USAID/ENGAGE

FINISHED: Consultant Request for ENGAGE Capacity Development Programming Evaluation

I. Introduction

Pact is an international development nonprofit that works on the ground in nearly 40 countries to end poverty and marginalization. We partner with local organizations, businesses, and governments to build lasting solutions for thriving, resilient communities. Our vision is a world where everyone owns their future. Pact has worked in Ukraine since 2006 in the areas of governance, capacity development, and health. Building on a decade of experience, we address key challenges facing civil society organizations in Ukraine.

This Consultant request (CR) is a part of the Activity to Enhance Non-Governmental Actors and Grassroots Engagement (ENGAGE). The purpose of ENGAGE is to increase citizen awareness of and engagement in civic activities at the national, subnational, and local level.

ENGAGE institutional partners developed organizational capacity development plans (graduation roadmaps) as part of their ENGAGE awards. Pact aims to evaluate each institutional partner organization against their expected organizational sustainability plans and metrics, results on increased citizen outreach and awareness of and engagement in advancing reform themes, intentions to mainstreaming vulnerable, marginalized, and hard-to-reach constituencies, anti-corruption, and government accountability and transparency. This activity feeds into ENGAGE’s FY23 learning agenda.

The goal of this CR is to hire a Ukrainian consultant to review ENGAGE institutional partners’ organizational capacity development plans, evaluate the plans completion, prepare comprehensive evaluation report, and make a presentations of key research take-aways.

II. Scope of Work

At the onset of the ENGAGE project, Pact aimed to use a tailored capacity development approach to strengthen diverse types of networks and coalitions, from loose horizontal networks organized around local or regional issues to formal national coalitions. Through a multi-staged competitive process, ENGAGE selected convening organizations as institutional partners which are also leaders of policy reform advocacy. Pact was to use Organizational Network Analysis (ONA), network meetings that result in action plans, including strategic communication plans. Pact was to directly assist convening CSOs to curate network dialogue and exchange. ENGAGE’s approach included to link partners to training and coaching from technical experts for skill and knowledge areas. Pact was to directly build partner capacity by enabling them to co-create products and solutions with experts, such as by allowing members of a coalition to develop a communications strategy with a public relations firm. To improve CSO communication on reform processes, Pact was also to help partners define target audiences, identify communications channels, develop, and deliver messages, and assess message impact.

Direct capacity development included strengthening CSOs capacity to improve civic engagement and constituency-building that supports reform initiatives. ENGAGE planned to motivate CSOs to build and mobilize broader constituency bases and provide local and national CSOs with practical methodologies, including use of social media platforms, mobile data collection for crowdsourcing and citizen polling, and models for volunteer/membership recruitment and management. Capacity development also included strengthening technical skills and knowledge for effective implementation of civic initiatives. Pact planned to provide training, coaching, and TA in ICT use, including mobile data collection, data mining, and geospatial mapping. Trainings also will focus on discrete knowledge areas relevant to specific campaigns. Specific capacity development also included strengthening strategic leadership of civic initiatives in form of providing leadership coaching for senior civil society leaders.

At the project’s original midpoint internal and external evaluation lessons and extended scope of ENGAGE prompted programming adaptation. Since then, ENGAGE is focused on linking national, regional, and local civic initiatives, provide incentives to CSOs working on similar issues to network and build coalitions with one another and strengthen their constituent base. ENGAGE maintained its support for institutional partners with an increased emphasis on enhancing the scope of subnational and local outreach to engage a wider range of constituents. ENGAGE activities increased support to information sharing and the development of joint initiatives among local CSOs and new grassroots civic initiatives. Adaptation also included accent on developing and institutionalizing mechanisms that strengthen civic engagement.

A key program adaptation was to focus capacity development on sustainability, strategic communications, and leadership support of CSOs to conduct effective civic initiatives. Pact was to help partners define target audiences, identify communications channels, develop, and deliver messages, and assess message impact. Grantees were expected to reach diverse audiences more effectively: men and women, youth and pensioners, and other key constituencies, such as IDPs.

To assist institutional partners towards graduation, ENGAGE assessed performance of institutional partners using a tailored Organizational Journey to Self-Reliance Assessment, developed earlier by ENGAGE Performance was assessed towards financial and programming outcomes. Based on performance assessment results, readiness of institutional partners to implement their capacity development plans (graduation roadmaps). Pact then was to assist institutional partners’ own organizational capacity development journeys to stoke their passion and develop their competency as conveners, advisors, and donors to local CSOs and civic coalitions. As part of these efforts, Pact also conducted full-fledged USAID-certified financial audits. All capacity development, whether conducted directly by Pact or through the engagement of consultants, was to be directly linked to support policy advocacy, policy impact and sustainability.

ENGAGE was expected to achieve the following programmatic results:

Purpose: To provide an evidence-based third-party evaluation of the project’s so-far outcomes, and wherever possible impact, on organizational sustainability and resiliency ENGAGE’s partner CSOs.

Objectives:

Duties and Responsibilities:

Task 1: Review the institutional partners’ organizational capacity development plans (graduation roadmaps).

Task 2: Evaluate using qualitative and quantitative methods the results of institutional partners’ organizational capacity development plans (graduation roadmaps) implementation.

Task 3: Develop comprehensive evaluation report, including identifying areas of future organizational development (in English language).

Task 4: Present the key research findings to ENGAGE (in English).

Research questions:

Pact anticipates eleven ENGAGE partners’ performance to be assessed under this evaluation.

Available additional background and data sources:

Deliverables:

Timeline of the Services Performance: October 20, 2023 – January 31, 2024.

Expected Level of Effort: Estimated Level of Effort is 35 consulting days. Deadlines and due dates could be negotiated if strong arguments are laid in the proposal.

III. Qualifications

All proposals which fail to comply with the basic minimum requirements outlined in the solicitation shall be eliminated. Only proposals displaying excellent knowledge of organizational sociology, expertise in M&E concepts, and submitted a full package of documentation required for application will be evaluated. See Sections C and E.


Application Instructions

Proposals must be submitted to kbondar@pactworld.org no later than 14:00 on October 9, 2023 (Kyiv time). The subject line should contain: “Proposal under Consultant Request P4767-2023-08”.

Documentation required for application:

Questions

All questions or clarifications regarding this Consultant Request must be in writing and submitted to kbondar@pactworld.org no later than 17:00 on October 2, 2023 (Kyiv time). The subject line should contain: “Questions to Consultant Request P4767-2023-08.” Questions and requests for clarification, and the responses thereto, will be circulated to all Consultant Request recipients who indicate an interest.

All proposals which fail to comply with the basic minimum requirements outlined in the solicitation shall be eliminated. Only proposals submitted a full package of documentation required for application will be evaluated.

IV. Terms and Conditions

Disclaimers: