TROSA Mid-Term Review

TROSA Mid-Term Review
Date: 22 Oct 2024

Oxfam is an international confederation of 21 organizations, working together in 79 countries. As part of a global movement for change, we are working together to end world poverty and injustice. We work with thousands of partners in countries around the world, and employ staff in a wide variety of posts. We work directly with communities and we work with the powerful to enable the most marginalized to improve their lives and livelihoods and have a say in decisions that affect them.

Transboundary Rivers of South Asia (TROSA) is a multi-year program commenced in 2017 and supported by the Government of Sweden. TROSA Phase II (started from Dec 2022) aims to improved cooperation in governing shared water resources and strengthening resilience to climate change of riparian communities in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basins. The program works directly with communities in selected locations within the transboundary Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) river basins, across countries.

TROSA is a multi-stakeholder program involving both horizontal and vertical layers of programme implementation within the target geographical coverage. The program strengthens the use of civic spaces by the communities through engaging with state institutions or government-centric think-tanks. TROSA Phase II has a Program Management Unit (PMU) as coordinator working with Oxfam country team who are dealing directly with local partners in implementing the program activities and regional partners to ensure the regional level coordination and influencing on transboundary water governance issues of the countries.

The current phase of the programme works toward the following outcomes:

• Outcome-1: Strengthened climate-resilient livelihoods of communities living in the transboundary GBM river basins
• Outcome-2: Improved and inclusive management of transboundary river ecosystems and protection of biodiversity across the GBM river basins
• Outcome-3: Strengthened leadership of civil society, especially women, Indigenous People, and youth to influence government and private sector on water governance across and between the transboundary GBM basins
• Outcome-4: Strengthened cooperation, collaboration and accountability across and between the transboundary GBM river basins

TROSA Phase II program has been working (since Dec 2022) with communities, women, youth, community-based organizations, government officials, private companies, and non-governmental organizations to create evidence and replicable models to influence local, national and regional level policy makers and influencers to enhance cooperation in governing shared water resources and strengthening resilience to climate change of riparian communities in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basins.

Purpose and objectives

The overall goal of this consultancy is to assess the progress and performance of the program toward its intended results/outcomes/objectives and impacts and document program’s lessons learnt. Led by an external evaluation team, insightful views on the current approaches and strategy and progresses of TROSA program are expected from this review taking the OECD’s Evaluation Criteria as the ground – the questions corresponding to each evaluation criterion are provided in the detail ToR.

The specific objectives of TROSA MTR are to:

1. Assess the progress and outcomes (including unintended results, if any)
2. Evaluate relevance, effectiveness, and efficiency at multiple levels.
3. Analyse achievements, risks, and sustainability potential.
4. Provide actionable recommendations for program improvement.
5. Document lessons learned on strategic approaches:

Methodology and specific TASKS

This review will gather evidence on the program’s value addition on cross-cutting issues of natural resources governance, ecosystem restoration, biodiversity protection, resilience and youth and women leadership from a transboundary and regional perspective. The insights and suggestions will be used for subsequent improvement in program implementation approach and practice, of partnerships and impact at various levels (sub-basin/basin/ regional level), Theory of Change, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability (MEAL) framework, and interaction with stakeholders. The method of the MTR is provided hereafter.

Method

The MTR will review the program design and strategy by examining the key documents. It will follow a collaborative and participatory approach while engaging with the key stakeholders. Participatory methods such as focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with key informants and program staff to systematically document lessons, insights and reflections, examples of success, failure, lessons learnt from the program are expected. The engagement with communities, partners and networks, and key external stakeholders in the MTR process is mandatory.

• Desk Review
• Field Work
• Long form interviews and focus groups
• Validation meeting/workshop

Evaluation questions

DAC’s Evaluation Criteria are applied for this MTR. For questions corresponding to each criterion, please refer the detail ToR here:

Case Studies from the field in response to the questions are requested to document so that these case studies will provide a deeper analysis of selected pieces of TROSA Phase-II work and strengthen identification of lessons and evidence of what approaches have worked. Number of case studies (at least 5) and thematic areas need to be conducted in discussion with the project team as the commencement provide a better picture from the field.

1. Terms of Payment

The cost includes all travel, accommodation, and taxes. Oxfam will be responsible for the arrangement of travel to communities during the field visit.

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Payment conditions and terms

Payment

1. Upon signing of the contract – 20%

2. Upon the submission of satisfactory inception report – 30%

3. Upon submission of satisfactory final report – 40%

4. Upon completion of all tasks as per mentioned in the ToR and sign-off from program manager – 10%

   3. Mid-Term Review team composition

The team of evaluation experts, who by their background and experiences (preferably in water resources management, transboundary cooperation on water governance and policy influencing) can cover the work in all 4 countries and three basins within the given time period. (the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna (GBM) Basin). The complementary skills of the team are program design and implementation, program review, inclusive water governance, especially vulnerable community people, women and youth participation, and policy and institutional processes in water and natural resources governance, at national and regional level. The team should be composed of equal gender representation and will be subjected to Oxfam’s vigorous safeguarding checks and commitments.

4. Timeline

The tentative timeline of the Mid-Term Review is provided here.

Indicative Dates / Process / Maximum no. of person days

25 Nov 2024 / Recruitment of the consultant/firm selection –

25 Nov -05 Dec 2024 / Phase I: Document Review – 10

5 Dec 2024- 25 Jan 2025 / Phase II: Field work – 30

5 Dec 2024- 15 Feb 2025 / Phase III: Analysis and Report – 21

XX Feb 2025 / Sharing the findings (face to face) in River, Rights, Resilience Forum (location to be confirmed) – Travel and accommodation cost to be covered by Oxfam – 1

Estimate Total # of working days – 62

1. Qualification

The MTR should be realized by a team (preferably three or more person), with competency and sound understanding of the context of South Asian regional water governance context, policies and practices as well as the investment trends in water associated sectors in the region, and political ecology of transboundary water governance. The team should have experience in complex and transdisciplinary program development and implementation on water governance and policy influencing at various levels, gender dynamics and principles of justice. Some specific requirements of the are:

• Demonstrated experiences in political ecological or environmental justice research, preferably in South Asian context.
• Experience evaluating programs or projects related to transboundary cooperation, natural resource governance (preferably river basins), and inclusive development.
• Strong analytical skills in gender dynamics, human rights and civic space strengthening.
• Strong monitoring, evaluation, and learning experiences of complex regional program.
• Demonstrated high level proficiency in writing and concise analysis and in developing reports that include visual representation of data and findings.
• In each country of the assignment, there should be at least one evaluation team member fluent in local language (Ahomiya, Bangla, Dzongkha, Hindi and Nepali).
• Prior experience of evaluating Sida-funded regional programs is desired but not essential.
  1. Application process

Applicants/consulting firms should submit the following documents for the selection process:

• Technical proposal as per requirement in the description above and information reflecting applicant’s financial and technical capacity to complete similar assignments.
• Financial proposal with indicative budget of the entire assignment including daily rate; no. of hours per person; fees and specification of operational costs, VAT/ taxes included, etc.
• Samples of similar mid-term evaluation/ review reports which were written by the team leader and that are relevant to the ToR
• CVs of key evaluation team members