(Offre en anglais) The American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative lance un appel à consultation pour l’évaluation du programme: “Supporting Tunisia’s Justice Sector Reform” عودة إلى الفرص

Program summary

The American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI), with the International Republican Institute (IRI), and Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) implements a joint program to support Tunisian justice sector reform through DRL funding. The program will contribute DRL’s mission by supporting human rights in Tunisia, and by strengthening the Tunisian justice system. The program launched in September 2017 and runs through June 2019.

The program has focused on the following objectives:

Project Objective 1: Improving the Implementation of the Established Right to Legal Counsel (Lead: ABA ROLI)

Project Objective 2: Increasing accountability and transparency of the Judicial process through media engagement (Lead: IWPR)

Project Objective 3:  Increasing public awareness and understanding on new judicial reform, institutions and processes (Lead: IRI)

ABA ROLI, IWPR and IRI work closely together during the implementation of the program. ABA ROLI is the prime agreement-holder, and each program objective has an implementing partner. At the inception of the project, consortium members worked together to ensure coordination of activities. Field representatives of the consortium are in constant communication and meet at least once per quarter in Tunis in order to review activities, outcomes and progress and make any needed adjustments to the program. All activities occur in both Tunis as well as in the regions where participants are located to lessen participant lodging costs and in order to drive civic attention to the regions outside of Tunis, which have traditionally not been prioritized for assistance.

Specific objectives of the evaluation, intended use and users

The evaluation has been initiated by ABA ROLI based on the commitment in the agreement with the DRL in the Proposal Document to conduct a final evaluation at the conclusion of the program, measuring outputs and outcomes and memorializing lessons learned.

The purpose of this evaluation is to assess the contribution of the program to the program key objectives and attainment of the outcomes. In doing so, the evaluation will focus on the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of the program.

Main users of the evaluation report are the implementing team – ABA ROLI, IWPR and IRI, program partners and beneficiaries. The report will also be shared with US Embassy and the donor.

In addition to program specific staff and donors, ABA ROLI will use the findings to inform approaches employed in other programs in MENA as well as other regions where ABA ROLI implements similar programs.  

Evaluation questions

The evaluation should seek to cover the following specific categories across the three objectives:

Improved skills of practicing lawyers and lawyers in-training to better defend arrested Tunisians in accordance with the revised CPC and international standards  And Enhanced awareness of judges and prosecutors on their roles and responsibilities, international standards on defendant rights and application of CPC

• Effectiveness of the TOT approach and cascade trainings in regions
• Efficiency and sustainability of processes of selecting training topics and trainers, and training of trainers
• Effects of the cascade trainings on the skills and knowledge of lawyers, judges, lawyers in-training and judges in training
• Degree of application of knowledge and skills in practice

Increased ability of Tunisian journalists to report fairly and objectively on legal reforms and issues

• Effects of the trainings on the skills and knowledge of the journalists around legal and judicial reporting.
• Efficiency and sustainability of processes of selecting partners with focus on community radios.
• Degree of application of knowledge and skills in practice by trained journalists and their media outlets.
• Journalists tendency to access and use disseminated handbook for legal reporting in their work.  

Increase citizen awareness of their rights under Tunisian judicial reforms and processes

• Effectiveness and efficiency of CSOs’ awareness raising strategy
• Level of improved knowledge of Tunisian CSOs on the CCP
• Level of improved capacities of radio programs to produce content on legal reforms.
• Effectiveness and coverage of Radio programs produced to promote legal awareness.
• Relevance of selected topics covered by media partners to both operating context and legal reforms.

Civil society and the media engagement with the MoJ and other justice sector reform stakeholders on judicial reform implementation 

• Effectiveness of the collaboration meetings and trust building working group in creating collaborations on the CCP beyond IRI activities
• Effectiveness of the roundtables for media and legal/judicial professionals
• Degree and effects of collaboration of Ministry staff, CSOs and media actors in incorporating recommendations to the CCP

The evaluation should also assess the management and operational effectiveness of the grant in the following areas:

• The effectiveness of the implementation model used, particularly the consortium approach, taking into account how the implementation evolved over time;
• The impact of security situation or any other external factors on overall progress and expected changes and how challenges were tackled;
• The effectiveness of the monitoring and evaluation and learning framework and processes for the grant, including documentation, reviewing tools, processes, information flow, decision making in tracking outcomes/changes and use of monitoring information in gauging progress towards results and decision making;
• The level of mainstreaming gender perspective in developed material, training and produced content for campaign. This is as well as the integration of gender angle in the achieved results.
• The level of innovation employed by implementers in promoting legal awareness for citizens, with reference to campaign material developed by CSOs and radio programs.

Scope of the evaluation

The evaluation scope covers entirety of grant period – from September 2017 to June 2019 and all components of implementation under three objectives.

Target population of the evaluation includes the groups participating in the program activities – lawyers, lawyers in training, judges and prosecutors, practicing judges and prosecutors, journalists, CSOs, as well as ABA/ROLI local staff and staff in Washington DC, partner governmental stakeholders, ISPA, TBA and YLA.

Limitations

The evaluation will be carried out during Ramadan that might affect the logistical arrangements for the exercise, particularly the schedules and availability of the key respondents of the evaluation.

Evaluation approach and methodology

The overarching methodological framework will consist of mixed methods – including desk review of reports, review of available quantitative data, and collection of qualitative data through interviews with key stakeholders and course participants. The external consultant shall provide the detailed design for the methodology, responding to the key elements provided below:

1. Evaluation question matrix – what exact question will the evaluation ask?
2. Sample frame – Who will the evaluation engage with for data collection?
3. Tools/instruments – how will the evaluation extract the information on evaluation questions?
4. Analysis – how the data will be analyzed?
5. Financial estimation – what are the key expenses related to the exercise, including the consultant rate?

In addition to the key question, five key evaluation criteria will be studied for comprehensive evaluation of the Program:

Evaluation shall be guided by principles for evaluators of American Evaluation Association.

Evaluation team members and Roles

ABA ROLI in Tunisia, together with program partners will identify the team members for the evaluation and share with the consultant upon launch of the evaluation. The evaluation team will provide support and oversight for the following points: i) evaluation deliverables – review and feedback for evaluation design and report; ii) evaluation materials – provision of package of materials on program design, implementation and monitoring iii) logistics – organizing meetings with evaluation target respondents, including program representatives.

Logistical arrangements

The ABA Office in country, together with implementing partner IWPR and IRI, in coordination with ABA ROLI Staff in Washington D.C., will be responsible, for arranging the logistics for this evaluation. Implementing partners will provide the consultant with all program related materials.

Deliverables and schedule

The final program evaluation will be carried out in the period of May 1 to June 20, 2019 and will cover the all steps identified in the table below.

Products

The evaluation deliverables are the Evaluation Design, evaluation report and presentation.

Structure and format

We suggest one-three-25 rule. One page executive summary, 3 page summary, 25-page report, with an addition of all annexes.

Language – English

Budget and payment

The total maximum budget of the evaluation is 10,000 USD.

Appendices

1. 1. Evaluation design
   2. List of secondary materials used and analyzed
   3. List of individuals/groups interviewed