Terms of Reference

ActionAid Zambia seeks to engage a consultant to conduct a Programme Endline Evaluation of the  “Sustainable Management of Small-Scale Fisheries – ZSSFP) –  project implemented in seven districts of Zambia supported by the EU-funded ECOFISH programme.

Organisation Background

ActionAid Zambia (AAZ) is part of ActionAid International, which is a global movement of people working together to further human rights and alleviate poverty for all. ActionAid focuses on four (4) Strategic Priorities namely: Environmental Sustainability and Climate Justice; Civic Participation and State Accountability, Transformative Youth Led Engagement and Organizational Shift.

ActionAid is implementing a project titled “Zambia Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries Project (ZSSFP)” implemented in partnership with Keepers Zambia Foundation (KZF) and Zambia Social Forum (ZAMSOF) with the support from the EU-funded ECOFISH programme from 01st October 2020 until 30th September 2023 (36 months) for an amount of EUR 942,861.62 . The project contributes to SDG 1 on ending poverty through enhancing their access to fisheries resources which is key to bringing them out of poverty, SDG 5 on gender equality as women have not only equal representation in all activities but also leadership building, and access to security of tenure and SDG 14 on conserving and sustainably using oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development through focus on sustainable fisheries management through eradicating destructive fishing practices e.g. harmful chemical for fish capture and value addition of the fish. The overall objective of the project is to enhance the social, economic and environmentally sustainable management of small-scale fisheries in Zambia. The aim of the project is to “strengthen small-scale fisheries management and governance in three provinces of Zambia to protect livelihoods, build resilience of small-scale fishing communities thereby contributing to SDGs.

Background of the Programme

There are about 300,000 small scale/artisanal fishers in Zambia who are dependent on marine and inland fisheries yet their contribution to rural economic growth and commerce is not properly quantified1. Fish as a source of protein is important for the target groups of the action as they are small scale farmers as well as small-scale fishers (in non-agricultural seasons) for whom fishing contributes to their food security. Most of the fisher folk communities live on land that does not belong to them. This, along with lack of tenure security over fisheries resources, compounds their problems to earn secure livelihoods. There is no overarching fisheries policy yet in the country. The draft policy initiated in 2010 is yet to be finalised and has not been made public nor have inputs from small-scale fishers sought for. It is in this context that the action has been designed.

The action meets the global objective of the call in that it addresses social sustainability through building the agency of the small-scale fishers and economic sustainability through enhancing their capacities to participate in value chains and enhance their income. In doing so, it meets two of the three specific objectives on sustainable management of fisheries and increasing the contribution of small-scale fisheries to sustainable growth. The action meets four of the six priorities and sectors/sub-themes in the CFP guidelines. Working on a human rights-based approach, the action recognizes that small scale fishers’ participation and empowerment, especially that of women and youth, is key to sustainable fisheries management. The action has a strong element of capacity building of small-scale fishers and their organizations (community led fisheries committees) as per the guidelines.

Project Logic and Theory of Change:

Overall Objective: To enhance social, economic, and environmentally sustainable management of small-scale fisheries in Zambia.

Specific Objective: To strengthen small-scale fisheries management and governance in three provinces of Zambia to protect livelihoods, build resilience of small-scale fishing communities, thereby contributing to SDGs.

Theory of Change:

Inputs:

Funding: Financial resources to implement the project activities.

Implementation Capacity: Expertise and resources to carry out project interventions effectively.

Stakeholder Engagement: Active involvement and collaboration with key stakeholders, including small-scale fishers, government agencies, and NGOs.

Innovative Financing and Blended Capital: Exploring new financing mechanisms to support project sustainability.

Activities and Delivery Pipelines:

Output 1: Implement sustainable fisheries management practices and provide training on improved fishing techniques.

Output 2: Conduct capacity-building workshops for government extension workers, women, and youths on fish value addition and market access.

Output 3: Empower small-scale fishers, especially women and youth, to advocate for favourable policies and legal frameworks supporting sustainable fisheries management.

Outcomes:

Outcome 1: Enhanced livelihoods and food security of vulnerable small-scale fishing communities.

Outcome 2: Strengthened capacities of government extension workers, women, and youths leading to increased contributions to sustainable growth.

Outcome 3: Improved adoption and implementation of policies favouring sustainable fisheries management and security of tenure for small-scale fishers.

Impact:

Impact: Social, economic, and environmentally sustainable management of small-scale fisheries leading to improved well-being of fishing communities and contributing to SDGs.

Long-term Sustainability:

The project’s focus on capacity-building and advocacy empowers local stakeholders to take ownership of sustainable fisheries management practices, promoting long-term sustainability.

Partnerships with government agencies and NGOs can lead to institutionalization of successful interventions and ensure their continuation beyond the project timeline.

Replication and Upscaling:

Documenting the project’s best practices, lessons learned, and outcomes will facilitate replication in other districts as well as provinces with similar challenges.

Upscaling can be achieved by engaging with larger funding institutions and government bodies, enabling the project’s expansion to more districts.

Purpose of the Programme Endline Evaluation

The Aim of this End line Evaluation is to gather and analyse both quantitative and qualitative data that will measure the current status of the stated indicators at both the level of the Project Goal/Impact, Outcomes and Outputs. This to help indicate the progress made by the programme and as against the baseline for comparison of the changes achieved by the programme after three (3) years of implementation. The evaluation should build upon the project baseline, monitoring data and reports for more in-depth analysis and discovery of the intended and unintended results that have occurred or emerging to fulfil the project accountability and learning requirements. The qualitative data will provide valuable information on the current perceptions, attitudes and socio-cultural perspectives that have being likely influenced by the programme.

Specifically, the end-line will be conducted with the collaboration of local partners to collect data that will generate an understanding on the following:

• The current level of engagement of young people in economic livelihood activities in the seven (7) districts of the programme/project.
• The current level of engagement of the young people and women supported by the project in economic livelihood activities in the 7districts of the project.
• How economic livelihood activities are influencing household income and social economic status.
• The willingness and enthusiasm of youths and women to engage in economic livelihood activities.
• The view of community members and stakeholders or their observations about the economic situations in their community.
• The community sense on youth employment and unemployment.
• The type and nature of economic livelihood activities that young people in the 7 districts are passionate about participating in.
• The challenges and constraints faced by young people in their engagement with economic livelihood activities.
• The support systems available to support fishers who wish to engage in economic livelihood activities at the district and national level (access to credit, market etc).
• The level of involvement of young people within the district in decision making processes on things that affect them.
• The willingness and enthusiasm of fishers to engage in advocacy and campaigns at the district, regional and national levels.
• A quantitative measure of the status of all the stated indicators of the project.

The Broad Evaluation Standards

The study should at the broader level measure up to the evaluation standards and ActionAid International Zambia Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA). Additionally, the normative framework for determining the merit or worth of an intervention and the basis upon which the evaluative judgements and conclusions should be made are follows.

Relevance: Assess the extent to which the project objectives, implementation design and interventions responded to beneficiaries’ social progress and empowerment needs, and country level priorities.

Effectiveness: Assess the extent to which the project achieved its set objectives, and results, including any differential results across beneficiary groups.

Efficiency: Assess the extent to which the project delivered results in an economical manner (cost-effective choices among feasible alternatives).

Impact: Examine the ultimate significance and transformative effects by assessing the extent to which the project has produced results be it positive or negative, intended or unintended. Outcome harvesting may be key approach for identifying the results attributable or contributed to by the project.

Sustainability: Assess the extent to which the benefits of the project stand to continue or are likely to continue over the medium to long term.

Coherence: An additional area to assess is to show the synergies and inter-linkages ZSSF Project has with other projects and programme interventions being implemented by AAZ and its relevance to the Country Strategy 2023 – 2027 priorities as currently reflected in the Strategy. Also examine how other interventions including policy space supported or undermined the project implementation and results.

Scope of Work and Deliverables

The selected consultant will be expected to carry out the End-line Evaluation covering the following

a)     A detailed inception report outlining the final agreed methodology, sampling, ethical considerations and workplan.

b)     Working with AAZ and Consortium Lead Team to identify the districts and select communities where the data will be collected.

c)     Conduct a review and analysis of current  economic livelihood interventions and schemes existing in the various districts to benefit young people.

d)     Design questionnaires or other creative methodologies to collect data from the various districts and regional stakeholders, community members, as well as the project beneficiaries in line with the project objectives.

e)     Identify challenges, lessons and opportunities in the economic empowerment of women and youth and fishers  within the districts and propose some recommendations to ensure effectiveness of operationalising the small-scale enterprises. Facilitate a validation workshop among the project stakeholders to crosscheck the accuracy and validity of the findings from the end of project evaluation.

f)      Present to AAZ a maximum of a 60 Page report detailing the findings, comparison of the with findings the baseline, and a table of all the indicators and their current measure values at the end of the project.

Methodology and Duration of the assignment

The consultant shall be responsible for proposing an appropriate methodology that will be deployed for conducting the end of project evaluation study. However, this methodology shall be participatory and ensure that a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods are resorted to in other to generate the required data. The consultant must also ensure that the rights of participants are always protected. AAZ and Consortium Partners shall work closely with the consultant and providing constant feedback in the process to ensure quality in the research process. The consultant shall have 21 days from the date of engagement to deliver on and complete the entire task and submit the final draft report.

Standards and Safeguarding

Ethical Standards and Safeguarding: ActionAid expects all assessments, reviews and evaluations to be carried out in line with both a Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA) and ActionAid’s Feminist research signature and guide. The full Evaluation Standards may be shared on request, but in practical terms the consultant(s) will be required to consider:

Community voice representation and inclusion: It is essential that the evaluation reflects the direct voices of the project/program beneficiaries. People should be consulted as part of the evaluation, and their voices included in the evaluation report as direct quotes and case studies. In line with ActionAid’s mandate, the evaluation should prioritise people living in poverty and exclusion, especially women and girls with disabilities. Consent for use of quotes, names and photos should be sought from all interviewees.

Transparency and ethical standards: The evaluators should explain clearly to communities, beneficiaries and all those engaged in the review what the purpose of the exercise is, and how their information will be used. ActionAid’s ethical standards for research and data collection should be followed, including a risk assessment covering safety and security risks to communities. As a minimum, the evaluation should ‘do no harm’.

Women’s rights: Women’s rights must be respected in all evaluations. All evaluations should seek to explore how women have been affected by an intervention and the effect on gender relations. It is essential that women’s voices are heard clearly in the review. The timing and location of evaluation activities and the composition of the evaluation team should be designed to maximise women’s ability to participate in the evaluation.

Transparency about methodology: The review should include a detailed and transparent discussion of the methodology used and key decisions taken in designing and implementing the evaluation. This should include information about the sampling (approach to sampling, numbers of people/communities covered, how representative), what tools were used and why, methodological limitations and gaps.

Disaggregated data: Data must be disaggregated in as much detail as possible. As a minimum this means disaggregation by age, sex and disability.

Compliance with SHEA, Safeguarding and Safety Protocols: Selected consultant(s) will also be expected to sign and abide by relevant ActionAid policies, including its SHEA and Safeguarding policy, Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Policy, Anti-Sexual Harassment, Exploitation and Abuse at Work Policy and Child Protection Policy.

Data Protection: Ensure that data acquisition, particularly by means of digital recording, and its processing, storage, transfer and use are managed fairly, transparently and ethically in accordance with AA Data Protection and Privacy Policy and relevant national data protection regulations and mindful of the fact that breaches may result into commercial or legal sanctions. Full disclosure shall be made to data subjects on the purpose for which the data is being collected and whom it may be shared with, so as to enable the data subjects give informed consent. Precaution must be exercised, and appropriate steps taken, including the use of pseudonym (fictitious names), to protect the identity of data subjects around subject matter disclosure that could trigger backlash, attract hostility or negatively impair the data subject and associates. Perspectives expressed by data subjects will be accurately reported and exaggerated representation will be strictly avoided.

Requirements and Experience of the consultant

The consultancy firm or individual must demonstrate the following requirements in their application in order to be considered for this assignment:

• At least a master’s degree in Social Sciences or Other Related Fields.
• Demonstrate at least 5 years of experience in conducting research related to economic empowerment and socio-economic development.
• Experience in community entry, mobilisation, and the application of social research methodologies.
• Excellent communication skills in both written and oral demonstrated in their ability to write comprehensive reports with in-depth analysis.
• Ability to work in multicultural, multireligious and rural communities
• Demonstrate understanding of and commitment to ethical issues in research/evaluations.
• Experience in managing and coordinating evaluation/research exercises, delivering agreed outputs on time and within budget.

Application Process

All interested parties should submit a technical proposal demonstrating their understanding of the assignment; a financial proposal outlining the cost elements and the CVs of the Core Team Members to carry out the assignment to ActionAid Zambia Office, 38G Kabulonga Road, Ibex Hill, P.O. Box 51407, Lusaka Zambia by the 27th September 2023. Please note that only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.