TOR - Outcome Harvesting and Most Significant Change Stories via DevNetJobsIndia

Terms of Reference

Outcome Harvesting and Most Significant Change Stories

1.Background (organization) 

Oxfam India is a movement of people working to end discrimination and create a free and just society. We work to ensure that Adivasis, Dalits, Muslims, and Women & Girls have violence free lives with freedom to speak their mind, equal opportunities to realize their rights, and a discrimination free future. We research to find lasting solutions to end rising inequalities and exclusion of marginalized communities from getting decent jobs, quality free education and healthcare. We campaign with the public to demand policy changes from governments for creating a just and inclusive country as envisioned in the Indian Constitution. We mobilize support to save, protect and rebuild lives of the poorest of poor affected by crisis and humanitarian disasters. 

By putting the rights of marginalized at the heart of everything we do, we work to create a discrimination free India where everyone lives a life of dignity, free from injustice and inequality. Over the last year, we have changed the lives of over one million people in our six focus states—Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Assam. We are also part of the Oxfam global confederation with affiliates in 20 countries fighting together build a better world.                                                         

Oxfam has been in India since 1951. It first came to India to respond to Bihar famine. In 2008, Oxfam India became an independent affiliate and an Indian NGO. Oxfam India is an autonomous Indian organization and has staff and board members from within India. Oxfam India is a member of the global confederation of 20 Oxfams across the world. Government of India has registered Oxfam India as a non-profit organization under Section 8 of the Indian Companies Act, 2013 and have a Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) license. 

2.About TROSA 

The Transboundary Rivers of South Asia (TROSA) is a five-year (2016-2021) regional programme being jointly implemented by Oxfam and its partners in Nepal, India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar to understand and address challenges related to transboundary rivers, and work together to create conditions to reduce poverty of communities living in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna and the Salween river basins. Oxfam believes that empowered community having access to and control over water resources can significantly contribute to reduce poverty and inequality, and achieve prosperity. To make it happen, Oxfam is implementing the TROSA project in collaboration with governments, private sectors, and civil society networks and alliances at all levels in those four countries. 

The context and challenges are so interlinked and interwoven between the upstream and downstream communities that it cannot be dealt in isolation and taking river basin approach is essential for collective action towards sustainable solutions. In this regard, Oxfam India is working poorest of the riparian communities in Saralbhanga, lower Brahmaputra and Sharda River Basins with the objective of reducing poverty and marginalisation of vulnerable river basin communities by increasing their access and control over riverine water resources. The project aims to achieve following five outcomes:

• Outcome 1: Government policies and practices in water resources management are more inclusive of community concerns and meet national and international standards.
• Outcome 2: Practices of private sector respect community access to water resources actively contributing to reduce conflict.
• Outcome 3: CSOs increasingly participate in or influence trans-boundary water governance, women inclusion and resolution of water conflicts.
• Outcome 4.1: Local communities are better able to reduce their vulnerability to water resource related shock including from conflict & disasters.
• Outcome 4.2: Local communities have more secure access and control over their water resources.
• Outcome 5: Increased participation and influence of women in trans-boundary water governance, policies & processes.

3. Objectives and Scope of Work 

The objective of this study is to gather evidences of change and how our interventions have contributed to achieving this change under the TROSA project. Thus through this ToR we are seeking agencies/individuals to do Outcome Harvesting of the existing outcomes under TROSA achieved in the last four years, and documenting the most significant change stories (MSCs). 

The Outcome Harvesting shall focus on the status of work done since inception, and reflect on the original proposal as well as the reported outcomes. The consultant/agency is expected to: 

a. Synthesize the results of different interventions under the five outcome statements of the project;

b. Look into the achievements of the programme over the review period and formulate a link if any to the activities/interventions undertaken;

c. Analyse the outcomes in relation to the objectives as specified in the results matrix of the intervention;

d. Substantiate the accuracy of the respective outcome descriptions;

e. Illustrate contextual processes, patterns and trends, that show developments and specific events on the ground;

f. Assess the nature of the project’s future work. This will lead to a recommendation to the programme management team on the future of the project. 

Furthermore, the Outcome Harvest will specifically look at intended and unintended outcomes (both positive and negative) of the testing and the level of contribution of the project to these outcomes against the outcomes stipulated in the results matrix. The evaluation is intended for both learning and accountability purposes. It is expected to generate relevant findings, lessons-learnt, and recommendations which will be shared across all stakeholders. 

Documentation of the Most Significant Stories of Change (MSC) should be based on the best practices taken up by the project. These stories of change should be gathered via field visits and documented in a pre-agreed format in consultation with Oxfam India. The exercise needs to cover the following geographies – 

1. Assam 

a. Kokrajhar

b. Dhubri

c. South Salmarad. Lakhimpur 

2. Uttar Pradesh a. Lakhimpur Kheri Tentative cases that will be covered are (Outcome-wise) –

1. Integration of principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) into Gram Panchayat Development Planning
2. Corporate Water Stewardship Agenda
3. Dissemination of Flood Warning Messages
4. Application of Citizen Science for Water Quality
5. Emergence of Women Water Champions

4.Methodology

This specific evaluation is supposed to apply Outcome Harvesting and documentation of most significant change stories as underlying approach. Following would be the proposed activities expected to be carried out by the Consulting agency:

• Complete literature review, based on which the study design will be finalised. The study design, study tools and reporting format should be agreed on before commencing the study.
• Coordinating with Oxfam India focal person(s) in preparation and planning of study indicators, study tools/data collecting instruments, sampling strategy (If any), plan for data analysis and reporting.
• Ensuring that globally endorsed methodologies are applied to complete the study. It is therefore important to share all relevant information in time, including information on the methodology, the listing exercise (including a list of people interviewed/approached), questionnaire design, the training report, the preliminary analysis, the draft and final analysis, and reports and the database (reports referred and notes prepared)
• Analysis of the data from qualitative tools

5.Skills and Competencies:

The assignment will be carried out by a consultant/agency with the following competencies:

• Demonstrated knowledge and experience in conducting high quality, credible evaluations in the development sector
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience of program design and program quality measurement/assessment.
• Familiarity with policy advocacy work and political sensitivities
• Excellent writing and verbal communication skills in local language
• Experience in designing and using participatory, gender sensitive qualitative and quantitative methodologies, particularly with the method of outcome harvesting and most-significant change in cross cultural settings 
• Knowledge & use of evaluation ethics processes
• Knowledge of & experience in applying DAC evaluation criteria with sensitivity to evaluation task & thecontext for the evaluation 
• (http://www.oecd.org/dac/evaluationofdevelopmentprogrammes/daccriteriaforevaluatingdevelopmentassistance.htm)

6.Proposal Presentation:

Shortlisted agencies/consultants would be invited to make a presentation on their proposed proposal. The proposal presentation would be done either by face-to-face method or through skype. No reimbursement of expenses would be provided for the same.

7.Roles and Responsibilities

Consultant – The consultant is required to:

• Finalization of methodology, sampling and sample size estimations- each for outcome harvesting and most significant change stories documentation.
• Prepare and refine the tools for data collection in consultation with Oxfam India
• Prepare analytical framework and analysis plan with timeline
• Preparing a power point presentation (maximum 20 slides) capturing background, Methodology, result of the study.
• Preparation and submission of draft report in electronic version.
• Submission of all data files in soft version (e.g., transcription and translation).
• Submission of final report (hard and soft copies) which addresses specific feedback from the Project Team on the draft report and a power point presentation on the key findings is to be submitted along with the data sets in a compatible data entry software format.
• Maintain a gender lens in each aspect of the study.

Oxfam – Oxfam will provide support to the consultant and his/her team in facilitating basic logistics in the field once it receives specific action plan from the consultant. Oxfam will make available the related project documents to the consultant for reference to plan and design the action plan. It will also provide timely feedback and inputs to the consultant as per the mutually agreed timelines. 

8.Reporting line 

For all communication purposes, Consultant will report to:- Saumya Gupta (Programme Coordinator – Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning) with a copy to Sancheeta Ghosh (Lead – Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning) and Shobhit Chepe (TROSA Lead) 

9.Final Report 

The final report should include at a minimum the following elements:

• Executive Summary
• Acknowledgements
• List of Acronyms and abbreviations
• Table of Contents
• Background/ Brief Project description
• Purpose of the survey
• Methodology (including sampling)
• Objectives of the Survey
• Summary of the survey methodology and data collection techniques
• Main Findings
• Key Observations
• Conclusion
• Annexes to the report:

a. Terms of Reference.

10.  Timeline

The agency will propose a detailed timeline and adhere strictly to the survey schedule proposed. It is expected that the assignment would be completed within 45 days from the award of the contract. This would be a Consultancy Contract for above said duration with a consolidated payment as per a pre agreed payment schedule.

 11. Expression of interest

• Through an expression of interest, Oxfam India invites qualified evaluators to submit proposals comprising the following:
• An understanding of the evaluation purpose.
• Proposing an approach, broad outline of methods and format of tools (outcome harvesting and MSC) to be employed.
• CVs demonstrating relevant skills and experience of the study team
• Names of at least 2 references, preferably from organizations with whom the consultant has conducted similar types of study
• A separate indicative financial proposal containing consultants’ fees, detailing the activities, number of days and daily rate.
• A declaration of the evaluator’s availability in the period December-January 2021.

Proposals should be submitted to – Procurement Unit, Oxfam India ([email protected]) latest by 30th November 2021.

Indicative budget: The indicative budget for this task is INR 5,00,000 (Five lakh rupees only) including all taxes.