I Choose Life - Africa Jobs in Kenya

I Choose Life - Africa Jielimishe Girls Education Challenge project - External Evaluator’s Terms of reference Jobs in Kenya

Jielimishe Girls Education Challenge project - External Evaluator’s Terms of reference

Background
Evaluation services for the Jielimishe Girls Education Challenge (GEC) Project, implemented by I Choose Life – Africa as Prime Partner and SoS Children’s Villages Kenya as Key Partner Organization.
Background to the GEC Programme and the Jielimishe GEC Project

GEC programme background:

• The Department for International Development (DFID) leads the UK’s work to end extreme poverty. DFID is tackling the global challenges of our time including poverty and disease, mass migration, insecurity and conflict. DFID’s work is building a safer, healthier, more prosperous world for people in developing countries and in the UK too.
• DFID is working to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
Progress on girls’ education is critical to the achievement of these targets. SDGs 4 and 5 specifically relate to education and achieving gender parity. SDG 4 specifically notes ‘inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning’.
• PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and alliance partners have been contracted as the dedicated Fund Manager (FM) and is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the GEC. This includes establishing the recipient tendering process, supporting bidders, sifting and scoring proposals, monitoring Value for Money (VfM) and making project funding recommendations for DFID approval. The FM also manages the relationships with the selected projects and oversees their Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning operations.
• Through the GEC, DFID provided £355m between 2012 and 2017 to the FM to disburse to 37 individual projects across 18 countries across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to help girl’s education. In 2016 the GEC Transition window has been set up with additional DFID funding to support the original GEC beneficiaries continue their journey through stages of education and further improve their learning

Jielimishe GEC Project background:
I Choose Life - Africa (ICL), through Jielimishe Girls’ Education Challenge Transition Project (GEC T), will be working with 10,123 marginalised girls from the marginalised communities in Laikipia, Meru and Mombasa Counties in Kenya. The five (5) year project funded by the UK Government through Department for International Development (DfID) will run from April 2017 as the start date to March 2022 as the end date.

In its endeavour to improve life chances for these girls, the project aims at achieving three key outcomes: 10,123 marginalised Girls supported by GEC with improved Learning; 10,123 Marginalised girls transitioning through key Education Pathways; and Enhanced sustainability in the quality of learning and transition in key education pathways.

Innovations and new activities have been proposed to facilitate quality learning and transition of girls from through the key education pathways. These activities borrow from lessons learnt in implementing GEC 1 and literature reviewed in the course of developing the Theory of change.

The activities put forth are Transition point specific where the assumption is that when these activities are effectively implemented in those specific transition points (Primary to Secondary; Primary to TVET and Secondary to TVET/Higher learning) girls will be facilitated to transition to the next level.

Professional Skills and Qualifications
Qualifications: bidders are required to clearly identify and provide CVs for all those proposed in the Evaluation Team, clearly stating their roles and responsibilities for this evaluation. Please note that if the enumeration is to be sub-contracted, the evaluator will be ultimately responsible for the enumerators they are subcontracting to.

The proposed evaluation person / team should include the technical expertise and practical experience required to deliver the scope of work and evaluation outputs, in particular, with regards to:
• Evaluation design: the team should include skills and expertise required to design, plan and conduct mixed-method impact evaluation using quasi-experimental techniques;
• Skills in quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, drawing findings from multiple sources and handling potential contradictions between data sets.
• Relevant subject matter knowledge and experience: knowledge and experience required on conducting research with children, the education sector, disability and gender to ensure that the evaluation design and research methods are as relevant and meaningful as possible given the aims and objectives of the project and the context in which it is being delivered;
• Evaluation management: manage a potentially large-scale and complex evaluation and research process from end-to-end, including conducting and reporting a baseline study and final project evaluation report
• Primary research: gender-sensitive design, management and implementation of primary quantitative and qualitative research in potentially challenging project environments, such as fragile and conflict affected states – this includes the design of longitudinal household panel surveys, EGRA /EGMA tests, in-depth interviews, focus groups, etc.;
• Country experience: it is particularly important that the team has the appropriate country knowledge /experience and language proficiency required to conduct the research required;
• Information management: design and manage sex- and marginalisation - disaggregated data and information systems capable of handling large datasets for MEL purposes;
• Statistical analysis: a range of statistical modelling and analysis of impact data; highly proficient user of: SPSS or STATA; and qualitative data analysis techniques, including the use of software e.g. ATLAS.ti, NVivo or equivalent where needed;
• VfM assessment of education projects: education economics expertise to conduct cost benefit analysis and cost effectiveness analysis as part of the assessment of the project’s VfM; and
• Safety considerations: Ensuring the whole evaluation process adhere to best practice for research with children including the implementation of child protection policy and procedures to ensure safety of participants. Note that all bidders are expected to be able to show that they have a child protection policy in place to safeguard children that the research team would come into contact with through the research activities.
Day–to–day project management of the evaluation will be the responsibility of Mr Mike Mutungi, the Project Director Jielimishe GEC and Chief Executive Officer I Choose Life – Africa.

Deliverables and Schedule
Project deliverables: the main deliverables for this project are as follows:
• Inception report: setting out the design of the MEL strategy and plan and associated planning, logistics, quality assurance, child protection measures and risk management information including gender analysis.
• Baseline study report: design, conduct and submit a baseline study that describes the initial conditions (before the start of the project) against which progress can be measured or comparisons made to show the effects and impacts of the project in the final project evaluation report. A final report structure will be provided by the FM through Jielimishe GEC Project

• Midline project evaluation report: design, conduct and submit a midline evaluation report that assesses the effectiveness, impact and VfM of the project at the midline point.
• Final project evaluation report: design, conduct and submit a final project evaluation report that assesses the effectiveness, impact and VfM of the project.

Report requirements: all reports should be submitted in electronic form and should be submitted in English.

The Evaluation Team will be required to provide face-to-face presentations in-country of all deliverables as an integral part of the submission process.

The Evaluation Team will be expected to provide a fully ‘cleaned-up’ dataset in SPSS, Stata or SAS file format accompanied by the code used to carry out analysis and a variable codebook.

Detailed work plan: bidders are required to provide a detailed work plan incorporating all relevant tasks and milestones from start to finish of the evaluation study.

Project milestones: bidders are required to include in their detailed work plans the milestones set out in the link provided below

For more information on the background, objectives, deliverables and schedule. Please click the link below to access a detailed Terms of Reference (TOR). http://ichooselife.global/Careers/#

How to apply:
Interested applicants should submit a detailed technical proposal on how to best deliver this within the specified timelines and budget. Applications should be submitted by or on 31st July 2017 to:
Email: kombe@ichooselife.or.ke
cc dennis@ichooselife.or.ke
enyamwaro@ichooselife.or.ke
Contact Person:
Dennis Ratemo, Program Manager
Tel: 4442931/2/3, Cell: 0725-864-689. http://ichooselife.global/Careers/