Call for Application for Final Independent Project Evaluation for “Improved Business Development Support Services and Entrepreneurship Education Targeting MSMEs and Youth for the Creation of Decent Work Opportunities in KRI” in the Republic of Iraq

1. Background

Protracted violence and the conflict with Daesh have also spawned a large population of internally displaced persons (IDPs), adding to earlier waves of internal displacement resulting from conflicts of the past decades. In 2021, around 1.2 million Iraqis are IDP (UN OCHA, 2022), Iraq also hosts a refugee population of some 250,000 Syrian refugees (UNHCR, 2022). Conflict and displacement have acutely increased the vulnerability of women and put them at higher risk of violence, including sexual exploitation.

Even before the 2014 crisis, ILO survey data found most Micro-, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) were operating informally, where workers are at heightened risk of exploitation. This is particularly true among displaced populations, who were forced to find employment in new communities. Evidence suggests that time spent outside of the formal labour market creates additional barriers to access employment as skills go unused and qualifications become outdated. The war exacerbated institutional weaknesses and structural issues such as education and training systems that fail to deliver and certify demand driven skills.

Women’s participation in the labour force is very low. According to ILO estimates, only 11% of women participated in the labour force in 2020, compared to approximately 72% of men. Women tend to be more affected by informality than men are. Informally employed women are often found in agriculture as unpaid family labour.

Iraq hosts one of the youngest populations in the region but struggles to provide employment opportunities for them. ILO modelled estimates put male youth (15-24) unemployment at 23.6% and female youth unemployment at 64.6% in 2020. Challenges include a lack of work opportunities, skills mismatches, a strong preference for public sector employment among more educated youth, as well as a lack of effective and accessible career and job information systems. Altogether, these factors contribute to the fact that almost half of unemployed youth in Iraq have been looking for a job for more than one year.

Some of the major impediments to rapid growth and improvement of micro and small enterprises in Iraq include the lack of positive attitudes and initiatives geared towards entrepreneurship, the lack of required basic business start-up and management skills, absence of financial literacy, difficult access to start-up capital and finance and the absence of an effective service infrastructure for start-ups. It is particularly important that business skills training providers ensure small enterprises receive the training which could enhance their sustainability, expand their business, and achieve economies of scale in a business environment context often characterized by little physical support infrastructure and limited access to financial services and markets.

Formal financial inclusion in Iraq is low. The population displays a preference for cash, due in part of a general distrust in the banking sector after decades of financial sector instability, when private deposits were lost and not compensated. While electronic payments have increased since 2014, salary payments (for both civil servants and private sector employees) are often made in cash, rather than through commercial banks. A significant demand for both credit and savings services is thus needed in Iraq and remains unmet by the formal financial sector. Potential financial services’ customers are in need of financial literacy support and providers, which are mainly state-owned banks and a number of commercial ones, offer over-collaterized loans (typically 140% collateral is required).

The private sector in Iraq is underdeveloped due to the economy’s heavy reliance on oil exports (99% of all exports), an abundance of cheap imports, and competition from state-owned enterprises. Private sector development is a central government priority, but a lack of productive investment in the formal private sector has resulted in inadequate creation of decent jobs for Iraq’s growing labour force. The need to promote entrepreneurship among Iraqis, including women and youth, and build the national capacity for the provision of non-financial business development services (BDS) and financial literacy were depicted as priority areas of intervention in the transition to sustainable employment. In facts, during the last few years and within the framework of the transition from the humanitarian response to a more development-oriented phase; a number of projects funded by foreign governments and international agencies, targeting livelihoods and MSME development, have already been providing BDS. These services however were not needs based and remained mostly generic in nature without being provided in a common and standardized manner.

2. Project Background

It is against this backdrop that this project has been developed with focus on strengthening the provision of needs-based standardized business support services and financial literacy. The initial objective of the project is to introduce and institutionalize the ILO Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) programme and its financial literacy/inclusion package in selected local and national partners who in turn provided these quality support services to existing and potential Iraqi/Kurdish entrepreneurs. Another objective has been added later to introduce the ILO Know About Business (KAB) programme in response to the requests received by GIZ and the ILO from the Ministry of Labour in Erbil in 2019-2020 to continue the provision of the required support for the promotion of an entrepreneurship culture among youth in the Kurdistan region.

Objective 1: Iraqi/Kurdish nationals have access to decent job opportunities in micro, small and medium enterprises in KR-I

The ILO SIYB training programme, management training programme, is used, targeting existing and potential owners and managers of small businesses to develop and strengthen their basic management skills. The programme is made of a comprehensive set of training materials for various target groups in the small business sector and was introduced in over 100 countries worldwide. The existing ILO SIYB training package in its latest Arabic and international versions has been adapted to suit the Iraqi and Kurdish cultural, social and economic environment together with the Financial Education Material. It has been also translated to Sorani and Badini.

A Training of Trainers’ (ToT) methodology is applied to achieve the programmes’ sustainability through ensuring an available and capable network of Iraqi trainers, beyond the project duration, who are able to deliver the SIYB and financial literacy programmes to potential and existing entrepreneurs in a cost-effective manner. The added advantage of this approach is that it creates a multiplier effect for skills transfer and ensures the development of local training capacities in the field of basic business management and financial literacy. Consequently, the project has aimed to build the capacity of 50 Iraqi trainers on SIYB and 25 trainers on financial literacy who in turn deliver these programmes to potential and existing Iraqi entrepreneurs under ILO monitoring as part of their certification requirements. The Training of Entrepreneurs (ToEs) are organised and financially covered INGOs, NGOs, Cash Consortium for Iraq (CCI) and national selected institutions as part of the delivery of their own donor-funded programmes. ToEs are also conducted by private sector BDS providers as a part of their services provided to support MSMEs.

Objective 2: Entrepreneurship education introduced in vocational and technical education targeting youth in KR-I

Under this objective, the project assists Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MoLSA) in the Kurdistan region to implement the ILO KAB programme in a selected number of governmental Vocational Training Centers and schools. Despite the fact that the KAB programme has already been rolled out nationally under earlier ILO projects, this project aims to build on lessons learned and focus on increasing the number of trainers to reach out to a bigger number of students in vocational and technical schools while at the same time introducing the new version of the programme in Kurdish.

Approximately 30 KAB facilitators who had been previously trained/certified and still operational in the Kurdistan region are targeted in the refresher workshop. Furthermore, additional trainings of facilitators are conducted, targeting 50 new vocational training teachers/instructors. In order to ensure quality and standards, training workshops targeting 20 vocational centre/school supervisors are also delivered.

A process of Training of Facilitators' (TOF) and certification is used to achieve the programme's

sustainability by ensuring a capable network of teachers, are able to deliver the KAB programme to students in a cost-effective manner beyond the life of a given project. The added advantage of this approach is that it creates a multiplier effect for skills transfer and ensures the development of local teaching capacities in the field of entrepreneurship education. Additionally, it requires the involvement of national coordinators and supervisors, who also play a key role in embedding the KAB programme in the country's institutional memory.

The results framework and list of activities after the addition of the 2nd objective can be found in Annex.

The project contributes to Decent Work Country Programme for Iraq 2019-2023, specifically output 1.2.1 “Capacity of Iraqi business development service providers build and operational, with a focus on youth” and output 1.2.2 “access to finance for Iraqi youth is enhanced through financial literacy and inclusion.” The project is also aligned with the National Development Plan for Iraq 2018-2022 specifically within the private sector objective. The project also contributes to the attainment of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development particularly SDG 8 on Decent Work and Economic Growth, with a focus on target 8.5 on full and productive employment and 8.10 on access to financial services.

3. Evaluation Background

ILO considers evaluation as an integral part of the implementation of development cooperation activities. Provision is made in the project in accordance with ILO evaluation policy and based on the nature of the project and the specific requirements agreed upon at the time of the project design and during the project as per established procedures.

The project document states that a final evaluation is conducted, which will be used to assess the progress towards the results, identify the main difficulties/constraints, assess the impact of the programme for the targeted populations, and formulate lessons learned and practical recommendations to improve future similar programmes.

4. Evaluation Purpose and objectives

This final evaluation will examine the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, and potential impact of the project. It will provide recommendations for future similar projects. This evaluation will also identify strengths and weaknesses in the project design, strategy, and implementation as well as lessons learned and good practices.

Specifically, the evaluation will examine the following aspects: 

• Changes in context and review of assumptions (relevance):  Is the project’s design adequate to address the problems at hand? Were the project objective and design relevant given the political, economic, and financial context?
• Results in terms of outcomes and outputs achieved (effectiveness): How has the project contributed towards project’s goals? To what extent did it contribute to the ILO’s Programme & Budget, Country Programme Outcomes, and more largely SDGs?
• Use of resources in achievement of projected performance (efficiency): How have the resources been used to fulfil the project performance in an efficient manner with respect to cost, time and management staff?
• Assessment of impact (impact): To what extent has the project contributed long-term intended impact? 
• Sustainability: Will the project’s effects remain over time? 

The evaluation will comply with ILO evaluation policy, and the UNEG ethical guidelines will be followed.

5. Scope of Evaluation

The evaluation will review the project outcomes and outputs to date. The geographical coverage is the Kurdistan Region, aligned with the scope of the project. The evaluation should cover the period of November 2019 – March 2022, while the project ends in May 2022. As cross-cutting themes, the evaluation will also take specific note of integration of gender mainstreaming, disability inclusion, International Labour Standard, social dialogue, and environmental sustainability as well as contribution to SDGs and COVID-19 response.

6. Clients of Evaluation

The primary clients of this evaluation are MoLSA, GIZ, ILO Iraqi project office, ILO ROAS, ILO ENTEPRISE department. Secondary users include project stakeholders and units within the ILO that may indirectly benefit from the knowledge generated by the evaluation. U      

7. Evaluation Criteria and Questions

The evaluation utilizes the standard ILO evaluation framework and follows the OECD/DAC evaluation criteria:

Relevance and strategic fit

• Are the project objectives aligned with sectoral national priorities highlighted in National Development Plan for Iraq 2018-2022?
• How does the project contribute to the ILO’s Programme & Budget 2020-2021 and 2022-2023, Country Programme Outcomes, Decent Work Country Programme for Iraq 2019-2023, United Nations Sustainable Development Framework 2020-2024, and SDGs?

Coherence and validity of the design

• Are the project strategies and structures coherent and logical?
• Does the project make a practical use of a monitoring and evaluation framework? How appropriate and useful are the indicators in assessing the project’s progress? Are indicators gender sensitive? Are the assumptions for each objective and output realistic?
• To what extent did the project design take into account: Specific gender equality and non-discrimination concerns, including inclusion of people with disabilities?

Project progress and effectiveness

• What progress has the project made towards achieving the overall objective, outcomes, and outputs? How has the project benefited direct and indirect beneficiaries?
• How did outputs and outcomes contribute to ILO’s mainstreamed strategies including gender equality, social dialogue, and labour standards?
• To what extent did the project respond emerging needs in terms of COVID-19 pandemic? Did the pandemic hinder or reverse the progresses that had been made?

Efficiency of resource use

• To what extent have project activities been cost-efficient? Have resources (funds, human resources, time, expertise etc.) been allocated strategically to achieve outcomes? To what extent can the project results justify the time, financial and human resources invested in the project?
• To what extent has the project been able to build on other ILO or non-ILO initiatives either nationally or regionally, in particular with regard to the creation of synergies in cost sharing?

Effectiveness of management arrangements

• How does the project governance structure facilitate good results and efficient delivery? And if not, why not?
• How effective was communication among the project teams, the regional office and the responsible technical department at ILO headquarters? Has the project received adequate technical and administrative support/response from the ILO backstopping units?

Impact orientation

• What is the likely contribution of the project initiatives to the impact of the intervention?
• What were the interventions long-term effects on more equitable gender relations or reinforcement of existing inequalities?

Sustainability

• Are the results achieved by the project likely to be sustainable? What measures have been considered to ensure that the key components of the project are sustainable beyond the life of the project?
• To what extent was sustainability of impact taken into account during the design of the project?

8. Methodology

This evaluation is summative and relies on both quantitative and qualitative approaches to respond evaluation questions and fulfil the purpose. It consists of,

• Desk review of existing documents: The evaluator will conduct systematic analysis of existing documents and obtain existing qualitative and quantitative evidence prior to primary data collection. The desk review also facilitates assessment of the situation and available data to plan the evaluation and develop the inception report.
• Key information interviews: Online individual interviews will be conducted with a pre-agreed list of stakeholders who have in-depth exposure and understanding of the project and their context. Interview guide(s) will be developed during the inception phase to stimulate a discussion on concerned evaluation questions.
• Focus group discussions: Focus group discussions with beneficiary trainers will be organized to collect their insights on training of trainers and its rollout of the SIYB programme.
• Preliminary finding briefing: Upon completion of primary data collection, the evaluator will present preliminary findings to ILO for validation. The evaluator will also collect further insight from the group to feed them into the final report.

Any changes to the methodology should be discussed with and approved by the Regional Evaluation Officer during the inception phase.

9. Work Assignments

1. Kick-off meeting

The evaluator will have an initial consultation with the evaluation manager, relevant project team members and programme officer. The objective of the consultation is to reach a common understanding regarding the status of the project, the priority assessment questions, available data sources and data collection instruments and an outline of the final assessment report. The following topics will be covered: status of logistical arrangements, project background and materials, key evaluation questions and priorities, outline of the inception and final report.

2. Desk Review

The evaluator will review project background materials before conducting interviews. Documents to review include but are not limited to National Development Plan for Iraq 2018-2022, United Nations Sustainable Development Framework 2020-2024, ILO Programme and Budget 2020-2021 & 2022-2023, project document including results framework, and project progress reports.

3. Inception Report

The evaluator will draft an Inception Report, which should describe, provide reflection and fine-tune the following issues:

• • Project background
  • Purpose, scope and beneficiaries of the evaluation
  • Evaluation matrix, including criteria, questions, indicators, data source, and data collection methods  
  • Methodology and data collection tools
  • Main deliverables
  • Management arrangements and work plan

4. Primary Data Collection (Key Informant Interviews & Focus Group Discussions)

Following the inception report, the evaluator will have remote interviews with stakeholders together with an enumerator supporting the process if necessary. Individual or group interviews will be conducted with MoLSA, GIZ, implementing partners, project staffs/consultants, ILO ROAS DWT specialists, RPU, and ENTERPRISE Department.

Focus Group Discussions will be conducted with direct beneficiaries of training of trainers by the national enumerator who will be contracted separately.

5. Preliminary finding presentation

Upon completion of data collection, the evaluator will provide a briefing of preliminary findings to ILO.

6. Final Report

The final report will follow the format below and be in a range of 35-40 pages in length, excluding the annexes:

1. Title page
2. Table of Contents, including List of Appendices, Tables
3. List of Acronyms or Abbreviations
4. Executive Summary with key findings, conclusions and recommendations
5. Background and Project Description
6. Purpose of Evaluation
7. Evaluation Methodology and Evaluation Questions
8. Key evaluation findings (organized by evaluation criteria)
9. A table presenting the key results (i.e. figures and qualitative results) achieved per

objective (expected and unexpected)

10. Clearly identified conclusions and recommendations (identifying which stakeholders

are responsible and the time and resource implications of the recommendations)

11. Lessons Learned (in prescribed template)
12. Potential good practices (in prescribed template)
13. Annexes (list of interviews, TORs, list of documents consulted, good practices and lessons learned in the ILO format, etc.)

The quality of the report will be assessed against the ILO Evaluation Office (EVAL) Checklists 4.2, 4.3, 4.4. The deliverables will be submitted in the English language and structured according to the templates provided by the ILO. 

10. Evaluation Timeframe

The evaluation is to commence in April and complete in August 2022.

Please check the table in the attached document that describe the tentative timeline

Total estimated payable working days of consultant: 25 Days

11. Implications of the COVID crisis on the evaluation

The COVID-19 pandemic restricts the mobility of staff and consultants. Based on the matrix developed by the ILO Evaluation Office on the constraints and risks as measured against the criticality of the evaluation to the ILO, the evaluator will conduct this evaluation remotely relying on online methods such online surveys, telephone or online interviews, whereas for some country components it will be feasible to use a hybrid face to face/remote approach for collecting data.

When and where relevant, evaluation questions will also be guided by the ILO protocol on collecting evaluative evidence on the ILO’s Covid-19 response measure through project and programme evaluations, available at: https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_mas/---eval/documents/publication/wcms_757541.pdf

The evaluation manager may propose alternative methodologies to address the data collection that will be reflected in the inception phase of the evaluation developed by the evaluation team. These will be discussed and require detail development in the Inception report and then must be approved from the evaluation manager.

12. Deliverable

The main outputs of the evaluation consist of the following:

• Deliverable 1: Inception Report
• Deliverable 2: PowerPoint Presentation on preliminary findings
• Deliverable 3: Draft evaluation report
• Deliverable 4: Final evaluation report with separate template for executive summary and templates for lessons learned and good practices duly filled in (as per ILO’s standard procedure, the report will be considered final after quality review by ILO Evaluation Office)

13. Payment Term

1. 10 per cent of the total fee against deliverable 1 above approved by the evaluation manager
2. 30 per cent of the total fee against deliverable 2 and 3 above
3. 60 per cent of the total fee against deliverable 4 above, approved by the ILO Evaluation Office.

14. Management Arrangement

The evaluator will report to the ILO’s evaluation manager and should discuss any technical and methodological matters with him. The ILO project office in Erbil will provide administrative and logistical support during the data collection. The evaluation manager will coordinate with ILO Evaluation Office, who approves and signs off the final evaluation report.

The evaluator is responsible for conducting the evaluation according to the terms of reference (ToR). He/she will:

• Review the ToR and propose any refinements to evaluation questions and methodology during the inception phase
• Review project background materials (e.g., project document and progress reports).
• Prepare an inception report
• Develop and implement the evaluation methodology (i.e., conduct interviews, review documents) to answer the evaluation questions
• Conduct preparatory consultations with the evaluation manager prior to the evaluation mission
• Conduct key informant interviews and collect information according to the suggested format
• Analyse findings from focus group discussions
• Present preliminary findings
• Prepare an initial draft of the evaluation report with input from ILO specialists and constituents/stakeholders
• Prepare the final report based on the ILO, donor and other stakeholders’ feedback obtained on the draft report.

The ILO Evaluation Manager is responsible for:

• Drafting the ToR
• Finalizing the ToR with input from ILO colleagues and other stakeholders
• Hiring the evaluator
• Providing the evaluator with the project background materials
• Assisting the implementation of the evaluation methodology, as appropriate (i.e., participate in meetings, review documents)
• Reviewing the inception report, initial draft final report, circulating it for comments and providing consolidated feedback to the evaluator on the inception report and the final report
• Reviewing the final report
• Coordinating with the ILO Evaluation Office for the clearance of the final report
• Disseminating the final report to stakeholders
• Coordinating follow-up as necessary.

The Project team is responsible for:

• Reviewing the draft TOR and providing input
• Providing project background materials, including studies, analytical papers, reports, tools, publications produced, and any relevant background notes
• Providing a proposed list of stakeholders
• Participating in the preparatory briefing prior to the assessment missions
• Scheduling interviews and focus group discussions
• Ensuring necessary logistical arrangements for the missions
• Reviewing and providing comments on the initial draft report
• Participating in the debriefing on the findings, conclusions, and recommendations
• Providing translation for any required documents: ToR, PPP, final report, etc.
• Making sure appropriate follow-up action is taken

15. Legal and Ethical Matters

• This evaluation will comply with ILO evaluation guidelines and UN Norms and Standards.
• The ToRs is accompanied by the code of conduct for carrying out the evaluation “Code of conduct for evaluation in the ILO”[8]. The selected consultant will sign the Code of Conduct form along with the contract.
• UNEG ethical guidelines will be followed throughout the evaluation.
• The consultant will not have any links to project management or any other conflict of interest that would interfere with the independence of the evaluation.

16. Qualification

The evaluator is expected to have following qualifications,

• Proven experience in the evaluation of development interventions
• Expertise in sustainable enterprise issues, particularly MSME development and entrepreneurship promotion, and an understanding of the ILO’s projects. Prior experience in the region, particularly in Iraq, is asset.
• High professional standards and principles of integrity in accordance with ILO Evaluation Policy and United Nations Evaluation Group Norms and Standards.
• An advanced degree in a relevant field.
• Proven expertise on evaluation methods and the ILO approach.
• Full command of English. Command of Arabic is an advantage.
• The consultant should not have any links to project management or any other conflict of interest that would interfere with the independence of the evaluation.
• Previous experience in evaluations for UN agencies is preferred, particularly ILO.

Give the travel restriction due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the consultant who implement this evaluation remotely may work with a national interpreter/enumerator, who will provide necessary support for data collection.