Consultancy for project evaluation

1. Background

Church World Service (CWS) is an American NGO, which has been supporting Vietnam since 1954 with projects primarily focused on improving health services, access to clean water and sanitation, nutrition for children, education for ethnic minorities and disaster relief.

Today, CWS Vietnam’s New Integrated Development and Essential Action (New IDEA) program is a multi-sector initiative designed to help ethnic minority communities in rural mountainous areas to address challenges they face in attaining their right to dignified wellbeing.

With funding from Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), in 2023, the CWS team in Vietnam is coordinating with partners to implement “New Integrated Development and Essential Action (New IDEA) for ethnic minority communities in Vietnam”. This is a community development project with activities primarily focused on information-sharing, knowledge growth and skills development (capacity building) for awareness-raising and community mobilization, building models in project interventions leading to behavior change to achieve these objectives:

• HYGIENE-SANITATION-HEALTH: Support for development of improved sanitary/ hygienic environments for families and communities;
• EDUCATION-CHILD PROTECTION/PARTICIPATION: Support for development of a quality, safe and student-friendly learning environment;
• LIVELIHOODS: Support for climate-change adapted agriculture and resilient livestock management;

The project is implemented in Than Uyen district of Lai Chau province, and in Chiem Hoa district of Tuyen Quang province.

2. The evaluation

2.1 Purpose of the evaluation

The project is nearing the end of its implementation in January 2024 and an external evaluation is being planned to review information/data and people’s ideas/comments to evaluate achievements and impact for quality, accountability, learning and planning for the future programming.

2.2 Key evaluation questions

1) Project relevance and effectiveness

• How relevant (useful) were project activities (as designed and implemented) in addressing the rights and needs of project participants (beneficiaries) in WASH and in climate-resilient livelihoods;
• What value did project activities add in relation to Vietnamese government development priorities;
• How satisfactory were project outputs, outcomes and results to participants (beneficiaries) disaggregated by group: students, teachers, families, leaders, et al.

2) Participation of project partners (teachers, students, health workers, village leaders, citizens, government duty-bearers) in the project

• How many people (disaggregated by gender and age; and de-duplicated) joined the project? To what extent did this meet the intended aim of having a participatory initiative where beneficiaries were catalysts and actors in their own development.

3) Project achievements, successes, and impact

• What has changed materially as positive achievement, results and impact, for example types/ numbers of material improvements for water, sanitation, child protection, livelihoods, health impact, economic impact, environmental impact, etc.
• From the project goal and objectives, what has changed, verifiably, in people’s lives, e.g., more knowledge, new or improved skills, way of working, changed behaviors.
• Participation and involvement of project partners and participants, including children, women, and disadvantage people; Satisfaction of the project participants. What do people who participated in the activities say.
• Project challenges and proven best practices/models, unexpected results (negative/ positive), and lessons learned.

4)   Project sustainability

• What activities and/or other impact have been sustained in communities, where CWS support transition to local leadership.
• Can project interventions/activities be adapted and more widely replicated to other communities.

5)   Gaps between future Government support and people’s rights/needs) and challenges in the districts that may need possible future programming

• What are gaps and challenges people in the district facing;
• What should possible future programming consider/ prioritize.

2.3 Methodology and expected timeframe

The consultants are asked to design a proposal with detailed method (qualitative and quantitive) for the evaluation, including tools and field survey schudule for data and information collection to enable project participants to join in in-depth interviews (IDI) and focus group discussion (FGD) as described in the below table:

The consultants will work closely with CWS Vietnam team to develop and finalize proposal, the tools, and detailed field survey schedule. This said the checklist, in-depth interview and focus group discussion templates developed by the consultants will be reviewed by CWS Vietnam team before the evaluation starts.

3. The evaluation team and requirements

A team of Vietnamese-led evaluation specialist/consultant is required. The team member(s), who are Vietnamese and currently live in Vietnam, will report directly to their team leader. Together, the team will have these professional qualifications:

• Solid knowledge and practical experience in WASH/CLTS/ODF and in models for climate-resilient livelihoods
• Good analytical and reporting skills
• Experiences in the design and development of project evaluation proposal and tools
• Good communication skills in organizing participatory activities.
• Experiences in working with ethnic minorities, especially those in the northern mountainous area of Vietnam.

Interested candidates please send the application form, proposal, and detailed CVs of the  evaluation team to [email protected] and cc [email protected] no later than 1 January 2024.