Consultants (2) – Funding Portfolio Evaluators (SRHR)

Short-term Engagement (6 Months) – 2 Positions

 Location: Global (Asia and the Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and North Africa and the Middle East)

 

About Evidence Frontiers

Evidence Frontiers is an African-based Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) consulting firm headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, established in 2002. We deliver expert MEL and strategy services that empower organizations to enhance their performance and drive sustainable social, economic, and environmental change. Our work is grounded in a commitment to equity, diversity, and technical excellence, ensuring that we meet the highest professional and ethical standards. We specialize in delivering high-quality evidence and insights, enabling our partners to make informed decisions based on a deep understanding of what works, how it works, and for whom.

Our experience includes carefully tailoring a wide range of analytical and quantitative tools to enable decision-makers to design better policies, rigorously test those ideas, and take informed action at scale to improve lives. Depending on the organization and programme needs, we have helped diagnose social sector challenges, design, and test potential solutions, and operationalize those solutions found to be most impactful. Our formative and summative evaluations cover a variety of evaluation purposes and designs – from a traditional snapshot and longitudinal designs to more innovative developmental and participatory approaches. Through these, we examine the efficiency, relevance, and effectiveness of activities and processes. We assess the sustainability and institutional impacts of interventions and partnerships. We emphasize local participation, organizational skill development, and the usefulness of the evaluation to inform decision-making. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we measure the impact of development programs to determine their true effects. We also conduct large-scale surveys to assess development indicators or to inform program and evaluation design.

About the Assignment

Evidence Frontiers plans to conduct an independent evaluation of its client’s funding portfolio, guided by the OECD-DAC evaluation criteria and principles. This evaluation will take a holistic approach to the client’s funding portfolio, with particular attention to the effects of recent changes in its grant-making strategy. The evaluation aims to answer key evaluation questions and offer practical recommendations to enhance the client’s contribution to its goals and shape future strategic directions. Specifically, the evaluation seeks to achieve the following objectives:

1. Determine our client’s unique role in and contribution to the current funding environment of abortion programming.
2. Assess our client’s overall programmatic and operational performance under its redesigned grantmaking approach including consideration of the following:

• The practical relevance and usefulness of the approach for our client’s grantee partners.
• The extent to which the values-based aspects of the approach have been put into practice, and the resulting effects.
• The effects of the secretariat’s electronic systems redesign such as the ability to collect and analyze data, make decisions and respond to changes in an agile manner, facilitating an in-depth understanding of its portfolio as well as individual grantee partners’ impact.

 

Duties and Responsibilities

Supervised by the Evaluation Lead, the short-term consultants will be responsible for the following tasks (with the final scope of work to be determined during the inception phase):

• Desk Review: Support comprehensive desk review of the client’s secretariat electronic system, internal documents, and relevant external literature to gather background information and context.
• Inception Report Drafting: Contribute to the development of the evaluation inception report, including the creation of evaluation tools and detailed implementation plans, ensuring that they align with the client’s expectations and requirements.
• Evaluation Tool Design: Contribute to the design both qualitative and quantitative evaluation tools that are tailored to effectively measure the desired outcomes and impacts.
• Data Collection: Conduct data collection of qualitative and quantitative data in the targeted countries, ensuring that all data gathering activities are conducted in a systematic and consistent manner.
• Data Processing and Analysis: Conduct data cleaning, synthesis, and qualitative analysis processes, ensuring that the data is accurate, complete, and ready for interpretation.
• Debriefing Sessions: Attend regular debriefing sessions with the client throughout the assignment to update them on progress, share preliminary findings, and adjust the evaluation approach as needed.
• Evaluation Report Drafting: Support the Evaluation Lead in drafting of both the draft and final evaluation reports. Ensure that the reports are objective, balanced, and evidence-based, with accurate and verifiable affirmations and realistic recommendations.
• Presentation of Findings: Support the Evaluation Lead in preparing and delivering a summarized presentation of the findings, including key insights and recommendations, in a clear and visually engaging PowerPoint format.

 

Qualification

 The evaluator must demonstrate extensive experience in applying rigorous evaluation methodologies aligned with OECD-DAC criteria across multi-country portfolios. Additionally, the evaluator should possess thematic expertise in the areas of abortion and/or sexual and reproductive health rights. The ideal candidate should have the following skills:

• Experience in conducting grants and fund portfolio evaluations using qualitative and quantitative research and analysis methods, particularly in the health sector.
• Experience with evaluating complex, non-linear and systems-level change.
• Ability to understand and assess electronic data systems based on relational databases and data visualization technologies.
• Knowledge of the international context for sexual and reproductive health services and rights, and/or safe abortion.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability and to communicate effectively with a range of stakeholders including within civil society organisations, international donors.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including experience in writing technical, analytic and evaluation reports, and critical interviewing skills.
• Ability to discreetly handle sensitive data and/or conversations.
• Advanced oral and written skills in English (required)

 

Application

Please submit a cover letter detailing your relevant experience as it pertains to this position, including your consultancy daily rates in USD. Combine the cover letter and your CV into one attachment and send your application by August 20th, 2024 to hr@evidencefrontiers.com