Project Evaluation at HORIZONT3000

Objective of the Evaluation

The general objective of the evaluation is to assess the completion and achievements of the project objectives as well as the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of the project intervention. The evaluation will provide a well-founded, comprehensive and concretely argued document in order to assess the quality of the project and its implementation. The recipients of the evaluation are the back-donors Austrian Development Agency (ADA), Brother and Sister in Need as well as HORIZONT3000 and the implementing partner DESECE.

The specific objectives of the evaluation are to provide information on the following points:

Evaluate the DESECE project to draw out key lessons, strengths and weaknesses of the current project and make recommendations on completion of the current phase and for the development of the next project.

Analyse the approach used by DESECE and state whether it is suitable to be transferred and implemented by other development actors in the region. Please specify which particular models are working well.

Outline and asses the contributions of the HORIZONT3000 KNOWHOW3000 activities to this project.

• Evaluation criteria and guiding questions
• Relevance (appropriateness) of the intervention
  • To what extent does the intervention reflect the actual needs and interests of the target group?
  • To what extent is the intervention in line with national strategies of Kenya?
• Effectiveness (achievement of targets) of the project in terms of the defined objectives
  • What is the progress from the beginning towards the agreed project objective (as determined in the project document)?
  • Does the target group practice the new techniques, e.g. in sustainable agriculture and marketing with an increase of income?
  • To what extent is behaviour change visible with regards to mediation of conflicts, public engagement (participation in forums), reporting of rights violations.
  • Did unforeseen external factors intervene? If so, how flexibly did the management adapt to ensure that the result would still achieve the objective?
• Efficiency (use of resources)
  • Is the relation between input of resources and results achieved appropriate and justifiable?
  • Is a monitoring system in place to gather timely relevant information on the achievement of results and objectives?
  • Organisational set-up: are the number and professional/managerial skills of the project team as well as the organisational set-up, adequate for the activities of the project and where are improvements needed?
• Impact (effects) of the intervention on the general situation of the target group and other stakeholders
  • What changes have happened since the project implementation?
  • To what extent has the project intervention resulted in increased household income? To what extent have the trainings changed and improved the attitudes and conflict resolution capacities of the beneficiaries?
  • What are the positive or negative, intended, unintended and visible effects of the project on the target groups, surrounding communities, the institutional (DESECE) level and the district?
• Sustainability (durability) of the intervention and its impact
  • To what extent can activities, results and effects be expected to continue after the project has come to an end?
  • How self-sustaining is DESECE in general?
  • To what extent does the project take into account factors which have a major influence on sustainability like e.g. ecological and socio-cultural aspects, gender equality, women’s empowerment, institutional and management capacity building?
  • Institutional sustainability: to what extent is the intervention designed to develop the institutional capacities of DESECE in terms of improving internal processes, structures and skills of staff members?
• Participation and ownership
  • To what extent have stakeholders been involved in decision-making during implementation?
  • How did the implementing team choose the beneficiaries?
  • What is the level of local ownership and the identification with the project?
  • How satisfied is the project partner with the cooperation with HORIZONT3000? What should be kept, changed or improved?
• HORIZONT3000 Knowledge Management
  • Did the partner organisation participate in any KNOWHOW3000 activity? If yes, which one?
  • What was the benefit of the participation for the partner organisation and for the target group?
• Lessons learnt and recommendations
  • What are the main lessons learnt from the project?
  • What good practices (e.g. approaches, trainings and methods) are suitable to be replicated in other projects with similar objectives?
• The Evaluator
• The Evaluator needs to proof technical experience in rural development, fluency in English and managerial skills in designing and performing a project evaluation. The Evaluator needs to come up with an appropriate methodology for the evaluation. The Evaluator will be in charge of the entire evaluation process and is expected to provide HORIZONT3000 with a final evaluation report as stipulated in the timetable below.
• Methodologies
• The evaluator chooses the appropriate methods.
• Tentative timetable
  • The whole assignment including the final evaluation report should be concluded by April 30, 2018. The Evaluator will develop, discuss and agree on the evaluation schedule with DESECE before commencement of the assignment. The final evaluation schedule will be shared with HORIZONT3000.

Evaluation Report

• The report shall present findings on the evaluation objectives.
• The report should contain a description of methodologies / design.
• The report should describe the involvement of local actors (project partner, target groups).
• It shall summarize the findings of the evaluation in the light of the criteria mentioned in point 3 above (maximum 5 pages).
• It shall be clear and concise, limiting itself to essential points (maximum 20 pages without cover page, content, appendices etc.).
• The report shall be written in English language.
• The report shall be drawn up using Microsoft Word software and submitted electronically; including tables and graphics were useful and necessary.