Provision of Professional Services to Conduct Independent Post-Project Evaluations of the United ...

The United Nations Procurement Division (UN/PD) seeks qualified companies for the provision of professional services to conduct independent post-project evaluations for the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF). Tasks: UNDEF is looking for consulting firms to undertake evaluations of UNDEF’s project portfolio, namely individual country, regional and global projects. The purpose of the post-project evaluations is to present a comprehensive analysis of results of the project in light of criteria such as relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability of the UNDEF projects, and to draw lessons and recommendations for the UNDEF to improve its project selection, project design, monitoring processes, and for the grantees to improve their future performance of the project management. UNDEF will publish the final evaluation reports on its website unless agreed contrary. Services shall be provided in-country. Communications with the UNDEF will be carried out electronically. The evaluation team should preferably be composed of local evaluators with local language proficiency and local knowledge of a country in concern, under overall management of the selected vendor. The selected vendor will have to organize evaluation teams within a short period of time upon request for a specific evaluation. The proposed contract will be for approximately two years with possibility of extension. The UNDEF plans to request around 20 evaluations per year for the first two years. Fluency in local languages is required for in-country evaluators, while the final evaluation reports should be mainly in English and occasionally in French for projects in Francophone countries (the executive summary shall still be in English). The final reports should be coordinated by the vendor’s headquarter staff and other international experts for quality assurance. Background of the UNDEF and its projects: The United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) is one of the UN Secretary-General’s Trust Funds, created at the Millennium Summit in 2005, with aim to strengthen voice of civil society by providing financial support to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in order to implement grass-roots, bottom up projects for democracy promotion. Up until 2014, the Fund has provided financial support to 583 projects and will support over 600 projects by the 9th round of funding. UNDEF has provided support to home-grown and locally owned initiatives involving various stakeholders, youth, women, minority and other marginalized groups. UNDEF’s priority areas are: Democratic dialogue and support for constitutional processes; Civil society empowerment, including the empowerment of women; Civic education and voter registration; Citizens’ access to information; Participation rights and rule of law in support of civil society; and Transparency and integrity, while the most important goal is to empower citizens and civil society through a variety of goals and approaches of the projects. UNDEF projects are spread worldwide: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and Arab States. Almost all applicants are civil society organizations. Majority of the UNDEF projects are single country projects while 20% are regional and global projects. The default project duration is 24 months. Example of UNDEF projects are as follows: Uganda “Strengthening Young Women’s Civic Participation and Leadership in Uganda” (UDF- UGA-13-547) The project aims to increase participation of a total of 1,500 young university women (10 universities across the country, 18-25 years old) in the 2016 general elections in Uganda as voters, educators, supporters or possibly candidates. The project’s strategic approach is to inspire and equip the young women with skills by providing information using simple, interactive and entertaining channels, build leadership skills through experiential learning tools, provide supportive networks for peer-to-peer learning, and mentors to guide t