Consultants – Evaluation of Peace Responsiveness Programme

Job Description:

Final Evaluation of the first phase of the Peace Responsiveness Programme

 A. Introduction

Interpeace is an international organization for peacebuilding, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Its aim is to strengthen the capacities of societies to manage conflict in non-violent, non-coercive ways by assisting national actors in their efforts to develop social and political cohesion. Interpeace also strives to assist the international community, in particular the UN, to play a more effective role in supporting peacebuilding efforts around the world through better understanding and response to the challenges of creating local capacities that enhance social and political cohesion.

Interpeace seeks a team of consultants to conduct an external end-of-programme evaluation of the first phase of its global Peace Responsiveness Facility Programme (hereafter: the programme) as funded by Global Affairs Canada over the past three years (2020-23). The evaluation is broadly expected to assess programme achievements and identify lessons learned to shape future interventions.

The programme has been designed using an approach focused on catalysing changes in the way of working of targeted actors. Participatory approaches with an emphasis on qualitative analysis are expected to guide the methodology of the evaluation. Interpeace anticipates the evaluation to be finalised by end-April 2023 in a remote working modality.

 B. Background 

The Sustaining Peace resolutions of the UN Security Council and the UN-World Bank report on ‘Pathways to Peace’ have called upon humanitarian, development, stabilisation and peace actors to evolve their ways of working to become more effective at enabling sustainable peace and preventing violent conflict. Since these recommendations have been made, many organizations have adopted policies to enhance their approaches to conflict sensitivity and contributions to peace. Yet, the challenge that many of them continue to grapple with is the operationalisation of these policies.

In response, Interpeace has sought to address these issues through the development of a dedicated peace responsiveness capacity that helps bridge the policy-practice gap by transforming international aid practice through accompaniment, organisational change, capacity development, learning, evidence-building, and joint-programming design.

Interpeace refers to ‘peace responsiveness’ as the ability of actors that operate in conflict-affected contexts to be conflict-sensitive and to contribute to peace outcomes through their technical programming. It requires proceeding in a way so that collective impact is enhanced; inclusive, gender-sensitive, locally led change is supported; and societal resilience to conflict and violence is strengthened.

The peace responsiveness work has built on the practice of conflict sensitivity to further develop and mainstream ‘peace-responsive’ approaches in aid programmes and operations. The objective is to enable international and regional organizations to contribute more deliberately and effectively to peace through their humanitarian, development, and stabilization interventions. It is an action-oriented policy and programming initiative that seeks to spearhead catalytic change in the practice of several large UN agencies in support of efforts to prevent and address the root causes of violent conflict and to advance the Sustainable Development Goals.

The programme runs from April 2020 to March 2023. At the ultimate and intermediate outcome levels, it has assumed the following theory of change:

If

1. peace responsiveness, programme effectiveness and sustainability of development, humanitarian and stabilization programmes delivered by international and regional actors are improved, and
2. there is rigorous learning and evidence about peace-responsive programming that incentivises more such programming, as well as institutional and systemic change supporting it, and
3. there is greater policy and donor support that incentivizes peace responsiveness across the international humanitarian, development and stabilization sectors,

Then

International (UN agencies and INGOs) and regional actors systematically change the way they contribute to long-term sustainable peace through humanitarian, development, and stabilization interventions and improve the effectiveness of food security, health, WASH and stabilization interventions improving peoples’ lives,

Because

1. they have developed new and improved capacities, processes, organizational approaches and tools to design and implement projects and programmes in a peace responsive way – concretely improving people’s lives, and
2. they have information and evidence available on what has proven effective programmatically and institutionally to foster peace responsiveness and act on it efficiently and effectively, and
3. they are incentivized, required, and enabled to foster peace responsive programming by emerging policy standards and donor requirements.

To achieve these outcomes, the programme focuses on the individual, organizational, programmatic and systems levels of the international system. Following a process of co-creation, co-development and partnering, programme activities take place at all four levels and are structured into the following interlinked components:

1. Bilateral partnerships and accompaniment to support the operationalisation and institutionalisation of sustaining peace in UN agencies and other organizations.
2. Designing joined-up programmatic approaches in selected country contexts (Interpeace programmes and partner UN agencies).
3. Building the capacities of key individual change agents in the international system, e.g. through the Effective Advising in Complex Contexts course and the Peace Responsiveness Online Training.
4. Facilitating cross-organizational exchange and learning among UN and other organizations on the operationalisation and institutionalisation of sustaining peace.
5. Developing research, evidence and other knowledge products in support of Component 4, e.g. publications such as the Peace Responsiveness Framing paper, a Development in Practice (DiP) journal article, the ‘P in the HDP Nexus’ animated video, etc.
6. Engaging with donors and policy actors to inform how a better enabling environment can be created for sustaining peace and peace-responsive approaches, e.g. in policy fora such as Geneva Peace Week, Stockholm Forum, EU Humanitarian Forum.

C. Objectives 

The evaluation will provide a final review of the first phase of the programme. It is intended to be a summative evaluation that:

• contributes to the final report of the 2020-23 programme cycle, by assessing the achievement of the targeted outcomes and outputs as per the Performance Measurement Framework of the Global Affairs Canada grant;
• considers cross-cutting evaluation questions; and,
• draws on and feeds into reflections on lessons learned, relevance of the theory of change, and subsequent recommendations for future phases of the programme.

 

For Timeframe, Methodology and Deliverables, Reporting and Feedback and Qualifications, please see attached ToRs.

How to Apply:

Please submit an expression of interest via email to: [email protected] by 12 February 2023, which includes:

• the proposed methodology for the evaluation,
• a financial proposal*,
• a CV for all consultants involved.

*The cost of preparing a bid and negotiating a contract, including any related travel, is not reimbursable nor can it be included as a direct cost of the assignment.

Please note that only shortlisted applicants will be contacted. Shortlisted applicants may be required to subsequently submit work samples in English and/or references.

Interpeace values diversity among its staff and aims to achieve gender equality both through gender parity at all levels of the organisation and the promotion of a gender dimension in all its work. We welcome applications from women and men, and those with disabilities.