ITT – FY22-0155 Evaluation Consultants At Plan International

Summary: Plan International’s Global Hub (GH) are looking to hire consultant evaluator(s) or teams of evaluators to our newly developed Evaluation List, on a long term contract, in order to enhance Plan International’s evaluations and drive further uptake of results in order to contribute to greater impact of our work.

Background/Context

Research and Evaluations at Plan International’s Global Hub sit within the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) Department. One of the core roles of the MERL Department is to strengthen standards for good monitoring, evaluation research and learning at Plan International.

Over the last 3 years Plan has implemented an M&E Strengthening Project across the organisation. These efforts are focused on three key pillars:

1. Frameworks: Defining what success looks like and establishing the frameworks for tracking progress on our Areas of Global Distinctiveness (Plan’s 6 priority thematic areas of work) at different levels of the organisation.
2. Systems: Establishing a global M&E IT System to support high quality data collection, storage, analysis and reporting on our programme work across the organisation.
3. Approach Improving the supporting environment for M&E and articulating clearly “how” we do M&E in terms of standards, processes and capacity.

So, we are well placed at Plan International to build on all the work we have done to really utilise evidence much more strategically in all parts of our work. We have an opportunity to consolidate our work and move forward, evolving to become an even more evidence-based organization

One of the elements of the M&E strengthening work is to improve the quality of evaluations at Plan International. This involves various components including good evaluation design and, importantly, the appointment of high quality evaluators. Many of our country offices struggle to access high quality evaluators in a timely and cost effective fashion. Therefore, we are piloting a new approach to the contracting and appointment of evaluators which offers Country Offices the opportunity to use a central process and a bespoke pairing process between evaluators and relevant country based project teams.

Objectives

As an organization we want our offices to be generating, learning from and using evidence of impact to underpin, improve and scale effective, quality programmes and influencing.

Therefore, we need to improve how we demonstrate the impact (positive and negative) of our work at different levels. Our ability to do this depends particularly on the quality of our programme design, a clear focus on results and, a systematic use of quality evaluations.

Plan recognises that evaluations require a substantial amount of time from local people and field staff, along with funds and input from other staff across the organization. We see it as an obligation to make the best possible use of these resources.

Plan’s evaluations should employ appropriate, rigorous and high quality methods, consistent with the level of resources available, in order to (a) generate credible and substantiated findings, and (b) contribute to local processes of reflection and dialogue. The evaluators who carry out evaluations should have the skills and experience needed to design and implement these methods.

To help to improve the quality of evaluations we wish to contract high quality, independent consultant evaluator(s) or teams of evaluators to our newly developed Evaluation List. Candidates selected to the list of evaluators will be properly procured and vetted for their skills, knowledge and value, and they will be inducted on Plan International’s work and approach to evaluations. We aim to develop a list of evaluators over time that can serve all regions. Those selected will be contracted on a Long term Agreement basis according to Plan International’s standard terms and conditions to ensure consistency and certainty for all parties.

If contracted to the list of evaluators, evaluators can be selected for specific project and programme evaluations in Plan International (predominately by Plan’s Country Offices) based on required experience, relevant knowledge on the thematic area(s) being evaluated; technical evaluation skills, the ability to facilitate a dialogue with and between different stakeholders (including children) and cost. There is no guarantee that if an evaluator or team of evaluators form part of the central pool that they will be selected for any given evaluation.

We require a consultant evaluator(s) or teams of evaluators responding to this call to demonstrate the following:

· Postgraduate degree in a relevant discipline to international development and humanitarian work

· Proven experience in carrying out evaluations, including a summary of specific specialities (e.g. evaluation types, methodologies, skills).

· Proficiency in qualitative methods of data collection

· Proficiency in quantitative methods of data collection

· Proven experience with data analysis

· Proficiency in statistics

· Thematic expertise in one or more of Plan International’s Areas of Global Distinctiveness

· Experiences on Plan’s cross-cutting issues such as gender, inclusion as well as awareness on child protection and child rights issues.

· Fluency in English, additional fluency in French/Spanish highly desirable

· Experience with working with local communities

· Ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team

· Strong project management competencies

· Experience with applying evaluation findings into practical and operational recommendations that are communicable in an accessible manner

Excellent communication, editing, proofreading and report writing skills