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PROCESS EVALUATION-PLATFORM FOR POLITICAL DIALOGUE AND ACCOMMODATION

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CONFLICT DYNAMICS INTERNATIONAL

TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR PROCESS EVALUATION

PLATFORM FOR POLITICAL DIALOGUE AND ACCOMMODATION

Organizational Background

Conflict Dynamics International (Conflict Dynamics or CDI) is an independent, not for profit organization founded in 2004 to prevent and resolve violent conflict between and within states, and to alleviate human suffering resulting from conflicts and other crises. Conflict Dynamics’ Somali program supports dialogue among and between Somali leaders and communities to help reconcile different interests and build lasting peace. The Somali Program has been active since 2009 and works to build peace at both the local and national levels.

Conflict Dynamics facilitates dialogue and negotiation processes that help groups in conflict build consensus and accommodate each other’s interests. Our research and outreach provide inputs that help Somali leaders and people explore new ideas that can lead to a more stable future. The Somali Program’s work is based on strong contextual knowledge and is conducted in collaboration with a wide range of Somali groups and Individuals.

Project Background

The Platform for Political Dialogue and Accommodation (“Platform”) is a program of work implemented by a consortium of two partners, Conflict Dynamics and Rift Valley Institute (RVI), in collaboration with and with the support of the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Department for International Development (DFID), and was originally designed to cover a project period of almost four years, December 2018 through August 2022. The Platform originally had four consortium partners.

The Platform is one component of DFID’s Somalia Forward program. As such, the Platform’s logframe is related to the Somalia Forward theory of change and logframe. The intended impact of the DFID Somalia Forward program is a fairer and more stable political settlement for Somalia, based on a sufficiently broad political consensus on sharing power and resources, enshrined in a process of constitutional review, which in turn informs a more open electoral system. The Platform contributes towards the achievement of the impact and outcome of the Somalia Forward program as well as being a key program output.

The objective of the Platform as originally conceived in DFID Somalia’s Terms of Reference for the project is to provide support to key parts of government and other players central to the political settlement. The platform will work on a basis of trust and credibility and is expected to be responsive as well as proactive and strategic in its support.

The rationale for the project as outlined in the DFID TOR was: Settlement of central settlement questions (for instance, representation, resource and power sharing, control of security) will require a sufficiently broad elite agreement to be upheld over time. The platform will work directly to this issue.

During the proposal process, the Platform consortium developed the following intended impact statement for the project: Somalis more effectively accommodate their political interests through dialogue and thereby contribute to peace, political stability and progress toward building a well-functioning, inclusive and accountable state.

In order to achieve the above impact, the Platform works to provide a neutral space to support the Somali people and their representatives in reconciling different political interests and building consensus towards resolution of political settlement issues that remain outstanding. The Platform partners developed a project logframe with the following key elements:

Project Outcome: a broad range of political stakeholders and interest groups are utilizing an effective means to accommodate their political interests and reach political settlements.

Project Outputs:

1. A broad range of relevant negotiating actors engage in substantive dialogue and enhance their ability to resolve issues of importance through political accommodation.

2. Political dialogue is based on a realistic assessment of priorities and a sound understanding of context and applied best practice.

3. External actors are supported to coordinate and facilitate their efforts to support political dialogue and accommodation based on a comprehensive and detailed understanding of the current context.

Context

Beginning with the 2000 Arta conference, the international community has worked closely with Somali political leaders to broker agreements to rebuild a functioning state in Somalia. At the 2004 Mbagathi talks, the participants concluded that the new political order should be based on a federal system of governance, comprising a transitional federal government in Mogadishu and regional states with a high degree of self-determination. After a difficult eight-year transitional period, in 2012 Somalia ratified a new provisional federal constitution and selected its first non-transitional government since 1991, employing a ‘4.5’ quota system to allocate government positions between different clan groups.

The new federal government of Somalia (FGS) tasked itself with establishing federal member states (FMS), reviewing and ratifying a final constitution, and preparing for one-person-one-vote federal elections, all by 2016. The FGS made notable progress on the first task, and five FMS governments were established. However, the FGS fell far short of its goals with regard to constitutional review and elections. In 2016, Somalia’s national leadership forum (NLF), which comprised both FGS and FMS leaders, decided to constitute a new FGS administration through a clan-based selection process with expanded but still minimal electoral features, which was completed in February 2017. The mandate for producing a final constitution, definitively resolving power and resource sharing issues with the FMSs and organizing one-person-one-vote elections was thus passed to the new administration, whose term ends in early 2021.

Although the adoption of the federal system was meant to facilitate more representative governance, as well as stronger political accommodation among Somali regions and clans, in practice it has not happened. Furthermore, one-person-one-vote elections at any level still require significant advances and investments in security and electoral infrastructure, as well as political agreement on representation and participation modalities. Resource sharing has also become a source of contention among Somali political actors.

Despite its achievements under the FGS, Somalia remains a fragile, and fractious state, and the prospects of state failure and resumed conflict remain all too real in the absence of broad-based political accommodation. Though durable governance arrangements have begun to emerge, more needs to be done to ensure that these accommodate the interests of a wide range of constituencies and facilitate the provision of security and public services that satisfy the needs of Somali people.

Purpose

The purpose of this evaluation is to identify lessons to improve future programming. The evaluation is intended to answer the following evaluation questions or lines of inquiry:

Evaluation questions/lines of inquiry

  • Was the project set up to lay the foundation for success (includes the award process, design, theory of change, Consortium set up, inception phase)?
  • Were the program design and theory of change consistent with the needs of the target constituencies, the country context, and the ask from DFID as outlined in the Terms of Reference?
  • Was the program efficient in delivering activities and deliverables?

o Were the resources available (human resource capacity and number, finance) sufficient to implement the project?

  • Were the activities (bilateral outreach, workshops, and research) that were planned and used appropriate to achieving the expected outcomes and the objective of the project as envisioned by DFID? To what extent were these activities effective?

· To what extent were coordination and synergy of the program activities considered, both within the Consortium and with the broader community of assistance providers?

· How effective was coordination with the donor?

· What were the barriers and facilitators to implementation of program activities?

Key responsibilities

Scope of the evaluation

This is a process evaluation and will focus on drawing lessons learned from the design and initial stages of the project, including the extent to which the activities and process of implementation were geared towards the desired outputs and outcomes, and support of the objectives of the wider Somalia Forward program. The evaluation will be conducted in Kenya with some travel to Somalia.

Audience

The intended audience for this evaluation is CDI. Secondary audiences include Consortium partner RVI and DFID.

Methodology

This will be a process evaluation and is likely to use qualitative methods. The evaluator may also suggest quantitative methods where appropriate. Interested applicants are expected to propose an appropriate methodology they will employ in this evaluation. The methods must be able to strengthen the validity of the findings. The methodology the successful consultant proposes will be discussed and revised in line with the requirements of the project implementing partners and DFID’s best practices.

The successful consultant shall be equipped with all key project documents such as project proposal, progress reports, and other relevant documents. The consultant will be required to develop data collection tools including focus group discussions (FGD) guides, and key informant interview (KII) guides for use during data collection.

Key tasks

The consultant shall be expected to undertake the tasks listed below as part of this exercise:

  • Draft and submit inception report including evaluation matrix and workplan.
  • Review project documents, including DFID’s TOR, Somalia Forward logical framework, project logical framework, narrative proposal, budget, and progress (both narrative and financial) reports, among others;
  • Present an overall study design and timeline for data collection;
  • Recruit and train translators or enumerators as required;
  • Ensure that all data collection activities are gender sensitive, conflict sensitive, and in line with Do No Harm principles;
  • Liaise with the M&E and research team for any technical guidance required throughout the process;
  • Submit first draft report, seek input and consolidate the comments;
  • Produce and submit an electronic version of the final report;
  • Isolate and summarize the key lessons learnt from the project and present them as part of the evaluation report; and
  • Present and discuss the findings at a meeting with the implementing partners and DFID.

Expected profile of the consultancy

The successful lead consultant is expected to have the below profile:

  1. At least four years of conducting similar evaluations in the fields of peacebuilding, conflict mitigation, good governance, or similar areas;
  2. Knowledge of process evaluation best practices;
  3. Experience working on evaluations for DFID-funded projects;
  4. Understanding of conflict sensitivity, gender sensitivity and other cross cutting issues;
  5. Demonstrated experience in qualitative data collection and analysis;
  6. Excellent writing skills in English;
  7. Strong attention to detail; and
  8. Experience in Somalia or similar context is desirable.

Evaluation Timeline

The process evaluation will be conducted between March 13 and April 23, 2020.

How to apply

Application Process

Interested applicants who meet the required profile are invited to submit an expression of interest including:

i. A suitability statement with CV of participating consultant(s) and details of qualifications and experience;

ii. Technical proposal that summarizes understanding of the TOR, methodology and tools to be used and initial work plan with clear deadlines;

iii. Financial proposal with cost estimate breakdown; and

iv. At least two referee organisations who the consultant worked with on similar exercises.

Kindly send the expression of interest with the title “PROCESS EVALUATION: PLATFORM FOR POLITICAL DIALOGUE AND ACCOMODATION” by the due date of 1st March 2020 to the email addresses below:

  1. infosomali@cdint.org
  2. AHussein@cdint.org

For more details including key deliverable/outputs and timelines, Reporting Requirements and General Conditions Please go to the link below:

http://www.cdint.org/conflict-dynamics-international/work-with-us/

Somalia
This job has expired.