Country: Kyrgyzstan
Closing date: 23 Feb 2019
Conducting mid-term evaluation of the project “Contributing to better protection of migrant workers through strengthening partnership in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia” (2018-2019)
The Project Summary:
The project is the 2ndphase of the pilot regional project launched in July 2017 in partnership with 5 NGOs working with labor migrants in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan as migrant sending countries and in the Russian Federation as a migrant receiving country and supported by Secours Catholique - Caritas France. Three NGOs in Kyrgyzstan and one NGO in Armenia are working with labor migrants and their families leaving predominantly to Russia by providing them with the updated information on migration legislation in Russia and possibilities to defend their rights with the help of a partner organization in Russia[1]. The partner in Russia based in Moscow provides free legal assistance to migrants from different countries, including Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. The project aims at promoting the rights of migrant workers in Russia, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan through building a network of partner organizations in these countries.
The 2ndphase of the project started on September 1st, 2018.[2]Having designed for the period of 3 years, the project is presently in the beginning of its first year during which it is planned to conduct a mid-term evaluation to assess intermediate results and benefits of regional partnership in promotion of migrants’ rights.
The Overall Project Goal:promoting the rights of migrants of the Republic of Armenia and the Kyrgyz Republic in the Russian Federation in accordance with international treaties and conventions.
The Specific Project Objectives:
Migrants and their family members actively protect their rights in the countries of destination and departure;
Enhanced cooperation within the civil society, including organizations of migrants, state authorities, local governments and international organizations in solving problems and ensuring the rights of migrants and their family members;
Reforming the migration laws in order to improve the conditions of migrants’ rights at the local, national and international levels.
The project implementing partners and their key interventions in the project target countries can be seen below:
Partner name
Country
Key interventions
Tong Jahoni
Russia, based in Moscow
Free legal aid to migrants in Russia; trainings for migrants and lawyers helping migrants for free; administering the project-site and moderating migrants social networks in internet; mobilizing migrants for protecting their rights and providing support to each other when the rights are violated; facilitating the regional multi-stakeholder working group on liberalization of migration legislation in Russia.
Armenian Caritas
Armenia, based in Erevan[3]
Providing trainings and technical support to State Employment Agency in Armenia in their counseling to migrants and their families in the regions; providing trainings and technical support to NGOs in three target regions of Armenia for providing information and trainings in communities and lessons on migration in schools; organizing flash-mobs, forum-theaters to mobilize migrants, potential migrants, and their family members for sharing knowledge on migration law in Russia and on protection of migrants’ rights.
Resource Center for Elderly (RCE)
Kyrgyzstan, based in Bishkek
Providing technical support and trainings for Small Public Councils formed at local level to deal with migration issues in Kyrgyzstan for their counseling and addressing the issues of migrants and their families in the regions; working with the State Migration Service and the Parliament to monitor laws and lobby for legislative initiatives on migration in Kyrgyzstan; organizing regional Migration Forum in Bishkek to build partnership among the key stakeholders in the area of migration; providing trainings for social pedagogues in schools to enable them conduct lessons on migration; organizing counseling of migrants in the target regions together with the State Migration Service.
Insan-Leilek
Kyrgyzstan, based in Isfana, Batken region
Providing free legal aid, conducting mobile counseling, trainings, and lessons on migration for migrants, their family members and schoolchildren and students; providing technical support and trainings for Small Public Councils for their counseling and addressing the issues of migrants and their families in Batken region; working with local governments to make them include pre-migration trainings for migrants in local development plans and budgets; providing Russian language course for migrants; organizing trade union of labor migrants to ensure protection of their rights in Russia.
Community Integration
Kyrgyzstan, based in Belovodskoe, Chui region
Providing free legal aid, conducting mobile counseling, trainings, and lessons on migration for migrants, their family members and potential migrants; providing technical support and training for Small Public Council, local government, and social pedagogues in schools for their counseling and addressing the issues of migrants and their families in Chui and Naryn regions; working with local governments to make them include priority issues of migrants in local development plans.
2. Purpose and evaluation objectives
The overall purposeof mid-term evaluation is to assess intermediate results and impact achieved by the project, explore the reasons for successes and failures of the project activities, and produce the report with conclusions and recommendation that will help achieve the project outcomes more effectively and efficiently. The conclusions and recommendations of the mid-term evaluation will be taken into consideration during the project-planning workshop to be held in the end of May 2019.
The evaluation objectives are:
1) To assess the extent to which the project is progressing in terms of achieving its objectives and has the right balance in interventions and partner types (for instance, migrants’ organizations, grass-root organizations working with migrants and their families, human rights organizations, and so on);
2) To assess the role, performance, and contribution of each project partner to achievement of the project results and strengthening the project partnership;
3) To assess the project management and coordination, whether it is appropriate and adequate for achieving the project objectives and ensuring effective cooperation and strengthening the network of five implementing partners;
4) To assess the added value of regional partnership and the extent to which it helps improve the services provided to labor migrants and their family members by the implementing partners;
5) To assess the added value of the project among other existing initiatives in the field of migration (how it is complementary in the existing environment);
6) To make recommendations for concrete adjustments and improvements in the project strategy reflected in the project Theory of Change and Logical Framework, in project management and coordination, and in building regional partnership.
3. The questions for evaluation:
The mid-term evaluation of the project should use five basic evaluation criteria defined by OECD/DAC: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability.
Relevance:
To what extent is the project relevant to the needs of the project right-holders? To what extent does it address the root causes of violation of their rights? Is there a right balance in the project interventions and type of the partners involved in the project?
Effectiveness:
To what extent are the project objectives likely to be achieved? What are the main intermediate results of the project? Are there any unintended results of the project (negative or positive)? What are the major factors influencing the achievement or non-achievement of the objectives?
Do the project partners have an adequate expertise in the thematic area of the project, management, staffing, resource management, monitoring, outreach/contact to the right-holders and their communities? To which extent does each partner contribute to achievement of the project objectives? Do the partners could achieve the same results separately without partnership built during the project? What have been the benefits and challenges of the partnership so far?
Do the overall project management and coordination ensure effectiveness of the project? To which extent is the project strategy logic? To what extent are the indicators SMART? To what extent do the project monitoring system help track the achievement of the intermediate results/the indicators to adjust the project interventions if needed?
Efficiency:
Could the project achieve the same with fewer resources? Could the project achieve more results with the same resources?
Impact:
What has been the impact at rights-holders level (outcome) so far? What are the most significant changes in the lives of the rights-holders, in their relation to the duty-bearers, or the practice of the duty bearers that can be attributed to the project? Are there any observable effects/impact from the project on the created partnership between civil society actors, government and other stakeholders?
Sustainability:
Are the benefits from the project, especially, at rights-holders’ level likely to continue after the finalization of the project?
What conditions are/what is/ created to achieve sustainability of the project?
4. The Scope of work and time frame
The proposed period for the mid-term evaluation is 6 weeks starting the last week of March. Please, find below in the Table 1 the types of work that are expected to be carried out during the proposed time frame by the evaluation team:
Table 1
Time frame
Type of work
Last week of March
Desk study: review of the project documents for 2nd phase of the project: the project describtion, Theory of Change, LFA prepared based on the Theory of Change, Monitoring chart of the project, Ethic Code, Regulations of interaction between partners on legal aid to migrants and their families, Standards for services provided within the project in countries of destination[4]; the partners’ reports for the 1st half of the year in Russian (the 2nd phase), the project budget, the project website: www.migranty.org
The 1st, 2nd, and the 3rd week of April
Field work (the details are indicated below in the Table 2)
April 5, 2019
Observation of the project event in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (Migration Forum)
April 6, 2019
Meeting with the project partners altogether in Bishkek for 2-3 hours where the partners can de-brief the evaluation team on the project
The last week of April and the first week of May
Producing the mid-term evaluation report in English or Russian. The draft report should be approved by Caritas France and the implementing partners
By Mayl 7th
The draft mid-term evaluation report sent to Caritas France for comments
By Mayl 15th
Caritas France and the implementing partners provide feedback on the report
By May 22nd
The final version of the report in English or Russian sent to Caritas France
By June 1st
The final version of the report in thwo languages (Russian and English) sent to Caritas France
The fieldwork should be carried out during the period of the first three weeks of April by visiting the intervention areas of 5 implementing partners, as it is described in the Table 2 below:
Table 2
Implementing partners
Country
Locations in the Country where the partner works
Locations to be visited by the evaluation team and time to be spent there
Tong-Jahoni
Russia
Moscow and Moscow region (physical presence). Wide coverage in Russia by phone and through partners in other locations
Moscow, 3 days
Armenian Caritas
Armenia
Erevan-city and three regions (physical presence). Three regions in Armenia covered through NGO partners: Shirak, Lori, Gegharkunik and broader coverage within the country through regional employment centers
One of the regions randomly selected by the evaluation team from Shirak, Lori, and Gegharkunik, 3 days
Insan-Leilek
Kyrgyzstan
Batken region, Isfana town (physical presence).
Coverage: 10 pilot communities: Katran, Toguz-Bulak, Kara-Bak, Dara, Sulukta, Ak-Suuiskiy rural area, Sumbulinskiy rural area, Leilekskiy rural area.
At least one community covered during the 1st phase and at least one community covered during the 2ndphase and randomly selected by the evaluation team, 2 days
Community Integration
Kyrgyzstan
Chui region, Belovodskoe village (physical presence). Coverage: Chui region (Temen Suu, Petrovka, Ak-Suu, Sokuluk) and Naryn region through lawyer based in At-Bashy (Dyikan, Kara-Suu, Kyzyl Too, Kazybek, Zhany Kuch)
At least one community in Chui region covered during the 1st phase and at least 1 community covered during the 2nd phase and randomly selected by the evaluation team, 2 days
RCE
Kyrgyzstan
Bishkek (physical presence)
Coverage: Osh, Jalalabad, Issykkul and Talas regions through the work of Small Public Councils on migration issues
One of the regions randomly selected by evaluation team (only one location in the region), 2 days (Bishkek + region)
5. Methodology
The Evaluation team is expected to apply various methods, which should be as participatory as possible to collect data in order to get the information that needed to answer the questions of the ToR. These methods should be described in details in the methodology section of the proposal to fulfil the ToR. The list of interviewees should include the project team members, duty-bearers, stakeholders of the project, and the right-holders. The project team members should include both the project managers and the key project staff who directly works with right-holders and duty-bearers of the project in three countries. The lists of the project team members, duty-bearers, and stake-holders/partners that are recommended for interviews are provided in the attachment to the ToR.
The evaluation team should interview at least 10 beneficiaries/right-holders (migrants and their family member) of each of five implementing partners. The evaluation team can conduct focus-group discussions or conduct semi-structural interviews with the beneficiaries randomly selected from the lists provided by the partners. The evaluation team can propose other methods to collect information from the project beneficiaries during the field visits.
6. Expected outputs of the evaluation:
1) Detailed methodology for the evaluation including the questionnaires and the working plan by February 20, 2019 together with the proposal;
2) The draft evaluation report in English or Russian by May 7th, 2019. The report should follow 1-3-25 format. The first page must contain recommendations
for future interventions, the following three pages should contain an executive summary and the
evaluation itself should be no less than 25 pages. All the questionnaires used should be attached to the report.
3) The final evaluation report in Russian by May 22nd, 2019;
4) The final evaluation report in English by June 1st, 2019.
7.Qualification requirements for consultants (experts) performing the study:
The project team is seeking for international expert with following profile:
A higher education, at least Master’s degree in social sciences: of sociology, law, political sciences or related sciences
Proven experience (at least 5 years) in project/programme evaluations and skills in outcome evaluation; Theory of Change, LFA, and indicator development; sampling, participatory evaluation methodology; focus group interviews; semi-structural interviews, preparing questionnaires, etc.
Proven expertise in NGO and international development assistance;
Experience in labor migration area is highly preferable;
Proven analytical and report writing skills in English or Russian;
Proven knowledge of the region where the evaluation is to be conducted (Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Armenia).
In case if the expert meets most of the requirements but have no knowledge of the regions or lack some other expertise mentioned above, he or she should include in the evaluation team another expert (or experts) who meets all the indicated requirements. Since all the project documentation is in Russian and Russian is the main communication language between all the implementing partners, having an expert with Russian language skills in the evaluation team is strongly recommended.
Budget for evaluation:
Candidates can use free format for development of the budget with the only comment that honorarium of the experts and the budget for evaluation should be indicated separately in the budget. All the costs covered during the evaluation will be reimbursed later on based on the receipts provided by the evaluation team and at the scale established by SCCF, which will be transmitted to the chosen candidate(s). When working on the budget, the candidates should take into consideration the need of knowledge of local languages (Russian, Armenian, and Kyrgyz) for conducting evaluation. If the expert or the experts have no knowledge of the indicated languages, the honorarium for interpreters/translators should be included in the budget. The project partners might help provide information on costs for the field visits (hotel, transportation, etc).
[1]More detailed information about the project: project proposal available in Russian will be provided during the selection process
[2]The 1st phase of the project was from July 1, 2017 to August 31, 2018.
[3]The project is coordinated from Erevan but implemented in Lori, Shirak and Gegharkounik.
[4]Please, be informed that all the indicated documents are in Russian
How to apply:
Requirements for request of proposal for conducting the mid-term evaluation:
Candidates for conducting the mid-term evaluation should submit their proposals in Englishin a free format, but with an obligatory indication of their compliance with the qualification requirements (with CVs and the reports on similar missions attached), detailed methodology, schedule, and budget of the evaluation. In case if the mid-term evaluation is conducted in a team of experts, he/she should describe their functions in the implementation of the Terms of Reference, as well as their knowledge and experience. The proposals for conducting the mid-term project evaluation should be submitted not later than by February 23, 2019, on the following e-mail addresses: dept.personnelappuietranger@secours-catholique.org