Consultancy – Programme Evaluation

Final Evaluation of the first phase of the Peace Responsiveness Programme

A. Introduction

Interpeace is an international organization for peacebuilding, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Its aim is to strengthen the capacities of societies to manage conflict in non-violent, non-coercive ways by assisting national actors in their efforts to develop social and political cohesion. Interpeace also strives to assist the international community, in particular the UN, to play a more effective role in supporting peacebuilding efforts around the world through better understanding and response to the challenges of creating local capacities that enhance social and political cohesion.

Interpeace seeks a team of consultants to conduct an external end-of-programme evaluation of the first phase of its global Peace Responsiveness Facility Programme (hereafter: the programme) as funded by Global Affairs Canada over the past three years (2020-23). The evaluation is broadly expected to assess programme achievements and identify lessons learned to shape future interventions.

The programme has been designed using an approach focused on catalysing changes in the way of working of targeted actors. Participatory approaches with an emphasis on qualitative analysis are expected to guide the methodology of the evaluation. Interpeace anticipates the evaluation to be finalised by end-April 2023 in a remote working modality.

B. Background

The Sustaining Peace resolutions of the UN Security Council and the UN-World Bank report on ‘Pathways to Peace’ have called upon humanitarian, development, stabilisation and peace actors to evolve their ways of working to become more effective at enabling sustainable peace and preventing violent conflict. Since these recommendations have been made, many organizations have adopted policies to enhance their approaches to conflict sensitivity and contributions to peace. Yet, the challenge that many of them continue to grapple with is the operationalisation of these policies.

In response, Interpeace has sought to address these issues through the development of a dedicated peace responsiveness capacity that helps bridge the policy-practice gap by transforming international aid practice through accompaniment, organisational change, capacity development, learning, evidence-building, and joint-programming design.

Interpeace refers to ‘peace responsiveness’ as the ability of actors that operate in conflict-affected contexts to be conflict-sensitive and to contribute to peace outcomes through their technical programming. It requires proceeding in a way so that collective impact is enhanced; inclusive, gender-sensitive, locally led change is supported; and societal resilience to conflict and violence is strengthened.

The peace responsiveness work has built on the practice of conflict sensitivity to further develop and mainstream ‘peace-responsive’ approaches in aid programmes and operations. The objective is to enable international and regional organizations to contribute more deliberately and effectively to peace through their humanitarian, development, and stabilization interventions. It is an action-oriented policy and programming initiative that seeks to spearhead catalytic change in the practice of several large UN agencies in support of efforts to prevent and address the root causes of violent conflict and to advance the Sustainable Development Goals.

The programme runs from April 2020 to March 2023. At the ultimate and intermediate outcome levels, it has assumed the following theory of change:

If

1. peace responsiveness, programme effectiveness and sustainability of development, humanitarian and stabilization programmes delivered by international and regional actors are improved, and
2. there is rigorous learning and evidence about peace-responsive programming that incentivises more such programming, as well as institutional and systemic change supporting it, and
3. there is greater policy and donor support that incentivizes peace responsiveness across the international humanitarian, development and stabilization sectors,

Then

International (UN agencies and INGOs) and regional actors systematically change the way they contribute to long-term sustainable peace through humanitarian, development, and stabilization interventions and improve the effectiveness of food security, health, WASH and stabilization interventions improving peoples’ lives,

Because

1. they have developed new and improved capacities, processes, organizational approaches and tools to design and implement projects and programmes in a peace responsive way – concretely improving people’s lives, and
2. they have information and evidence available on what has proven effective programmatically and institutionally to foster peace responsiveness and act on it efficiently and effectively, and
3. they are incentivized, required, and enabled to foster peace responsive programming by emerging policy standards and donor requirements.

To achieve these outcomes, the programme focuses on the individual, organizational, programmatic and systems levels of the international system. Following a process of co-creation, co-development and partnering, programme activities take place at all four levels and are structured into the following interlinked components:

1. Bilateral partnerships and accompaniment to support the operationalisation and institutionalisation of sustaining peace in UN agencies and other organizations.
2. Designing joined-up programmatic approaches in selected country contexts (Interpeace programmes and partner UN agencies).
3. Building the capacities of key individual change agents in the international system, e.g. through the Effective Advising in Complex Contexts course and the Peace Responsiveness Online Training.
4. Facilitating cross-organizational exchange and learning among UN and other organizations on the operationalisation and institutionalisation of sustaining peace.
5. Developing research, evidence and other knowledge products in support of Component 4, e.g. publications such as the Peace Responsiveness Framing paper, a Development in Practice (DiP) journal article, the ‘P in the HDP Nexus’ animated video, etc.
6. Engaging with donors and policy actors to inform how a better enabling environment can be created for sustaining peace and peace-responsive approaches, e.g. in policy fora such as Geneva Peace Week, Stockholm Forum, EU Humanitarian Forum.

C. Objectives

The evaluation will provide a final review of the first phase of the programme. It is intended to be a summative evaluation that:

• contributes to the final report of the 2020-23 programme cycle, by assessing the achievement of the targeted outcomes and outputs as per the Performance Measurement Framework of the Global Affairs Canada grant;
• considers cross-cutting evaluation questions; and,
• draws on and feeds into reflections on lessons learned, relevance of the theory of change, and subsequent recommendations for future phases of the programme.

D. Timeframe, Methodology and Deliverables

Interpeace anticipates the evaluation to be finalised by end-April 2023 in a remote working modality.

Interpeace expects this evaluation to be conducted by a team of at least two consultants.

The evaluators are expected to primarily use qualitative evaluation methodologies that focus both on what changed and how that change has happened (e.g. this may include but is not limited to Outcome Harvesting, Theories of Change, Contribution Mapping/Contribution Analysis, Most Significant Change methodologies, etc.).

The evaluators are expected to carry out key informant interviews. Any other methodology may be added, as the evaluators see fit.

The methodology used should be gender-sensitive, conflict-sensitive and respect the principle of Do No Harm.

The evaluators are expected to apply the conceptual framework of assessing outcomes as well as changes in behaviour and choices among targeted actors as a result of the engagement in programme activities and actions.

The evaluators are expected to draw lessons learnt for potential future phases of the programme that are informed by the institutions and individuals engaged during the 2020-23 phase.

The evaluation will be both an objective and a consultative/participatory exercise.

The following matrix presents the anticipated deliverables of the evaluation. The timeline will be discussed and agreed upon with the selected consultants during the inception phase. See table.

While Interpeace anticipates the use methodologies and tools listed above, the list is not exhaustive. The evaluation may include additional elements and approaches as appropriate for responding to the final evaluation questions. The applicants are encouraged to suggest a comprehensive methodology that the evaluators deem fit for meeting the evaluation objectives. The methodology for data collection should be described in the proposal. The final list of elements and the timeline will be discussed with the selected consultants after kick-off.

E. Key Evaluation Questions

In relation to the Performance Measurement Framework of the Global Affairs Canada grant to this programme cycle (2020-23), it is expected that the final evaluation will collect data and assess the following questions (each of which relate to specific outcomes and indicators):

• Are there early indications that programmes developed and/or implemented by/in collaboration with humanitarian, development and stabilization actors have led to increased peace and programmatic effectiveness of these programmes?
• Are there programme evaluations (or other types of reviews) that point to effective peace contributions by humanitarian, development and stabilization actors? What are the key insights from those evaluations and reviews?
• What is the degree to which supported programmes increased their peace and gender responsiveness?

In addition, the evaluation is also intended to include reflections on the questions below. Please note that there are other evaluative and learning exercises that are being carried out that can be drawn on and should be reflected in the overall analysis:

• What is the degree to which bilateral partners have integrated peace responsiveness in their policies, procedures and guidelines?
• What is the degree to which gender is integrated into peace-responsive programming of bilateral partners?

Finally, the evaluation is also intended to address the following key evaluation questions (in relation to the overall categories enumerated below, and in line with OECD-DAC criteria):

Relevance

• To what extent was the overall strategy of the programme relevant for the context of enhancing the integration of peacebuilding approaches in humanitarian, development, stabilisation actors’ ways of working?
• To what extent was the intervention logic relevant in pursuing the programme’s vision?
• How does the relevance of the peace responsiveness programme compare to other global initiatives that aim to integrate conflict sensitivity and peacebuilding principles into the aid sector?

Effectiveness and Impact

• How have success and progress been defined by Interpeace and by programme partners? At what levels? To what extent have success and progress been achieved during the programme duration?

[Note: A key issue to consider here is the difference between changes in the behaviour of those implementing peace-responsive initiatives, and actual changes e.g. in country – the impact of the programme so far has mainly been on the former, which already takes significant time and effort]

• What progress has the programme made towards expected outcomes? What has hindered progress?
• What best practices and lessons learnt from the programme should be applied in potential subsequent phases?

Sustainability

• How can the strategies for sustainability of impact be strengthened following withdrawal of external support?
• How likely are partners and other stakeholders to sustain choosing to work differently beyond the support of the programme?

Efficiency

• To what extent have the programme’s strategies and activities been sufficient for meeting the expected outcomes?
• How has the programme adapted to changes in the context and emerging challenges during programme implementation?

Coherence

• To what extent did Interpeace’s approach, the focus on the Theory of Change, the four quadrants and six components of work complement ongoing efforts to further integrate peacebuilding approaches and contributions to peace in the ways in which humanitarian, development and stabilisation actors operate?

Cross-cutting issues

• Over its three-year time span, how has the effectiveness of the programme’s gender integration evolved? How can it be further strengthened in the future to promote inclusive peacebuilding?

Interpeace anticipates that these key evaluation questions will be further refined with the selected evaluation consultants as part of the inception report/methodology development.

F. Reporting and feedback

The evaluators will hold a feedback meeting (or meetings) for the Interpeace Peace Responsiveness team. This will be an opportunity to debrief on the evaluation, and to exchange views on findings and recommendations.

The evaluation report will include a main text of no more than 50 pages with findings and recommendations. The report will be expected to include at a minimum:

• Executive Summary
• Introduction and brief background
• Methodology
• Major findings
• Overall assessment
• Best practices and lessons learned (including challenges encountered, actions taken, and results)
• Recommendations for the future

Annexes:

• List of documents assessed
• List of persons interviewed
• Evaluation Matrix

Please note that the exact structure of the final report is open to suggestions from the evaluators, and will be decided on during the inception phase.

G. Qualifications

The team of consultants will be expected to have the following skills and experience at a minimum:

• At least a bachelor’s degree in social sciences, social research, related to evaluations, peacebuilding, development, humanitarian work, etc.
• Proven experience conducting and leading evaluations/assessments, particularly of multi-layered, large scale and complex global programs and initiatives
• Strong analytical skills and experience working with participatory, qualitative, and gender-sensitive methodologies
• Strong knowledge of and practical experience with conflict sensitivity practice and the peacebuilding sector
• Knowledge of and experience with the humanitarian and development sectors is a strong asset
• Experience in qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis
• Track record with participatory and collaborative research and evaluation design
• Strong process facilitation skills, including experience coordinating multi-stakeholder processes
• Proven record of delivering professional outputs
• An ability to work within tight deadlines
• Excellent English speaking and writing skills; French is an asset.

How to apply

Please submit an expression of interest via email to: [email protected] by 12 February 2023, which includes:

• the proposed methodology for the evaluation,
• a financial proposal*,
• a CV for all consultants involved.

*The cost of preparing a bid and negotiating a contract, including any related travel, is not reimbursable nor can it be included as a direct cost of the assignment.

Please note that only shortlisted applicants will be contacted. Shortlisted applicants may be required to subsequently submit work samples in English and/or references.

Interpeace values diversity among its staff and aims to achieve gender equality both through gender parity at all levels of the organisation and the promotion of a gender dimension in all its work. We welcome applications from women and men, and those with disabilities.