WAGE Evaluation Consultant

WAGE is a global consortium to advance the status of women and girls, led by the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) in close partnership with the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), Grameen Foundation, and Search for Common Ground (Search). WAGE works to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations and private sector organizations (PSOs) in target countries to improve the prevention of and response to gender-based violence; advance the women, peace, and security agenda; and support women’s economic empowerment. In this context, WAGE provides direct assistance to women and girls, including information, resources, and services they need to succeed as active and equal participants in the global economy and public life. WAGE also engages in collaborative research and learning to build a body of evidence of relevant promising practices in these thematic areas. To account for the deeply interconnected nature of women’s and girls’ experiences, WAGE’s initiatives employ approaches that are highly collaborative, integrated, and inclusive. WAGE is funded by the U.S. Department of State Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI).

WAGE’s Learning Agenda establishes eight priority research questions, which seek to understand what is already known about integrated programming for women’s and girls’ empowerment, what gaps in experience and evidence exist, and how the consortium will aim to bridge these gaps. WAGE analyzes these research questions through collaborative research and learning, which feed into the implementation of initiatives. WAGE also shares research and lessons learned with key stakeholders and the international development community through events, publications, and products to contribute to a body of global evidence on promising practices in integrated approaches to GBV, WEE, and WPS.

This evaluation will focus on Learning Agenda Question 4: What types of activities are found to be effective and not effective in reducing structural and societal barriers to WEE? WPS and GBV?

Evaluation Purpose, Scope and Objectives:

The evaluation is commissioned by ABA ROLI’s WAGE Program Team to assess what types of activities[1] were effective or not effective in having some level of impact on the reduction of structural and societal barriers to gender-based violence (GBV) prevention and response, women’s peace and security (WPS), and/or women’s economic empowerment (WEE) in WAGE initiatives. ABA ROLI will engage a consultant who will conduct an outcome harvesting evaluation combined with contribution analysis. The consultant will compile resources developed under the various initiatives under the WAGE program, and collaboratively ABA ROLI’s program partners throughout the engagement.

The evaluation will focus on assessing outcomes of programmatic approaches or interventions that address legal and social barriers that:

• Normalize GBV based on harmful gender norms rooted in patriarchy; discriminatory laws, policies, or the lack of (or mal) implementation of favorable laws, policies, institutions, practices and activities that counter the normalization of GBV.
• Relegate women to the “private sphere” and unpaid caretaking roles in a position that is economically dependent on men. This includes norms, laws, policies and processes that do not provide access to economic resources and opportunities.
• Keep women out of political leadership positions, or gatekeep women’s robust meaningful representation in political processes/public service delivery so even if women make it into the “public sphere”, they remain marginalized.

Evaluation approach and methodology:

The evaluation will be conducted using the outcome harvesting approach. To respond to the question identified above, the consultant will implement the following:

1. Document review – gather secondary sources, especially evaluations conducted in initiatives
2. Conduct surveys, interviews and/or FGDs – collect data and create outcome sheets
3. Assess contribution of the program to identified outcomes:

a. How important the contribution of the program is in observed outcomes

b. Why the observed results occurred (both negative and positive conditions)

c. What role the intervention played in observed conditions

d. Whether the program has made a difference, and what the preponderance of evidence says about how well the program is making a difference.

1. Collate, assess, and draft an evaluation report

Scoping Methodology/ Initiative Selection:

The following initiatives were selected for this evaluation, with a note that the evaluator will not have to answer all the evaluation questions for all selected projects. Evaluation questions will be administered as applicable.

• Sri Lanka: The Sri Lanka Initiative is a multi-disciplinary program aimed at empowering local women leaders to collaboratively advance the WPS agenda, particularly the meaningful participation of Sri Lankan women in formal and informal reconciliation processes. The program works in close partnership with local civil society organizations and women political and economic leaders to strengthen their capacities, networks, and access to resources to address the challenges specific to women’s conflict-related and post-conflict needs, including GBV, at the local and national levels of governance.
• Sudan: The WAGE Sudan Initiative is a multi-disciplinary program aimed at improving prevention and response to GBV and violent extremism (VE) in Sudan. The program works to strengthen CSOs’ commitment and capacity to provide holistic, survivor-centered services to women affected by GBV and VE and to understand and address potential linkages, if any, between GBV and VE.
• Ghana: The WAGE Ghana Initiative seeks to promote WEE in Northern Ghana through RISE Ghana, GDCA, and HKN’s network of community agents and Mobile Telecommunications Network Ghana’s (MTN Ghana) mobile money platform. Through training and coaching on a range of topics including digital literacy and GBV prevention, the initiative will build the capacity of RISE Ghana, GDCA, and HKN to deliver an integrated, market-based, high impact package of financial and non-financial information, product, services, and referrals (Digital Financial Services plus (DFS+) to women entrepreneurs.
• Central Asia: The WAGE Central Asia Initiative is a multi-disciplinary regional program aimed at building and supporting country-level and regional alliances of women’s organizations to improve the ability of Central Asian women to engage in economic activity. The program works with women’s business associations and women’s CSOs to identify and address legal and societal barriers to women’s participation in the Central Asian economies.

Professional qualifications, experience and expertise required for the evaluation consultant

The consultant should be proficient in conducting outcome and performance evaluations in the context of the program.

The consultant must have:

• At least a master’s degree in program evaluation, public policy or administration, social or political science, or other related field with no less than seven years of experience conducting program evaluation OR a bachelors degree in these same fields with more than 10 years of experience in conducting program evaluations
• Must have previous experience in conducting outcome harvesting and contribution analysis evaluation particularly in gender related programs
• Must have excellent English communications and writing skills
• Must demonstrate proficiency in the use of MS Office and other applications for online surveys and data analysis.

Supervision of evaluation teamwork

The evaluation team is comprised of two evaluators – one external/consultant and one internal, and a gender senior technical advisor. The consultant/evaluation team will directly report to ROLI’s Technical Senior Advisor for Gender and Social Inclusion. Payment will be tied to successful completion of deliverables according to acceptable quality standards as determined by the WAGE Senior Technical Advisor.

Deliverables

All deliverables must be written and presented in English.

• An inception report / work plan prepared in consultation with the Monitoring & Evaluation Officer that includes design and methodology, data collection activities and analysis, and a clearer description of the scope of the evaluation based on feasibility and purposes stated for the Program.
• Relevant tools for data collection and collated data
• A draft evaluation report
• A final evaluation report, incorporating feedback from ABA ROLI review.
• PowerPoint presentation and Q&A session with ABA ROLI team. The presentation must include findings, conclusions and recommendations of the evaluation.
• Databases with machine-readable information that have the quantitative data collected in the evaluation, mostly created from surveys carried out during the evaluation.