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Call for Proposals: Monitoring and Evaluation Consultants for Evaluation of SAIIA’s Work

Ednah Carrick September 21, 2024

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Closing Date 30 September 2024

Call for Proposals: Monitoring and Evaluation Consultants for Evaluation of SAIIA’s Work

Background

The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) would like to engage the services of a team of Monitoring and Evaluation Consultants to conduct an evaluation of its work covered in its 2021-2025 Strategic Plan, which is supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

The objectives of this evaluation are three-fold:

To provide an independent evaluation of the results achieved on the selected policy processes for the period July 2021-May 2024;
To review and suggest improvements to SAIIA’s Theory/ies of Change (ToCs) following a realist evaluation approach; and
To provide input for SAIIA’s upcoming strategy formulation process.

Scope of Work

The evaluation will focus on the work of the research programmes which is informed by the Institute’s research agenda for the 2021-25 Strategic Period. The framing of SAIIA’s research agenda is linked to the much-changed global environment and new challenges facing Africa. In addition, the changed funding environment, i.e., a concerted move across the funding world (with very few exceptions) away from a core support funding model to much more short-term funding and very specific programmatic approaches have had a material impact on the way that SAIIA has to develop its research programming and activities.

This introduces an urgent need to ensure that the research agenda remains coherent, responds to, integrates and anticipates the policy shifts that are underway, and ultimately strengthens representative African voices in global, regional and national policy processes. Implementation of the research agenda framework is guided by a supporting M&E framework which has provided the Theory of Change and results framework for each of the research themes based on identified outcomes and outputs

Qualifications of the Consultants

The team of Monitoring and Evaluation consultants shall:

Have minimum academic qualifications of a Master’s degree in areas of Monitoring &Evaluation (M&E), Economics, Political Science or other related qualifications with a preference for foresight skills and literacy;
Have good knowledge and documented experience from the field of think tanks and M&E;
Have good knowledge and documented experience in areas of Africa’s democracy & governance, climate change, resilience and global economic development and geopolitics, as well as other thematic areas defined in these ToR;

Have good knowledge of gender mainstreaming, gender equality policy marker, and experience of using different gender assessment tools to evaluate the effectiveness of gender integration in project planning, implementation, and results;
One of the members of the team, preferably the team leader, should have conducted at least three evaluations for a think tank or similar organisation working in the same thematic areas. These evaluations should not be more than six years old and an access link or copies should be provided;
Have experience in interviewing government policy makers and diplomats;

Have strong experience in conducting realist evaluation methodologies for policy research institutions;
Apply the latest advances in M&E methodology;
Have effective analytical and communication skills; and