BALADI-RMF Endline Performance Evaluation Team Leader

Position Description

EnCompass LLC’s Monitoring and Evaluation Support Program in Lebanon (MEPL) is seeking a Team Leader to support the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Building Alliance for Local Advancement, Development, and Investment – Renee Moawad Foundation (BALADI-RMF) Activity endline performance evaluation in Lebanon. The Team Leader will work under the direct supervision of the MEPL Senior M&E Specialist and in close collaboration with the MEPL team and evaluation team to coordinate and implement all evaluation activities. The Team Leader will be working with the Research and Evaluation 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 responsible to ensure deliverables are completed on schedule and in accordance with EnCompass’ and USAID’s quality standards

This position is a 5-month consultancy. The inception and reporting phases are expected to be conducted remotely, data collection however will be conducted in person unless there are security and/or covid restrictions.

The BALADI-RMF 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: Capacities of local government entities in public services provision is enhanced (IR1), Participatory decentralized governance model is enhanced (IR2), and Innovative public administration practices adopted for sustained local development (IR3). 

The Activity was integrated into the Lebanon 2014-2019 Country Development Cooperative Strategy (CDCS) to support Development Objective 1 (DO1): Public sector capacity to deliver services improved through the achievement of Intermediate Result 1.3 (IR 1.3), and DO2: Economic opportunity enhanced through the achievement of IR 2.1.  

To date, BALADI-RMF has delivered assistance across 16 Lebanese districts (Kesrwan, Jbeil, El- Shouf, Baabda, Aley, Koura, Bcharre, Zgharta, Mennieh-Dennieh, Batroun, Akkar, Jezzine, Saida, Hasbaya, Baalback and Zahle). Municipal interventions are grouped under 3 rounds of municipal applications (RFMA1, initiated in 2013 - RFMA2, initiated in 2015 - RFMA3, initiated in 2017), interventions in Arsal, under Arsal SPD (initiated in 2018), and interventions in South Lebanon, under South SPD (initiated in 2019). 

Evaluation Description:

The endline evaluation will build off the interim performance evaluation conducted in October 2020 and will inform the Mission about the BALADI-RMF Activity’s performance and achievements, its relevance, effectiveness and lessons learned for future programming. The evaluation will explore the extent to which the Activity achieved outputs, outcomes, and stated objectives. For example, this evaluation will analyze the Activity’s contribution to empowering municipalities and NGOs to implement needed local development activities that respond to most recent 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-October 2020 environment. By documenting successes, challenges, and lessons learned, the evaluation will inform future programming (for USAID and RMF) and contribute to the Mission’s commitment to continuous program adaptation and learning as well as locally based development assistance. This evaluation will also address gender and women empowerment, youth employment and skills, and environmental protection and eco-tourism as crosscutting elements of the program. The specific audience and intended use of this evaluation is USAID Lebanon Mission and other audience will be determined during design meetings with the evaluation team. 

Position Duties and Responsibilities

The specific tasks of the Team Leader are as follows:  

• Lead the Baladi-RMF evaluation team in implementing the evaluation tasks
• Lead the evaluation team in developing the methodology that will answer the evaluation questions
• Lead the evaluation team in developing and finalizing the inception report, data collection tools, interview guides and provide them with the necessary guidance for the field work
• Lead the evaluation team in the interview process, including interviews with key stakeholders and/or focus group discussions, and provide the analytical framework needed for data processing and data analysis
• Lead the evaluation team in analyzing data, facilitating the “Recommendation formulation workshop’ and presenting the findings to USAID/Lebanon
• Write the evaluation report with the support of other team members
• Lead the evaluation team in responding to USAID/Lebanon’s comments on the draft report and support them in submitting a final report

Task

Deliverable

Timeline

Meet with USAID and MEPL Team for planning

Participation in meetings

 May

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

Evaluation Inception Report (including data collection tools)

May - June

Respond to USAID and Encompass IRB comments on inception report

June

Data collection

Mid-June – Mid-July

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

 July

Findings Validation and Recommendations Co-creation Workshop

PowerPoint presentation and/or handouts, and facilitation

August

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-RMF comments

 August

September

Dissemination

To Be Determined with the Mission

September