TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR PROJECT EVALUATION USING OUTCOME HARVESTING METHODOLOGY PROJECT TITLE: EMPOWERING TEA COMMUNITIES PROJECT KENYA

1.0 About ActionAid

ActionAid International Kenya (AAIK) is a non-partisan, non-religious development organization 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 Women’s Rights and ensuring that Women Living in Poverty and Exclusion are at the center 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 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 ActionAid’s work.

2.0 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 project in Kenya in 3 tea growing counties namely: Murang’a, 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.

1. Fostering an enabling environment for empowering women and girls to realize their right to freedom from violence.
2. Improving access to gender-responsive public services for smallholder farmers (SHF) and informal workers in the tea sector.
3. Improving the financial livelihood of smallholder farmers and informal workers; and
4. Developing a sustainable model for scale-up for successful sustainability of established results.

3 .0 Brief overview of the assignment

The project started in 2022 and 2024 is the final year of implementation. The project intends to undertake an outcome harvesting process to document observable changes in behaviour, relationships, activities or actions of individuals, groups, organizations, or community, influenced by the activities of the project; clearly specifying what changed (what are they doing differently, or what change occurred to them)? who changed, when and where? The process is expected to clearly outline how the organisation, programme, project or action contributed to the observed change; why the outcome is important, and what was/is the problem in its absence; and provide documents, weblinks, pictures, articles etc. to validate that the change actually happened, and also show evidence of contribution.

A baseline survey was conducted at the inception of the project which informed the design of interventions to address the problems identified in the 3-target tea growing counties. A midterm evaluation was further undertaken to assess progress and recommend improvements. All these documents are available for reference.

4.0 The specific objectives of the outcome harvesting process

The objectives of the evaluation include:

1. To document observable changes in behaviour, relationships, activities or actions of individuals, groups, organizations, or community, influenced by the activities of the project from a section of the project participants and community members.
2. To clearly specify what changed (what did they do differently, or what change occurred to them)? Who changed, when and where?
3. To establish the contribution of the project to the identified outcomes by clearly outlining how the organisation, programme, project or action contributed to the observed change.
4. To acknowledge the contribution of other actors to the observed changes.
5. To evidence why the outcome is important, and what was/is the problem in its absence and provide documents, weblinks, pictures, articles etc. to validate that the change actually happened.

5.0 Some related questions

The Outcome Harvesting questions should focus on if and how the change described fits within AA’s Theory of Change. This is to help analyse outcomes in terms of POWER along the above 5 project intervention objectives:

Empowerment: ActionAid aims to strengthen the leadership and voices of people living in poverty and exclusion, particularly women so that they are able to set the agenda and lead change. Changes in women’s power from within; their power with (their collective power and strength); their power to (their ability to act).

Shifts in visible power. Changes in formal institutions and how they make decisions, as well as tangible changes of policies, laws, and how they are made, in wider society and the state.

Decreased invisible power. Changes in values and norms that devalue and discriminate against the most marginalised population such as women, Dalits, people with disabilities, LGBTIQ, migrants and refugees.

Decreased hidden power. Changes in unwritten rules, practices and institutions that systematically exclude certain groups from society and politics. Decreased power of corporates, elites, and the privileged-on policy making and government policies. Reduced intimidation, misinformation and co-optation of the most marginalised populations and their leaders.

Some guiding questions are:

• What are the changes that indicate that women have power within themselves, women can join power with others (their collective power and strength) and have power to take action (their ability to act)?
• What are the actions that show changes in formal institutions and how they make decisions, such as tangible changes of policies, laws, and how they are made, in wider society and the state?
• What are the changes in values and norms that devalue and discriminate against the most marginalised population such as women, Dalits, people with disabilities, LGBTIQ, migrants and refugees in the project areas?
• What are that changes in unwritten rules, practices and institutions that systematically exclude certain groups from society and politics e.g. decreased power of corporates, elites, and the privileged on policy making and government policies; reduced intimidation, misinformation and co-optation of the most marginalised populations and their leaders?

6.0 Principles and Approaches

1. Promote participation and agency of community women and men at all stages of the evaluation (planning, data collection and analysis, and communications)
2. Generate useful learning through the process and outputs of evaluation
3. Promote women’s rights, ensuring full participation of women, engaging women’s rights expertise and ensuring gender and age disaggregated data
4. Recognize and analyse power relationships at all stages of the evaluation, including compliance with Child Protection and other ethical standards related to protection, including the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
5. Promote accountability, primarily to people living in poverty and exclusion and also to supporters and donors
6. Be transparent, by presenting clear reports and uploading evaluations to ActionAid external websites
7. Reflect evidence and rigor through credible research methodology
8. Link to monitoring and learning, building on existing information and actively promoting evaluation findings
9. Build Partnerships through communication and collaboration
10. Draw the link between community-level results and the broader context to identify factors related to structural change (social movements, policy change, cultural shifts)
11. Promote credible and sustainable alternatives.

7.0 Process methodology and expected outputs

This evaluation uses Outcome Harvesting methodology, which collects (“harvests”) evidence of what has changed (“outcomes”) and, then, working backwards, determines whether and how an intervention has contributed to these changes. The outcome(s) can be positive or negative, intended or unintended, direct or indirect, but the connection between the intervention and the outcomes should be plausible, supported by evidence such written commitments from duty bearers, photographs of constructed physical structures, testimonies from participants (e.g. stories of change. “An outcome is an observable and significant change (big or small) in a social actor’s behaviour, relationships, activities, actions, policies or practice that has been achieved and that has been influenced by the change agent (project).” The social actor is the entity (individual/community/organisation that the project intervention sought to influence.

The Outcome harvesting is ideally a multi-stakeholder workshop-based exercise (2-3 days) with representatives from the project community, in this case project participants (farmers and workers groups, women networks, survivors of GBV, county government actors, local administration, members of Tea Buying Centre Committees, KTDA and national government actors. As the different groups will be interviewed separately using KIIS & FGDs, each sub-group should agree on 3-4 outcomes that seem the most significant since the project started. They will then write these outcomes in “statement format” = 2 to 5 sentences, giving a brief description of the change by whom, when, where and under what conditions, how ETC funding contributed to the change, and include what the qualitative or quantitative evidence of change is. An initial plenary meeting will be held with representatives from these groups or just the project partners to agree and make a combined list of the most significant outcomes from the sub-groups, combining them that are the same and documenting them.

For each outcome selected, the plenary group discussions should answer the following questions and record:

(a) What was the project’s contribution to this outcome?

(b) Who or what else contributed to these changes happening?

Be specific in naming different stakeholders and factors (contextual, cultural, economic, social, political factors, etc.) and how they influenced the outcome? What would have happened without project funding?

(c) What data supports this outcome? What proof do you have that this change has taken place?

(d) Can you categorise the outcome under one of the domains of power? Can you add more detail to the power analysis?

(e) What factors blocked progress towards the outcome? What other challenges were there?

(f) Were there any unexpected outcomes (+ or -) ? Please describe.

Once the outcomes have been described, then the plenary group should reflect on conclusions on the following:

• Were there any results that surprised you to hear (either negative or positive)?
• What do you think are the most important factors that influence changes related to reducing violence against women and girls in public spaces?
• What do you think are the most effective strategies to reduce violence against women and girls in public spaces?
• What do you think are the most effective strategies to defend the rights of women and girls’ access to essential resources and services?
• Is there anything you would do differently in the project’s design and implementation? What and why?

In terms of reporting, there should be a separate page for each significant outcome harvested. Then a conclusion page. The expected outputs are:

• Final methodology/work plan produced and shared after the briefing meeting with AAIK
• Draft outcome harvesting evaluation report produced for AAIK and project partners’ review. The consultant shall allow for 4 rounds of review to be conducted over a period of 1 month.
• Final outcome harvesting evaluation report, incorporating AAIK and project partners’ feedback. The report should not exceed 30 pages, excluding any annexes (e.g., list of people interviewed).
• Conduct FGDs and KIIs- The selection of participants to be determined by AAIK project team
• At least five stories of change (maximum one page for each) included in the annexes.
• Allow for three (3) rounds of reviews of the outcome harvesting evaluation report by project partners

8.0 Timelines

The assignment is expected to be carried out within a period of 8 weeks starting from 28th February 2025. The timelines will be as follows but timeframes can be slightly adjusted where need be.

Deliverable & Timelines

1.Inception report

To be submitted by 3rd March 2025

2. Data collection in the 3 project areas

To be undertaken between 5th and 11th Mar 2025

3.Draft outcome harvesting evaluation report

To be completed by 19th March 2025

4.Reviews by partners – 3 rounds of reviews to be undertaken

To be completed by 31st March 2025

5Final report

To be submitted by 4th April 2025

9.0 Consultant qualifications

AAIK is looking for a consultant with the following key knowledge, skills and expertise:

• A master’s degree or work experience in monitoring and evaluation, project management, or social sciences.
• At least 5 years of experience in developing and carrying out monitoring and evaluation (MEL) systems, baselines and evaluation design from a feminist lens with diverse knowledge in mixed methods approach
• Proven experience in applying participatory approaches to designing and delivering baseline and evaluation reports.
• Experience in undertaking Outcome Harvesting exercise
• Demonstrable expertise and experience in women’s and girl’s rights, GBV and gender equality, Human Rights Based Approaches (HRBA) and a good understanding of the tea sector.
• Experience and willingness to work in the Geographical areas of Ngere, Kionyo and Olenguruone Tea Factory.
• Proven cross-regional experience would be preferable
• Excellent facilitation skills with proficiency in English and Swahili
• Experience in qualitative and quantitative methodology, methods, tools and analysis, and visualization.
• Experience in participatory and community-led approaches
• Demonstrable knowledge and skills in the development and use of digital data collection methods and tools for data collection and analysis.
• Evidence of strong downward accountability mechanisms used with project stakeholders/research participants to actively share results and learning.
• Evidence of use of ethical considerations and methodological measures that respect the rights of all stakeholders
• Evidence of successfully designing and managing large-scale, rigorous and robust research processes and evaluations.
• Evidence of producing clear, concise and high-quality reports in English

10.0 Application process and timeframe

All bids submitted shall be assumed valid for 90 days. However, the delivery period for this consultancy shall be 42 days. The consultant shall submit an expression of interest capturing the following details:

• Curriculum Vitae and a letter of interest briefly describing his/her understanding of the task, experience, and qualifications to work and deliver on the assignment.
• Technical proposal (not exceeding 5 pages): The technical proposal should reflect the consultant’s understanding of the task and how he/she intends to satisfactorily deliver on the task/ methodology. The applicant will provide a detailed work plan of specific activities and a timetable for carrying out the assignment.
• A separate financial proposal highlighting technical fees including withholding tax, mode of payment and any other relevant details.
• Copies of two previous works – RELATED to this task.
• Two referees who can certify that the consultant has successfully undertaken and delivered a similar assignment in the past.

How to apply

Interested candidates are encouraged to apply to procurement.kenya@actionaid.org on or before 14th February 2025.