Final Evaluation:Multi-sector Alliance to Eliminate Worst Forms of Child Labour in the Agriculture Sector (Jordan and Lebanon)NEAR-TS/2018/400-428

1. About Plan International

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. We believe in the power and potential of every child, but know this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion, and discrimination. Working together with children, young people, supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges girls and vulnerable children face. We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood and enable children to prepare for – and respond to – crises and adversity. We place a specific focus on girls and young women, who are most often left behind. We have been building powerful partnerships for children for more than 80 years, and are now active in more than 70 countries.

Plan International is operating in the Middles East Region: In Lebanon, since 2017, obtaining formal registration in 2019, and has programmes throughout the country (Beirut, Mount-Lebanon, South, North, and Beqaa). While in Jordan, it was established in 2016 and has programmes throughout the country (Amman, Jordan Valley, Karak, Jarash, Azraq camp, and Zarqa). Working in partnerships with local, national and international organisations, Plan aims to support the recovery and resilience of Lebanese and Jordanian host populations and Syrian refugees.

2. Project Background

Funded by the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), Plan International, in partnership with Namaa in Jordan and Himaya in Lebanon, has implemented a 3-year project scheduled to conclude in December 2021. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the reduction of forced child labour in agriculture in Jordan and Lebanon and protect children’s human rights. The action was designed by Plan International with two local partner organisations: Namaa (Jordan) and Himaya (Lebanon), and was implemented and monitored by these three organisations. The Action focused on Aljoufeh and Alkarameh in the Jordan Valley (Jordan) and Kaa in the Beqaa Valley (Lebanon) where Namaa and Himaya respectively are active and have strong local knowledge and relationships. This Action’s multi-pronged programming model combines child protection, education initiatives and livelihood referral services to offer a comprehensive package capable of tackling the complex drivers of child labour. The project has also worked with stakeholders at community, local, subnational and national levels addressing the issue from different entry points. All interventions adopted a rights-based approach and were aligned with national and regional protection and child labour frameworks to avoid duplication and strengthen government ownership.

This project aimed to combat forced labour by helping to eliminate the WFCL in the agriculture sector in the project regions through the combination of four main outcomes. These are:

1,500 targeted boys and girls have decreased vulnerability to WFCL in the agricultural sector after receiving age appropriate and gender sensitive child protection, non/in formal education and livelihood opportunities.

750-targeted caregivers are enabled to protect their children from WFCL after participating in Positive Parenting Programme and/or accessing livelihood alternatives.

114 Local Development Committees (LDC), Child Protection Committees, Schools counsellors and communities are enabled to prevent and respond to WFCL.

The National Action Plans (NAPs) against the WFCL of Jordan and Lebanon are supported to respond to the worst forms of child labour.

The above results should have been achieved through the following project outputs:

Structured Play and Psychosocial Support (PSS) methodologies are delivered to vulnerable boys and girls aged 6-9 and 10-17.

Plan’s Holistic Focused PSS -Life Skills Package is delivered to vulnerable boys and girls aged 10-17.

Boys and girls have access to quality child protection case management services and/ or referrals to multi-sectoral support that meet their needs.

Non-formal or informal Education Curriculum is delivered to vulnerable children, and eligible children are referred to formal education.

Adolescents (16-17) are referred to or provided with relevant and sustainable livelihood opportunities.

Caregivers are referred to or provided with alternative relevant and sustainable livelihoods.

Caregivers are provided guidance on child protection risks, including child labour, through Plan’s Positive Parenting Programme.

Local development committees (LDCs) partake in Plan’s Child Labour Prevention and Response Modules (Jordan only)

Local community-based child protection committees are trained on Plan’s Child Labour Prevention and Response Modules.

Community-based Child protection related initiatives on child labour in agriculture are carried out by child protection committees.

School counsellors are trained to monitor and refer child labour cases and support at-risk children (Jordan only)

Key government stakeholders at the sub-regional and local levels involved in the implementation of the Child Labour NAP are trained on Plan's Child Labour Prevention and Response Modules.

Ongoing support to the National Committee on Child Labour (NCCL) in Jordan and the Child Labour Task Force (CLTF) in Lebanon is provided through active participation on these committees and fringe advocacy, in conjunction with ILO.

Lessons and Evidence study on Forced Child Labour within the context of the Syria crisis is developed for Plan’s Inter-Agency Regional Workshop involving stakeholders from Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

The Action was also guided by: (a) the Inter-agency Toolkit on Child Labour in Emergencies, led by Plan International and ILO, which was finalized both in a global and a regional format by mid-2018; and (b) the 2017 Regional Strategic Framework on Child Labour, published by UNHCR, UNICEF and ILO. Both documents adopted a multi-sectoral approach engaging stakeholders from protection, education, economic empowerment, and other sectors. The Action fully embraced this approach as the most effective pathway towards the elimination of child labour. This project therefore prioritised child labour cases according to risk and severity (see Table 1) and focused on forced child labour and the WFCL. At-risk children were also targeted using a matrix of project specific risk factors, such as unaccompanied children, single parent households and out-of-school children, developed at project start-up.

Table 1: Prioritizing child labour cases according to levels of risk and severity; adapted from: Inter-Agency Toolkit on Child Labour in Emergencies (draft), 2017.

*Risk level

Group of children

(1) Extreme risk

Children in the unconditional WFCL (e.g. bonded labour, illicit activities, or sexual exploitation)

Children below the minimum age in hazardous work

(2) High risk

Children above the minimum age in hazardous work

(3) Medium risk

Children in non-hazardous work below the minimum age

Children at risk of child labour (prevention)

(4) Low risk

Child no longer working or at risk of child labour

*

3. Evaluation Focus

3.1 Purpose of the Evaluation

This end of project evaluation will assess project effectiveness, relevance, efficiency, sustainability, as well as child rights, gender, and inclusion and impact will provide policy recommendations. Findings will be disseminated to all stakeholders to ensure visibility of project results and sharing of lessons among partners, beneficiaries, and at local and national government/non-governmental levels.

It is important to note that a baseline assessment was conducted at the beginning of the project, as such the consultant will also be requested to measure project indicators and provide end-line values in order to allow for comparisons of results before and after the project’s implementation.

3.2 Evaluation Criteria & Questions

Effectiveness: assessing the extent to which the project achieves its intended objectives

● To which extent were each of the projects’ objectives achieved?

● How properly was the project executed in terms of quality and timeliness?

Relevance: assessing to what extent the project’s objective and intended results remain valid and pertinent as planned.

● Was the program designed in a way to meet the needs of the community, and specifically of adolescents and youth?

● Is the project consistent with Plan’s integrated focus for programming and national strategy in Lebanon and Jordan?

Efficiency: The Extent to which financial and human resources were used economically and efficiently.

● The extent to which financial resources were used economically and efficiently, potentially including cost-benefit ratios and alternative programming approaches

Sustainability: assessing to what extent the project’s results will be maintained for a certain period after the current project phased out.

● Are structures, resources, and processes in place to ensure that benefits generated by the project continue once external support ceases?

● Do the project partners have the technical and financial capacity, and are they committed to maintaining the benefits of the project in the long run?

● Are the results obtained sufficient to draw any conclusion on sustainability before the actual end of the project/programme? Are some activities already ongoing without any more support from the project/programme?

● To what extent was sustainability of impact taken into account during the design of the project

Child rights, gender and inclusion: assessing the extent to which the project applied gender and inclusive sensitive approaches.

● What did the project achieve in terms of protecting the safety, dignity and rights of affected people, promoting gender equality and addressing barriers to inclusion, including for people with disabilities?

● Were the project activities designed and tailored to meet the needs of different groups of people including age, gender, disability…?

Impact: assessing the positive and negative, primary and secondary long-term effects produced by a project, directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally.

● Which positive/negative and intended/unintended effects can be observed in the project? How do internal and external factors contribute to impact?

● To what extent the community benefited from implemented activities?

Lessons learned:

● What good practices can be learnt from the project that can be applied to similar future projects?

● If it were possible, what could have been implemented differently for greater relevance, sustainability, efficiency, effectiveness and impact?

● At the National/regional levels what CL prevention and response modalities could be highlighted as best practises and effective programing modality?

● What are the essential lessons learnt and recommendations for the further development of similar projects?

4. Users of the Evaluation

The primary users and audience of the evaluation will be partners, beneficiaries, and local and national government (MoL, ILO). The secondary audience will be the donor, the European Commission, who will use the findings to strengthen their programmes; and potentially the local and international community at large.

5. Methods for Data Collection and Analysis

The study should be informed by the baseline study findings and should use a mixed method approach and benefit from the quantitative and qualitative approaches. Further to that, below are the four main principles that the evaluation should be built on:

Inclusiveness—the methodology should include a wide range of viewpoints, specifically gender and age-sensitivity when applicable.

Mixed-method approaches—both qualitative and quantitative methods need to be present in the methodology.

Rigor of evidence—gathered information needs to be reliable and transparent

Ethics—the methodology needs to consider research ethics and the vulnerability of the target population in order to ensure that the evaluation is fully objective.

The sample size should be adequate and representative of each target group. The evaluation will adopt the following methods:

● Desk review: It is important to review the project documents which include the project’s logical framework, baseline study, M&E Plan for both countries and other relevant online sources of data to complete the assessment in addition to secondary desk review on child labour

Qualitative methods:

● Key informant interviews: Interviews will be conducted to gather in-depth information on key questions.

● Focus group discussions: also to gather in-depth information regarding the key questions mentioned above.

Quantitative methods:

● Surveys: Surveys should be administered to members of the community including men, women, youth, children groups and others as appropriate, to collect numerical information related to the study’s main purposes. The consultant will be provided with the list of respondents under the project activities.

The data collection is the responsibility of the consultant, however Plan International will oversee and follow up on the data collection process and the project partners will help in facilitating the communication between them and project stakeholders. Data collection will take place in both countries Lebanon and Jordan; specific locations will be specified noting that the modality of data collection will also depend on the health situation in both countries in relation to COVID-19.

5.1 Sample

The sample size should be adequate and representative of each target group. Following the sampling methodologies for the quantitative surveys and a clear and logical number for the FGDs and KIIs based on selection criteria.

5.2 Participant selection and recruitment.

● Government stakeholders including staff from the Ministries of Labour, Education, Social Development/Social Affairs, Agriculture, NCFA.

● Project team and project partners*,*

● Community members (community leaders ,head of CSO’s and project participants)

● Any additional or excluded stakeholders that the evaluator feels are important to involve ensuring they get the information they need to answer the Evaluation Questions.

6. Ethics and Child Protection

Plan International is committed to ensuring that the rights of those participating in data collection or analysis are respected and protected, in accordance with the Framework for Ethical MERL and our Global Policy on Safeguarding Children and Young People. All applicants should include details in their proposal on how they will ensure ethics and child safeguarding in the data collection process. Specifically, the consultant or firm shall explain how appropriate, safe, non-discriminatory participation of all stakeholders will be ensured and how special attention will be paid to the needs of children and other vulnerable groups. The consultant or firm shall also explain how confidentiality and anonymity of participants will be guaranteed while providing the participants with the consent forms.

Additionally, all parties involved in the data collection will receive an induction on Plan International’s Child Safeguarding policy, safe identification and referral and Non-Staff Code of Conduct.

7. Key Deliverables

(Deliverable /Format/Due /Detail)

Inception Report

Word document

30th September

Within ten days from signing the contract. The inception report is expected to clearly defines the evaluation methodologies (qualitative and quantitative) with details of sampling (method and sample size), target groups, and evaluation timeline with specific deadlines for each deliverable.

Final Data Collection Tools

KOBO Link
*

NA

30th September

The consultant will be responsible for developing, coding, and digitalizing the data collection tools.

Cleaned raw data in excel spreadsheets, and FGD and KII transcripts in local language and in English

Excel

NA

25thh October

NA

Draft Evaluation Report

*Word document
PDF *

30 pages, font 11

10thth November

Draft Evaluation report to be submitted within 10 days of the completion of the data collection

Phase for review and comments from Plan country team in Jordan and Lebanon. The review and feedback of the report could be more than one round depending on the quality of the report and the extent to which the comments and suggestions from first round have been incorporated.

Validation workshop

NA

NA

1sth December

A validation workshop to present results and agree on recommendations, prior to finalizing the report.

(Presentation of key findings and lessons learned needs to be submitted)

Final Evaluation Report (including Executive Summary)

*Word document
PDF *

30th December

A final Evaluation report to be submitted after incorporating the comments of Plan International. The report should be written in English (each section should be disaggregated per country).

The report should include evidence, lessons learned and recommendations

Key considerations in report writing:* **

● Cover page, Plan will provide sample cover sheet for reference

● Table of contents, list of acronyms, abbreviations and list of tables and charts.

● Executive summary of key findings and recommendations.

● Background information and context analysis presented per key criteria with a brief description.

● End line methodology with clear explanation of sampling and limitations, KIIs/FGDs, participants’ selection and data analysis approach.

● Evaluation findings, analysis, with associated data presented, where appropriate in clear graphs or charts. The findings can include subsections for each research criteria.

● Conclusion and Recommendations.

● The recommendations should be framed according to each section of project.

● Appendices should include raw and clean collected data in Excel format, detailed description of the methodology with evaluation instruments, list of interviewees and signed consent forms, tools, list of key documents.

The report should be submitted electronically in a MS – Word document. The consultant is responsible for English editing and proofreading of the final report, which should be well formatted. The report will be credited to the evaluator and potentially placed in the public domain at the decision of Plan International.

All handwritten and electronic transcripts of interviews and KIIs, hard copies of survey questionnaires, photographs taken during the assessment and any equipment received from Plan for the purpose of the study should be submitted to Plan. Furthermore, all information generated during the evaluation will be the sole property of Plan and is subject to submission to Plan, along with the final report, prior to the end of the contract.

*

8. Timeline

(Activity /Time/Days of Work /Responsible /Individuals Involved)

Submission of Inception Report

30th September

15days

Evaluator

PM,MERL Focal point reviews and approves inception report

Preparations for Data Collection

a) Develop tools

30th September

3 days

Evaluator

Technical team

b) Field piloting

30th September

3 days

Evaluator

MERL Team

c) Enumerator training

30th September

2 days

Evaluator

MERL Team

Data Collection

15th October

10 days

Evaluator

MERL Team

Data Cleaning

20th October

5 days

Evaluator

MERL Team

Data Analysis

25th October

8 days

Evaluator

MERL Team

Submission of Draft Report

10th November

15 days

Evaluator

PM, Technical Team

Validation of findings with key stakeholders and respondents & feedback incorporation

20th November

10 days

Evaluator, plan international

PM, Technical Team

Submission of Final Report

1st December

15 days

Evaluator

PM, Technical Team

Management Response and Action Plan

TBD

9. Budget *

The budget is expected to be submitted as part of the application. The consultant shall be responsible for all taxes and applicable governmental fees. Additionally, the consultant should mention in their financial proposal all travel costs, insurance and visa costs, per diems, and translation costs.

Regarding payment, it is divided into two:

· First payment 25%: upon submission of approved Inception report, including data collection tools (interview guides and survey). (2-4 weeks from signing the contract)**

· Second payment 75%: Upon submission of Final report including executive summary and after Plan International’s approval of the quality of the submitted.**

10. Expected Qualifications

The Consultant/Consulting firm (preferred to be a firm or a team of consultants) should have the following competencies and qualifications:

● Minimum Master’s Degree in social studies, International Development or any other related field

● Minimum 10 years’ experiences in undertaking baseline and endline surveys studies and evaluations in contexts similar to Jordan and Lebanon.

● Relevant experiences in the response to humanitarian crisis, preferably in the areas of education, protection, and livelihoods.

● Experience working in Jordan or Lebanon, proven experience in both countries is a plus

● Demonstrated experience of facilitating research with participatory methods and tools, particularly with children and young people

● Competency in managing, organizing and interpreting quantitative and qualitative data and information

● Experience working with vulnerable groups, including refugees and children

● Report writing skills.

● Excellent written and verbal communication skills in Arabic and English.

● Ability to communicate effectively to a range of different stakeholders

Note that the consultant / consulting firm is required to identify, recruit, contract and train enumerators and data collectors in both countries. No support can be provided on this matter by Plan.

How to apply

How to apply

1. Applications

Interested candidates to submit the following in:

*Separate sealed envelopes (technical/financial) proposals stamped with official company stamp or signed for individuals, to the following address:*

Shibli Bldg (known as Bank Audi bldg.) Scd Floor, Independence street, near to El saydeh church Ashrafiyeh | Beirut, Lebanon

for International intersted candidates a sealed offers would be accepted through curriers and international shipping agincies .

PDF format of this ToR would be provided by reaching out to the below mentioned E-mail .

Interested applicants should provide a proposal covering the following aspects:

Detailed response to the TOR

Proposed methodology

Ethics and child safeguarding approaches, including any identified risks and associated mitigation strategies

Proposed timelines

CVs

Example of previous work

Detailed budget, including daily fee rates, expenses, taxes etc.

Police Certificates of Good Conduct – especially where there is primary data collection

Please send your application to Plan International by <26 August 2021> referencing “Evaluation for <*Multi-sector Alliance to Eliminate WFCL in the Agriculture Sector>**

Project related and confidential Annexes will be provided and shared with selected candidates after reviewing proposals and completion of selection process.

For any queries or questions kindly, e-mail us at:

[email protected]

منتهية الصلاحية
آخر مدة للتقديم
الخميس, 26. أغسطس 2021
نوع الدعوة
دعوة لتقديم الاستشارات
قطاع(ات) التدخل:
زراعة, الأطفال والشباب, حقوق الإنسان والحماية
Remuneration range:
> 6000 (USD)
Duration of Contract:
till End of December 2021