Endline Evaluation-Yalla for Employment and Protection(YEP) project

Asmae’s Background & partners

Asmae-Association Soeur Emmanuelle ("Asmae") is a French international NGO and registered charity, specializing in child development. Independent, secular, and apolitical, it is open to all. Founded in 1980 by Sister Emmanuelle, based on her experience with rag pickers in the slums of Cairo, Asmae continues its actions in line with the values and methods inherited from its founder: listening and proximity, pragmatism, taking account of differences, professionalism, and reciprocity. Asmae's actions aim to support vulnerable children and their families through personalized and continuing support for local actors working in the fields of education and child protection.

Asmae has been operating in Lebanon through local partners since 1986. Asmae is currently working with five Lebanese NGOs, operating in and around Beirut as well as in the El Bared, Mount Lebanon and Ain El Helwe camps, with some activities carried out in other parts of Lebanon as well.

For this project particularly Asmae has two main partners directly implementing the project’s activities:

• Farah Social Foundation (“FSF”)

is a Lebanese non-governmental and non-profit organization founded in 1988, with the mission of contributing to the development of communities on a social and economic level, especially targeting the disadvantaged. Farah Social Foundation implements activities and projects in Beirut, Aley, Chouf, Baabda, Hasbaya, Rashaya, and Tripoli districts. The beneficiaries targeted include women, youth, small-scale farmers, vulnerable households, and chronic patients, under 5 main interventions: Humanitarian Aid, Health and Social Care, Youth and Women Empowerment, Education and Human Development, and Agriculture and Rural Development. More specifically, in areas of interest for this project

• Developmental Action without Borders (“Nabaa”)

 is a Lebanese organization that works with Palestinian communities in the camps and gatherings in Lebanon, and with the Lebanese communities Nabaa's mission is to empower those communities so they uphold the rights of children, and so enable children and young people to play a healthy and active role in their communities. Over the last eight years, Nabaa has worked hard to develop its capacities and expand its experiences, particularly in children’s rights and community development. Nabaa has an extensive experience on vocational training programs since 2007, having reached more than 10,000 youth. Besides, Nabaa strongly believes that sustainability cannot be achieved without continuously strengthening and improving the organization. Therefore, Nabaa is one of the few local NGOs in Lebanon that has invested recently in internal systems, controls, policies, procedures, and governance in general. This has positioned Nabaa among the most credible and reliable organizations in the country. Nabaa received its certification in Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS) in 2017.

Project Description

Project location:

Country: Lebanon

Town, region: Bourj Hammoud, Zokak Al Boulat, Khandak AL Ghameek, Karantina, Sayfi, MarMkhayel, Jemaizy,

Project Calendar:

Project duration: 36 months

Start date: January 2022

Expected end date: DECEMBER 2024

 Overall objective : The proposed intervention aims to improve the socio-economic situation of youth affected by the Beirut Blast by supporting and strengthening the capacities of 2 local partners with the inclusion of protection services. This will be governed by a profound partnership approach and continuous coordination with the two local organizations, FSF and Nabaa, who will be implementing the project activities by facilitating the access of affected youth to vocational training, employment opportunities, entrepreneurship opportunities, and protection services while ensuring youth meaningful participation throughout the project lifetime. Close collaboration with the municipalities of Beirut and Burj-Hammoud will also be sought as to ensure coordination and foster strong links with the communities targeted other CSOs and public services

Purpose and Objectives of the Endline Evaluation

An end-line evaluation aims to thoroughly assess and provide comprehensive final data on the project's goal and outcome indicators. This evaluation is crucial for determining how well the project titled "YEP, Yalla for Employment and Protection" has achieved its intended objectives. It will measure the project's relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability.

Overall, the end-line evaluation is an essential step in understanding the project's overall success and its contribution to the community, as well as in identifying lessons learned and best practices for future initiatives.

Thus, the selected consultant is expected to :

Evaluate the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence, impact, and sustainability of the project's components

Identify and document key findings and lessons learned throughout the project, providing insights for making informed recommendations for sustaining similar programs in Asmae's future thematic interventions.

Identify activities that have shown immediate impact and will be relevant for reporting after 12 months of implementation, ensuring they align with the project context and target expectations.

The results of this evaluation will be used by Asmae Lebanon to spin off identified good practices, particularly on its strategies, capacity building, management, and decision-making, while mainstreaming child rights, gender, and disability. Recommendations and lessons learned from this project evaluation will provide additional input and knowledge both to Asmae and its recurring partners to sustain and reinforce livelihoods and PSS programs. This evaluation will be conducted as part of Asmae Lebanon’s commitment to AFD, partner-funding organization, and the project target groups, at the end of the project in 2024. Also, the lessons learned for adaptation in case of renewal and provide evidence-based recommendations for future programming, taking into account the changing political and security situation in Lebanon, and considering the possibility to switch from developmental project to emergency project.

Approach to be taken and evaluation questions

This project endline evaluation is designed as an important tool as part of the project to highlight progress and the performance  made by Asmae and its partners in achieving their project objectives. The timeframe to be evaluated corresponds to a 3-year implementation from January 2022 to December 2024. This evaluation will be one of the outputs for the final report for the project donor, AFD.

The evaluation criteria will be based on relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact sustainability, and coherence with additional criteria on gender, child rights, and disability. Among the set criteria, this project end evaluation shall focus even more on relevance, effectiveness, and sustainability, with an attention to gender sensitivity.

Expected results of the Endline evaluation

The endline evaluation is expected to provide data allowing Asmae to measure the outcome and impact of the project during the final evaluation. It includes, but is not limited to, the following data:

• Final achieved access of Youth to education services compared to the total population/needs set in the project;
• Final achieved access of Youth to protection services compared to the total population/needs;
• Level of knowledge of the community regarding child rights and child protection;
• Youth satisfaction level in Asmae Partners’ center;
• Level of Youth well-being who are participating compared to the ones not participating in the activities;
• Level of knowledge and current practices of partners’ staff in terms of protection and education (in coordination with Asmae’s Technical Advisors).
• The Institutional and organizational impact on partners and other players
• Impact on the project's targeted theme
• Impact on gender, youth, and other cross-sectional approaches. Insights regarding gender issues would be greatly appreciated.
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• Kindly refer to the project log frame for details.

Deliverables

Having considered any observations made by the field (Asmae and partners) and Head Office (Asmae country office and head office – internal coordination mechanism) steering committees, and requests for additional information and changes made by Asmae, the final report will be presented to Asmae.

It will be 40 pages maximum in length (excluding annexes) and will include:

• A cover pages
• An executive summary (maximum 2 to 3 pages)
• The Endline evaluation purpose
• The methodology used for the endline evaluation (including constraints and limitations on the evaluation conducted)
• The findings and analysis
• A conclusion
• Annexes: Draft and final questionnaires for FGDs, KII, etc., developed tools for quantitative and qualitative data; report/notes of meetings with staff and Youth, analytical frameworks for both qualitative and quantitative data analysis.

Timeframe

• Consultant is supposed to share the plan including the detailed timeframe based on the plan
• Asmae expects to receive the draft report around the last week of October.

NB:Please refer to the attached TOR for further details.