End of Project Evaluation-ZWE 1184-2380-23

The project entitled “Zimbabwe Agricultural Knowledge & Innovation Services (herein, ZAKIS) is a national project funded by the European Union (EU) under the auspices of the Zimbabwe Agricultural Growth Programme (ZAGP) and implemented in Zimbabwe through the Ministry of Agriculture. The ZAGP has as its overarching objective to contribute to the development of a diversified and efficient agriculture sector that promotes inclusive green economic growth. The ZAKIS project which has a national outlook is implemented in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland West (Chegutu & Mhondoro Ngezi districts) and Matabeleland South (Insiza & Matobo districts) provinces by Welthungerhilfe (WHH) in partnership with ICRISAT and two local Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs): Sustainable Agriculture Technology (SAT), and Community Technology Development Organization (CTDO). The project directly benefits the three departments of the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, namely Research, Education & Extension, through the establishment of 2 Agricultural Centres of Excellence (ACEs) and 4 District Agricultural Centres of Excellence (DACEs) as focal points for integrated knowledge and innovation services, bringing together agricultural research, education, and extension. The project further works with private sector value chain actors, and research institutions to strengthen the overall integration among research, education, and extension.

Welthungerhilfe is in the market today looking for an evaluation services provider to carry out the end-line data collection and evaluate the overall results and achievements at the end of the implementation period. All tender documents are found on our e-tender portal.

The evaluation will focus on the collection and analysis of end-line data for a set of indicators outlined in the log-frame, assessing the status of progress and achievement against baseline values of project indicators and targets. In addition, the study will:
• Assess the outcomes and impact of the intervention in enhancing integration among research, education and extension.
• Assess the achievement and impact of the interventions in fostering and sustaining improvements in farmers’ and value chain actors’ lives and their contributions to agricultural growth and rural green-economic development.
• Assess the project’s overall efficiency, and effectiveness, including its implementation strategy, institutional arrangements as well as its management and operational systems.
• Identify lessons learned, good practices and success stories that can be scaled up or fed into the broader policy-making efforts.
• Provide actionable recommendations for future programming.

SCOPE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The scope of the assignment is to carry out the end-line data collection and evaluate the overall results and achievements at the end of the implementation period. The benchmark of comparison will be the baseline of the project carried out in 2019. The comparison should be done against each indicator of the baseline findings and the log-frame. The endline evaluation will cover four districts in two provinces as stated above and the national level for identified indicators. The project sought to reach 20,213 farmers through different interventions, among them, the 8-productivity enhancing agricultural technologies, pluralistic extension services; and 194 ChACE students. Based on this, the consultant/ consulting firm should apply sample size calculation considering 95% confidence level and 5% margin of error as per Welthungerhilfe’s sampling framework considering the Baseline sample size of 400 farmers.

Additionally, the evaluation will generate lessons learnt and good practices, and recommendations to inform future program design. The evaluation is expected to utilize the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) framework, to assess the extent to which the project achieved its design purpose, progress and challenges across the seven OECD/DAC evaluation criteria. The evaluation will also assess the appropriateness of the design of the project’s theory of change.

Evaluation process and deliverables

• Inception meeting: The evaluation team will attend an inception meeting where the team will be briefed on project objectives and key processes involved, reporting standards and provided with the key project documents for review.
• Inception Report: Submission of an inception report detailing the methodology, sampling, evaluation questions, identified stakeholders for interviews and discussions and timeframe for approval by ZAKIS team. Survey tools, KII guides, and Evaluation Matrix should be submitted as annexes to the Inception report.
• Data collection and analysis: Primary data collection plan to be developed by Evaluation team.
• Preliminary findings: The evaluator will prepare a PowerPoint presentation of preliminary findings, lessons learned and recommendations that will be presented to the ZAKIS Project team.
• Draft report: The evaluation team will submit a draft report for ZAKIS team review.
• Final report: Upon addressing the issues raised during review of the draft report the evaluator will submit the final evaluation report to the ZAKIS team, including survey tools and data syntax.

ENDLINE DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

The evaluation team will design the evaluation methodology, including sampling for geographic sites, sampling for respondents and sample sizes. The sampling for respondents and FGDs and KII will be guided by the project participants and actors as defined in the project documents. The sampling will be done in consultation with the ZAKIS team.

Data collection

The evaluation team has the responsibility to design data collection methods and tools in consultation with the ZAKIS team. It is expected that the data collection methods should include the collection of relevant quantitative data for the log-frame indicators, and this should lead into the development of an indicator matrix. Data will be collected from relevant different primary data sources including farmers, government stakeholders, ZAKIS team and secondary sources. ZAKIS team will provide the relevant documents such as project documents, baseline reports, projects reports, and ROM reports.

Data analysis

The end-line evaluation team will develop the data analysis plan and define data analysis tools.

The end-line team will be led by a senior professional with specific expertise and more than seven-years working experience in research, preferably in livelihoods, resilience, agriculture, and value chains. The study team should include members with expertise in socio-economic survey, data analytics and other social research, with relevant previous experience in Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) and end-line surveys
• The team leader should have at least Master’s degree in one of the following fields; Agriculture, Development studies or any other equivalent degree.
• The team leader must have knowledge of end-line evaluation methods and techniques, including a thorough understanding of data collection, methodologies and design, and strong qualitative and quantitative research skills, with +7 years of working experience in development project monitoring, baseline/endline study, evaluations.
• The team leader must have prior work experience with or working for international development organizations and familiarity with development and humanitarian programmes/issues.
• The team should include experts with knowledge and experience in agriculture, sustainable food security, value chains and data analytics.
• The composition of the team of experts should be balanced to enable complete coverage of the different aspects of consultancy as set out in these terms of reference.
• The consultant(s)/consulting firm must have good command in both writing and speaking in English, Shona, and Ndebele languages.
• Experience in evaluation of EU funded projects will be an added advantage.