External Evaluator 

Threads of Peace BACKGROUND:  

Threads of Peace known as House of Peace (HOPe) has been active in the field of social stability/cohesion since its establishment in 2015. 

The organization has a team of specialized trainers in the field of social peacebuilding. Tools and approaches are developed internally by in-house experts. External consultations are sought whenever needed. All programs’ trainings and sessions are tailored to fit the need of each participating group of local communities and NGOs. 

Although HOPe is a young and small organization, it served for two years as a member of the LCRP Social Stability Core Group representing local NGOs. Also, the Lebanon CS Forum established by HOPe is a unique facility that is locally led and locally owned, which is special to any other similar entities in different parts of the world. This was highlighted by the latest report issued by the CSC-Hub. 

Threads of Peace Mandate OVERVIEW:  

Established in 2015, HOPe focuses on impactful peacebuilding programs in Lebanon. Their Social Peace Program conducts diverse workshops to enhance personal development and dialogue skills, supporting community-based initiatives for over 100 workshops and 70+ initiatives in vulnerable communities. HOPe supports community centers in conflict-affected areas, such as the one in Tripoli managed by 100 women, empowering women and providing essential services. The Conflict Sensitivity Program trains humanitarian NGOs' staff and volunteers, utilizing tools like the "Conflict Cake" to visualize conflict sensitivity interaction analysis. In response to the 2022 Beirut Blast, HOPe introduced the Well-being Unit, operating through the Self-Care Hub. This unit focuses on the psychological well-being of frontline workers and community members, encouraging Personal Peace Plans during the Hub journey and disseminating self-care information through various mediums.  

In its 5th and 6th years, Threads of Peace, through funding from its partner Brot fur die Welt, is implementing Social Peace & Conflict Sensitivity programs, which aim to 1) improve social peace skills to 592 vulnerable individuals through the provision of capacity building of 8 Social Peace Workshops, 20 Dialogue Sessions, and 2 Initiative Building Activities 2) improve cohesion to form 2 activists groups from community members by implementing 2 social stability initiatives in their area and 2 networking events to gather all activists groups implementing in the same governorates and 3) enhance conflict sensitivity skills to 366 NGO staff/volunteers by providing 14 different levels of Conflict Sensitivity Trainings and 6 National Conflict Sensitivity Meetings. 

This external end-of-project and organizational evaluation will help Threads of Peace assess its capability, document lessons learned, and plan for the new proposal phase guiding the organization in developing projects that continue to focus on the peacebuilding efforts in Lebanon.  

OBJECTIVES OF THE EVALUATION: 

Evaluations allow Threads of Peace to learn from the experience and findings of independent experts. This improves the quality, effectiveness, and impact of the projects and enhances the organization’s work. We call this the learning function of evaluation. 

The primary objectives of this evaluation are 

to gauge the performance and results of the project on partners, target communities, and beneficiaries, and to provide clear evidence of the project’s relevancy, efficiency, efficacy, impact, sustainability, and coherence to enable HOPe to compile lessons learned trends, and recommendations. 

To review the organizational structure, capacity, resources, partnership, and the alignment of projects/ programs with the organizational strategy.  

SCOPE OF THE EVALUATION: 

Thus, we seek an external evaluator to assess the organization and project according to the following criteria: 

Relevance:  

To what extent did the intervention’s objectives and design respond to the targeted communities’ needs and priorities? 

Have experiences from previous interventions been used successfully to improve the quality of the project? 

To what extent is the project concept in line with HOPe’s and donor’s country/regional strategies? 

To what extent is the chosen project concept geared to the core problems and needs of the target group(s)? 

What changes have occurred during project implementation? How were the changes dealt with regarding the ‎project concept?‎ 

To what extent have ‘do no harm’, conflict sensitivity and barriers been taken into consideration in the design and implementation of the project and what are the effects? To what extent HOPe is applying conflict sensitivity at their organizational level (policies, MEAL tools, etc…) and what are the effects?  

To which overarching development results is the project supposed to contribute (2030 Agenda, SDGs)?‎  

To what extent were potential (security) risks for HOPe’s staff, partners, target groups/final beneficiaries identified and considered? 

To what extent is the project objective realistic from today’s perspective and the given resources (time, financial, partner capacities)? To what extent are the activities, instruments and outputs adequately designed to achieve the project objective? 

Efficiency:   

Primary Questions 

To what extent have resources been allocated and utilized efficiently to achieve value for money? 

To what extent could the outputs have been maximized with the same amount of resources under the same framework conditions and with the same or better quality (maximum principle)? 

Secondary Questions 

Was the project implementation timely – did it face challenges in terms of staffing, procurement, actor coordination, etc.? To what extent could outputs have been maximized by reallocating resources between the outputs? 

Were the output/resource ratio and alternatives carefully considered during the design and implementation process – and if so, how? 

Were the outcome-resources ratio and alternatives carefully considered during the conception and implementation process – and if so, how? Were any scaling-up options considered? 

Effectiveness:  

To what extent has intervention been effective in achieving its results and planned outcomes? 

What unintended outcomes (positive and negative) emerged from project implementation? 

What factors (positive and negative) have had the greatest influence on the achievement of results? 

To what extent has the intervention been able to contribute to longer-term effects (impact)? To what extent is the intervention likely to produce impact prospects? 

Was the level of partnership(s) appropriate to support the effective achievement of the intervention’s objectives? 

Did the project manage to reach its planned targets? Did HOPe manage to reach its planned targets? What were the enabling factors and the hindering factors (enablers and spoilers)? 

Was the project/House of Peace able to adapt to the challenges in the country? 

Impact:  

How does the community perceive House of Peace? How do CSOs perceive House of Peace?  

What are the levels of direct vs. indirect and short-term vs. long-term effects of the project’s interventions? Of House of Peace performance?  

To what extent did the project succeed in promoting social cohesion domains (trust, civic engagement, and social relationship), the well-being of participants, and the role of women in peace?  

Did the project succeed in opening safe spaces and dialogue for individuals?  

To what extent did the project succeed in promoting conflict sensitivity at the individual level of staff/volunteers?  

Did the project mainstream conflict sensitivity among CSOs’ organizational level partnered with due to conflict sensitivity trainings?  

Sustainability:  

Primary Questions 

To what extent are the benefits of the program likely to be sustained in the long term? What are the main factors behind this? 

What has the project done to ensure that the results can be sustained in the medium to long term by the partners themselves? 

If no follow-on measure exists: What is the project’s exit strategy? How are lessons learned for partners and HOPe prepared and documented? 

Secondary Questions 

To what extent are the results continuously used and/or further developed by the target group and/or implementing partners? To what extent are the results of the project durable, stable, and resilient in the long-term under the given conditions? 

Coherence:  

Coherence will examine the extent to which the project programs is complementary to other projects of the HOPe (internal coherence) and other (external coherence) donor projects implemented in the country 

PROPOSED METHODOLOGY 

The review process should be conducted in a consultative and participatory approach including field visits to project sites, meetings with the staff, and consultations with project beneficiaries and stakeholders. Review methods should encompass both primary and secondary data collection, and should include review of existing documents, general observations, surveys (if needed), Key Informant Interviews (KII) with main stakeholders/partners, and focus group discussions (FGD). The consultant is expected to develop the appropriate methodology and tools that would best capture the objectives of the evaluation. Such a methodology should be outlined in an inception report submitted after one week of contract signature.  

RESPONSIBILITIES AND DELIVERABLES: 

Develop and submit the evaluation plan, methodology, and data collection tools one week after contract signature in an inception report. The report should contact a tentative/ proposed schedule of field visits/ data collection  

Draft report six weeks after contract signature 

Workshop presenting the main findings and discussing recommendations  

Final report after receiving comments from Threads of Peace 

The main body of the report, in Word format, should be between 20 and 30 pages (excluding the appendices/annexes) and is to include the following elements: 

Table of Contents 

Executive Summary 

Introduction 

List of Acronyms 

Background (description of the project & short literature on Peacebuilding in the context of Lebanon and the Syrian refugee crisis) 

Evaluation objectives and criteria 

Methodology 

Main results and analysis, clearly responding to the evaluation criteria and key questions in the TOR and referring to the project’s outcomes 

Conclusions and recommendations, focusing on program and organizational development for the next years. 

Annexes