TENDER NOTIFICATION

CONSULTANCY SERVICES TO CONDUCT LHRC MID-TERM EVALUATION OF THE STRATEGIC PLAN (2019 – 2024)

Midterm Evaluation of the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) Strategic Plan 2019/2024 through the Operational Plan of 2019/2021 on improving the state of Human Rights in Tanzania.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) is Tanzania’s human rights advocacy organization which was established in 1995 as a non-governmental, voluntary, non-partisan and not-for-profit sharing organization, with the purpose of working to empower and conscientize the people of Tanzania on legal and human rights.

Our Vision: LHRC envisages “a Just and Equitable Society” - a society where the three arms of state [parliament, judiciary, and the executive] as well as non-state actors practice accountability, transparency and there is rule of law; and where there is public awareness, respect and engagement for human rights and good governance; and where justice and respect for human dignity are reality.

Our Mission: Our Mission is to empower the public to promote, reinforce, and safeguard human rights and good governance in Tanzania through legal, civic education and information; sound legal research and advice; monitoring and follow-up of human rights violations; and advocacy for reforms of policies, laws, and practices in conformity with international human rights standards.

Our Values: Integrity; Accountability; Equality and Diversity; Transparency; Professionalism; Volunteerism and Voluntarism

BACKGROUND

LHRC developed its Strategic Plan 2019-2024 and the Operational Plan 2019-2021 respectively to effectively realize its vision of a just and equitable society as well as its mission of empowering the public, promoting, reinforcing, and safeguarding human rights and good governance in Tanzania. The vision and mission are justifiable through legal and civic education and information; sound legal research and advice; monitoring and follow up of human rights violations; and advocacy for reforms of policies, laws, and practices in conformity to international human rights standards.

In the implementation of its activities LHRC focuses on two major target groups. These are reached through two main programs which specifically target the duty bearers (decision makers) on their duties to uphold human rights, enhance transparency, and reduce practices of corruption and discrimination in accordance with international standards and national policies. On the other hand, another targeted group is rights holders (the citizens).

The overall goal of the operational plan is to contribute to improved state of human rights in Tanzania. This goal is supported by five strategic objectives (SO) as outlined below:

1. Deepening the understanding and respect for Human Rights among rights holders and duty bearers that will entrench a culture of human rights in Tanzania.
2.  To advocate for improvement of rule of law, civic space, and democracy, constitutional and legal reforms.
3. To promote socio economic and environmental compliance, accountability, and justice.
4. To improve the legal and policy frameworks governing specific rights of women, children, and People with Disabilities (PWDs).
5.  To improve the effectiveness of LHRC in delivering its mandate.

The purpose of this MIDTERM EVALUATION (MTE) is to provide an independent assessment of the progress that has been made in implementing the current Strategic Plan (2019 – 2024), and provide actionable recommendations that will, subsequently, improve the performance of the programme. The evaluation will assess the relevance, effectiveness, and efficiency of the programme within the country context, and in relation to the approved approaches and strategies essential for the attainment of the key strategic objectives.

Findings and recommendations from the MTE will inform, and feed into the design and preparations of the next Operational plan 2022 - 2024 to complete LHRC’s Strategic plan 2019/2024; subsequently, the findings and recommendations serve the dual and mutually reinforcing objectives of Accountability and Learning. As such the major emphasis will be on Results, strategic choices, and organizational development.

The midterm evaluation covers 3 years - January 2019-December 2021. The evaluation will also assess the programmes' design, scope, implementation status and the capacity to achieve the expected outcomes.

Specific Objectives of the assignment

1. To assess the progress made in implementing the first phase of the Strategic Plan, and provide an account of the factors underpinning, and hindering success.
2.  To examine LHRC’s strategic choices, and learning trajectories as informed by changes in context, and priorities of the Operational Plan, and how the shifts have facilitated progress.
3. To provide actionable recommendations on how to improve the performance of the organization, especially in terms of mechanisms for enhancing the programme.
4. To make recommendations on the way forward for the LHRC next operational plan 2022/2024.

The evaluation will use OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) international criteria of Relevance, Coherence, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Impact and Sustainability. Specific emphasis will have to be paid ON the assessment of gender equality and empowerment of women.

Midterm Review Evaluation Matrix will be completed by the consultant and included in the inception report. The matrix should include key evaluation questions, evaluation sub-questions, indicators, sources of information and methodology. Indicative key evaluation questions are provided below:

1. Relevance: To what extent has the programme conformed to LHRC’s strategic plan; the national sustainable development priorities and to the priorities and needs of the target beneficiaries/communities?
2. Effectiveness: To what extent have the expected outcomes and objectives of the programme been achieved thus far?
3. Coherent: How well does the programme fit? To what extent other intervention has supported or undermined the intervention and vice versa, including the complementarity, harmonisation and co-ordination with others, and the extent to which the intervention is adding value while avoiding duplication of effort. What are the synergies and interlinkages between the current activities under the Operational plan and other specific projects carried out by LHRC?
4.  Efficiency: Has the project been implemented efficiently, cost-effectively, and been able to adapt to any changing conditions? To what extent are project-level monitoring and evaluation systems, reporting, and project communications supporting the programme implementation in relation to activity-based budget planning and it being efficient and the need-based administrative budget in relation and direct-connectedness to the organizations strategy?
5.  Impact: Is the programme oriented towards achieving the expected impacts? What are the effects of the program, intended or unintended, positive, or negative, short term or long term?
6.  Sustainability: To what extent are there financial, institutional, socio-economic, and/or environmental mechanisms for sustaining programme results after end of external support?

Gender mainstreaming: To what extent was the design and implementation of the intervention gender-responsive? To what extent has the intervention advanced or hindered gender equality’? What can and should improve or adjust to increase the gender equality and awareness in the organisations, and the gender response in the design and implementation of the programmes?

Lessons Learnt: How was the organization able to learn, and implement shifts based on new insights?

The consultant should propose the methodology to be used to carry out the review. The proposed methodology should address sufficiently the main   objectives and questions outlined within the ToR (Terms of Reference), specifying the, sub-questions, appropriate techniques of data collection and analysis that will be undertaken.

It should encompass a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods. It should also allow for wide consultation with all interested partners and stakeholders. It is suggested that the methodology should include, but not be limited to Document review, Field visit and Interviews.

Documents

1. Current strategic and operational plans, (2019-2024) budgets
2. The LHRC Annual reports 2019-2020
3. Other publications by the LHRC including: The Annual Human Rights Reports (2019-2020), Training, Manuals, self-help kits Newsletters (Samples) Fact finding mission reports.

Stakeholder involvement

The evaluator shall pay visit to the program fields and meet the beneficiaries of the program in their various categories and other stakeholders. In doing so, he/she shall devise participatory methods to gather information useful for his analysis and final assessment. Involvement of stakeholders to include but not limited to:

1. Independent human rights analysts, activists
2. Legal Aid clients
3.  Paralegals and Human Rights Monitors
4. Selected Members of Parliament
5. Selected Government officials (national and Local) including the Police.
6.  Selected members of the Judiciary (Judges and Magistrates)
7.  Selected members from likeminded organizations
8. Selected members of the community (Direct Beneficiaries and non-direct Beneficiaries)
1. LHRC former and present Funding Partner
10. The media (Mainstream and Community)

Deliverables

1. Inception report: The inception report should describe the evaluators’ understanding of the assignment and why, indicating how each evaluation question will be answered by means of proposed methods; proposed sources of data; and data collection processes. The inception report should also include a proposed schedule of tasks, activities, and deliverables. This inception report should also identify the sites visits and it should elaborate on the selection criteria for those sites selected.
2. Preliminary findings: The evaluator shall share initial findings and recommendations with LHRC team prior to the stakeholders’ consultation.
3. Draft reports: Report structure should follow LHRC reporting standards that will be shared during inception report.
4. Facilitate and presentation of draft MTE report: A presentation will be given on the draft report and the draft report will be shared with LHRC team and relevant stakeholders for comments and form part of data validation before the final report is finalized.
5.  Final MTE report: The final/main report will not exceed 30 pages (not including annex) in hard and soft copy to be submitted to LHRC. (Detailed annexes such as gender study, contextually analysis should form part of annexes.)

The review will be carried out for 30 days including weekends and public holidays and is scheduled to take place in the period between 1st July 2020 and 30th July 2021. Considering the geographic spread of LHRC programmes (that will be agreed with the successful consultant) as well as the scope of the assignment, the consultant shall develop and submit a detailed schedule for assignment and distribute the days accordingly among the different tasks.

The mid-term review to is expected to be performed by a team including three multi-disciplinary team members, one of them being the designated team leader. At least one team member must be female. The team will have the following competencies and/or experience: specifically, the Lead consultant should have the following competencies;

1. Bachelors’ degree in Law and a master’s degree in any relevant field.
2. Minimum of five years of professional work experience in areas pertaining to Human Rights advocacy, access to justice and legal aid service provision.
3. Expert knowledge on the current efforts to enhance access to justice and human rights in Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar.
4. Excellent research and analytical skills, in both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
5. Excellent writing skills in English; and
6. Previous experience of similar assignments is an added advantage.

The Lead Consultant will be expected to work with one or two consultants with expertise in:

• Kiswahili-speaking.
• Legal aid.
•  Social Work.
• Law.
• Monitoring and Evaluation.
• Justice and governance sector reforms; and
• Statistics.

Interested firms/individuals are requested to submit their application including both Technical and financial proposals. The technical proposal should clearly demonstrate their skills and experience for the review process, methodology and approach and a detailed work plan. The deadline for this application is Monday 31st May 2021 14:00 hrs.

Applications should be channelled (electronically) to Executive Director, lhrc@humanrights.or.tz copying info@humanrights.or.tz