Uganda: Consultancy Services - End of Project Evaluation

Background
Build Africa (BA) is an international NGO, operating in Uganda since 1996. The organization works with young people in deprived rural areas of Kumi, Bukedea, Kibuku, Palisa and Ngora districts in Eastern Uganda and Masindi, Oyam, Buliisa and Kiryandongo districts in North Western region. BAU has two programmes; Education & Livelihoods.
BA received funding from USAID through RTI to support implementation of the Governance, Accountability, Participation and Performance (GAPP) Program in the districts of Oyam, Buliisa and Masindi for a period of two years (April 2014 to March 2016). The project named Community Empowerment for Education improvement Project (CEEP) was designed to improve the capacity of citizens to hold local governments and school level duty bearers to account for improved education service delivery in the above districts.
It was noted that the demand for accountability deficit in the country is a result of many factors, including: knowledge gap among the community on their entitlements and the roles of the duty bearers, weakness or lack of self-organisation by the communities for purposes beyond accessing resources, and inadequate engagement between citizens and government authorities.
However, there is strong evidence to suggest that improved involvement of the communities in social accountability has the potential to reverse the quality of public services through strengthening provider responsiveness to client needs. Experimental study on community monitoring and participation in Ugandan schools indicated that community approaches can be effective as they induce higher contributions. Introducing a similar mechanism in holding education services and local government to account has the potential to bring about positive changes, resulting in more accountable and responsive Local Governments.
Build Africa has been working with all the public primary schools in 3 sub counties; 10 in Kamdini sub county, 7 in Buliisa sub county, and 13 in Budongo sub county. The primary beneficiaries for this project were 5,500 community members around the 30 primary schools while the secondary beneficiaries were 26,594 pupils in the same schools.

Project Description
Project Objectives, Results and activities*Strategic Objective*

Local governments and school level duty bearers are responsive and accountable to improve the quality of primary education.
Project Results
The CEEP project will work to deliver two project results

1. Communities are motivated to participate in improving the quality of education. By working with communities to increase appreciation of stakeholder roles and responsibilities, the aim is to cause two actions: provide a first level response to the needs of their children and secondly be motivated to put the local authorities at school, sub county and district level to account for quality education. Community members, including governance structures such as the school management committees, will receive training and sensitization on the consequences of poor quality education and the key policy documents in the Ugandan education system, including the Universal Primary Education policy framework, the basic requirements and minimum standards for education institutions, and the Teachers’ Code of Conduct. This will be done through interactive foras like community dialogues.

2. Communities are empowered to hold local governments and school level duty bearers accountable for quality education services

For this second result, Build Africa aims to build the communities’ skills to actively engage local governments and advocate for improved quality of education in their localities. This shall be done through training of education monitoring groups and school management committees to undertake issue based advocacy. The trainings will involve issue identification, development and implementation of advocacy plans.
Activities
Result 1. Communities are motivated to participate in improving the quality of Education
1.1 Conduct sensitisation meetings with communities
1.2 Design and broadcast radio programs

Result 2: Communities are empowered to hold local governments and school level duty bearers accountable for quality education services
2.1 Establish, train and facilitate education monitoring groups to conduct advocacy
2.2 Facilitate school communities and SMCs to identify key education issues
2.3 Facilitate school communities to develop education advocacy plans
2.4 Establish and update school information notice boards to facilitate community action
2.5 Train education monitoring groups in the community score card methodology
2.6 Support the EMGs to conduct bi-annual community scorecard events
2.7 Train parents to monitor teaching and learning processes
Summary of the Objective, Result areas and indicators
CEEP objective/ Result Area Indicators
Objective 1: Local governments and school level duty bearers are responsive and accountable to improve the quality of primary education • Number of actions taken by LG and school level duty bearers on the advocacy issues raised
• Reduced teacher absenteeism;
• Increase in school support visits by the sub county and district officials
Result Area 1: Communities have increased motivation to participate in improving the quality of education • Percentage increase in the number of community members participating in the school level advocacy activities
• Number of monitoring of pupil learning visits by parents
Result Area 2: Communities are empowered to hold local governments and school level duty bearers accountable for quality education services • Number of petitions submitted to duty bearers as a result of the education advocacy plans
• Number of community and duty bearer interface meetings held
• % of community members who have used noticeboards in the last week/month for education related information

Objectives of the End of project evaluation
This evaluation is being undertaken to provide credible and useful findings on the performance and challenges of the project, in addition to the development of lessons and recommendations that could inform future interventions.
The key audience for the end of project evaluation is Build Africa (in the UK and in Uganda). Primarily, the evaluation will be used by the Programmes and fundraising teams to inform future decision-making regarding project design and implementation. The evaluation findings and recommendations will also be summarised and fed back to the schools and community members involved in the project and evaluation by means of discussions between interested parties and Build Africa Uganda staff.
It will be important for community members to understand (from the evaluation findings) whether this project met its objectives, how and why. It will also be important for this audience to understand how their roles have contributed to the successes and challenges identified by the evaluation.
We would also like to know "To what extent have the project activities achieved the outputs and outcomes intended?"
Methodology
The evaluation shall adopt both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect information from both primary and secondary sources as indicated in the scope of work. Data collection methods and tools should take a participatory and interactive approach where appropriate and should always be tailored to ensure relevance to the respondent or group of respondents.
Data collection will be limited to a sample of the 30 schools that were involved in this project. BAU will provide support to the consultant with the sampling of these schools where necessary.
Roles and Responsibilities
The selected consultant will be responsible for:

1. Holding an inception meeting with BAU staff and reviewing any relevant documentation to gather background information
2. Drafting an inception report, including a detailed methodology, all data collection tools and a data analysis framework
3. Incorporating feedback on inception report into planned approach and activities
4. Organising the logistics for field travel
5. Recruiting and training data collectors and supervising field data collection and entry
6. Conducting participatory data collection in sampled schools
7. Providing the typed raw data to BAU
8. Analysing and synthesising both qualitative and quantitative data
9. Incorporating feedback and submitting a final report that responds to the key learning questions and provides clear findings and robust recommendations which can be directly applied to Build Africa’s future programming

Build Africa Uganda will be jointly responsible for:
• Preparing relevant documentation and making it available to the consultant
• Supporting the identification of key informants
• Reviewing the inception report and providing the consultant with specific and timely feedback
• Providing support to the recruitment and training of data collectors as necessary
• Managing and supporting the consultant throughout the evaluation process

Expected Outputs
Evaluation inception report: An inception report shall be required from the evaluator before commencing the evaluation exercise. It should detail the evaluator’s understanding of what is being evaluated, showing how each evaluation question will be answered by way of: proposed methods; proposed sources of data; and data collection procedures. The inception report should also include a proposed schedule of tasks, activities and deliverables, and the designated team member(s). In addition, the inception report shall also annex detailed data collection tools for all stakeholders for review by Build Africa staff members.
Draft evaluation report: A draft evaluation report that effectively and exhaustively addresses the evaluation criteria shall be submitted to Build Africa for internal review within the agreed time frame.
Final evaluation report: A final evaluation report addressing all the criteria and inputs from Build Africa will be delivered to Build Africa (in 3 hard-bound copies and in soft copy) within the stipulated time. Typed quantitative and qualitative raw data sets (Excel) must also be submitted in soft copy.
Skills required
The person/ firm should have a good understanding of the education sector in Uganda and key policies affecting the entire education system. Understanding of the Bulisa, Masindi and Oyam local contexts will be an added advantage. The person should have a good knowledge of monitoring and evaluation of social accountability projects.

Submission of Proposal
The technical proposal should cover:-
• Bio-data report (for company or individual)
• Understanding (definition) of the task at hand
• Approaches / Methodology to be used
While the financial proposal should cover;-
• Fees or remunerations and terms of payment

Interested persons/firms who meet the above requirements are requested to submit a technical and financial proposal for the assignment by 15th Feb 2016 to the following contact:
Babirye Agnes
Build Africa Uganda
E-mail: babirye@build-africauganda.org
You can also hand deliver to the address below:
Build Africa Uganda,
Block 245 Plot 431 and 424 Kabalagala- Ggaba Road Makindye Division, Kampala
Tel: +256 414 267828
NB: The consultant should be ready to start work immediately and produce a report in maximum period of 3 weeks following agreement of terms and conditions of the consultancy.