Economic Empowerment Evaluation Consultancy

Anticipated timeframe: December 2024 to end of August 2025

Location: Remote with in-country work in Malawi, Nairobi, Kenya, Lagos, Nigeria

Sightsavers works with partners in over 30 countries across Africa and South Asia to eliminate avoidable blindness and support the empowerment of people with disabilities to learn, earn and participate equally in society.

Sightsavers’ Empowerment and Inclusion Strategic Framework explains our rights-based approach to social inclusion and our commitment to the progressive mainstreaming of disability throughout our programming. It underpins all our social inclusion work and complements our other global strategies on eye health, education, NTDs and research. The core objectives of the unrestricted portfolio include increasing access to economic empowerment pathways for people with disabilities, removing barriers in market systems, and leveraging initial seed funding to secure larger donor investments.

Purpose

The key purpose of this evaluation is to review and document the experience of implementation from the past two years to inform future strategic decision making. Sightsavers is seeking a Consultancy to conduct a comprehensive evaluation aimed at understanding the models and approaches that demonstrate effective pathways towards inclusive employment, contributing to the evidence and knowledge base of Sightsavers’ economic empowerment portfolio. The evaluation will place a particular emphasis on how the design and delivery of programmes might be enhanced for future programmatic work including a deep dive into two specific project approaches, IT academies and agriculture.

The Consultancy will be expected to evaluate the project level data and materials as well as primary data collected and consider if and how the projects have contributed towards the programme theory of change.

Scope of Work

The Consultancy will evaluate:

• If the purpose of the unrestricted portfolio has been achieved
• What models or approaches demonstrate improvement in economic inclusion of people with disabilities
• What partnership models are effective in providing leadership on inclusive employment
• What prevents or motivates the provision of a full range of products and services by financial institutions to people with disabilities. How we can use this knowledge to drive greater financial inclusion

Key Deliverables

• Inception report drafted and finalised
• Desk review document/data review and analysis
• IT academy case study
• Malawi agriculture project case study
• Discussion of desk review and case study findings at the programme workshop
• Theory of Change reviewed at the programme workshop
• Consolidated evaluation report drafted
• Consolidated evaluation report completed

Timeline

The consultancy is expected to be conducted between December 2024 to end of August 2025.

Sightsavers will welcome expressions of interest from qualified independent evaluators or consultancy companies. An individual or team with members located in the relevant countries (Malawi, Kenya, Nigeria) would be preferred. The Consultancy and team members should have the following core competencies and experience.

Consultancy’s expertise

• Depth of knowledge conducting evaluations of economic empowerment programmes
• Previous experience working in West and East African countries, particularly Malawi, Nigeria and / or Kenya
• A proven track record of working on disability inclusion
• Previous experience developing and evaluating Theories of Change
• Proficiency in qualitative and quantitative research methods
• Ability to conduct comprehensive desktop summaries and case studies
• First class production of high-quality evaluation reports
• Understanding of the labour markets, socio-economic and cultural contexts of the programme countries
• Understanding of issues related to people with disabilities
• Strong project management skills, including planning, execution, and reporting
• Flexibility to conduct required data collection in Malawi, Kenya and/or Nigeria

A consultancy with a proven track record in the above will be procured to undertake the project through an expression of interest process.

The deadline for the consultancy to submit their bid is Thursday 5 December 2024, 23.30pm GMT UK.

Interviews are intended to be conducted the week of the 9th December 2024 onwards. The interview process will be conducted virtually using Microsoft Teams, with an interview lasting up to 1 hour. A second interview may be conducted if required.

Please note due to the high volume of applications we reserve the right to close this ad early.

Payment Terms

Payment terms will be agreed between the Consultancy and Sightsavers at interview.

Full details of the project, Scope of Work, Key Deliverables can be found within the ToR.