Background

CARE Iraq is a non-profit NGO that promotes women’s economic empowerment, socio-political participation and social justice. CARE Iraq’s work focuses on durable solutions, economic justice and resilience, women’s voice and leadership and multisectoral humanitarian response.

In Iraq, WEO, BWA and BWO are national non-profit NGOs committed to women’s equality and empowerment. They focus on improving the active political, economic, cultural and social participation of women in Iraqi society, thereby giving them better access to decision-making positions. In addition, they carry out advocacy work to promote women’s rights and to fight against discriminatory laws, policies and government programmes. They also support women against violence and discrimination, including gender-based violence (GBV), and promote social cohesion, peace, protection and empowerment.

The strengthening Women’s Rights Movements on the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in three fragile contexts project in Egypt, Iraq, and South Sudan is a 3-year BMZ-funded (through CARE D) project running from July 2022 through June 2025. This project supports women’s rights organizations to work with marginalized communities on women’s rights and gender equality in their respective countries as part of wider women’s rights movements, including on UNSCR 1325 and the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. This project understands women’s rights movements to consist of women’s rights organizations (WROs) and marginalized groups of women and girls. The project will work with WROs as implementing partners (Projekträger, or PT) and as Target Groups (Zielgruppen, or ZG). The term “project WROs” will refer to both PT- and ZG-WROs. d ZG-WROs. In Iraq, the project will directly target 24WROs (3 PT-WROs, 21 ZG-WROs), 110 WRO staff, representatives, and volunteers, 1460 women and girls from excluded groups, and 35 (Governorate level). Indirectly, the project will aim to reach 6900 people in Egypt, 65% women and girls and 35% men and boys. The project will work in Ninawa, Anbar, and Salaheddin governorates in Iraq.

In Iraq, CARE will work with three PT-WROs: Women Empowerment Organization (WEO), Better World Organization (BWO), and Baghdad Women Association (BWA).

The role of CARE country office will be to provide project coordination and organizational and technical capacity development, with a focus on the WPS agenda. In the course of the project, the three PT-WROs will take on greater leadership and responsibility, supported by the long-term mentorship, coaching and technical assistance of CARE Iraq.

The Purpose of the Project

The purpose of strengthening Women’s Rights Movements on the Women, Peace and Security agenda in three fragile contexts is to increase the influence of Women’s Rights Organizations and excluded groups of women and girls in Egypt, Iraq, and South Sudan on the UNSCR 1325 agenda on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) at the local, national and multi-country levels. The project/program/initiative has 1 project outcome and 3 expected outputs outlined below:

Outcome:

Women’s Rights Organisations and excluded groups of women and girls use their strengthened strategies, capacities and improved networks to collectively organise, participate and influence in informal (civil society-led) and formal (government-led) decision-making spaces on the WPS agenda at the local, national, and multi-country levels.

Table 1. Geographic Area and Population Coverage

 

Region	District
Ninawa	Talafar,Bartla, Bashiqa, Mosul city
Anbar	Tikrit, AL-Shirqat, Al-Alam
Salaheddin	Anbar, Faluja, Ramadi

 

Table 2. Key Participants, Target, and Impact Groups

 

Key Participants	Impact or Target Group	No. Direct Participants	No. Indirect Participants
PT-WROs	Target group	15
ZG-WROs	Target group	95
Excluded groups of women and girls	1460 are targeted to achieve impact for excluded women and girls	1,460	6900
Decision makers	Target groups	35

 

Purpose, Objectives, and Rationale of the baseline study

The Baseline study will be conducted to provide a reference point for assessing changes and impact by establishing a basis for comparison before an intervention or set of interventions takes place.

The evaluation intends to provide a reference point to monitor consequences and changes in agency, relations and structures relating to the three-project output. This is important because it will allow the project to measure impact and provide a basis for the mid-line and endline studies. The baseline study is planned to take place in Egypt from End of December till the end of February. The evaluation is looking not only for intended outcomes, but also evidence of unintended outcomes (both positive and negative)

Intended Use of and Users

The evaluation findings and processes will be used and shared by relevant stakeholders, including CARE network and the WROs, to feed into the project planning. The following table outlines the expected communications to be produced from the evaluation findings and processes (i.e., reports, presentations, etc.), the purpose of the communications, and the intended users.

Table 3. Communication and Reporting Plan

Communication Format	Purpose of Communication	User	Person Responsible	Timing/Dates
MEAL Officer	Keep informed about baseline progress	Service provider	MEAL and Protection teams	During conducting the baseline
MEAL Officer	Present preliminary findings	Service provider	MEAL and Protection teams	2 days after the data collection
MEAL Officer	Present completed/final findings	Service Provider	MEAL and Protection teams	15th February
MEAL Officer	Document the evaluation and its findings	Service provider	MEAL and Protection teams	16th February
MEAL Officer	Document actions taken because of the evaluation	Service provider	MEAL and Protection teams	20th February

 

Evaluation Criteria and Questions

1. % and # PT-WROs and ZG-WROs who have actively participated in informal and formal decision-making spaces on WPS at the local or multi-country.

• What are type of spaces that PT-WROs and ZG-WROs participated in it?
• How many do PT-WROs and ZG-WROs actively participate in the decision-making space?
• What roles they take?
• Were they welcomed and respected?
• What partnerships they had?
• What obstacles/ challenges they faced

 

2. % and # PT-WROs and ZG-WROs who have engaged in influencing, advocacy and monitoring processes on WPS at the local or multi-country

• How many PT-WROs and ZG-WROs engaged in any of the influencing/ advocacy/ monitoring processes on WPS?
• What topics regarding the WPS do they advocate for/ influence? At which level?
• What type of influence/ advocacy did they play?
• On what level do they play that role?

3. % and # of women and girls from excluded groups who have actively participated in informal and formal decision-making spaces on WPS at the local or national levels “CARE global indicator”

• What are type of spaces that excluded women and girls participated it?
• What are the number of women actively participating in decision making spaces (as speaking up during meetings, holding leadership positions)
• What leadership roles do participants hold?
• What amount of time does the woman hold the position?
• Were they welcomed and respected in that space?
• ^{What obstacles/ challenges they faced?}

4. % and # of women and girls from excluded groups who have engaged in social accountability processes on WPS at the local level.

• What is the social accountability processes they are engaged in?
• On what level was the engagement? (Local, national?)
• What are the roles they played?
• What tools/mechanisms of social accountability were used in the process?

5. # Of new, amended or better implemented policies, legislation, multilateral agreements, programs, and/or budgets have been influenced by the voices of or actions taken by project WROs or excluded groups of women and girls on WPS at the local or national levels. (CARE global indicator 17)

• Do WROs or excluded groups of women and girls have role/influence on the NAP (National action plans) of WPS “women peace and security”?
• If yes, what is the role played?
• Do WROs or excluded groups of women and girls have role/influence on other laws and mechanisms on GBV and women’s participation? If yes, please specify.

 

6. % and # PT-WROs and ZG-WROs who have developed and operationalised institutional capacity-strengthening plans.

• How many PT-WROs and ZG-WROs have approval from their board for the institutional capacity-strengthening plan, and/or are progressing with its implementation.
• What areas are covered in the plan?
• To what extent the capacity-strengthening plans are aligned to one or more of the following areas: institutional governance and structures; organizational policies and guidelines; financial management and systems; feminist MEAL mechanisms; and feminist leadership skills for management and board members?

7. % and # PT-WROs and ZG-WROs who have developed and operationalised strategic plans that have been influenced by the voices of excluded groups of women and girls.

• How many PT-WROs and ZG-WROs have approval from their board for the strategic plan, and/or are progressing with its implementation?
• Do PT-WROs and ZG-WROs have developed and operationalized strategic plans that have been influenced by the voices of excluded groups of women and girls?
• If yes, how is the strategic plan developed?
• If yes, Do the PT-WROs and ZG-WROs are following the plan and achieving the goals?

8. % and # PT-WROs and ZG-WROs who have developed and operationalised resource-mobilisation strategies.

• How many PT-WROs and ZG-WROs have developed and/or operationalised resource-mobilisation strategies?
• What are the approaches used to mobilize resources?
• How effective are these approaches?
• How many funding proposals were submitted during the last year?
• What type of donors do they have? (Governmental, non-governmental, local, regional, global?
• % Of project WRO representatives who have skills in influencing, advocacy, and monitoring with informal and formal decision-makers on the WPS agenda at the local (micro and meso), national and multi-country levels.
• How many representatives have those skills?
• What skills do they have to influence, advocate and monitor the decision-making process?
• On what level do they participate in influencing the decision-making process?

9. % and # excluded women and girls who have skills to engage with decision-makers in informal and formal spaces and participate in social accountability processes at the local (micro and meso) and national levels.

• How many girls and women have skills to engage with decision makers?
• What type of skills do they have?
• On what level do they engage with those decision makers?
• Do they participate in any social accountability process?

10. % and # of excluded women and girls who have networked to collectively document, disseminate and discuss learning from project WROs and excluded groups of women and girls on WPS at the local and multi country level.

• How many girls and women have networked to disseminate and discuss learning?
• What type of learning have they shared?
• On what level do they share or disseminate this learning?

11. % and # PT-WROs and ZG-WROs who have networked to collectively document, disseminate and discuss learning from project WROs and excluded groups of women and girls on WPS at the local, national and multi-country level.

• What are the learnings collected by the WROs and excluded groups of women and girls on WPS?
• On what level do this learning collection and dissemination take place?
• What are the challenges that prevent/harden the process of learning collection and dissemination?

Approach and Methodology

The service provider will be requested to use a mixed-methods approach in addressing these questions. Additionally, research tools will be designed and selected with the project team. All questions will reflect indicators in the project’s M&E system. These indicators, which all have proposed tools and means of verification for measurement are gender sensitive and disaggregated by gender, nationality, age, disability and location.

Upon starting the assignment; the Service provider will receive all M&E documents to the project (logical framework, M&E plan, etc.), as well as the project description document.

Primary Data

The collection of primary data will be to answer the Key Evaluation Questions, data will be collected using a sample; its level of confidence 95% is and level of error is 5%

Some of the key stakeholders that must be targeted through the primary data collection include 2 PT-WROs (Main WROs) and 10 ZG-WROs (grass-root)

Secondary Data

The process, retrieving existing documents and data, will include: a desk review of existing literature including the project proposal, M&E plan, and feasibility study. Information will be provided to the external evaluation team as per the proposed evaluation schedule.

Deliverables:

1. Meet the project team (project coordinator) and the monitoring and evaluation officer (M&E) to gather the required information on the project.
2. Review of project documents, including the project main document, the logical framework and the MEAL plan.
3. Implement thorough desk review and combine analytically all the gathered information and submit a work plan. (Secondary data review)
4. Development of data collection tools. Tools will be reviewed and approved by CARE before fieldwork. The study will include qualitative and quantitative approaches.
5. Provide and train a team of field and data entry clerks in the implementation of the tools. (Team will be provided by the service provider)
6. Plan and coordinate field visits with a prior timetable including dates with the assistance of the project team for applying the tools and meeting with relevant beneficiaries
7. The service provider will provide the suggested sampling methodology and size. CARE will review and decide whether to approve it or if any further modifications or changes are needed. All the collected data should be disaggregated by age, sex, location, nationality, and disability if existed.
8. Inception Report: The inception report will be delivered to CARE after the initial meeting and desk review. The report should include the objectives of the evaluation, a detailed plan of how the evaluation will be carried out describing research methodology, qualitative and quantitative survey, proposed guiding questions for key informative interviews, focus group discussion or other approaches, and proposing the draft data collection questionnaires. The inception report should also provide a clear matrix of roles and responsibilities indicating the persons involved in the evaluation and their roles, the key internal and external stakeholders to be involved, a detailed work plan and timeline including the number of days and persons involved. It should also summarize the preliminary findings and any preliminary hypotheses resulting from the desk review and explain the process for obtaining the participants’ consent and any necessary government permissions. A detailed work plan should be attached to the report. The main text of the inception report should not exceed 10 pages. The inception report as well as all the suggested tools should be delivered in English & Arabic. Data quality assessment will be attached and applied during the process.
9. Draft the End line study in both languages (Arabic and English) and submit an initial draft. Report should include title (name of the project, location, implementation period, and donor), including maximum 2 pages executive summary that presents the key points of the different sections, A clear methodology section (the methodology should explain the evaluation questions, and how the methodology chose appropriately answers those questions. It should also contain key ethical considerations and a description of how the evaluators protected participants and personally identifiable information), 3-5 key lessons learned (These should be short, actionable, and the most important aspects of what the program/analysis found. They need to be relevant and new for people outside of the direct program. They should also include highlights of what to improve in the future), 3-5 key recommendations (for what the project/program/initiative should do based on your findings).
10. a PPT in both Arabic and English that summarizes the entire process and results as well as conduct the presentation to CARE Egypt staff.
11. Incorporate comments, added information, clarifications and additional inputs received upon agreeing to feedback after the PPT done by the service provider and receiving the draft of the study.
12. Provide a final detailed report (in Arabic and English), including the information analysed from the desk review and the basic study methodology, as well as the methodology used to design the data collection tool.
13. Adhere to CARE data protection rules and regulations to ensure that data are maintained and stored in a confidential way so that no external individual or institution can identify any specific individual in the data. Names and address information should only be made available to the evaluation team.

Meetings, data collection and all deliverables are required to be included as online and offline, and mentioned separately in the technical and financial offers as part of COVID-19 precautionary measures.

Data Disclosure

The external evaluator should deliver, at minimum, all files including quantitative data sets (raw and refined products), transcripts of qualitative data and others in an easy-to-read format and maintain naming conventions and labelling for the use of the project/program/initiative and key stakeholders.

• Datasets must be anonymized with all identifying information removed. Each individual or household should be assigned a unique identifier. Datasets which have been anonymized will be accompanied by a password protected identifier key document to ensure that we are able to return to households or individuals for follow up. Stakeholders with access to this document will be limited and defined in collaboration with CARE during evaluation inception.

NOTE: The external evaluator will be responsible for obtaining all necessary permissions, approvals, insurance, and other required permits needed for data collection. These include required permits related to data collection from human subjects, including necessary ethical review board approvals (ERB) and health and accident insurance for evaluation team members.

 

The service provider should have the following qualifications:  

• University Degree or preferably a master’s degree in a relevant field (social studies, economics, political science, business administration or equivalent).
• Practical background on establishing baselines for development projects especially for Women, peace and security projects (at least two similar projects)
• CSOs M&E systems development.
• Experience in conducting both quantitative and qualitative research collection and analysis in development projects.
• Strong capacity and experience in planning and organizing logistics, including the design and implementation of baseline studies.
• Capacity to store and maintain data in a manner that protects respondents’ identities.
• Excellent oral and written Arabic and English communication skills.
• Strong facilitation skills and extensive experience as a researcher.
• Analytical skills

Duration of the Assignment:

• This consultancy expects 30 working days. These working days will be disaggregated including travel for field meetings, preparation, and report.
• Consultancy start date and end date: from 25^th of February 2023 to 4^th of March. 2023

Coordination and Reporting:

 The Service provider will coordinate and report to the project coordinator who may delegate to the MEAL Officer or main partners.

 Required External Response to Terms of Reference

A technical and cost proposal based on these Terms of Reference (ToR) is requested from the service provider or consulting firm. The proposal should contain the following:

1. Detailed plan of action for field work indicating staff-days required
2. Specific roles and responsibilities of the team leader, supervisory chain, and other core members of the evaluation team.
3. Schedule of key activities preferably in a format such as a Gantt chart.

1.  Detailed budget with justification. The external evaluation proposal should include a reasonable detailed budget to cover all costs associated with the evaluation. This should be submitted by major activities and line items for CARE’s review and decision. This includes a break-down of the cost to contract external evaluation team members, international and local travel, and in-country lodging and per diem. Other related costs that might be in the budget include expenditures for hiring local personnel (drivers, translators, enumerators, and other local technical experts), translating reports, and renting meeting rooms for presentations/workshops.

2. Updated CV of Team Leader and other core members of the Evaluation Team
3. A profile of the consulting firm (including a sample report if possible)

Evaluation Criteria:

Evaluation type	Percentage
Qualifications	10%
Service proposed (Methodology of work and expected results)	30%
Experience relevant to the scope of the project and study (CV should be included)	30%
Timeframe & commitment	10%
Financial Evaluation	20%

Payment schedule: –

Payment will be made after the service provider completes all the requirements report and data through bank transfers.

• service provider note that the cost quotation should include the service provider’s daily rate and any materials and travel costs required for them to complete the analysis outlined above.

The technical and financial proposal to be sent to CARE Iraq  ([email protected]) no later than 16/02/2023 

Any proposals received after the deadline mentioned will not be considered. Please accept our apology for not giving any exceptions or accepting any justification for the late receive.