External Evaluator-The Solidarity Center Retour vers les opportunités

Statement of Work – External Evaluation Services

Advancing Inclusion and Rights at Work for Persons with Disabilities

Morocco & Tunisia 

Introduction

The Solidarity Center is the largest U.S.-based international worker rights organization. Its programs are based on the principle that, by exercising their right to freedom of association and forming trade unions and democratic worker rights organizations, working people can collectively improve their workplaces, call on governments to uphold laws and protect human rights, and be a force for democracy, social justice and inclusive economic development.  Its programs in more than 60 countries focus on human and worker rights awareness, union skills, occupational safety and health, gender equality, migration and human trafficking and pro-legal strategies, as well as bolster workers in an increasingly informal economy.

From July 2019 to June 2021, the Solidarity Center is implementing the Advancing Inclusion and Rights at Work for Persons with Disabilities program in Morocco and Tunisia that aims to strengthen the capacity of unions in Morocco and Tunisia to serve as advocacy platforms to advance the rights of international workers and safe, accessible, healthy and inclusive workplaces for workers with disabilities. This is being achieved through the development and support of coalitions of labor union federations (1 federation in the case of Tunisia and 2 in the case of Morocco), disabled persons’ organizations, civil society organizations, labor inspectors, employers, and government officials. The specific objectives of this project are to: 

1. Objective 1: To raise the awareness of members of unions and CSOs, and persons with disabilities in Morocco and Tunisia about the challenges faced by persons with disabilities in the workplace and in accessing decent work, about the rights of persons with disabilities, and about the role unions and other CSOs can play as workplace rights defenders; and 

1. Objective 2: To build the capacity of CSOs, including unions, in Morocco and Tunisia to be inclusive of and more effectively represent the interests of workers with disabilities, especially women, and to advocate more effectively for their fundamental rights.   

Scope of the Evaluation

The Solidarity Center seeks an external evaluator to conduct an independent evaluation of the Advancing Inclusion and Rights at Work for Persons with Disabilities (AIR) project. The independent evaluation should assess whether planned results and targets were achieved, as well as whether activities had unintended consequences. To the extent possible, the evaluation should consider results at all levels of the logic model, whether outputs were produced, to what degree the objectives and goal were achieved, and whether any change in the status of the goal could be detected. In addition, the evaluation will seek to answer key research questions.

Countries of interest: The evaluation will take place in Morocco and Tunisia. 

Timeline: It is estimated that evaluation design and fieldwork will be conducted from May 15 – June 29, 2021.  A final report is to be submitted by July 30, 2021.

Objectives and Evaluation Questions

The primary evaluation objective is to provide the Solidarity Center with critical information for designing future programs targeting workers with disabilities, particularly in Morocco and Tunisia. Information collected from this evaluation will identify effective approaches to replicate the program in the future as well as weaknesses to improve on. The evaluation will consider both country-level and project-level data analysis for its findings. The evaluation will also identify needs for future programmatic focuses.  

Key Research Questions to be explored in the evaluation include: 

1. What are the expected and unexpected outcomes of the AIR Project?
2. To what extent were persons with disabilities involved in the design of the overall program, program activities, advocacy actions, and evaluation? In what ways could the program better improve the participation of persons with disabilities in the design, implementation and analysis of the program and its activities?

More specifically, SC intends to evaluate based on the questions:

1. To what extent have knowledge, attitudes and practices changed within unions/CSO’s, particularly leadership, in regards to persons with disabilities and their fundamental rights? What has contributed to any changes? 

Is there a change in agency among persons with disabilities related to their fundamental worker rights? How does that manifest?

1. To what extent have women with disabilities participated in and benefited from the project? What factors have enabled or hindered an intersectional approach on gender and disability?
2. What are initiatives started during the project by persons with disabilities self-advocating for their rights for their access to work or social protection? In what ways were these catalyzed, or not, by project support? 
3. What are policies and procedures that have been adopted by government or trade unions with regards to persons with disabilities? In what ways were these catalyzed, or not, by project support? 

Methodology

The evaluation design will be grounded in a review of the existing documents, monitoring data, field work, the midterm assessment and logic models of the country programs. Appropriate preferred methods for the final evaluation may include Outcome Harvesting, Most Significant Change, process tracing, and/or Collaborative Outcomes Reporting and should include a mix of qualitative (key informant interview and focus group discussions) and quantitative data collection as appropriate.  The Evaluator may propose alternative approaches in the inception report. The external evaluation will also include a detailed review and analysis of the theory of change as outlined in the logic model, cause and effect dynamics, program organization, management, field work, and unexpected outcomes, as well as the quality and quantity of overall performance. Due to COVID-19 risks, and the time, cost, and security risks associated with travel, data collection is likely to take place virtually, though in person data collection will be conducted if possible. The SC and program partners will ensure sufficient planning and implementation for the regular collection of data that may be required for the external evaluations. Additionally, to help workers trust the process and to encourage their participation, the SC will ask unions to request and arrange for their members’ participation in conversations with the evaluator, as opposed to the evaluator reaching out directly first. This will help members to trust the process and legitimize it.

The data analysis will be used to provide critical insight into the implementation and results of the program internally and externally and why as well as how the program produced results or not. In order to achieve the objectives of the evaluation, the evaluator should seek to engage a representative sample of project participants in the evaluation. The evaluator should consider the use of the quota or purposive sampling methodology based on the distribution of project participants in the two countries (Morocco and Tunisia). Proposed sampling methods should be outlined in the evaluation inception report. Qualitative data will be complemented with quantitative data from project monitoring data for indicator reporting purposes. Attention needs to be paid to triangulating feedback from different actors to ensure validity. A gender-sensitive approach for this evaluation is strongly encouraged. 

Stakeholder Involvement

Stakeholder involvement is critical to the successful implementation of the evaluation. The evaluator is expected to retain independence in coming to judgments about the program and to employ a participatory and collaborative approach to ensure meaningful involvement of Solidarity Center management and staff, additional actors and beneficiaries. This collaborative approach includes gathering feedback from SC country staff on preliminary results. The format for this ground-truthing or feedback loop will be further defined in the inception report.

The following are key stakeholders:  

• Relevant Solidarity Center staff, both part of headquarters management and those involved in program delivery in the Morocco and Tunisia offices
• Union and worker organization representatives from the Morocco Workers’ Union (UMT), Democratic Confederation of Labor (CDT), and the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT), including leaders and key staff involved in this program – in program delivery or as allies in campaigns)
• Civil society organizations involved in this program, in particular the Arab Forum for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (AFRPD)
• Political decision makers in Morocco and Tunisia
• Other multi-partite partners (e.g. employers) where appropriate

Roles and Responsibilities:

The Solidarity Center will be responsible for: 

• Providing technical guidance throughout the implementation of the evaluation; 
• Providing access to program data and documents, and facilitating access to stakeholders; and
• Reviewing and commenting on drafts of the inception and evaluation reports. 

The Evaluator will be responsible for:  

• Conducting all necessary qualitative and quantitative assessments and fieldwork; 
• Coordinating logistics for the field work, including travel, scheduling, organizing interpreters and hosting focus group and interviews; 
• Overseeing the day-to-day management of the evaluation; 
• Providing regular formal and informal reporting to the Solidarity Center Program Officer
• Participating in key evaluation-related meetings (kick off meeting, inception report meeting, draft findings meeting and meeting to present final report and recommendation, etc.); 
• Producing deliverables (mainly inception report and evaluation report) in accordance with the Statement of Work and contractual arrangements.  

The Evaluator will report to Kevin Coyne, Program Officer for the Middle East North Africa region on all issues related to the evaluation, contracts, fees and expenses, and deliverables and commenting / responses processes.

Evaluation 

The Evaluator will prepare an evaluation inception report and work-plan that will operationalize the Statement of Work. The inception report will be based on an initial document review and preliminary interviews with various stakeholders. Documents will be provided to the Evaluator upon full execution of the contract.  

The inception report and work-plan will address the following elements: expectations of the evaluation; roles and responsibilities within the evaluation consulting team; any refinements and elaboration of evaluation questions; methods – qualitative and quantitative – and data collection, including possible constraints; outline of the final evaluation report and an evaluation matrix linking questions – methods – data sources and indicators.  

The inception report and work-plan will be approved by the Solidarity Center and will define how the evaluation is to be conducted.  

The Evaluator will prepare the draft and final evaluation reports that describe the evaluation methodology, findings, recommendations and key lessons.  

The main activities and evaluation timetable are as follows: 

Deliverables

The evaluation requires the Evaluator to submit the following deliverables: 

• Inception report – including refined research questions and work-plan
• Evaluation/research instruments
• Draft evaluation report  
• Findings Meetings (in person/virtual) with relevant Solidarity Center staff
• Final evaluation report, with a two-page executive summary and recommendations
• Presentation of report to donor (if needed)