BALADI-Caritas Lebanon Endline Evaluation Team Leader

Position Description

The Team Leader will work under the direct supervision of the MEPL Senoir M&E Specialist and in close collaboration with the MEPL team to coordinate and implement all evaluation activities. The Team Leader will be working with the Senior M&E specialist on delegating evaluation responsibilities to evaluation team members, ensuring adequate coverage of the evaluation questions, and ensuring deadlines are met in accordance with the schedule of deliverables provided below. The MEPL team represented by the Senior M&E Specialist holds ultimate responsibility for the quality and completion of all deliverables outlined in this scope of work within the level of effort provided and will work collaboratively with the team leader to achieve that end.  The Team Leader is expected to ensure deliverables are completed on schedule and in accordance with EnCompass’ and USAID’s quality standards. 

BALADI-CL and Evaluation Details

The BALADI-CL Activity launched in 2012 and will close in February 2022, and has a total budget of $20,586,398.70. The Activity’s goal is to foster long-term collaboration between municipalities or unions, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), and private sector entities to implement and manage community projects and deliver services. More specifically, the Activity seeks to: (1) Improve the governance of municipalities and improve public service delivery; and (2) Establish sustainable local social capital. The Activity’s intermediate results (IR) include: more capable municipalities working inclusively with citizens to effectively accomplish local development objectives (IR1), enhanced participatory decentralized governance to act as a catalyst for social capital development (IR2), and broad-based development through support of locally-championed plans and reforms (IR3).

The endline evaluation will build off the final evaluation conducted in February 2020 and inform the Mission about the Activity’s performance and achievements, sustainability, and lessons learned for future programming. The evaluation will explore the extent to which the Activity achieved outputs, outcomes, and stated objectives. For example, evaluation will analyze the Activity’s contribution to empowering municipalities to implement needed local development activities that improve the social and economic conditions in communities, with special focus on host community needs. The evaluation will include findings from the previous evaluation but primarily focus on how the Activity adapted and accomplished objectives in the post-February 2020 environment. By documenting successes, challenges, and lessons learned, the evaluation will inform future programming (for USAID and Caritas) and contribute to the Mission’s commitment to continuously adapting and learning. This evaluation will also address gender, environmental compliance, marginalized groups and youth inclusion as crosscutting elements of the program.  In addition, it will assess the BALADI-CL institutional and managerial context and capacity to manage similar activities in terms of administration, human resources, procurement, reporting, and monitoring processes.

The Team Leader together with members of the MEPL team will finalize evaluation questions with relevant stakeholders when initial document review is completed; however, the evaluation is expected to explore the following lines of inquiry: relevance, management effectiveness, implementation effectiveness, and sustainability.

Position Duties and Responsibilities

Specific tasks of the Team Leader include managing and guiding the tasks noted in the table below, and delivering deliverables within the timeframes provided. As noted above, the Team Leader will manage and guide a team to complete these tasks, though the Team Leader holds ultimate accountability for high-quality and timely delivery. 

Task

Deliverable

Timeline

Meet with USAID and MEPL Team for planning

Participation in meetings

On or about 7 February

Conduct desk review, design evaluation, and lead in writing Evaluation Inception Report

Evaluation Inception Report (including data collection tools)

7– 11 February

Data collection

21 February – 11 March

Data analysis

Note: This process includes coding, data summaries/memos, and evaluation team data analysis and interpretation session(s)

Intermediate, internal written analyses; initial report drafting

14-25 March

Findings Validation and Recommendations Co-creation Workshop

PowerPoint presentation and/or handouts

Week of March 28

Report writing

Team Leader is responsible for responding to USAID comments on the draft report and submitting a final report to USAID/Lebanon.

Draft Report

Final Report incorporating USAID and Baladi-Caritas comments

4 April

20 May

Dissemination

To Be Determined with the Mission

23-31 May

Position Requirements

Experience and Skills

• Minimum 8 years of demonstrated evaluation and research experience in development projects for USAID. Understanding of USAID regulations and policies, including but not limited to the Automated Directives System 201 and Evaluation Policy
• Proficiency in qualitative and quantitative research methods; familiarity with innovative monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) approaches preferred
• Experience with community-based programming and social service delivery in Lebanon
• At least 5 years of experience in conducting institutional capacity assessments or evaluations; leadership experience preferred
• Ability to work in an appreciative, strengths-based environment and guide others in using an appreciative approach
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills
• Fluency in spoken and written English and Arabic required
• Lebanon nationality preferred
• Experience in leading performance evaluation teams required
• Expected to work closely with the evaluation team members