Procurement Notices

Background and context

• UNDP’s corporate policy is to evaluate its development cooperation with the host government on a regular basis to assess whether and how UNDP-funded interventions contribute to the achievement of agreed outcomes, i.e. changes in the development situation and ultimately in people’s lives. Evaluating UNDP Mozambique Support to UNDAF Outcome 6 therefore involves ascertaining whether and how UNDP has assisted in improving human development conditions, including for individuals, institutions and systems. Evaluation also helps to clarify underlying factors affecting development, to identify unintended consequences (positive and negative), to generate lessons learned and to recommend actions to improve performance in future programming.

Mozambique context

• Mozambique registered a GDP growth of over 7% in the past five years, placing Mozambique as one of the ten fastest growing economies in the world. This growth, attributed to a considerable extent to the expansion of extractive industries, fuels expectations that the well-being of the population can improve. Inclusive growth policies that can fairly distribute its benefits, including increased job creation have become a centerpiece of economic debates.
• Despite this positive economic development and some encouraging progress on some of the MDGs, Mozambique is steadily kept in the Least Development Countries (LDC) category and most of the people in Mozambique continue to live in poverty, with women and children being the most vulnerable. Six out of ten Mozambicans live below the international poverty line while 44% live in severe poverty; leaving the poor more vulnerable and susceptible to adverse shocks. Gender equality progress has been seen in terms of some policies and laws, while inequalities in practice, often based on social and cultural norms has kept Mozambique low on the gender inequality index (144 out 150 countries in 2014). While significant progress has been made in Mozambique in health, education, water and sanitation and social protection, there is increasing evidence that ‘achievements’ in improved access to services has not translated into the desired results and inequalities are persistent. The persistence of a high HIV/AIDS prevalence (11.5%, 2009) and impact of reoccurring and frequent natural disasters intensifies existing vulnerabilities.
• Progress has been made in terms of democratic and institutional development. Increased capacities and growing awareness on rule of law and human rights is taking place and elected legislative bodies at national, provincial and municipal levels as well as new institutions such as the national human rights commission are gaining importance. After twenty years of peace, growing political–military tensions between the Government and Renamo opposition in the last couple of years have threaten the political stability of the country. In 2014, important agreements have been reached between the two parties, and elections in October 2014 resulted in increased seats of RENAMO and MDM within the parliament. Electoral disputes following the 2014 electoral outcomes have resulted in tension between the Government and Renamo leading to outbreaks of violence. Since December 2016 the country is experiencing a return to peace and the political climate is improving as the Government and the RENAMO agreed to cease fire while negotiations proceed. The truce has gone by for two and half months without major violation incidents.

UNDP Country Programme and UNDAF 2012-2016

• Mozambique is a pilot country for DaO and UNDP Country Programme contributes to UNDAF objectives. The UNDAF is based on the Government’s Five Year plan (Plano Quinquenal do Governo, PQG) 2010-2014, and was developed in parallel with the Mozambique Poverty Reduction Strategy 2011-2014 (PARP) which operationalizes the combating poverty objective and the promotion of the work culture enshrined in the PQG. The overall aim of the current UNDAF is supporting the Government of Mozambique to achieve the MDGs, in alignment with both national priorities and the United Nations conventions. For the first time, 21 United Nations organizations developed an UNDAF action plan to jointly contribute to a set of common outcomes, replacing organizations’ individual action plans (such as country programme action plans). These commonly defined outcomes form a basis for the UNDP country programme and structure its results and resources framework. The overall goal is reduced poverty and disparities to improve the lives of the most disadvantaged people in Mozambique. To achieve this, outcomes were formulated in three focus areas in which the United Nations has a comparative advantage: the Economic area, the Social area, and Governance area. In line with its mandate, UNDP is contributing to six of the eight UNDAF outcomes in the economic and governance focus areas, complementing the contributions of other organizations.
• In the governance area, the UN is concentrated on deepening democracy, increasing voice and public accountability, improving governance at the local level and ensuring better engagement and participation by local populations in their own development. The specific contribution of UNDP consists, on the one hand, of strengthening democratic systems and institutions for accountability and human rights, focusing on duty bearers (Parliament and selected newly established Provincial Assemblies); the justice sector; and independent bodies such as the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE), the National Human Rights Commission and the National Crime Observatory (NCO) (Outcome 6). The target is to reduce corruption and increase accountability in public finance and service delivery, and access to justice through the development of innovative and more inclusive instruments for justice services, including alternatives to imprisonment and free legal aid. On the other hand, focusing on rights holders, UNDP is strengthening and improving the quality of participation of civil society, particularly their role in shaping and monitoring the development agenda, including through support to the existing mechanisms of formal provincial consultative bodies such as the development observatories, district consultative councils, and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) national forum. UNDP is also providing support to vulnerable groups, making sure they are aware of their rights and helping them use justice services effectively (Outcome 7). Finally, following more than 10 years of support to decentralization, UNDP is now focusing on the operationalization of the decentralization policy and strategy through the strengthening of the capacity of local governments to deliver, monitor and report on annual plans and budgets, integrating cross-cutting issues as well as the development of knowledge-management systems for local governance; and the participation of civil society in these processes, in order to increase local authorities accountability (Outcome 8).
• In geographic terms, to maximize the impact of previous and planned activities, UNDP is focusing its programmes geographically, wherever relevant, in all the districts of the provinces of Gaza, Nampula and Cabo Delgado in recognition of its long-standing presence in these provinces, which were also selected by the Government as a consequence of their being among the most vulnerable and critical to the development of Mozambique.
• Within this overall framework, UNDP is selecting an Evaluation Team Member to conduct the Evaluation of UNDP Support to UNDAF Outcome 6: Strengthened democratic governance systems and processes guarantee equity, rule of law and respect of human rights at all levels. UNDP interventions contributing to this UNDAF Outcome include the support to the Parliament’s fiscal oversight role, to electoral processes, rule of law, access to justice, human rights and to fight against HIV as well as to the country’s efforts in terms of coordination, implementation, monitoring and reporting on MDGs. These Terms of Reference provide information on the evaluation purpose and scope, the methodology and expected deliverables as well as on the profile of the Evaluation Team Leader and the selection process.

Evaluation Purpose

• UNDP commissions Outcome evaluations to capture and demonstrate evaluative evidence of its contributions to development results at the country level as articulated in both the UNDAF and UNDP Country Programme Document (CPD). These are evaluations carried out within the overall provisions contained in the UNDP Evaluation Policy and as part of the UNDP Mozambique Evaluation Plan.
• The UNDP Office in Mozambique is conducting this evaluation of UNDP Mozambique Support to UNDAF Outcome 6 to capture evaluative evidence of the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact of current programming under the UNDAF Outcome 6 area, which will be used to strengthen existing programmes and to set the stage for new initiatives. In addition, the evaluation will address how UNDP intervention sought to strengthen the application of the human rights-based approach and mainstream gender in the CO efforts. The evaluation is expected to serve an important accountability function, providing national stakeholders and partners in Mozambique with an impartial assessment of the results of UNDP support. In addition, the evaluation is also expected to provide lessons learned and strategic direction to the upcoming decision-making and planning processes related to the next UNDP CPD 2017-2020. 

Evaluation Scope

The UNDP Mozambique Support to UNDAF Outcome 6 Evaluation will be conducted during the months of March and April of 2016, with a view to enhancing programmes, assessing UNDP specific support to development results while providing strategic direction and inputs to the preparation of the next UNDP intervention in Mozambique.

The Evaluation will assess the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability and impact of UNDP intervention during the UNDASF 2012-2016 cycle. Specifically, the UNDP Mozambique Support to UNDAF Outcome 6 Evaluation will assess:

• The relevance and strategic positioning of UNDP support to UNDAF Outcome 6 efforts to reduce poverty and disparities to improve the lives of the most disadvantaged people in Mozambique.
• The frameworks and strategies that UNDP has devised for its support to the national priorities and the UNDAF and whether they are well conceived for achieving planned objectives.
• The support UNDP intervention provided towards achieving UNDAF Outcome 6, through specific outputs and advisory services, and including contributing factors and constraints and assessment of progress to achieve UNDAF and CPD Outcome indicators’ targets.
• The progress under this UNDAF Outcome in the areas supported by UNDP and what can be derived in terms of lessons learned for future UNDP support to Mozambique.  

The evaluation will consider the UNDAF Outcome 6, as stated in the UNDAF and the UNDP Mozambique Country Programme 2012-2016 namely: “Strengthened democratic governance systems and processes guarantee equity, rule of law and respect of human rights at all levels.”

Evaluation Questions

• The evaluation seeks to answer the following questions, focused around the evaluation criteria of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact:

Relevance:

• To what extent is UNDP intervention under UNDAF Outcome 6 responding to national priorities?
• To what extent is UNDP’s engagement in the UNDAF Outcome 6 areas of intervention a reflection of strategic considerations, including UNDP’s role in the particular development context in Mozambique and its comparative advantage vis-a-vis other partners?
• To what extent has UNDP’s selected method of delivery been appropriate to the development context?
• To what extent is UNDP action under UNDAF Outcome 6 in line with the UNDP Strategic Plan 2014-2017?

Effectiveness

• What evidence is there that UNDP support has contributed towards an improvement in national government capacity, including institutional strengthening?
• Has UNDP worked effectively with other UN Agencies and other international and national delivery partners to achieve UNDAF Outcome 6 results?
• Taking into account the technical capacity and institutional arrangements of the UNDP Country Office, is UNDP well suited to providing support to national and local governments in Mozambique in its areas of intervention related to UNDAF Outcome 6?
• What contributing factors and impediments enhance or impede UNDP performance in these areas?

Efficiency

• Has UNDP’s strategy and execution in the intervention areas been efficient and cost effective?
• Has there been an economical use of financial and human resources?
• Are the monitoring and evaluation systems that UNDP has in place helping to ensure that programmes are managed efficiently and effectively?

Sustainability

• What is the likelihood that UNDP interventions are sustainable?
• What mechanisms have been set in place by UNDP to support the government of Mozambique to sustain improvements made through these interventions?
• How should the UNDP interventions be enhanced to support central authorities, local communities and civil society in improving living conditions in the long term?
• What changes should be made in the current set of partnerships in order to promote long term sustainability?

Impact

• Has UNDP been effective in helping improve living conditions at the local level in Mozambique?  Do these results aggregate into nationally significant results?
• What progress was made towards achievement of UNDAF Outcome 6?
• What has been the impact (including unexpected) of UNDP intervention for specific targeted groups and particularly for women?
• The evaluation will also include an assessment of the extent to which programme design, implementation and monitoring have taken the following cross cutting issues into consideration:

Human rights

• To what extent have poor, indigenous, women and other disadvantaged and marginalized groups benefitted from UNDP’s interventions?

Gender Equality

• To what extent has gender been addressed in the design, implementation and monitoring of UNDP interventions under UNDAF Outcome 6? 
• To what extent has UNDP support promoted positive changes in gender equality? Were there any unintended effects?  Information collected should be checked against data from the UNDP country office’ Results-oriented Annual Reports (ROAR) during the period 2012 - 2016.
• Based on the above analysis, the evaluators are expected to provide overarching conclusions on UNDP results in support to UNDAF Outcome 6, as well as recommendations on how the UNDP Mozambique Country Office could adjust its programming, partnership arrangements, resource mobilization strategies, and capacities to ensure that the new Country Programme 2017-2020 achieves planned outcomes and is positioned for sustainable results. 

Methodology

• The evaluation will be carried out by an external team of 2 evaluators: an Evaluation Team Leader and an Evaluation Team Member. The evaluation will engage a wide array of stakeholders and beneficiaries, including national and local government officials, donors, civil society organizations, academics and subject experts, private sector representatives and community members. In addition, field visits in selected provinces and districts will be conducted to meet with beneficiaries and assess results achieved at local level.   
• The evaluation is expected to take a “theory of change’’ (TOC) approach to determining causal links between the interventions that UNDP has supported, and observed progress in UNDP areas of intervention at national and local levels in Mozambique. The evaluators will develop a logic model of how UNDP interventions are expected to lead to improved national and local government. In the case of the UNDP Country Programme 2012-2016, a theory of change was not explicitly defined when the outcomes were established. The evaluators are expected to construct a theory of change for UNDP support to UNDAF Outcome 6, based against stated objectives and anticipated results, and more generally from UNDPs Strategic Plan 2014-2017 and capacity development strategies and techniques.
• Evidence obtained and used to assess the results of UNDP support should be triangulated from a variety of sources, including verifiable data on indicator achievement, existing reports, evaluations and technical papers, stakeholder interviews, focus groups, surveys and site visits. 
• The following steps in data collection are anticipated:

Desk Review

• A desk review should be carried out of the key strategies and documents underpinning the overall work of UNDP in Mozambique. This includes reviewing the UNDAF and Country Programme documents, the UNDAF Action Plan, as well as a wide array of monitoring and evaluation documents, to be provided by the Country Office. More details on the documents to be analysed is provided in Annex 2.
• The evaluators are expected to review pertinent strategies and reports developed by the Government of Mozambique that are relevant to UNDP’s support.  This includes the government’s Five Year Plan, the Poverty Reduction Strategy, The Social and Economic Plans and other national reports, to be made available by the Country Office.
• The evaluators will examine all relevant documentation concerning UNDP interventions under the UNDAF Outcome 6 area, including project documents, annual workplans, reports, evaluations, and technical assessment reports. In addition, evaluators will take into account the CPD/UNDAF/Strategic Plan Results Frameworks for a description of intended results UNDP is contributing to, the baseline for these results and the indicators and targets used.

Field Data Collection

Following the desk review, the evaluators will build on the documented evidence through an agreed set of field and interview methodologies, including:

• Interviews with key partners and stakeholders
• Field visits to project sites and partner institutions
• Survey questionnaires where appropriate
• Participatory observation, focus groups, and rapid appraisal techniques

Deliverables

The following reports and deliverables are required for the evaluation of UNDP support to UNDAF Outcome 6:

• Inception Report
• Draft Evaluation Report
• Presentation of the main findings at a meeting with the main national counterparts
• Final Evaluation report

One week after contract signing, the team of consultant will produce the inception report containing the proposed theory of change for UNDP work under UNDAF Outcome 6. The inception report should include an evaluation matrix presenting the evaluation questions, data sources, data collection, analysis tools and methods to be used. Annex 3 provides a simple matrix template. The inception report should detail the specific timing for evaluation activities and deliverables, and propose specific site visits and stakeholders to be interviewed. Protocols for different stakeholders should be developed. The inception report will be discussed and agreed with the UNDP country office before the evaluators proceed with site visits.     

The draft evaluation report will be shared with stakeholders and presented in a meeting that UNDP CO will organize with the main national counterparts. Feedback received should be taken into account when preparing the final report. The evaluators will produce an ‘audit trail’ indicating whether and how each comment received was addressed in revisions to the Final Report. 

The evaluation reports should follow the following template (more guidance on the report template is provided under annex 5):

• Title;
• Table of contents;
• Acronyms and abbreviations;
• Executive Summary;
• Introduction;
• Description of the Intervention;
• Evaluation scope and objectives;
• Evaluation approach and methods;
• Data analysis;
• Findings and conclusions;
• Recommendations;
• Lessons learned;
• Annexes.

Evaluation Team Composition and Required Competencies

The evaluation will be undertaken by a team of 2 external evaluators: 1 Evaluation Team Leader and 1 Evaluation Team Member. Both international and national consultants can be considered for these positions. These ToRs provide information on the profile and expertise of the Evaluation Team Member.

The Evaluation Team Member will work under the coordination and guidance of the Evaluation Team Leader and will, inter alia, perform the following tasks:

• Review the relevant documentation;
• Act as ‘translator’ (Portuguese to English and vice versa) for the Team Leader, as necessary;
• Participate and contribute to the design of the evaluation methodology;
• Collaborate with the UNDP CO in scheduling the meetings and interviews;
• Undertake field visits if required;
• Undertake observation and other evaluative activities as required by the agreed evaluation methodology;
• Draft parts of the evaluation report under the guidance of Team Leader; and
• Assist Team Leader in finalizing the evaluation report through incorporating suggestions received on draft related to his/her assigned sections.

Evaluation Ethics

• The evaluation must be carried out in accordance with the principles outlined in the UNEG ‘Ethical Guidelines for Evaluation’ and sign the Ethical Code of Conduct for UNDP Evaluations. In particular, evaluators must be free and clear of perceived conflicts of interest. To this end, interested consultants will not be considered if they were directly and substantively involved, as an employee or consultant, in the formulation of UNDP strategies and programming relating to the programmes under review.  The code of conduct and an agreement form to be signed by each consultant are included in Annex 4. 

Implementation Arrangements

• The UNDP Mozambique Country Office will be responsible for the management of the evaluation team. UNDP will designate an Evaluation Manager for the evaluation and any additional staff to assist in facilitating the process (e.g., providing relevant documentation, arranging visits/interviews with key informants, etc.). An Evaluation Reference Group composed of key stakeholders will be established and work closely with the Evaluation Manager to ensure the process is carried out as per guidelines. The Evaluation Manager will arrange introductory meetings within UNDP and Governance Unit Programme Officers will establish initial contacts with government partners and project staff. The consultants will take responsibility for setting up meetings and conducting the evaluations, subject to advanced approval of the methodology submitted in the inception reports. UNDP Regional Service Center for Africa will be involved to assure quality of the process and outputs of the evaluation.
• The UNDP Country Office will take responsibility for the approval of the final evaluation report in close consultation with the Evaluation Reference Group. The UNDP Country Office will develop a management response to the evaluation within six weeks of report finalization.
• While the Country Office will provide some logistical support during the evaluation, for instance assisting in setting interviews with senior government officials, it will be the responsibility of the evaluators to logistically and financially arrange their travel to and from relevant project sites and to arrange most interviews. Planned travels and associated costs will be included in the Inception Report, and agreed with the Country Office. 

Time-Frame for the Evaluation Process

• The evaluation is expected to take 25 working days for each of the 2 consultants, over a period of 8 weeks starting in March 2017. A tentative date for the meeting to present the draft report and findings is mid-May 2017, and the final draft evaluation reports are by beginning of June 2017.

Selection process

• The selection of the evaluation team will be done following UNDP procurement rules and regulations. UNDP will assess the consultants’ profile, qualifications and skills to ensure high level consultants are recruited using the below evaluation criteria. Consultants are requested to submit a technical proposal illustrating the methodology and approach that will be used to conduct the assignment. 

Application Submission Process:

The application submission is in 2 steps:

Step 1: Interested individual consultants must include the following documents when submitting the applications in UNDP job shop (Please note that only 1 (one) file can be uploaded therefore please include all docs in one file):

• Personal History Form (P11), indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the candidate and at least three (3) professional references (the template can be downloaded from this link: http://europeandcis.undp.org/files/hrforms/P11_modified_for_SCs_and_ICs.doc).
• Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable candidate for the assignment and a methodology on how s/he will approach and complete the assignment.

Step 2: Submission of Financial Proposal

• Applicants are instructed to submit their financial proposals, a lump sum, in US Dollars for this consultancy to http://jobs-admin.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?job_id=71920. The proposals should be uploaded as one document with the following subject heading: “Evaluation of UNDP Mozambique Support to UNDAF Outcome 6" by the deadline for this vacancy. Proposals received after the deadline will not be considered. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal should be all-inclusive and include a breakdown. The term ‘all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, travel related expenses, communications, utilities, consumables, insurance, visa, cost of living in duty station, etc.) that could possibly be incurred by the Consultant are already factored into the financial proposal. 

Application Evaluation Process

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis methodology (weighted scoring method), where the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.
• Technical Criteria weight: [70%].
• Financial Criteria weight: [30%]

Only Individual Consultants obtaining a minimum of 70 points on the Technical evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Financial Criteria

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:

p = y (µ/z), where

• p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated;
• y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal;
• µ = price of the lowest priced proposal;
• z = price of the proposal being evaluated.
• UNDP is applying fair and transparent selection process that would take into account both the technical qualification of Individual Consultants as well as their price proposals. The contract will be awarded to the candidate obtaining the highest combined technical and financial scores.
• UNDP retains the right to contact references directly.
• Payments will be made only upon confirmation of UNDP on delivering on the contract obligations in a satisfactory manner.
• Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director. Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under dss.un.org
• Due to large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.

Core

• Sound knowledge of results-based management systems, and monitoring and evaluation methodologies;

Functional

• Strong communication and reporting skills;

Technical

• Understanding of the development context in Mozambique, especially in the democratic governance area is considered as a strong asset.

Academic Qualifications

• Minimum Master’s degree in international development, political science, public administration, regional development/planning or other social science;

Experience

• Minimum 5 years’ experience carrying out development evaluations for government and civil society in the democratic governance area;
• Experience working in or closely with UN agencies, especially UNDP, is preferred;

Language

• Excellent reading and writing skills in English;
• Fluent in Portuguese;