Terms of Reference Final Evaluation of the Project A More Inclusive Democracy: Strengthening Women s Participation for the 2014 Elections

Transcription

1 Terms of Reference Final Evaluation of the Project A More Inclusive Democracy: Strengthening Women s Participation for the 2014 Elections Search for Common Ground Indonesia is looking for an experienced evaluator to carry out the final evaluation of its project A More Inclusive Democracy: Strengthening Women s Participation for the 2014 Elections, a program aiming to strengthen the participation of women representing diverse political ideologies in the 2014 district/municipality (kota/kabupaten)-level elections. This Terms of Reference (TOR) defines the work that must be carried out by the external evaluator. It provides a brief outline of the project, specifies the scope of the evaluation, and outlines the evaluation method. Background Project Summary Reflecting on SFCG s experience on LWI project during the 2009 elections, most of women candidates tend to be new to politics and are thus often unequipped both to run for office and to lead if elected. In comparison to their male peers, female candidates vying for public office tend to have a poor understanding of election rules and regulations and also lack the confidence to speak publicly and liaise with the media, key skills for any candidate or leader. 1 Furthermore, elite women candidates are decidedly at an advantage: not only can they use their families connections to build political clout, but they also have the financial resources to fund their campaigns. This means that women from lower socioeconomic background often struggle to win elections. Moreover, because of polarising party politics, women from different parties are often pitted against each other. As a result, they lack the capacity to look beyond narrow party interests and use other women as resources to stand for a common platform that would benefit not just women, but Indonesian communities as a whole. However, women s representation in parliament is one of the most important principles of democracy. To strengthen democracy in Indonesia, women s representation needs to be improved in many sectors of Indonesians lives, particularly in political parties representatives. It is an important step to gain genuine support from political parties for female candidates to run for 1 Conversation with MP Dewi Qoryati, 22 May

2 political offices in Indonesia. Therefore SFCG implemented the project under the title A More Inclusive Democracy: Strengthening Women s Participation for the 2014 Elections, this project funded by EU, started February 2013 to February To run this project, SFCG have a partner namely Solidaritas Perempuan that have branches across Indonesia. This project worked with women candidates to build their capacity to participate in the political process and to lead, not only on behalf of their parties, but also for their whole constituency, including other women, thus enabling them to become inclusive, capable leaders. Participants from all castes and socioeconomic levels (particularly in Bali and Lombok) as well as first-time women candidates were prioritised. The theory of change on which the project is based: If we build the capacity of women on leadership and communication skills, they will become actively involved in public affairs including political parties. If more women actively participate in a national election, then the opportunity for women to become a member of parliament will be more open. If political parties have increased awareness on gender perspectives and diverse leadership, they will support female candidates in becoming parliament members If more women become members of parliament, then they could fight for gender equality in their community or district If more people increased their awareness on the importance of women participation in parliament, then they will vote for women candidates running for parliament The goal of the program is to strengthen the participation of women representing diverse political ideologies and a common platform in the 2014 district/municipality (kota/kabupaten)-level elections. The specific objectives are: a) To build the capacity of women running for Parliament at the district/municipality level in collaborative and inclusive leadership; b) To build the capacity of political parties to foster more diverse leadership by supporting female candidates; and c) To build voter/constituency support for women in politics. 2

3 The project expected to achieve following results. 1. Increased capacity of women candidates in running for district/municipality elections in skills promoting collaborative and responsible leadership 2. Increased capacity of political parties to support female candidates in district/municipality elections 3. Increased mechanisms for dialogue, coordination and cooperation between female candidates, as well as between candidates/parties and their constituents 4. Changed perceptions of Indonesian citizens about acceptable roles for women to play in society The target groups for this program are: Women candidates Political parties Local communities The project activities include: 1. Baseline Assessment 2. Stakeholder Meeting 3. Workshop with political parties 4. Curriculum development workshop 5. Training for candidates 6. Community engagement 7. Produce and distribute animated video/multimedia component 8. Alumni forums Organizational Background Search for Common Ground ( has been working in Indonesia since Its mission is to transform the way the world deals with conflict: away from adversarial approaches, toward cooperative solutions. SFCG works in 35 countries across Africa, Asia and the US engaging in a long-term process of incremental transformation. In Indonesia, SFCG has a multi-pronged approach to support the peacebuilding process, combining media with community peacebuilding work. SFCG Indonesia has 20 staff with a 3

4 presence in 15 provinces across the country and works with youth, women, security services, teachers, media, and other civil society actors. The Evaluation Organizational Goal SFCG as an organisation is committed to conducting program evaluations in order to assess the effectiveness of our programs and engage in continuous improvement and learning within programs and across the organisation. The overall goal of this evaluation is to assess to contribution of the project in strengthening the participation and election of women candidates in 2014 Elections at District and Municipal level. Specifically, the evaluation wants to answer following three specific questions. How the program affected significant changes among the women candidates related to their skills in the task of campaigning in the 2014 elections? How political parties increased their skills and awareness in fostering more diverse leadership by supporting women candidates in the elections? How the intervention has brought changes in the voters/constituents in supporting women in politics? Evaluation Criteria and Key Evaluation Questions The evaluation will specifically focus on the following evaluation criteria taken from the OECD DACs Guidance on Evaluating Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Activities: Relevance: How relevant were the project interventions in the current social, political and electoral context of Indonesia? To what extent the project approach and interventions were consistent with the need of women leaders to run for the election? How relevant are the project strategies and activities as perceived by the beneficiaries and other community stakeholders? What, if any, are the project s unique contributions to women s empowerment and increased political participation that others are not providing? 4

5 Effectiveness: What are the major outputs and outcomes of this project? How is the progress in comparison to the relevant baseline data? To what extent the knowledge and skills of women candidates on collaborative and inclusive leadership, including public speaking and engaging media, improve among the participating women leaders? Have they women leaders applied those skills in campaigning in the 2014 elections and after the elections? To what extent the project contributed in empowering and transforming women candidates, political parties, and voters on collaborative, inclusive, and diverse leadership? Are there any positive examples of successful electoral campaign of women candidates who participated in the project activities? How have the elected women members of parliament applied their knowledge and skills in the parliament? To what extent did the women candidates who did not succeed in the 2014 elections implement collaborative and inclusive leadership in their daily activities? How has the project contributed in bringing positive changes among political party leaders in relations to women leadership within the party structure and candidate nomination? Has there any positive shift in the perception of male leadership towards female leadership? How has the project contributed in positively shifting public perception towards women leaders and their leadership? To what extent the project contributed in increasing the number of elected women members in respective parliaments as compared to General Election 2009? What unexpected positive or negative results did the project lead to? Coherence and coordination: How well was the project implementation process managed? How was the coordination between SFCG s program leadership and its partner in implementing the project? What were the partnership/coordination challenges, if any, and how did SFCG managed these challenges? How coherent were the activities implemented in achieving the goal/objectives set for the project? To what extent did the different categories of activities complement each other? 5

6 Sustainability: To what extent SFCG, and its partners were successful in working with the political parties develop to develop an action plan for supporting women in politics in the future? How many political parties develop such plans and how are they implementing these plans? What steps were planned or have been taken by the political parties as well as the government institutions to create long term processes, structures and institutions for the successful participation of women in politics, including in public areas? Have the women candidates that were not elected to parliament organized independent initiatives for building community awareness on social and political issues, as well as women s issues, beyond the project activities? How have been voters and citizens mobilized to support women leaders? How did this project reached to young men and women to promote women leadership in the long term?? Audience The primary audience of this evaluation includes: The staff and members of SFCG Indonesia and partner organisations to draw out reflections and lessons learned from the project and to use the recommendations for future project design, especially for gender-related projects; and EU, the funding agency, for assessing the effective and efficient use of the funds to achieve the stated goals and results of the project. Evaluation Methodology SFCG is committed to conducting the evaluation with solid methodology to measure the participation of women representing diverse political ideologies and a common platform in the 2014 district/municipality (kota/kabupaten)-level elections through the activities. The methodologies will include: desk study review, key informant interviews, focus groups, and surveys, all detailed as follows: Desk study review: Academic literature discussing women and politics in Indonesia should be reviewed. This is important for capturing and mapping women s participation in Indonesian politics since at least the first direct election in 1999, when women were given an affirmative action to 6

7 improve their participation in politics through a 30% quota for women in the election process. Literature is crucial to identifying ideas that support women s participation in politics. It is equally important to review project proposal, logframe, annual project reports and monitoring data and reports Interviews: Interviews will be conducted with key informants in the three target areas. Women alumni of our trainings will be interviewed to capture the changes in their knowledge and skills on engaging communities and media, how they implemented the training materials for campaigning in the 2014 elections, and how those materials helped them in gaining voters. The interviews will also identify what conflicts and challenges the women alumni faced and how they solved those conflicts using training material approaches. Interviews with women alumni will also capture the stories of success and failure of women running for parliament in the 2014 elections. Members of political parties will also be interviewed to evaluate the changing perspectives of political parties in supporting women to become parliament members, how the political parties developed policy to support women in parliament, and how the training materials and other activities impacted internal party support for women running for parliament. Voters or community members will also be interviewed to get information on their views on women candidates in 2014 elections and how the women candidates communicated with them and influenced their vote. Surveys: A short survey will be conducted to measure the results around objective 3. This short survey will collect quantitative data on the male and female alumni of the leadership workshop on their general skills and knowledge of engaging communities and media for campaigning in the 2014 elections. This survey will also evaluate the political parties in terms of their support for women in the 2014 elections and post elections. Constituents or community members will also complete the survey to see the change in their perspectives on women s leadership. Focus Groups: At least two focus group discussions (with groups such as parliament members, former legislative candidates, religious leaders, community leaders, and constituents) will be conducted in each location to measure participants skills and knowledge of women s participation in politics. Scope of Work Location: This evaluation will take place in the three locations where program activities are implemented: Bogor, Bali, and Lombok. 7

8 Deliverables: Following specific deliverables are expected form the consultant. Within seven days from signing the contract, the consultant will submit the Inception Report, which clearly defines the evaluation methodology, such as clear outlines of FGDs and KII checklist, survey questionnaires, and an evaluation timeline with specific deadlines for each deliverable. The inception report should also clearly explain the sampling methodology and sample size for the quantitative survey and clear and logical explanation of the number of FGDs and KIIs planned in each location. The inception report will be reviewed and approved by the SFCG Team. The evaluator cannot start the data collection process without the SFCG team s approval on the inception report. Draft revaluation report to be submitted within 10 days of completion of the data collection in the project sites for the review and comments from SFCG Team. The review and feedback of the report could be more than one round depending on the quality of the report submitted by the consultant and the extent to which the comments and suggestions from the first round of review have been incorporated. The final evaluation report after incorporating the comments from SFCG. The report should be written strictly in English language and should be around pages (excluding annexes) in length and consists of: a. Cover Page. SFCG will provide sample cover sheet for reference. b. Table of contents, list of acronyms/abbreviations and list of tables and charts c. Executive summary of key findings and recommendations no more than 3 pages. d. Introduction: Context analysis, project description, evaluation methodology with clear explanation of sampling, survey methodology, FGDs/KIIs participant selection and data analysis approach. e. Evaluation findings, analysis, and conclusions with associated data presented per evaluation objective and per evaluation criteria, via a reasonable balance of narrative vs. graphs and charts (mandatory). f. Recommendations for future activities/intervention. The recommendations should be forward looking and should focus on program design, planning vs implementation, implementation methodology and approach, project monitoring and evaluation system, 8

9 among others. The recommendations should also be frame according to eh evaluation criteria. g. Appendices, which include collected data, detailed description of the methodology with research instruments, list of interviewees, bibliography, and evaluator(s) brief biography. It should be submitted electronically in a MS-Word document. The evaluator is responsible for English editing of the final report and should be well formatted. The report will be credited to the evaluator and potentially placed in the public domain at the decision of SFCG. A verbal presentation of the findings of the evaluation in a meeting organized by SFCG for its staff and its partners. The representative of the donor may be present in this meeting. All handwritten and electronic transcripts of interviews and FGDs, hard copies of the survey questionnaires, any logistics taken from SFCG for the evaluation purpose and photographs taken during the evaluation should be submitted to SFCG. Further to this, all information generated during the evaluation will be the sole property of SFCG and is subject to submission to SFCG along with the final report. Duration & Deadlines The duration of contract will be a total of one month spread over 4 weeks starting November 17, 2014 to December 15, Consultant s CV should be submitted to Pramita Handayani via phandayani@sfcg.org no later than November 10, Decision on the selected Evaluator will be made by November 15, The evaluation plan and inception report should be submitted by November 17, The comments on the inception report should be incorporated and finalised by November 19, The field evaluation should take place during November 21 to November 30, The first draft of the report should be submitted by December 6, The second draft of the report should be submitted by December 11, The final report should be submitted by December 15, 2014 Evaluation Team 9

10 The evaluation team will include the evaluator, SFCG s DM&E Coordinator, SFCG Asia DM&E Specialist. The evaluator will be under the direct supervision of the SFCG Country Director. SFCG s DM&E Coordinator will be responsible for supervising the team and facilitating the needs of the consultant for the purpose of the evaluation. Logistical Support SFCG will provide preparatory and logistical assistance to the evaluator, including: Background materials (project proposal, periodic reports, existing evaluations, etc.) Meetings, phone/ communication with program administrators Identify interviewees and provide contact information All logistical support for the field visit, including travel cost (local as well as air travel) Arrange meetings and appointments with stakeholders and beneficiaries in the field (if necessary). Evaluator's Role and Competencies Evaluator s Role The evaluation will be carried out by a single external evaluator, who will report to and work under the guidance of SFCG's DM&E Officer, who is also the evaluation manager for this project. The external evaluator will: Identify and define evaluation priority areas, methodology and indicators; Design and implement data collection; Analyse data and findings and prepare a report; Write and submit a final report; Make a brief presentation of findings and recommendations to SFCG Indonesia and partners. Evaluator competencies 1. Sound knowledge on gender issues including women in politics, particularly in the Indonesian context; 2. Sound understanding of Indonesian policy on women in politics; 3. Sound knowledge on program development; 4. Master s degree in social science or other related fields; Candidates with degree in women s studies or peacebuilding will be given priority. 5. Demonstrated technical skills in gender and peacebuilding project evaluations; 10

11 6. Proficiency in written English; 7. Prior experience in evaluating gender programs will be an added advantage. 8. Preferred Indonesian citizen. A complete proposals/application should be submitted by the deadline and should include: Proposal (maximum 6 pages, including the methods and methodology to be adopted) Budget estimates and price quote CV Cover letter Availability References Writing sample 11