Tenders are invited for Project End Term Evaluation Closing Date: 18 Apr 2025 Type: Consultancy Themes: Agriculture/Protection and Human Rights PROJECT TITLE: EMPOWERING TEA COMMUNITIES IN KENYA PROJECT 1.0 About ActionAid ActionAid International Kenya (AAIK) is a non-partisan, non-religious development organization that has been working in Kenya since 1972 to end poverty and injustices. ActionAid International Kenya is among the leading anti-poverty agencies in Kenya having a presence in 22 counties working directly with over one million people living in poverty and exclusion. AAIK is unapologetic in Advancing Womens Rights and ensuring that Women Living in Poverty and Exclusion are at the centre of its work. AAIK commits to work with Women, Children, and young people living in poverty and exclusion to claim and realize their constitutional rights through working within four main pillars of the Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA); empowerment, solidarity, campaigning, and alternatives. AAIK is committed to undertaking all its work in a manner that does not put children or vulnerable adults at risk. All contractors and consultants are informed of their contractual and moral responsibilities to safeguard children, young people, and vulnerable adults in all areas of ActionAids work. 2.0 Summary This Terms of Reference outlines the agreement between the consultant and ActionAid International Kenya to successfully undertake the end evaluation of the Empowering Tea Communities in Kenya Project (ETC). The assignment will be undertaken within a period of 5 weeks from the inception date. The ETC project started in April 2022 is scheduled to come to an end in June 2025. ETC is a multistakeholder partnership project involving ActionAid Kenya, Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), Taylors of Harrogate and Lavazza Pro, and working closely with the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), tea companies, development organisations and County Governments to implement the project in Kenya in 3 tea growing counties namely: Muranga, Nakuru and Meru counties. The project targets smallholder tea farmers and informal workers with a goal of promoting their rights to decent work, freedom from violence, access to basic essential services and improved financial livelihood options for the tea communities. A baseline evaluation was undertaken at the start of the project to inform indicator targets. A mid-term evaluation was undertaken in year two to assess progress and generate learnings for adjustment in year three. The aim of the end evaluation is to assess project relevance, effectiveness, impact, efficiency and sustainability in accordance with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) evaluation criteria, making comparison with the baseline evaluation findings. An Outcome Harvesting Exercise is underway, the results of which will feed into the impact section of the end evaluation by detailing the changes achieved by the project. The evaluation will further generate lessons on best practices and recommendations for design of similar interventions in the future.The consultant is expected to use a rigorous mixed method approach that is consistent with that applied for the base line evaluation to allow for comparison of findings across the key outcome indicators. 3.0 Context and Background ActionAid in partnership with Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), Taylors of Harrogate and Lavazza Pro is working with Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), tea companies, development organizations and County Governments to implement the Empowering Tea Communities (ETC) project in Kenya in 3 tea growing counties namely: Muranga, Nakuru and Meru counties. The project targets smallholder tea farmers and informal workers with a goal of promoting their rights to decent work, freedom from violence, access to basic essential services and improved financial livelihood options for the tea communities. The project targets to deliver on five main outcomes related to: Promoting respect and protection of human rights. Fostering an enabling environment for empowering women and girls to realize their right to freedom from violence. Improving access to gender-responsive public services for smallholder farmers (SHF) and informal workers in the tea sector. Improving the financial livelihood of smallholder farmers and informal workers; and Developing a sustainable model for scale-up for successful sustainability of established results. The ETC project is in its final year of implementation and an end term evaluation is scheduled to assess project impact, relevance, effectiveness, performance, and sustainability towards achieving the projects overall goal. The project will further generate lessons and recommendations to act as evidence for decision-makers to understand progress to date against various key result areas. The evaluation will document milestones achieved and demonstrate how this can be attributed to the interventions of the ETC Project. The exercise will further assess to what extent the project responded to the needs of the target rights holders and priorities for accountability purposes and to inform future programming. 4.0 Objectives and purpose of the End Evaluation The review will include the following objectives: 4.1 The overarching objective: The key objective of the end evaluation is to determine the extent to which the project achieved its objective plans. It will comprehensively assess the projects performance in terms of relevance, effectiveness, impact, efficiency and sustainability according to the OECD evaluation criteria. It will examine project achievements, challenges, and lessons learned and attribute these to the projects interventions, ultimately providing insights and recommendations to inform future interventions based on the projects results and experiences. The evaluation will also assess the projects theory of change by evaluating the change approaches/pathways adopted by the project, the results observed and if the project assumptions were correct? 4.2 Specific Objectives: Specifically, the review will be guided by the following objectives: To assess the projects effectiveness, impact, efficiency, sustainability, and relevance of the project To examine the projects achievements, challenges, and lessons learned and attribute these to the projects interventions To assess the projects theory of change by evaluating the approaches/pathways to change adopted by the project the results observed and if project assumptions were correct To ultimately document best practices and draw recommendations to inform future interventions based on the projects results and experiences. To measure change by assessing the progress towards results, based on a comparison of indicators identified during the baseline To document achievements realized under each outcome and to identify any innovative approaches applied by the project team in the implementation of the project Assess to what extent the project has integrated gender mainstreaming and suggest measures to strengthen gender approach in the future. To document any notable developments by focusing on the perception of change among key stakeholders involved in the project and the replicability of the project. 4.3 Expected use of the evaluation The evaluation findings will provide accountability to stakeholders as well as providing evidence-based information on what works best for achieving specific outcome changes in the project. This is important for future project designs both internally within ActionAid and externally and to further inform engagements with policy decision makers. The findings will therefore be shared with stakeholders and the wider development community to create a better understanding of what has worked, and what needs to change for future funding cycles, planning processes and lessons sharing from the pilot phase**.** 5.0 Scope of the Study The assignment will be undertaken within a period of 5 weeks from the inception date. It will be conducted in the 3 target counties namely, Nakuru, Meru and Muranga and strictly guided by the outlined objectives in section 4.2 above. 5.1 Methodology The evaluation will be participatory, involving all project partners and stakeholders. The consultant will be required to produce a comprehensive mixed-method methodology (explaining how each OECD criteria will be assessed, the data sources, and how the methodologies will complement each other). It should also indicate how the findings of the Outcome Harvesting assessment being undertaken separately will feed into the impact section of the evaluation. The methodology will ensure that the outcome and output findings of the end evaluation are compared with the baseline and the methodology is consistent. The consultant should use the Results framework in the attached spreadsheet to capture data including all updated (in red) indicators. It willalso give a detailed work plan for delivering the assignment which includes defining clear evaluation questions, selecting appropriate data collection methods like document review, surveys, interviews, and focus groups, analysing data against project objectives, comparing baseline and final results, identifying key lessons learned, and providing actionable recommendations for future projects, all while considering stakeholder perspectives and the overall project context. In summary, the evaluation should meet ActionAids quality standard requirements which can be shared on request but in practical terms, the standards require the evaluation and evaluator to consider the points highlighted below: Community voice and representation: The evaluation must reflect the voices of the communities, including men and women in the project. The rights holders should be consulted as part of the evaluation and their voices included in the evaluation report as direct qu Tender Link : https://reliefweb.int/job/4145766/terms-reference-project-end-term-evaluation
