| Overview :
Purpose
To assess UNDP contributions towards the progress made on Good Governance outcome achievements
Objective
To enhance development effectiveness, to assist decision making, to assist policy making, to re-direct future UNDP assistance, to systematize innovative approaches to sustainable human development.
Background Information
The current Country Programme Document (CPD) for the Republic of Serbia (2011-2015), addresses priorities identified in the main developmental strategies of the Republic of Serbia at the time (e.g. National Plan for Integration, the National Sustainable Development Strategy) and is fully aligned with the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2011-2015.
The CPD covers three core areas: sustainable and inclusive development; accountability and governance; and, energy and environment. All three areas promote capacity development among governmental and non-governmental counterparts, and mainstream human rights and gender.
UNDP in Serbia is looking for evaluators who will assess UNDP’s contributions towards the progress made on Good Governance Strengthened outcome achievements, in order to:
- Provide evidence to support accountability of programmes and for UNDP to use in its accountability requirements to its partners
- Provide evidence of the UNDP contribution to outcome
- Guide performance improvements
- Collect lessons learned for the next programming cycle
Scope of work
UNDP Serbia invites applications from qualified consultants in order to perform the evaluation of Good Governance Strengthened outcome with corresponding outputs related to parliamentary development, anti-corruption, human rights, EU integration, public finance, disaster risk reduction and security system reform, as defined in the CPD 2011-2015.
The evaluation should assess the extent to which programmes, project, soft assistance, partners’ initiatives and synergies among partners contributed to its achievement.
To help focus evaluation objectives, the following evaluation criteria will apply: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact of development efforts.
The evaluation should assess what works and why, highlight intended and unintended results, and provide strategic lessons to guide decision-makers and inform stakeholders.
Two evaluators (one international and one national) will jointly perform the evaluation.
International evaluator will be responsible for the overall quality of the report and will assess efficiency, sustainability and impact that UNDP interventions had on Good Governance outcome.
International Evaluator will:
- Prepare inception report with evaluation matrix*
- Focus on the general evaluation criteria and
- Prepare the Final Report** with the Executive Summary
National evaluator will be responsible for assessing the relevance and effectiveness and to provide respective written inputs for the report.
National Evaluator will:
- Contribute to the preparation of the inception report
- Support organization of interviews with key stakeholders
- Focus on the analysis of Serbia’s development context during last five years in the governance area
- Incorporate received beneficiary satisfaction feedback into the Final Report
The Evaluators will review, analyze and provide conclusions and recommendations on the following:
- Was the outcome achieved or not;
- What progress toward the outcome has been made;
- Estimate the degree of UNDP’s contribution to that progress;
- What factors have contributed to achieving or not achieving the outcome;
- The degree to which the projectswithin governance portfolio have been successfully implemented during last five years and desired outputs achieved;
- What factors contributed to effectiveness or ineffectiveness;
- Assessment of external factors affecting the UNDP’s work in governance area, and the extent to which the UNDP has been able to adapt and/or mitigate the effects of such factors;
- Has the UNDP partnership strategy been appropriate and effective;
- The extent to which the target beneficiaries have benefited from UNDP activities;
- The level of beneficiaries’ and partners satisfaction with respective UNDP’s work and results;
- The potential for continuation or up scaling of UNDP’s work in respective area within the new Country Programme cycle.
Methodology
The evaluation approach has to respond to standard international practices in outcome evaluations. The proposed steps in conducting the evaluation are:
- Review of projects’ documentation, monitoring records and progress and other relevant output and outcome reports;
- Initial meeting with UNDP Programme Team to agree the specific design and methods for the evaluation, what is appropriate and feasible to meet the evaluation purpose and objectives. Agree on the evaluation questions that will need to be answered, given limitations (e.g. data) ;
- Organization of interviews with key staff involved in the project implementation;
- Prepare inception report with evaluation matrix*;
- Discussions with members of the Programme Team and beneficiaries of UNDP interventions to assess relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact of development efforts, take note of beneficiaries’ perceptions of accomplishments and potentials for further development and provide suggestions for management response to evaluation findings. Objectively verifiable data should be collected whenever available, to supplement evidences obtained through interviews and focus group discussions;
- Prepare Draft Report and present it to the Programme Team, Government counterpart(s) and beneficiaries;
- Incorporate received feedback into the Final Report;
- Prepare the Final Report** with the Executive Summary.
A following set of information sources about the project will be made available to Evaluators:
Project documents:
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1. Enhancing anti-corruption efforts in Serbia
2. Youth Sleuth: Engaging Serbia’s Youth to Fight Corruption through Investigative Journalism and Social Media
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3. Strengthening Accountability of Public Finance (PUBFIN)
4. Advancing Accountability of Public Finance (PUBFIN2)
5. Finance Sector Policy Coordination Framework
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6. Strengthening Accountability of Serbian Parliament
7. Strengthening Oversight Function and Transparency of Parliament
8. Promoting Human Rights and Access to Justice for Social Inclusion and Legal Improvement
9. Communicating EU in Serbia
10. Disaster Risk Reduction Capacity Development
11. Kraljevo earthquake response
12. Strengthening of Regional Cooperation on Gender Mainstreaming in Security Sector Reform in the Western Balkans (WinMil)
13. Women Police Officers Network in South East Europe (WPON)
and relevant reports:
14. Annual reports
15. Progress reports
16. Media reports
17. Project evaluations
18. Key documents (strategies, policy papers, monitoring reports, surveys etc.) produced by the UNDP in Serbia
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* Inception report and evaluation matrix formats will be provided at the mission's outset (Annexes III and IV of this ToR)
** The final report must include, but not necessarily be limited to the elements outlined in the quality criteria for evaluation reports (Annex I constitutes integral part of this ToR)
Deliverables and Timeline
Please refer to the timetable with the deliverables is in the enclosed Procurment Notice.
It is expected that the evaluation will be completed within 40 working days, with the following deliverables due:
Evaluators are expected to visits two municipalities nearby Belgrade.
Travel costs (transport, accommodation and living costs) will be reimbursed to the consultant on a lump-sum basis.
Payments for the deliverables will be made in up to three installments (inception report, draft report, final report), upon billing by the consultant and subject to quality review, clearance and acceptance by UNDP Deputy Resident Representative.
The criteria of utility, credibility, and relevance/appropriateness will be used for assessing the quality of the evaluation report:
- The report has to be written in clear language (English)
- The Executive Summary should be an extremely short chapter, highlighting the evaluation mandate, approach, key findings, conclusions and recommendations.
- The information in the report has to be complete, well structured and well presented
- The information in the report has to be reliable i.e. well documented and supported findings
- The information in the report has to addresses priority or strategic information needs
- Recommendations have to be concrete and implementable
- Human rights and gender equality perspective has been taken into account
The evaluation has to be conducted in accordance with the principles outlined in the Ethical Guidelines for Evaluation. Code of conduct is enclosed as Annex II and constitutes integral part of this ToR.
Skills and competencies:
- Excellent analytical skills;
- Displays ability to synthesize research and reach empirically based conclusions on related subject;
- Strong writing skills;
- Proven capacity to produce reports;
- Displays capacity to provide experienced advice on best practices;
- Possesses knowledge of inter-disciplinary development issues;
- Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
- Good application of Results-Based Management;
- Good communication, coordination and facilitation skills;
- Consistently ensures timeliness and quality of work;
- Treats all people fairly without favourism;
- Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.
- Demonstrates integrity by modeling ethical standards.
Education:
- Masters or equivalent in relevant field of Law, Political and Social Sciences, Economy or similar.
Work experience:
- Minimum 5 years of relevant professional experience, preferably in international/multilateral development context;
- Experience in evaluating and monitoring technical cooperation and development activities and projects.
Knowledge:
- Excellent understanding of Serbia's socio-economic situation and developmental challenges;
- Understanding of main policies, legislation and institutions;
- Familiarity with the EU accession process;
- Familiarity with the UN(DP) evaluation policy, norms and standards;
- Knowledge in the use of computers and office software packages and handling of web based monitoring systems.
Personal qualifications:
- Ability to organize and motivate team, deliver when working under pressure and within changing circumstances;
- Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
- Excellent interpersonal skills.
Language:
- Excellent knowledge of written and spoken of English and Serbian (for national evaluator only).
Please note that you may upload your application documents at the link: http://www.undp.org.rs/jobs_new.html. For more information on the application procedure please refer to the enclosed Procurement Notice.
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