Call for Expression of Interest: Impact Assessment Expert at MS TCDC
Background
With financial support from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Danida Fellowship Centre (DFC) and MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation (MS TCDC) have entered a strategic partnership entitled “Together for Impact - Refresh and Expand.”
Together, through this partnership, the two institutions will jointly develop and host innovative and effective methodologies for transformative learning and to develop and implement a selected number of learning program interventions aimed at securing the strongest possible impact. The collaboration initially consists of three main pillars: 1) Learning for Change, 2) Youth Leadership for Change, and 3) Enablers for Change.
DFC offers a youth leadership training course that focuses on youth involvement in economic political life. MS TCDC, through its Youth Leadership Program (YouLead), strongly focuses on youth leadership capacity development for increased participation of African youth in both the economic and democratic processes.
Since 2017, Africa’s flagship Youth Leadership Program working to unlock youth leadership potential for a prosperous continent by identifying, recognizing, connecting and fostering cooperation among Africa’s vibrant and influential young leaders and their initiatives. YouLead is a joint initiative of MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation (MSTCDC) and the East African Community (EAC) in Arusha, Tanzania. More on www.youlead.africa
Against this background, DFC and MS TCDC have to jointly take this work forward under the current partnership and the pillar - youth leadership for impact and change. In 2022, in addition to a pilot Youth Leadership for Change Learning activity - Youth inclusion in Social-Economic Development and Policy Formulation in Africa: A Continental Bootcamp for Youth Leaders and Policy Makers, a targeted Outcome Harvesting exercise is to be conducted with the aim of documenting the impact of YouLead over the past 5 years – since the first convening of YouLead Summit in 2017 until 2021.
Against this background, TCDC is seeking the services of an Outcome Harvesting consultant to lead this exercise.
What We Want To Achieve
The cardinal aim of the Outcome Harvesting exercise is to learn what impact YouLead has contributed to, on young leaders, the change these young leaders are contributing in organisations, community and society where they live and work, and based on this, learn how to best improve our current work, and guide us on where to best target our future youth leadership interventions under the DFC-TCDC partnership in 2023 and beyond.
The Outcome Harvesting exercise will therefore collect evidence of what has changed on those who have interacted with YouLead’s interventions in the past 5 years (2017-2021), document examples of what has changed on young leaders, their institutions behaviors, actions, relationships, policies, practices, learn and determine whether, how and to what extent our interventions have contributed to these changes. It will also provide lessons learned in terms of what has worked, how, what has not worked, why, and how to improve our work with youth leaders going forward. The documentation will be both in narrative and visual/video. The outputs of the outcome harvesting exercise will guide our crafting of interventions on youth leadership in 2023 and beyond.
Where Outcome Harvesting Will Be Conducted?
The exercise will be conducted in the 6 EAC Partner States of Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda where YouLead has been active for the past 5 years.
Who Will Be Involved In The Outcome Harvesting Exercise?
The exercise shall be led by a consultant, working with YouLead’s regional coordination team and a videographer.
Participants will be YouLead Consortium Heads of Entities, focal points in consortium member entities who coordinate/support YouLead activities in each country, YouLead alumni, policy makers, EAC Youth Ambassadors in each EAC Partner States and any other persons such as experts, leaders, and media personalities familiar with or have been involved in YouLead’s work.
How Is Outcome Harvesting To Be Done (Overview Of Methodology – 6 Steps)?
The methodology and process shall involve: Design the Outcome Harvesting journey/plan, review documentation and draft outcome descriptions, engage with informants in formulating outcome descriptions, substantiate, analyse and interpret, Support use of findings.
Task at Hand and Deliverables
DFC-MSTCDC are seeking support from an impact assessment practitioner with a specialisation on youth leadership and engagement work to closely with the YouLead team to conduct the outcome harvesting exercise.
Responsibilities Of The Consultant
- Mapping and selecting of the respondents.
- Virtual and on-site orientation and preparation of respondents.
- Traveling and interviewing the respondents in the 6 EAC Partner States.
- Guiding the photographer/videographer on linkages between the narrative and video outputs of the outcome harvesting exercise.
- Drafting the narrative report and finalising it following comments from stakeholders.
- Working with the YouLead digital engagement team to develop a video script, supervising the videographer and ensuring a high-quality video version of the outcome harvesting report in form of a narrated documentary – summary per country and combined video of all countries.
Scope Of The Work And Deliverable
The support to outcome harvesting exercise will involve offering guidance and working with YouLead program staff in designing of data collection tools, collection and analysis of data, with the aim to document the impact YouLead partners and the target beneficiaries have had in the past 5 years. The assignment will also include compiling lessons learned, challenges experienced during the past 5 years and provide recommendations to be considered for improvement in the next phase of the program. The consultant’s main activities will include:
- Organise and host an inception meeting (virtual/Skype/zoom) to contextualise task.
- Conduct literature review of all technical documentation, reports and projects related to the projects (Project Document, Agreement with Contracting Authority, Partner Agreements, Progress Reports, Work plans, technical outputs and feedback from implementing partners and beneficiaries), as well as other relevant literature and financial documentation as required.
- Development of data collection tools (FGD & KII tools) among others; Solicit inputs into draft tools and approaches from country program teams.
- Practical support to program teams in carrying out qualitative and quantitative data collection using the suggested methodologies of Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs,) from staff, alumni and policy makers. .
- Practical support to program teams to identify and package three overall impact stories pear each county identified during the exercise.
- Collaborate with Country staff to identify and document a video clip of summarising each of the selected best practice – one video summarising all per country, and an abridged (combined) version video of all BPs for all three countries.
- Prepare a report (15pg) on lessons learnt, challenges, and recommendations on how TCDC/DFC teams can improve their work and practices in future.
Key Deliverables for the Assignment
- An inception meeting held over a virtual platform such as Skype/Zoom
- Literature review report of all technical and program documentation
- Development of data collection tools (FGD & KII tools) among others
- Onsite meetings with the program staff and management teams for final preparations
- Side by side in country presence, working with program teams in carrying out qualitative and quantitative data collection
- A narrative report of documented impact and success stories – including summary of lessons learned, challenges, and recommendations on how TCDC/DFC teams can improve future work
- Short Video clips (1 per country and 1 combined) as a digital version of documented impact stories or best practices.
Call for Expression of Interest: Impact Assessment Expert at MS TCDC
Level of Effort and Payment
The videographers will be paid for a total of 15 working active days to accomplish the proposed assignment within the six target countries.
Fees Payable and other Expenses
The consultant will be paid a daily rate of $250/day covering professional fees and equipment hire, including local taxes in Tanzania. Travel and accommodation-related costs will be paid separately by the project team.
Applications Should Include
A dully filled application form with:
- A capability statement (maximum 200 words)
- A brief description of the methodology
- A curriculum vitae (2 pages max) demonstrating competencies in the areas required for this assignment
- Evidence of Outcome harvesting work done before.
Timing
1st of November to 15th December 2022: Fieldwork and editing work period.
An online orientation meeting will be planned prior to start of fieldwork.
Deadline
The deadline for submitting the proposals:15th November 2022 at 23:59 EAT.
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Context
Africa has the youngest population in the world with 454.5 million (65%) between 15 and 34 years (ILO,2020). Young people aged 15 to 24 years comprise 34.2% of Africa’s working age population. While this is an unparalleled opportunity for growth and innovation, it may fuel instability and violence. In the context of new types of conflicts with root causes related to bad governance, young people in Africa need more capacity to use their potential as drivers of sustainable development.
The important role of youth for the continent’s development is recognized. Aspirations 1 and 6 of Agenda 2063 of the African Union (AU) seek to achieve “a prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development whose development is people-driven, relying on the potential of Africa’s people especially women and youth”. African Youth Charter is founded on the conviction that Africa’s greatest resource is its youthful population, and that Africa can surmount the difficulties that lie ahead through their active and full participation.
At a more practical level, in the move from policies to practices, the African Union African Governance Architecture Youth Engagement Strategy - AGA-YES envisages meaningful youth engagement in democratic governance processes at three inter-related levels:
- Youth as today and tomorrow’s leaders with the ability to create and lead innovative actions, programmes and initiatives on the continent;
- Youth as partners playing specific roles in defining and implementing democratic governance initiatives;
- Youth as beneficiaries of AU Organs and RECs actions, programmes and initiatives.
At the East African Community (EAC) level, the Treaty establishing the Community recognises that the greatest asset is its human resources. In this context, the youth, who constitute the largest segment of the population in the EAC, should be accorded proportionate recognition and participation in all national and regional development activities. It is therefore necessary to ensure the active and effective representation of the Youth in the society as well as in the national and regional integration processes, in order to express their views and interests.
MS TCDC’s current strategy primarily focuses on working with young leaders. With it’s current strategic focus, TCDC seeks to become the go-to centre for a new type of visionary and transformational leadership training and mentorship. We will seek to nurture, develop and support a growing group of young leaders in the region, who are transforming culture and institutions in the civil society, government and private sector. This outcome harvesting is a pivotal stage of our journey toward this purposive becoming.
Reference
Outcome Harvesting – what is it and how is it done?
https://www.betterevaluation.org/en/plan/approach/outcome_harvesting
YouLead Legacy Report
https://www.youlead.africa/single-report4
