Terms of Reference for
“Increasing Democratic Processes and Rights related to Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in Cambodia”.
Mid-term External Evaluation
1. PROGRAMME BACKGROUND
The “Increasing Democratic Processes and Rights related to Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in Cambodia” Programme of Forum Syd’s Cambodia Office has been developed within the framework of its country strategic plan for 2013-2018, and in response to the current emerging rights related issues concerning land, natural resources, housing rights, forestry governance, gender inequality, indigenous rights, climate change and social injustices of Cambodian marginalized peoples, including women and indigenous people. The development of the programme and identification of the programme’s rights related issues was done through numerous consultations with marginalized groups in Cambodia, including women and minority groups, government agencies and authorities, partner organisations and relevant stakeholders.
To strengthen the ability and confidence of poor and marginalised women and men in Cambodia to challenge existing power imbalances related to access, use and control of natural resources. These will enable them to fully claim and realise their rights equally, Forum Syd’s Cambodia Office - in partnership with implementing partner organisations - has employed its rights-based approach as the core method to rights related issues, which the marginalized groups face today. Forum Syd and its partner organisations also apply a gender and climate change mainstreaming approach to ensure the use and management of natural resources in a transparent and accountable manner between men and women, including indigenous people.
The Sida funded programme has been currently carried out by 13 primary advocate partner organisations and roughly 10 groups of land and natural resources rights activists utilising their expertise from land rights to housing rights, natural resources management, forestry, fisheries, gender, indigenous rights, community organizing, networking and climate change.
2. OBJECTIVES OF THE EVALUATON
The overall objective of this mid-term evaluation is to primarily assess achieved results of Forum Syd’s programme interventions through partner organisations versus the programme’s overall objective/results frameworks, and to determine whether the intervention is in line with the current programme and country strategies.
Specifically, the evaluation also aims to:
2.1. Make an informed judgement about the performance of the programme - the relevance of programme outputs and outcomes to overall and specific objectives of the programme, and the value of the results to the intended beneficiaries.
2.2. Assess the long term impact and sustainability of the programme in terms of the extent to which the results achieved can continue without additional support.
2.3. Provide practical recommendations for learning to Forum Syd’s team and partner organizations in order to improve intervention strategies, programme effectiveness of the 2014-2016 programme phase and provide better support and benefits to marginalized people, including indigenous people and women in the programme target areas.
3. INTERVENTION BACKGROUND
3.1. About Forum Syd
Forum Syd is a Swedish non-governmental organisation, which is not politically or religiously affiliated, founded in 1995. Forum Syd is a member organisation and its 158 members are comprised of Swedish civil society organisations working closely together.
Forum Syd´s vision is of a just and sustainable world where all people have the power to effect change. To achieve this ultimate goal, Forum Syd’s primary work is to strengthen marginalised people around the world who organise to claim their rights. Forum Syd also advocates for changes that contribute to a just and sustainable world.
3.2. The evaluated intervention
The mid-term evaluation is commissioned to review and assess impact, outcome and 7 outputs of the programme entitled, “Increasing Democratic Processes and Rights related to Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in Cambodia”, 2014-2016:
Impact:
A just and sustainable society in Cambodia where poor and marginalised women and men have the ability and confidence to challenge existing power imbalances related to access, use and control of natural resources, so that they can fully claim and realise their rights equally.
Outcome:
Target marginalised women and men and partners are able to address the root causes of social inequalities to claim rights, take effective actions and influence policies related to sustainable natural resource management and climate change.
Output 1:
Strengthened capacity of partners to facilitate democratic and participatory action learning processes, where women and men have the same opportunities for sustainable management of natural resources and climate change adaptation.
Output 2:
Strengthened capacity of Forum Syd team in facilitating rights-based, participatory learning approaches and gender mainstreaming for sustainable natural resource management and climate change.
Output 3:
Target groups, women and men increased their participation in local governance in relation to sustainable natural resource management and climate change adaptation.
Output 4:
Target groups, women and men are functioning and participating in networks to claim their rights related to sustainable natural resource management, and climate change.
Output 5:
Target groups, women and men are analysing and developing plans to address the root causes of inequality related to sustainable natural resource management and climate change adaptation, to actively engage in developing actions to claim their rights.
Output 6:
Duty-bearers have improved practices for better implementation of policies and legislation, and provide solutions for both women and men equally in relation to sustainable natural resource management and climate change.
Output 7:
Target groups, women and men linked their local interventions and grassroots research related to sustainable natural resource management and climate change to national and global advocacy actions.
The “Increasing Democratic Processes and Rights related to Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in Cambodia” programme has been funded by Sida. The programme is currently being implemented by Forum Syd through its 13 local partner organizations. Forum Syd’s programme in Cambodia covers those priority target areas with vital natural resources such as fisheries and forests that people depend on for their livelihoods, and where investments and ongoing extraction of natural resources are leading to violations of human rights and degradation of the ecosystem. The provinces around the Tonle Sap Lake and Mekong River and coastal protected areas are important in terms of fisheries work, and the Northern provinces are also given priority since indigenous peoples who are severely hindered from claiming rights and influence largely populate these areas.
As indigenous people, international and national laws guarantee their collective rights, but these rights are frequently violated and ignored particularly as the northeast is rich in natural resources. While mainly focusing on remote rural areas, Forum Syd also supports partners who work in urban areas, particularly Phnom Penh, where rapid urban development is leading to an increasing number of land conflicts and evictions of poor communities. Several partners operating nationwide were selected for their ability to support key democratic processes that will support and benefit all other partners, such as monitoring elections, women centred media, and research.
Five partner organizations (including CED, ICSO, MVi, PKH and SCW) are unique actors in assisting indigenous people to address their natural resource management and rights, while KYA and KYSD are working to mobilize youth to participate in strengthening the sustainable use of natural resources. The programme continues to apply a rights based approach (RBA) to empower and strengthen the rights of communities to sustainable management of natural resources. Gender and climate change themes have been gradually mainstreamed into the programme’s cycle implementation.
4. STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT
The target group and main stakeholders for the mid-term evaluation report are Forum Syd, partner organizations and Sida. The evaluation shall employ a participatory approach, with a focus on analysis of results.
Three groups of stakeholders can be identified to be consulted in the mid-term evaluation. The primary source is the partners of Forum Syd, while the second source shall be the programme’s targeted marginalized people to explore the programme’s progress and best practices. The third source is from the primary donor Sida: like-minded NGOs (local and international) and relevant donor agencies (e.g. EU, ADB and WWF), local authorities (e.g. target commune councils, or relevant government agencies (e.g. Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and their provincial departments).
Partner organisations are expected to assist the evaluation team by responding to questions and participating in both individual meetings, group discussions and dissemination meetings. They will also provide additional programme documentation that is not available at Forum Syd.
Forum Syd staff are expected to participate in interviews, meetings and dissemination meetings. They will also provide the necessary programme documentation to the evaluation team, in order to support the evaluation consultancy.
Sida, like-minded NGOs and other donor agencies are expected to participate in interviews. Sida shall be invited to participate in all dissemination activities as well.
5. EVALUATION QUESTIONS AND CRITERIA
The consultants should assess and document the results and impact in respect to the programme’s original target impact, outcome and outputs and strategies presented in the logframe of Forum Syd as well as provide practical recommendations for improving future implementation.
Therefore, the programme performance will be assessed and evaluated through the analysis of the followings:
5.1. RELEVANCE:
The appropriateness of programme objectives to the problems that it was supposed to address, and to the physical and policy environment within which it operates. It should include an assessment of the quality of programme preparation and design – i.e. the logic and completeness of the programme planning process, and the internal logic and coherence of the programme design. Specifically, it should answer the following questions:
· Is the intervention consistent with living conditions of the targeted marginalised rights holders, including women and indigenous people? Does the programme intervention is relevant to address their needs and priorities?
· How have the environmental conditions affected the planning and implementation of the programme? Specify those and provide strategic advice for improvement.
· An analysis should always be made on whether the intervention is relevant for women and indigenous people regardless if women and indigenous people were not identified as specific target groups: were women, indigenous included in the original programme planning processes?
5.2. EFFECTIVENESS:
The evaluation should consider if the programme design was the most effective means of achieving the objectives, and the extent to which the objectives have been achieved while taking into account the relative importance of each objective. The evaluation should examine how the inputs (financial, technical and human) are appropriated and potential contributed to achieve outcomes or hindered the achievement of the objectives in the programme timeframe. Specifically, it should answer the following questions:
· To what extent do the development changes according to or a right direction with the planned results and objectives of the proposed intervention in nearly two years?
· To what extent is the identified development the result of the intervention rather than extraneous factors? What are the reasons for the achievement or non‐achievement of setting impact, outcome and outputs?
· Given the Cambodian context and the programme’s impact and outcome, have the chosen strategies been appropriate and effective enough? What can be done to make the interventions more effective?
5.3. EFFICIENCY:
The evaluation should assess whether the cost of the programme can be justified by its results, taking alternatives into account. Specifically, it should answer the following questions:
· Was the use of resources cost-efficient, i.e. could the intervention have been implemented with fewer resources without reducing the quality and quantity of the results? Could similar results have been achieved at lower costs?
· How much resources were spent on male and female beneficiaries? How does this compare to the results achieved for men and women?
· Were resources (funds, human resources, time, expertise etc.) allocated strategically to achieve gender-related impact and outcome results? Please elaborate those changes through case studies.
· Were resource (funds, human resources, time, expertise etc.) allocated strategically to make changes in knowledge, behaviour of partner organizations and the marginalized groups in climate change? Please elaborate those changes.
5.4. IMPACT:
The evaluation should determine the long-term effects of the programme, whether the progress to date are potential produced positive results or negative, intended or unintended, and the relation to the overall goal of the programme. Specifically, it should answer the following questions:
· What are the intended and unintended/positive and negative effects of the intervention on people, institutions and the physical environment? How has the intervention affected the access to rights and quality of life of different groups of stakeholders, especially rights holders (particularly indigenous people and women) at the grassroots level?
· What is the impact of the intervention on partner organisations and community based organizations? To what extent does the intervention contribute to capacity development of the grassroots marginalized people, including women and indigenous groups and partner organizations’ employees?
· Have results (effects of activities and outputs) affected women and men differently? If so, why and in which way?
· What effects (expected/unexpected) have the interventions had on gender relations?
· What do target groups and other stakeholders affected by the intervention perceive to be the results of the intervention themselves?
5.5. SUSTAINABILITY:
The evaluation should determine if the programme outcomes and impacts will be maintain sustained results within the proposed programme timeframe without continuing external financial or technical support. Specifically, it should answer the following questions:
· Is the programme strategy, planning and intervention are consistent with the partners’ strategic planning and implementation. These are response to the marginalized groups’ priorities? Is it supported by local institutions and well integrated with local social and cultural conditions?
· Are requirement of local ownership satisfied? Did partners, target groups and other stakeholders (preferably also duty-bearers, women) meaningfully participate in the planning and implementation of the intervention?
· Do partners and their marginalized groups have the financial and technical capacity to maintain the benefits from the intervention when the donor support has been withdrawn?
· Has the programme planning taken the environmental prerequisites into account?
· What are the possible long-term effects on gender equality?