Final Evalaution of “Awareness of climate change and the fight against desertification in the Far North of Cameroon”

The Norwegian Mission Society (NMS) is a voluntary organization, rooted in the Church of Norway. NMS is one of the largest Christian organizations in Norway, with its head office in Stavanger. The organization consists of voluntary involvement from people and congregations who pray, give, and collect money for the work. Its history goes back to 1842 when it started the mission and diaconal work. NMS seeks, together with partner organizations, churches, and individuals throughout the world, to work actively to equip each other to share faith in Jesus, fight injustice, and eradicate poverty. NMS has a framework agreement with Digni which means that it is responsible for ensuring the quality of the applications and reports for projects which are receiving governmental funding.

Eglise évangélique luthérienne du Cameroun (EELC) includes congregations, parishes, districts and Episcopal region. The overall administration of the EELC is conducted by the Executive Board, convened by the National Bishop. The Executive Board consists of: the National Bishop, the Assistant Bishop, the Secretary-General, the Financial controller and the coordinators of the national departments; evangelism and Christian education, communication and diaconal services. The highest decision-making body is the General Synod of the EELC, which is electing the Synod Council. The independent EELC has grown substantially since the period of missionary management. It has changed in a number of buildings with many social institutions such as hospitals, dispensaries, primary and secondary schools, and many literature centres. Today the EELC has three district hospitals, 15 health centres, one secondary school, 35 primary schools, a deaf school, one centre for the blinds, one theological seminar, three bible schools, translation centres, a literature and radio centre and development projects.98 The EELC is today passing from the state of a regional church to a national church with many parishes built in different provinces. Its growth toward the southern part is strong evidence of its new rapid growth.

The project was formulated to respond to the problem of climate change and its consequences on the faithfuls and the populations of the pilot ecclesiastical districts of the north of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon. To this end, the EELC, with the support of NMS/DIGNI, has developed the project “Awareness of climate change and the fight against desertification in the north of Cameroon”.

The objective of the project was to consolidate the achievements of the first phase by developing awareness and strengthening the resilience of the faithfuls and the populations of the pilot ecclesiastical districts to climate shocks and stresses from now to 2022 by focusing on the sectors which reinforce the resilience of the faithfuls through the diversification of people’s incomes. It should be carried out through four (4) operational components: i) the increase of information, education and environmental communication for changes in the behavior of the faithfuls and the populations, ii) the development of advocacy from the authorities for the taking into account of the resilience of the faithfuls and the populations to climatic shocks and stresses, iii) the strengthening of the faithfuls and of the populations’ capacity for adaptation and resilience, iv) popularization of improved stoves and renewable energies among the faithfuls and the populations of the pilot ecclesiastical districts.

The total project budget amounts to 279,707,460 CFA francs, including 251,736,714 CFA francs from DIGNI and 27,970,746 CFA francs from NMS. The main partner of the project is the umbrella organization DIGNI and the Norwegian Mission Society, through the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon.

The EELC Executive board is the project monitoring officer responsible for the implementation of the project. It was implemented following the approach based on community participation and Use Your Talents (UYT), an approach still new and underused in the ELCC.

The UYT approach aims to see Congregations engaged in diaconal and development initiatives within their communities. There has already been a long process of developing the Use Your Talents approach, which started as a broad initiative in the context of the Malagasy Lutheran Church, to become a more general resource-based approach to development work with congregations as agents of change. UYT is a concept of development that is formulated as follows: what can we do with what we have here and now? This is what will clarify the purpose of Use Your Talents which is to make Christians not Sunday Christians, but every day.

The project was subject to a mid-term evaluation (January 2018), the main conclusions of which were that the results obtained are generally satisfactory. The main lessons learned include:

1. When the design of a project and its execution are thought out and organized in a participatory manner, the achievement of its objectives is then based on solid foundations: the project is more effective and more useful for the beneficiaries and the local people’s perception of the achievements is thus made easy.
2. The limited impact of the project on the environment cannot be understood without taking into account the low level of investments made and the fact that progress in reducing the effects of climate change is a slow and continuous process and only produces its full effects in the long term.
3. The sustainability of the results of a project such as the Environment project cannot be effective without the real and strong participation and involvement of government authorities at the various levels of the organization of the State and municipal authorities. However, certain difficulties relating, among other things, to the security situation in certain areas of intervention could negatively influence the results of the project.

The implementation of project activities encountered significant difficulties in its last year, in the sense that it was carried out in a context marked by: (i) the security situation in the northern regions, (ii) the covid-19 pandemic, (iii) multiple departures due to assignments or travel among the members of the project committees or NGO; and (iv) presidential and legislative elections in Burkina Faso.

The Final Evaluation report should assess the achievement of project results against what was planned and draw lessons that can both improve the sustainability of the benefits of this project and contribute to the overall improvement of NMS programming. The Final Evaluation report promotes accountability and transparency in project management and assesses the extent of project achievements.

The general objective is to evaluate the “Project to raise awareness of climate change and fight against desertification in the far north of Cameroon” through the analysis of the evaluation criteria and their key questions, by identifying good practices and recommendations to the improvement of programs aimed at strengthening the resilience of populations. Specifically, the evaluation should:

1. provide a judgment on the reasons for achieving or not the objectives and results of the project and explain the variations between the changes expected and those achieved;
2. provide a specific analysis of the “adaptation and resilience” effects brought to communities by the project on the well-being of the different ecclesiastical districts, through the analysis of LFA data;
3. based on the results of the evaluation, identify lessons learned, good practices
   and recommendations for the improvement of projects and programs aimed at strengthening the resilience and for their durability.

EXPECTED OUTPUTS OF THE EVALUATION

The expected product is a clearly written report, between 20 and 30 pages maximum without the appendices, with an accessible language and which covers the following elements:

• Executive summary (maximum 2 pages)
• Introduction and objectives of the study (maximum 1 page)
• Methodology and difficulties encountered (maximum 2 pages)
• Results
• Lessons learned
• Conclusions and recommendations
• Other aspects to consider for the report are:
• The report will be written in Arial 10. The title of the report should include the name of the author, the name of the consulting firm (if applicable) and the date of the report.
• Inclusion of a list of acronyms and abbreviations used in the report, if applicable.

STUDY DURATION AND TIMETABLE

The study will have an approximate duration of 30 working days, which will take place between January 26, 2023 and March 25, 2023. The data collection phase in the field must be finalized before February 10, 2023, the months of February and March being those devoted to the analysis of the data, the presentation of the results and writing of the report.

The consultant’s proposal should include a detailed work plan and timetable. The stages and following main activities should be considered in this Work Plan:

Stages / main activities

Scoping meeting with members of the EELC Executive Board and project staff – 22 January 2023

Preparation phase, including documentary review, finalisation of the methodology and collection tools, submission to the EELC Executive Board for validation – 23 January 2023

LFA data analysis phase, including data processing and analysis quantitative – 24 January 2023

Data collection phase (in the field, project staff interviews) – 26 January – 8 February 2023

Processing and analysis of data and elaboration of preliminary results – 9 February 2023

Preparation of draft report and delivery to EELC Executive Board members and NMS for feedback – 10 February 2023

Workshop to present preliminary evaluation results with stakeholders (BE, NMS, Evaluation team) – 10 February 2023

Comments on the preliminary evaluation report (ELCC. NMS, Project staff) – 13-24 February 2023

Drafting of the final report, taking into account the comments of the members of the Executive Board of EELC and NMS on the preliminary report, feedback and discussions of the parties stakeholders during the evaluation results feedback meeting. 25 February – 20 March 2023

Delivery of the final report to the Executive Board and project steering committee 25 March 2023

PROFILE OF THE CONSULTANT

The work will be carried out by a specially composed team of three 3 people (one ELCC internal consultant, and two external ones). The gender aspect should be reflected in the evaluation team with a minimum of one woman (in the external ones). The proposal of the evaluation team is as follow :

– A team leader (M/F)

(The team leader should preferably be an African – PhD preferably, who has

o Proven knowledge in the fields of Ecotheology / Environment / Management / Sociology / Anthropology / Communication for behavior change.

o Proven knowledge and experience of development projects related to climate change or rural development (environment, agriculture, livestock, agroforestry), climate resilience in sub-Saharan Africa.

o He or she should also have a good knowledge of civil society issues, community development and the role and challenges of Churches/NGOs in environmental conservation).

– A member (M/F) with relevant skills in gender issues or advocacy/Lobbying.

– A member with proven skills and a keen analytical mind: knowledge of church administration, the role of churches in Africa today, the issue of inclusive development in churches, leadership issues, power and gender equality, in short, challenges of the Church in its current environment.

The skills required for this job are:

• University degree or equivalent experience related to the study to be undertaken in one of the following fields: Ecotheology, Environment / management, or sociology / anthropology / Communication for behavior change,
• knowledge and proven experience of development projects related to climate change or rural development (environment, agriculture, livestock, agroforestry), climate resilience in sub-Saharan Africa,
• proven experience in the field of evaluation and capitalization of development projects, development or humanitarian. Minimum 5 years of experience in the field of evaluation, including projects co-funded by NMS/DIGNI.
• knowledge of the gender approach and gender mainstreaming in programs and/or research or evaluation products
• Knowledge of the NMS/DIGNI methodology, experience in its application will be an asset.
• Perfect understanding of the Logical framework tool
• skills in processing and analyzing quantitative data, with skills advances in the use of Excel and statistical software.
• Ability to clearly visualize quantitative data
• Proven skills in mastering qualitative data collection methods communication skills and experience in facilitating workshops
• Experience and skills in organizing information, including quantitative and qualitative data
• Excellent analytical skills
• Languages: Good command of oral and written English. Fluency in the local Fufuldé language will be an asset. Fluency in French (read and spoken) will be an asset.
• Ability to write clear and useful reports (may be asked to provide examples of previous evaluation work)
• Independence from the parties involved

Complete Terms of Reference available upon request to Mrs. Ragnhild Mestad ([email protected]).