EvalPartnersPeer-to-Peer Grants Program

Call for Proposals - 2016

Thanks to a generous support from the Government of Finland, EvalPartners invites Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation (VOPEs) to apply for Peer to Peer grants for implementation ofpartnership projectsjointly developed by at least two VOPEs. The idea is to encourage two or more VOPEs to form mutually beneficial partnerships with each other to promoted shared advice and learning.

  1. Background Information

EvalPartners is an international initiative that aims to enhance the capacities of VOPEs to engage in a strategic and meaningful manner in national evaluation processes to be able to influence country-led evaluation systems. The expected outcomes of the initiative are three-fold:

  • VOPEs are stronger. Their institutional and organizational capacities are enhanced;
  • VOPEs are more influential. They are better able to play strategic roles in strengthening the enabling environment for evaluation within their countries, and so help to improve national evaluation systems and promote the use of evaluation evidence in developing policies geared towards effective, equitable and gender-equality responsive development results.
  • VOPEs have sustainable strategies to enhance the evaluation skills, knowledge and capacities of their members, and of evaluators more widely, to manage and conduct credible and useful evaluations.

Core values of the initiative established by theChiang Mai Declaration signed by EvalPartners members at the first Global Evaluation Forum in December 2012 areequity, social justice and gender equality. Due to the efforts of EvalPartners, 2015 was designated the International Year of Evaluation which culminatedby the organization of the second Global Forum on Evaluation and the launch of the Global Evaluation Agenda 2016-2020 (EvalAgenda2020).

  1. EvalPartners Small Grants Program

EvalPartners Small Grant Program is managed by the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation (IOCE).In its previous 3 rounds, the program involved proactively national and regional VOPEs from 70+ countries who are member of IOCE and EvalPartners, through 51 different P2P partnerships in 6 thematic areas:

  1. Developing evaluation culture
  2. Promoting evaluation policies and systems at the national and regional level
  3. Empowering VOPEs and developing their capacities
  4. Ethics and professionalization
  5. Promoting Equity Focused and Gender Responsive Evaluations
  6. Promoting networking among VOPEs

This year the Peer-to-Peer Grants Program will support the implementation of the Global Evaluation Agenda 2016-2020 (EvalAgenda'2020). Participants are strongly encouraged to make themselves familiar with Agenda'2020 prior to developing their applications.

  1. Selection Criteria

The program will prioritize projects that respond to at least twoout of the threefollowing criteria:

  • Directly contribute to achievement of the EvalAgenda2020: stronger evaluators, stronger VOPEs and a better enabling environment for evaluation;
  • Link to and operate in synergy with the activities of at least one EvalPartners networks/initiatives:EvalGender+, EVALSDGs, EvalIndigenous; EvalYouth; Parliamentarians Forum for Development Evaluation
  • Integrate initiatives for professionalization of evaluation and/or development of National Evaluation Systems.
  1. Partnerships for P2P Proposals

As a learning organization, EvalPartners reviews periodically the criteria for partnership selection, in the light of the lessons learned following the evaluation of every previous round. Guidelines for the 2016-2017 round are as follows:

a)Project proposal should be jointly developed by at leasttwo VOPEs.

b)At least one of those VOPEs should be from the Global South, that is be a national VOPE from the ODA-eligible country (The list of ODA-eligible countries is available at Preference will be given to proposals that include Global South VOPEs that have not received EvalPartners funding previously. Partnerships may also include academic institutions, NGOs and government agencies.

c)In order to accommodate a maximum number of ideas, VOPEs and countries, a VOPE cannot be partner in more than two partnerships submitting proposals.

d)Applications can only be received from VOPEs that are registered on the IOCE database (see

e)VOPEs approved for grants are expected to be Contributing Members of IOCE (minimum USD 100 per year).

  1. Grant funding allocations

The amount of support to a project is linked to the number of participating VOPEs.

  • A partnership that involves two VOPEs can apply for up to USD 10,000.
  • A partnership that involves three or more VOPEs can apply for USD 15,000. Should one of those VOPEs come from an ODA-eligible country that has not received EvalPartners grant support in the last two P2P rounds, the proposal gets an additional bonus of 5 points (on a scale of 100) to its final score.

Under this call for proposals EvalPartners expect to allocate the total of USD 120,000.

5.1 Eligible Project Expenses

Grants can be used to cover the following expenses:

  • Travel (both land and air economy class fair)(boarding passes must be submitted);
  • Daily subsistence allowances including hotel accommodations
  • Terminal expenses and local transportation;
  • Visa costs (including vaccination if required);
  • Travel-related insurance;
  • Hire of premises and equipment for project events;
  • Purchase of supplies for project events;
  • Translation/interpretation expenses;
  • Communication expenses;
  • Production of information and communication materials, including printables and web-sites;
  • Bank fees,
  • IOCE membership fees;
  • International travel handling fees – up to USD 100 per round trip per person.

If project events are organized within a framework of a conference or other similar event organized by one of the participating VOPEs, project funding can be applied to cover registration fees for the representatives of the visiting partner VOPE and/or academic institution.

EvalPartners encourages VOPEs to seek mutually beneficial partnerships with local NGOs and educational institutions that can provide facilities for project events free of charge, provide secretariat support for events, help to recruit students as volunteers to support the events.

As the audit procedures on IOCE accounts are becoming more stringent, VOPEs are also requested to follow transparent financial management procedures, by requesting 3 offers for services-related expenses, providing justification that the airfares or hotels are lower or equivalent to those offered by commercial providers at the time of engaging expenses (for example running a search on for airfares and for hotels and keeping evidence as a screen shot or pdf file with date)

5.2 Ineligible Project Expenses

Grants cannot be used to cover salaries of VOPE staff and expert fees, purchase of equipment, e.g. computers and IT equipment, and rent of offices for VOPE secretariats. No administrative fees can be included in the project budget.

  1. What do we intend to achieve through P2P support?

The current round of P2P grant is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Government of Finland, who cares deeply about achieving results, not simply conducting activities. The EvalPartners Management Group (EPMG) designed an Outcomes Framework .This framework is directly inspired from Agenda’2020 and articulate clearly what EvalPartners is set to achieve as a collective contribution to the Agenda by the 2020 horizon.

Since a substantive part of EvalPartners resources is allocated to the Peer-to-Peer grants, the proposals will be assessed based on their compliance with this Outcomes Framework, and hence applicants should clearly indicate their contributions to the Framework in their proposals.

The table below details a spectrum of possible measures through which the P2P projects can contribute the EvalPartners intended outcomes. Most of these measures are not new and are part of the panacea of interventions proposed by VOPEs in their quest for improving the enabling environment for evaluation and in raising the demand, supply and use of evaluations at the national level.

The challenge (and the beauty) of VOPEs teaming up together under the P2P call is to approach these outcomes (and thus Agenda’2020) from a systems perspective where proposed interventions feed into multiple outcomes, and where outcomes are valid across the various countries/regions where the proposed action is taking place (as opposed to silo interventions per specific country). The various elements in the table below should feed-into design of the P2P intervention and guide the conceptualization of the interventions, and should be seen as indicative rather than prescriptive, yet defining the broader “boundaries” of the proposed interventions to remain within the global EvalPartners “boundaries”

Desired Results / Possible Measures (Qualitative and Quantitative) of Achievement
Outcome 1: VOPEs are more influential and able to play strategic roles to strengthen an enabling environment for evaluation within their countries / VOPEs that received an EP small grant that, during 2017, achieved at least one of the following:
  • Produced a mapping of the status of evaluation in the country and/or updated an existing one.
  • Drafted a strategy to improve the enabling environment for evaluation
  • Took some steps to implement this strategy to improve the enabling environment
  • Drafted a proposed national evaluation policy, if one was not already in place
  • Worked with government and/or a specific agency/ministry for the approval of an official evaluation policy
  • Worked with at least one CSO to advocate for evaluation use
  • Held a national or international conference on evaluation aimed at strengthening the enabling environment

Output 1.1: VOPEs advocate for demand and use of evaluation at national level / VOPEs that received an EP small grant that, during 2017, achieved at least one of the following:
  • Disseminated at least one public statement about the value of evaluation
  • Sent an official communication to at least one relevant government agency or civil society organization about the value of evaluation
  • Attracted at least one key policy person to speak face-to-face with the VOPE about evaluation-informed policy making
  • Linked with national efforts around the SDGs and advocated for an evaluation-informed monitoring of the SDGs

Outcome 2: Stronger VOPEs that actively work with multi-stakeholder new networks towards achieving Global Evaluation Agenda priorities. / VOPEs that, during 2017 (compulsory):
  • Endorsed the Global Evaluation Agenda

Output 2.1: VOPEs have built their institutional capacity and have established collaborative relationships with other VOPEs, academic institutions, and civil society / of VOPEs that received an EP small grant that, during 2017, achieved at least one of the following:
  • Showed evidence of improved capacity (e.g., new initiatives, new programs/courses/workshops/trainings,new grants)
  • Had a documented, official working relationship with at least one other VOPE, academic unit, or CSO
  • Increased the involvement of a CSO or social movement in undertaking evaluations which have a sustainable development component, particularly with regards to the SDGs
  • Undertook joint projects with other VOPES, academic units, and/or CSOs

Output 2.2: VOPEs actively partner with multi stakeholders in achieving expectation of new networks / VOPEs that received an EP small grant that, during 2017, achieved all of the following (compulsory):
  • Disseminated information about all five EP networks to all its members (EvalGender+,EVALSDGs, EvalIndigenous; EvalYouth; Parliamentarians Forum for Development Evaluation) as well as IOCE’s professionalization task force
  • Designated at least one member to participate in at least one of EP’s new networks.
  • Presented at least one session about an EP network during a face-to-face meeting of the VOPE
VOPEs that received an EP small grant that, during 2017 (Desirable but not compulsory):
  • Recruited a parliamentarian to join the Global Forum of Parliamentarians for Evaluation

Output 2.3: VOPEs adapt Global Evaluation Agenda (GEA) priorities in local plans / VOPEs that received an EP small grant that, during 2016, achieved both of the following:
  • Distributed information about the GEA to all its members
  • Officially decided on specific actions the VOPE will take to advance at least one aspect of the GEA

Outcome 3:Strengthened individual capacities of evaluators to conduct credible and useful evaluations / VOPEs should be able to report by the end of the P2P cycle about the following:
Compulsory:
  • Involvement of a diverse mix of members the activities of the VOPE, including young and emerging evaluator and gender-balanced membership (starting with the P2P project )
  • Evidence of regular activities being conducted by the VOPE, beyond those foreseen in the P2P project.
Advisable:
  • Increase in membership, particularly young and emerging evaluators from both sexes.
  • At least one published evaluation report led or co-authored by a VOPE member
  • At least one published paper led or co-authored by a VOPE member

  1. How to apply

Each partnership should identify one person (a project manager) who will be responsible for all project-related communication with IOCE.

To submit project proposal, the identified project manager shall:

-Register at IOCE Forum here

-Go to IOCE Forum Small Grants page

-Launch a new topic, name it “Proposal from [Country of VOPE1] - [Country of VOPE2] – etc”, paste the project title and brief description, and upload the project proposal file in Word files only.

-Proposal file should be named “Proposal from [Country of VOPE1] - [Country of VOPE2] – etc”.

EvalPartnersstrongly encourages applications that are managed by one of the partner VOPEsfrom the Global South submitting the proposal. In case this is not possible/feasible, partnerships can entrust the administration of the project to a Managing Partner, which should be a local not-for-profit organization that will be responsible for financial and administrative management of the grant.

  1. Language

All project proposals should be submitted in English. In case of a grant award, all reports will have to be prepared in English.

  1. Timeframe

The deadline for proposal submission is September 15, 2016 midnight GMT-12.

The summary table with project proposal scores indicating winning proposals will be published no later than October 11, 2016. VOPEs shall plan to complete their projects by 30 July 2017

  1. Support to Applicants

All questions related to EvalPartners Small Grant Program shall be asked via IOCE Forum P2P 2016 page found here

  1. Proposal Review Process

VOPEs that seek to benefit from small grant funding shall also take responsibility in participating in proposal review process.

The proposal review will involve this year a mix of blind peer review and external reviewers. Partner VOPEs who fail to deliver the peer review results in a timely manner will be disqualified from the call.

The final results will be also subject to final validation by the EvalPartners Management Group in order to guarantee equity and balanced regional representation

  1. Reporting Requirements

VOPEs that receive the grant support will be required to submit narrative and financial reports at the end of the project following the templates provided at IOCE Forum P2P 2016 page.

They will also be required to provide information about project milestones (e.g. announcements of the forthcoming events, news about completed events with photos, testimonies, etc.).

If you have questions please contact:

AselaKalugampitiya at

Or

Lynn Burgess at

ATTACHMENT 1 EVALAGENDA2020 PRIORITIES

  1. The enabling environment for evaluation includes:
  • All sectors of society understand and appreciate the value of evaluation
  • Evaluation is explicitly required or encouraged in national evaluation

policies and other governance and regulatory instruments

  • Sufficient resources are allocated for evaluation, at all levels
  • Credible, accessible data systems and repositories for evaluation findings

are readily available

  • Stakeholders are eager to receive and utilize evaluation information
  • Evaluation receives due recognition as a profession
  • The ownership of public sector evaluations rests with national governments

based on their distinctive needs and priorities and with full participation

of the civil society and the private sector

  1. Institutional capacities includes:
  • A sufficient number of relevant institutions, including but not limited to

Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation (VOPEs); government

agencies, Civil Society organizations (CSOs), academia and institutions

that generate and share relevant data exist to develop and support

evaluators and evaluation

  • These institutions are capable of appreciating and facilitating quality evaluations
  • These institutions are skilled at collaborating with other relevant and involved institutions
  • These institutions are able to resource quality data generation and evaluations

as required, make information readily accessible and are ready tofollow-up on evaluation findings and recommendations

  • These institutions are able to continually evolve and develop as the evaluation

field advances

  • Academic institutions have the capacity to carry out evaluation research

and run professional courses in evaluation

  1. Individual capacities for evaluation includes:
  • Developing individual capacity for evaluation will be relevant not only to

evaluators, but also to commissioners and users of evaluation

  • Commissioners and users of evaluation will have a sound understanding

of the value of evaluation, processes for conducting high quality, impartial

evaluations; and more commitment to using evaluation findings and

recommendations

  • Sufficient numbers of qualified evaluators, drawn from a diversity of relevant

disciplines, are available to conduct high quality evaluations in all

countries and all subject areas

  • These evaluators have the knowledge, skills and dispositions to make

appropriate use of generally accepted evaluation principles, theories,

methods and approaches

  • Evaluators have integrated the values discussed above and are culturally

sensitive

  • Evaluators continually learn and improve their capabilities
  1. Inter-linkages among these first three dimensions. The vision of strong inter-linkages among these first three dimensions is that:
  • Governments, parliamentarians, VOPEs, the United Nations, foundations,

civil society, private sector and other interested groups dedicate

resources to joint ventures in the conduct of evaluations, in innovation in

the field of evaluation and evaluation capacity building

  • A common set of terms exists in all languages to disseminate and share

evaluation knowledge

  • Multiple partners in evaluation regularly attend national and international

learning opportunities

  • The “No one left behind” principle stated in the SDGs is embedded as a

key value that goes across three building blocks of evaluation system –

enabling environment, institutional capacities and individual capacities

for evaluation

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