qualitative data, reflecting the Action’s progress in achieving its targets, objectives, and desired impact.

The external evaluation will cover all aspects of the project’s implementation and will be conducted between April 30th and June 15th, 2024.

3.    Proposed methodology

We suggest the methodology of the end-term evaluation consists of the following elements:

1.      Theory-based approach (ToC/result logic)

2.      Triangulation (substantiation of harvested outcomes/interviews with diverse stakeholders/researcher triangulation)

3.      Contribution analysis (an assessment of how the Action contributed to results)

Methods that can be employed:

4.      Desk study of available general documentation of the Action, including proposal, reports, studies, etc;

5.      Interviews with key programme staff of the Action;

6.      Interviews with direct participants in the Action;

7.      Interviews with external key stakeholders

3.1 Set of preliminary questions of the Final Evaluation:

1.      Assessment of Theory of Change and context analysis:

1.1. To what extent has the context analysis (PEA) underlying the design of the Action proven relevant, adequate and valid? What lessons can be drawn from this process?

1.2. To what extent are the result logic (ToC) and the underlying assumptions relevant, adequate and valid? What lessons can be drawn from the design of the Action?

2.      Assessment of achievements on the intermediate and outcome level

2.1.   What have been the main (intermediate) outcome results achieved?

2.2.   To what extent do the results represent progress on the result logic of the Action?

2.3.   What can be said about the relationship of intermediate outcome results achieved to the higher-level programme outcomes in terms of plausible contribution?

2.4.   Which of the programme interventions appear to be particularly effective in producing anticipated intermediate outcomes, and are most likely to contribute to programme outcomes? What lessons can be drawn from this?

2.5.   What were the enabling and disabling factors and actors in achieving results? What lessons can be drawn from this Adaptive programming?

2.6.   How has visibility contributed to achieving results and sustainability of the project?

2.7.   What can be said about the sustainability of these results? What lessons can be drawn from this?

4.    Deliverables and time-frame

The evaluator(s) will be responsible for producing the following deliverables:

a.      Inception Report: Prior to the full data collection exercise, the evaluator(s) will prepare an inception report. This report will outline a structured evaluation plan, including the methodology for addressing evaluation questions (proposed methods, sources, and data collection procedures). The inception report provides an opportunity for project management and the evaluator(s) to ensure a common understanding of the evaluation and clarify any misunderstandings.

b.      Draft Evaluation Report: A draft evaluation report will be provided with sufficient time for discussion of findings and formulation of comments. It should contain draft findings of the evaluation and draft case studies, drawn from literature reviews, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and field visits. Presentation summarizing the findings will be presented to NIMD team.

c.       Final Evaluation Report: The final evaluation report will adhere to the Quality Assurance Checklist in Appendix 2, comprising

i.                    Executive Summary

ii.                  ii. Introduction –

a-    Description of the intervention –

b-   Purpose of the evaluation –

c-    Evaluation methodology –

d-   Challenges encountered during the evaluation

iii.                Findings –

a-    Findings related to each evaluation question –

b-   Country assessment, including overall conclusions and country-specific recommendations –

c-    Case studies –

d-   Additional findings

iv.                 Conclusions

v.                   Recommendations

vi.                 Lessons Learned

vii.               Annexes

The NIMD Team will have ten (10) days to comment on factual accuracy, the relationship between findings, conclusions, and recommendations, as well as the relevance, usefulness, and implementability of recommendations. Subsequently, the evaluator(s) will have 2 days to submit the final evaluation report. The comments of the NIMD team shall be integrated into the final evaluation report, either directly in the report or in the form of an annex (management response) in case of disagreement between NIMD and the evaluator(s).

[1] In September 2021 NIMD published “Just Talk? Evaluating five years of political dialogue 2015 – 2020”, https://nimd.org/evaluation/just-talk-evaluating-five-years-of-political-dialogue-2015-2020/

1.    Consultant profile

The following skills and areas of expertise should be represented in the concultant/team:

·         MA in Monitoring and Evaluation with at least 10 years experience;

·         Experience in Somaliland

·         Extensive experience in process and performance evaluations of democracy assistance, political empowerment programmes, women’s political participation, gender equality;

·         Experience with Outcome Harvesting and other participative monitoring methods;

·         Specialist knowledge of democratisation and political inclusion processes in Somaliland;

·         Proven experience in cooperation with political actors, youth and women movements, and democracy assistance programmes and political systems change

·         Excellent report writing skills;

·         Excellent English language skills;

Interested consultants or consulting firms are invited to submit technical proposals detailing their approach, methodology, relevant experience, team composition, reference emails, and financial proposal. Proposals should be sent to [email protected] with the “End Evaluation” subject line before 18:00 EAT on April 20, 2024.

The expression of interest should contain:

(a) a technical offer and

(b) a financial offer, comprising:

A. Technical offer:

✓ Up to date CV of the lead consultant/evaluator (showing education and expertise).

✓ Technical proposal detailing proposed methodology and resources needed (max 3 pages).

✓ An example of a report from similar work which demonstrates evidence of the skills and experience required and a list of past evaluation produced by the lead consultant/evaluator.

B. Financial offer:

✓ A list of all expenses expected to be incurred by the consultant including a daily rate, accommodation, flights and visas.