Request for bids (RFB) for a qualified consultant(s) to conduct Endline Project Evaluation for the project entitled “Community led planning and management for biodiversity protection and resilient communities in Southern Rwanda”

1. Introduction

Bids are invited to be considered for a suitably qualified consultant to provide consulting services to Trócaire for a Endline Evaluation.

2. Confidentiality

Trócaire will treat the content of all bids as strictly confidential, and information provided in the bids will be used solely for the purpose of deciding on the award of a contract as described in this document.

3. Profile of Trócaire and Project Background

Trócaire is the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland, established in 1973 and currently has presence in more than 17 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia including Rwanda. Trócaire has been operating in Rwanda since 1994 and is currently focusing on 3 Programme pillars: Resource Rights, Women's Empowerment, and Preparing and Responding to Emergencies. Trócaire does not implement programmes directly. Instead, the organisation works in partnership with local civil society Organisations. More information about Trócaire can be found on https://www.Trócaire.org/

Funded by Jersey Overseas Aid (JOA), Trócaire implemented the project over 4 years as the lead organisation in partnership with UNICOOPAGI, BIOCOOR and ICRAF (World Agroforestry Centre). Rwanda Development Board together with Nyungwe Management Company were the technical but non-funded partners for this project.

The overall objective of the project was to empower rural, poor communities living around the Nyungwe National Park (NNP) to assess, plan and sustainably manage their land and common natural resources leading to more environmentally and economically sustainable and resilient communities in 3 sectors of Nyamagabe and Nyaruguru Districts.

The implementation was done through a unique partnership approach in which livelihood, biodiversity and agroecology expertise was combined with knowledge of- and acceptance by- the communities where the project was implemented.

A strong gendered approach was applied throughout the project, with at least 60% of programme participants being women and girls.

This project also focused on poor rural community members living around NNP and its buffer zone with a focus on the most vulnerable and marginalized people while at the same time ensuring gender lens was applied in all interventions to ensure inclusion of women and youth and people with disabilities.

 This Terms of Reference is prepared specifically for the evaluation of this JOA project.

4. Rationale for the Endline Evaluation

It is expected that the Endline Evaluation for Community-led planning and management for biodiversity protection and resilient communities in Southern Rwanda aims to evaluate and assess results and achievements of project objectives since the baseline, which was conducted in 2020.

The evaluation must provide:

• Provide a clear and evidenced assessment of achieved and non-achieved results, expected or unexpected results.
• Evaluate and assess to which degree the desired outcomes of project have been achieved, and what unanticipated but important outcomes it has brought.
• Provide an opportunity to highlight the challenges and key lessons for the future.

5. Methodology

The Endline review exercise should be conducted in a participatory manner between the consultant, Trócaire project team composed of the Country Program Management, the Climate Change & Resilience Programme Coordinator, the Project Coordinators, and the Executive Secretaries of the partners to the project UNICOOPAGI, BIOCOOR, ICRAF, and Nyungwe Management Company as well as relevant Field Officers, project participants, other relevant stakeholders and non-project participants from neighboring project operational areas. 

We request a detailed methodology, with a clear elaboration on the method to be used, in the tender submitted to conduct this evaluation. It is expected that the evaluator describes and justifies an appropriate evaluation approach/methodology and methods for data collection in the tender. The evaluation design, methodology and methods for data collection and analysis are expected to be fully developed and presented in the inception report.

With full respect to resource efficiency and a climate friendly environment, interviews with target groups, partner organisation and staff should be held in combination of physical field visits and online. Online interviews should be conducted using suitable platforms preferably through Microsoft Teams.

The interviewees shall include project participants including female, male, young and disabled participants, our Partners senior management (3 people), Trócaire Programme Coordinator, Partner Project Coordinators (4 people), project representatives from partners (4 people), programme accountant and staff (5 people) and staff at head office (1 person).

Review and analysis of project documents (application & reports).

An inception report will be prepared by the evaluation team based on and in line with this Terms of Reference and it will be reviewed and agreed upon by Trócaire. The inception report must include a comparative literature review of the context for community-led biodiversity protection in the East African region and in Rwanda providing a description of the context in which the project has been implemented. A work plan for the review, detailing methodological aspects and a timeframe for conducting the interviews and the workshop should be included. It’s the responsibility of the evaluation team to book meetings for the interviews through direct communication with the interviewees. A list will be provided by Trócaire.

Before writing the final report, the consultant will organize a workshop for the feedback and validation of the conclusions and recommendations with the participants from the interviewees. This feedback will serve to validate the information, analysis and feasibility/utility of the recommendations made.

The final report shall be written in English and be professionally proofread. The final report should have a clear structure. The Executive Summary should be maximum 3 pages.

The evaluation approach/methodology and methods for data collection used shall be clearly described and explained in detail and a clear distinction between the two shall be made. All limitations to the methodology and methods shall be made explicit and the consequences of these limitations discussed.

Findings shall flow logically from the data, showing a clear line of evidence to support the conclusions. Conclusions should be substantiated by findings and analysis. Recommendations and lessons learned should flow logically from conclusions.

Recommendations should be specific, directed to relevant stakeholders and categorised as a short-term, medium-term and long-term. The report should be no more than a maximum of 15 pages excluding annexes (including Terms of Reference and Inception Report).

The consultant is requested to submit a methodology in his or her proposal. However, it is anticipated that this Endline Evaluation exercise will involve a mixed method approach which will enable the project’s quantitative and qualitative indicators to be accurately measured. When developing methodologies, consultants are asked to note that for quantitative data, Trócaire usually requires a statistically valid approach, with a margin of error of no more than 5%. However, consultants can propose alternative quantitative methodologies as long as there is a strong rationale for why the alternative approach is to be taken. 

The survey will be participatory approach and use communications methods, locations and language/s which will include all, especially facilitating those with limited literacy skills. Gender-sensitive and age-sensitive methods and configurations will be applied by a diversity of enumerators.

6. Key questions the Endline review should address

The evaluation should be conducted according to the widely used and agreed OECD/DAC Criteria with focus on relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and participation in relation to its overall objectives and expected results as defined in project proposal.

We are interested in understanding the extent to which the project has contributed towards change - be that progress or lack of - and the extent to which any change is directly attributable to the project's interventions. In particular, ideally proving causation and establishing counterfactual.

The evaluation questions will be addressing to extent did the project contribute to observed changes? And finding evidence that supports such claims.

The Endline Evaluation will seek to address the following questions

NB: Trócaire is committed to mainstream gender across all the programmes and for the sake of this Endterm Evaluation, all research questions should use a gender lens in order to establish the Endline situation for men and women, boys and girls.

7. Roles and Responsibilities

Trócaire will establish an Endline Evaluation Management Team (EMT) to oversee the endline evaluation exercise.

This will consist of the JOA Project Coordinator as the main focal person for this assignment, MILA (Monitoring Inclusion and Learning Advisor) supported by the Climate Change & Resilience Programme Coordinator, and Rwanda Programmes Manager.

The EMT will be responsible for: 

• Providing guidance to the consultant and stakeholders throughout the evaluation process.
• Approval of all deliverables.
• Overall responsibility and accountability for the Endterm evaluation.

In consultation with partners the EMT will also undertake the following tasks: 

• Identify and recommend any key sources of secondary information that can be used to supplement primary information gathered.
• In collaboration with the consultant, conduct field work to gather data; and
• In collaboration with the consultant, select sample communities based on a clear sampling strategy.

The external consultant/s will be requested to:

• Participate in minimum 2 meetings (briefing and consultative meetings) on the assignment;
• Develop a work plan and inception report that will operationalise and direct the End Term addressing:
• Expectations of the evaluation
• Roles and responsibilities of consultants, EMT and partners
• Endline evaluation framework and methodology
• Data collection and analysis
• Work scheduling and reporting
• Develop data collection tools such as questionnaire surveys, focus group discussion questions and key informant interview questions in collaboration with the EMT and programme partners.
• Present to partners and the EMT the methodology and tools to be used;
• Enter the survey in the digital data collection platform, preferably CommCare, and ensure the application and the survey are uploaded in phones/tables to be used by enumerators. 
• Train enumerators and the evaluation management team on data collection and processing using CommCare in relation to this evaluation.
• Carry out field work, analyse data, and draft a preliminary report for feedback from the EMT;
• Finalise the data analysis and submit a final report setting out the Endline evaluation key findings;
• Present the information formally at a workshop with partners and key stakeholders; and
• Deliver on all agreed deliverables.

8. Expected deliverables

The following services and outputs are expected:

1. A detailed final endline evaluation report;
2. Detailed and comprehensive endline evaluation tools to be used in data collection;
3. Present to partner staff and the EMT the methodology and tools to be used for the endline evaluation;
4. Debrief session with the EMT following the completion of the fieldwork;
5. Workshop to present and validate the findings of the End term evaluation survey with partners;
6. Comprehensive draft and final endline evaluation reports; and
7. Handover to Trócaire soft copies of all datasets and tools used in data collection.

The draft and final reports should be submitted in soft copy to Trócaire in line with the timeframe, which will be agreed upon the signing of the consultancy contract. 

9. Timeframe

The consultancy contract is a fixed term consultancy contract and will commence at a specific date to be determined by the EMT in collaboration with the consultant, and at the end of this date the Consultant is expected to have submitted the final report to Trócaire Rwanda. The contract duration will have a maximum of 20 working days assigned to this endline evaluation. It is anticipated that the evaluation will ideally commence on 1^st June 2024 and the final report should be available by the end of June 2024.

10. Selection Criteria

The successful candidate/s will have relevant and demonstrable experience in the following areas:

• The team itself should be gender balanced with specialized skills in gender-sensitive evaluation.
• The evaluation team should have a minimum of five years in conducting evaluations of projects and knowledge of issues related to biodiversity conservation, communal natural resources management, environmental economics, natural resource-based livelihood enterprises, climate change and gender equality.
• Documented experience of reviews, assessments, results-based management (RBM) monitoring and evaluations.
• The evaluation team is expected to have excellent knowledge of the East Africa context, the Rwanda context and have good knowledge about international development cooperation, central thematic issues and conditions for Jersey Overseas Aid funded programmes.
• The evaluation team should have sufficient experience and knowledge about results-based management, biodiversity conservation and natural resource management,
• The team should have experience of leading performance evaluations and formulation of useful recommendations.
• The evaluation team needs to have excellent communication skills in Kinyarwanda English and French
• Curriculum vitae (CV) of the reviewer should be provided. The CV should include details on engagements carried out by the reviewer or member of the consultancy team, including ongoing assignments indicating responsibilities assumed, qualifications and experience in undertaking similar assessments or studies.
• Knowledge of relevant thematic programme (e.g. biodiversity conservation, conservation livelihood, community development)
• Proven knowledge and experience in the use of digital data collection and processing applications
• Working to demanding deadlines.

The consultant/s will be responsible for the overall management of the assignment and the production of the final report. The consultant/s will be assisted by the EMT throughout the whole exercise.

The consultant will be selected according to the following criteria and submissions:

• Demonstrated understanding of the Terms of Reference;
• Proposed methodology and planning of the assignment;
• Experience of developing End term for similar programmes;
• CV of 2 senior officials who will take the lead on the evaluation as annex;
• Copy of at least 2 similar evaluations done within one year;
• At least 2 certificates of good completion of services for similar work with international organizations, donor organizations or government agencies delivered in the last 2 years;
• Overall quality of the proposal; and
• Cost (Quoted Price in Rwandan Francs).

Financial proposal with detailed unit costs and total cost for each planned activity and related logistics in RWF and clearly indicating VAT costs. VAT registration certificate issued by RRA and Company registration certificate from RDB should be presented as annexes.

Only Registered national and international consulting firms are encouraged to apply. Applicants are required to submit current CVs of all individuals engaged in the End term review (including CVs of junior staff and of any associates sub-contracted to work on the study). The work plan must clearly outline which individual (s) will actively lead and deliver on each component. Senior consultants/team leaders will be responsible for the successful and timely delivery of each component of the assignment. 

11. Reporting

The consultant will report to the EMT, with final sign off on the report by the Country Director.

12. Travel

The consultants shall be responsible of all the travel expenses required for this assignment and therefore must propose travel costs in the Financial Proposal

13. General Terms and Conditions

Trócaire Rwanda reserves the right to reject any and all Expressions of Interest not fulfilling requirements associated with this request. Trócaire Rwanda will in no case be responsible or liable for any and all costs associated with the preparation and submission of Expressions of Interest.

• Trócaire does not bind itself to accept the lowest priced tender;
• Trócaire reserves the right to engage other companies / consultants if required;

Trócaire shall be free to:

• To accept the whole, or part only, of any EOI;
• To accept none of the EOIs tendered;
• To republish this Request for EOIs;
• In the event of not accepting any of the EOIs received on foot of this Request for EOI, Trócaire shall be free to make such arrangements as it considers necessary in relation to the provision of the services;
• The EOI shall maintain strict confidentiality in relation to the services being sought and the evaluation process;
• Any subsequent contract shall be considered as a contract made in Rwanda, according to Rwanda law; and
• The Standard Terms and Conditions to which Trócaire expects all of its supplier to respect is found on the Trócaire website - https://www.Trócaire.org/about/work-with-Trócaire/supply-chain.
• The Beneficiary(ies) shall limit access and use of personal data to that strictly necessary for the performance, management and monitoring of this Contract and shall adopt all appropriate technical and organisational security measures necessary to preserve the strictest confidentiality and limit access to this data.

14. Conflict of interest

Any conflict of interest involving an applicant must be fully disclosed to Trócaire. Failure to disclose a conflict may disqualify an applicant or invalidate an award of the contract. Applicants are required to declare any current or past work which might reasonably be considered to represent a conflict of interest. It will be for Trócaire to decide if any material conflict of interest exists and applicants in doubt in this regard should seek the advice of Trócaire.

15. Safeguarding

Trócaire is committed to safeguarding Programme participants from any form of exploitation or abuse as a result of our programmes or activities. Anyone working for or on behalf of Trócaire must share this commitment. Trócaire’s Position Statement on Exploitation and Abuse and Trócaire’s Child Safeguarding Policy Summary document outline expectations in this regard, including a Code of Conduct. All consultants, representatives and volunteers of Trócaire will be expected to sign these documents along with a Declaration Form and a Self-Declaration Form.

16. Intellectual property

Any concepts, guidelines or other material developed during the contract will be considered as property of Trócaire and may be used by Trócaire.

17. Termination of Contract

Trócaire reserves the right to terminate the contract at any stage on payment of reasonable and agreed costs accrued to the date of termination.

If at any stage during the contract, the services delivered by the consultant is found to be unsatisfactory, the contract may be terminated by Trócaire. In the event of such a termination, the consultant will only be entitled to receive payment in relation to the acceptable services rendered at that time.

18. Submission of Bids

Your proposal should be clearly marked: “Endline Project Evaluation for community led planning and management for biodiversity protection and resilient communities in Southern Rwanda”. And it should be submitted ONLY through email on inforwanda@Trócaire.org . Any queries relating to this Request for Bids should be directed by e-mail to inforwanda@Trócaire.org.

The financial proposal should be inclusive of tax and quoted in Rwandan Francs (RWF) clearly indicating the services/goods in the subject heading. Only suitably qualified local/international consulting firms will be contacted for further engagement.

The deadline for the receipt of bids is 5PM 20 May 2024

Country Director

Trócaire