Consultant – End-of-Project Evaluation for A Brighter Future through Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities in Zimbabwe (BFIE) Project: Christian Aid

Deadline: 25 January 2021

About Christian Aid

Christian Aid exists to create a world where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty. Poverty is an outrage against humanity. It robs people of their dignity and lets injustice thrive. But together we have the power to transform lives. We are a global movement of people, churches and local organisations who passionately champion dignity, equality, justice and love worldwide. We are the changemakers, the peacemakers, the mighty of heart. Everyone is equal in the sight of God. For over 70 years, this has inspired us to stand together in solidarity with our most marginalised global neighbours, of all faiths and none. We push for good nutrition and healthcare for all. We fight the climate crisis and provide urgent help when disasters strike. We work in places of conflict to stand against violence and build lasting peace. And we help people living in poverty to earn a fair wage so they can protect themselves in times of crisis. Above all, we seek to eradicate extreme poverty by tackling its root causes. Together with people living in poverty, we amplify our voices to speak truth to power and create lasting change.

Background to the BFIE Project

With funding from Porticus, Christian Aid Zimbabwe (CA) in partnership with Ntengwe for Community Development have over the last 2 years from 2019-2020, implemented the “Consolidating and Upscaling Brighter Futures through Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities” to improve access to education for children with disabilities (CWD) in Binga district, Matabeleland North Province of Zimbabwe. Building on previous efforts by the partners, the project set out to address gaps in the provision of inclusive education and limited civil society support to address wider barriers in access.

The Brighter Futures project was designed around this learning and is currently supporting 1,020 children living with disabilities, as well as their families, from eight wards (Lubanda, Lubu, Manjolo, Muchesu, Saba, Siachilaba, Sikalenge and Tinde wards) in Binga district. The project has so far strengthened school governance structures for 33 schools, improved teacher capacity, and invoked social and behavioural (attitude) change towards people living with disabilities in the wider community. In addition, community engagement initiatives to promote policies and practices to ensure children living with disabilities access education across the district have successfully been initiated. The project has also supported parents to provide assistance to their children while helping schools to improve communication with parents of CWD’s to foster a conducive home learning environments among CWD’s. BFIE has also worked with local teachers and government workers involved in Child Protection and care work to upscale their special skills and care capacity as they work with children living with disabilities.

About the consultancy

This call for consultancy aims to assess the overall performance including impact of the BFIE project in the targeted impact areas. The end of project evaluation will, therefore, serve for learning and adaptation for Christian Aid and its partners.

The evaluation will assess the project against the BFIE evaluation criteria (success criteria for innovation projects) which are: Adoption (Scalability, Replicability, Sustainability), Learning and Evidence (Learning, Adaptation) and Improved solution (Effectiveness, Leverage) as well as Efficiency.

Specifically, the end of project has been commissioned to: Assess the overall achievements of project objectives and targets and establish the key enablers that contributed to the results (Effectiveness); To investigate to what extent the project resources (financial, human, and materials) have been used effectively to deliver or for the wellbeing of the target community (Efficiency); To assess to what extent there was minority inclusion in planning, implementation, monitoring & evaluation as well as the access to benefits; To assess how likely the achievements and benefits from the project will continue to flow after closure and whether the project has created ownership that can sustain outcomes; To identify and analyse key challenges that have affected the project and make recommendations on how to manage them in future. Key lessons learned will also be documented.