Baseline Assessment, ‘Bina’ Aljusur’ (Building Bridges) project

https://www.crs.org/about/bid-opportunity Please visit the CRS.org website for the full scope of work and attachments.

This baseline assessment aims to inform the design of the ‘Bina’ Aljusur’ (“Building Bridges”) project strategy, to set baseline benchmarks for performance indicators to compare at the Endline, and to revise the Life of Award (LOA) targets if necessary. The assessment approach is guided by the recommended OECD criteria of evaluation: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence, impact, and sustainability. CRS will conduct a baseline assessment initially in East Darfur in January 2023 and later in South Kordofan in mid-2023

The purpose of this baseline assessment is to establish baseline values for key project indicators in line with donor reporting requirements, provide an updated context of the project intervention zones, and inform adjustments to project strategies developed during the proposal phase based on the updated context and specific needs of target communities for the planned interventions.

The evaluation design for this project is a utilization-focused, performance evaluation, with a comparative analysis of key performance indicators from baseline to close-of-project. The evaluation will use a mixed methods approach to collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data around questions of Relevance, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Impact on Participants, Inclusivity and Relevance, as well as Sustainability.

An external consultant will conduct the evaluation. The consultant should have the following qualifications: a master’s degree in social sciences or other disciplines relevant to the humanitarian sector; training and professional experience conducting evaluations for moderately complex projects; competency in collecting and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data; professional-level proficiency in written and spoken English; proficiency in Arabic desired. The consultant should have an independent team of data collectors who speak English, Arabic, and any relevant local languages and are familiar with the intervention zones for security and community acceptance purposes. Data collection teams must include both men and women experienced in conducting interviews and facilitating focus group discussions.
The consultant will be responsible for the following aspects of the baseline assessment:

1. Desk review
2. Recruitment of enumerators
3. Training of enumerators
4. Data collection
5. Data analysis
6. Baseline report (Initial draft and revisions based on reviews)
   As the baseline assessment will be conducted externally, CRS and its implementing partners will not be part of the evaluation team. However, as the lead of the Project, CRS will be responsible for the following aspects of the assessment:
7. Design/planning
8. Tablets/phones for data collection
9. Quality control
10. Data Use
11. Assisting with travel, meeting, training, and transportation logistics
12. Dissemination of findings