Consultants - Mid Term Evaluation of STEER Project at Save the Children Nigeria

Save the Children is the world's leading independent organisation for children. We work in 120 countries. We save children's lives; we fight for their rights; we help them fulfil their potential. We work together, with our partners, to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Consultant - Mid Term Evaluation of STEER Project

Location: Abuja

Purpose and Scope of the Evaluation

• After three years of implementation, STEER will conduct a mid-term evaluation of the project in order to assess its progress against outcomes, and will evaluate management and coordination process.
• The goal of the evaluation isto assess both the processes, strategies and outcomes of the project, collect robust evidence, document lessons learnt to inform necessary course direction.
• This mid-term evaluation will cover all aspects of project implementation including institutional, administrative, organizational and technical aspects - aspects which may have an impact on the performance of the project.
• To ensure objectivity and credibility the mid-term evaluation will be led by an external consultant who has made no prior commitment or contribution to the Project. The evaluation is expected to take place between February and March, 2017.

Specific Objectives
More specifically, this evaluation will explore the following key evaluation questions and develop recommendations based on the findings:

• Evaluate the extent to which the STEER project has met its stated objectives, including meeting goals and outcome indicators for child and household well-being, economic, nutrition, and parenting outcomes, and systems strengthening.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of STEER community case workers (CCW) in delivering home services.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) approach in increasing household savings and investment.
• Measure the current levels of household savings and food security in the households with OVCs
• Evaluate how STEER has contributed to caregivers’ ability to care for OVC through increasing household savings and food security. (This should be via DIFFERENT mechanisms from the VSLA approach that is being measured above)
• Evaluate whether and how STEER’s organization development strategies have improved the visibility and viability of our partner organizations.
• Document project achievements, best practices, and lessons learned (i.e. what worked well and why and what did not work and why).
• Recommend improvements for STEER’s long-term strategies for OVC programs, focusing on project management, achieving quality, accountability and to replicate similar approach in other states in Nigeria. What can be done differently to achieve more effectiveness, efficiency, Sustainability and impact?

Scope of the Mid-Term Evaluation
The following evaluation criteria is based on the OECD-DAC principles for evaluation of development assistance; the following questions will be used to undertake the evaluation study. The final midterm evaluation report will be expected to respond to all the questions mentioned below:

Relevance:

• To what extent were the objectives of the STEER project valid in response to the needs of the community in the project target areas?
• Have the planned programme activities and outputs been consistent with the progress on overall goal and objectives?
• Have the planned programme activities and outputs been consistent with the intended impacts and effects on the improved livelihoods of OVC and their caregivers/households?

Effectiveness:

• To what extent are the objectives likely to be achieved by the end of the project and also could underlying reasons leading to achievements and key bottlenecks that contributed to delays be identified?
• To what extent did the services provided cause changes to household economy, stability and improved welfare? What factors were responsible for these changes?
• How was learning from various forums incorporated into supportive supervision of civil society organisation partners?
• How effective were the various project activities to improve household welfare and livelihood for OVC?
• How well did the project team engage with different stakeholders and partner organisations to achieve effectiveness and sustainability of project activities?

Efficiency:

• How efficient (timeliness, cost-effectiveness) was the project in achieving the desired project outcomes?
• Were project objectives and activities achieved on time on the STEER Project?
• Have the most efficient approach/(es) been used to achieve project Outcomes and Outputs (as compared to alternative approaches)

Impact:

• What real difference has implementation of the project activities made in the lives of the beneficiaries?
• What were the key lasting changes achieved by the project particularly for Caregivers and OVC?
• Did the training of Community Volunteers lead to changes in practice and improvement in the quality of care the caregivers were provided, what evidence do we have and what evidence can we gather to demonstrate this?

Coherence:

• To what extent have our interventions been coordinated with the efforts of different stakeholders including Child Protection Committees (CPCs), VSLA groups?
• What internal coordination problems did the project team face and how were they addressed?
• What was the project level biggest achievement to demonstrate effective coordination? How can we improve coordination?

Sustainability:

• To what extent can the benefits of the STEER project for beneficiaries continue after the project funding ceases?
• To what extent can the stakeholders be able to continue with implementation of the project activities?

Desired Methodology
While the evaluation design will be left at the discretion of the consultant, we anticipate that the proposed evaluation activities may include, but not be restricted to, a combination of some of the following methods:

• Interviews with project staff;
• Review of project documentation;
• Review of project logic (proposal);
• Review of monitoring and other process documentation such as annual and self-assessment reports;
• Collection of information from participating agencies
• Interviews with several actors/stakeholders of the project, including (but not limited to) partners, SCUS, SCI management, and others as agreed;

Outputs and Deliverables
The following specific outputs are expected: