External Evaluator At Norwegian Mission Society

The Norwegian Mission Society (NMS) is currently seeking an external evaluator to conduct an assessment of two of our partners in Ethiopia, Ethiopian Evangelical Chuch Mekane Yesus (EECMY) and The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus Development Commision DASSC.

The Norwegian Mission Society (NMS) is a voluntary organization, rooted in the Church of Norway. NMS is one of the largest Christian organizations in Norway, with its head office in Stavanger. The organization largely consists of voluntary involvement from people and congregations who pray, give, and collect money for the work. Its history goes back to 1842 when it started the mission and diaconal work. NMS seeks, together with partner organizations, churches, and individuals throughout the world, to work actively to equip each other to share faith in Jesus, fight injustice, and eradicate poverty. NMS has a framework agreement with Digni which means that it is responsible to ensure the quality of the applications and reports which are receiving governmental funding.

As a part of Digni’s quality assurance, risk monitoring, and capacity development initiatives, Digni member organizations and their partner organizations receiving funds from Digni are committed to undergoing regular assessments. Digni carries out such an assessment of NMS once during an agreement period between Digni and Norad. As part of this process, NMS will now assess new and current partners.

Desired Skills and Qualifications:

• Excellent analytical skills
• Experience in project management
• Experience having conducted an organizational review in some capacity, preferably in an African context
• Experience working in Africa with development organizations or churches is an asset
• Being culturally sensitive
• Being familiar with quality benchmarks working with major donors is an asset, but not a requirement.
• Excellent written and oral English skills .
• Ability to work in a structured and independent way, yet to relate well with people in an interview setting

The time estimate is projected to be 10-15 days per partner over a couple of months. Initially, some preparation working together with the partners online, then a visit to Ethiopia before finalizing the assessment remotely.

Expected outputs:

• A complete agreed-upon partner risk assessment template, inclusive of self-assessment done by partner, scoring, and mitigation.
• An evaluation report with a capacity building plan

The deadline for completion of this process is 15 May 2022

The purpose of the assessment is:

• to assess the partner’s capacity and competence to manage and implement quality development work receiving funds from Norad through Digni.
• to identify areas that need to be strengthened.
• to identify risks that need mitigation measures
• to secure compliance among cooperating partners in the Digni chain, with reference to the Grant Agreement between Digni and Norad.

The follow-up plan emerging from the assessment will be a tool for monitoring capacity and risk, in addition to serving as a basis for possible capacity development activities.

The assessment in 2022 shall provide a baseline to be assessed again in due time for partner capacity development. It is the basis for prioritizing competence.

The assessment will cover (specified in the assessment tool):

• Governance (Identity, legitimacy, strategy, policies, and systems which in EECMY affect the strategy and implementation of development projects).
• Strategy and Programs (systems for project planning, budgeting, narrative and financial reporting in compliance with Digni’s criterion).
• HR assets and management (Election, capacity, professional competence, experience, code of ethics, policies, complaint systems).
• Relations networks (local, national, municipal, and international partnerships, networks, thematic cooperation).
• Sustainability (long term financial self-reliance)
• Anti-corruption (awareness, policy, handling of cases)
• Compliance ( to local laws, internal rules, donor requirements)
• Financial capacity
• Financial management
• Logistics & procurement

Information and training in Digni’s Partner Assessment Tool is available here. **

About the organizations:

NMS has about 40 missionaries currently and cooperates with churches in 16 countries on several continents. NMS has a holistic mission understanding and works in partnership with churches and parachurch organisations in Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle-East and Brazil. NMS

NMS has worked with Ethiopian Evangelical Chuch Mekane Yesus (EECMY) since the partnership agreement was signed in 1969. The basis for the partnership at that time was the church’s need for support of its work among the Gumuz people in the Blue Nile Valley and among minorities in the Begi Gidami area. Through the years, NMS has developed a close and trustworthy relationship to NMS, and a lot of experience in supporting projects through EECMY. The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus Development Commision, EECMY-DASSC, shows a high degree of professionalism, and is running a considerable development work supported by highly valued international organizations.

In a religious society like Ethiopia, a faith-based organization like EECMY has many advantages when it comes to development work. The church is a well-established institution that exists beyond its projects and ensures sustainability of the projects. The church and its members also represent a wide network of local knowledge and experience with potential for cooperation and synergy with other social work and initiatives.

EECMY-DASSC is a professional development organization with an annual budget of more than 21 Million USD and a staff of more than 1500 people. The staff at the BOs, ACOs and the headquarters in Addis Ababa is not employed or paid by the projects and will continue their work beyond the duration of the project. Thus, experience from the project periods can be utilized beyond the lifetime of the project.

Please contact Seth Ueland Chancy at src@nms.no or +47 40 40 60 07 for Terms of Reference, additional assessment resources for review or for other information or regarding any questions related to this posting.