Consultancy – Impact evaluation of initiatives to facilitate small-scale cross-border trade on social cohesion in the Great Lakes region of Africa

International Alert (Alert) is a UK-registered international organisation that works to build peace through local civil society organisations through research, advocacy, capacity building, inclusive dialogue and political and civic participation.

Alert works with people directly affected by violent conflict to improve their prospects for peace. We also seek to influence the policies and working methods of governments, international organisations such as the UN and multinational companies in order to reduce the risk of conflict and strengthen the prospects for peace.

Alert works primarily with national civil society organisations and other stakeholders, such as democratically elected institutions, with a view to strengthening their capacities, in a reciprocal relationship of healthy and open collaboration. Alert considers that its role is to support the population and structures of society in accessing information, building capacities and strengthening mechanisms that can enable the participation of all in development and the consolidation of peace. In order to improve their effectiveness, Alert provides its partners with the necessary technical and financial resources.

Since 2010, International Alert has been working on initiatives to facilitate small-scale cross-border trade and promote social cohesion in the Great Lakes region of Africa

Small-scale cross-border trade plays a major role in the Great Lakes region, where goods are traded between the DRC, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, enabling the supply of specific goods (mainly foodstuffs) to regions that do not produce enough to cover their needs.

These cross-border trade links are visible proof of the economic interdependence between the countries of the region, and are an important lever for economic growth as well as for bringing together populations that are often divided and distrustful of neighbouring populations because of the violent conflicts that have affected and continue to affect this region.

International Alert has implemented projects to facilitate small-scale cross-border trade and promote social cohesion. These projects have mainly targeted women small-scale cross-border traders (FPCTs), their spouses and families, FPCT associations and cooperatives, microfinance institutions, border authorities and decision-makers at provincial, national and regional level. Indirectly, the projects have also targeted populations living in border towns, local leaders and platforms of municipal (PALPGL) and religious (ACEAC) authorities in the 3 countries.

All these projects have been implemented by International Alert in partnership with more than thirty civil society organisations in the countries concerned (a list of all the partner NGOs and CSOs has already been drawn up). More recently, these partnerships have also included microfinance institutions, FPCT cooperatives, platforms of cross-border traders’ associations (P-ACT), advocacy platforms, local authority platforms and the network of Central African bishops’ conferences.

Assessment objectives

General objective

The overall objective is to assess the long-term impact of International Alert’s small-scale cross-border trade facilitation projects on beneficiaries. This involves examining whether the projects have achieved their intended outcomes and whether any unintended consequences have occurred, as well as examining the extent to which our approaches and initiatives have contributed to these outcomes.

Specific objectives

The specific objectives of this evaluation are :

• Brand the contribution and attribution of our projects to the broadest and most significant changes/effects
• Gathering evidence to understand how our approaches, methodologies and activities have contributed to these effects.
• Analysing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of project design and implementation
• Identify potential areas for improvement that could be addressed by our ongoing project to facilitate small-scale cross-border trade; and other future projects.
• Document the long-term effects, positive and/or negative, induced by our projects, whether direct or indirect, expected or unexpected.

Evaluation questions

• What were the main objectives and expected results of the projects? Were they clear and measurable?
• What were the main project approaches and activities? Were they implemented as planned? What were the challenges?
• Who were the main beneficiaries of the project? Were they reached as planned?
• What have been the main indicators for the projects? How have they evolved since the first project? How has the data collected for these indicators evolved?
• What concrete effects (changes in perceptions, attitudes and behaviour, and changes in practices and policies), positive and negative, direct and indirect, expected and unexpected, have occurred? Who or what has changed? When and where did these changes occur? Has the impact been sustained over time?
• To what extent have our approaches, methodologies and activities contributed to these changes
• What were the strengths and weaknesses of the design and implementation of the projects? And the opportunities and threats? What approaches, methodologies and activities were most effective?
• What lessons can we learn from the projects? Are there areas for improvement? How can they be applied to the current project?

Scope, timetable and duration of the study

This study will be carried out in the borders, towns and provinces targeted by the projects and at national level in DR Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

The study will focus on feedback on the experiences of small-scale cross-border traders and their spouses, members of cross-border communities, local, municipal and national authorities, officials from cross-border services, local leaders, microfinance institutions, civil society organisations and international organisations that have also implemented initiatives to promote cross-border trade in the Great Lakes region in the same period.

The study will also look at members of the border community who have not been direct beneficiaries or stakeholders in the initiatives but who may have benefited indirectly or observed the changes brought about; and at the donors who have supported these projects since 2010.

The evaluation will be carried out between April and August 2025. The exact evaluation period (number of days) and timetable will be discussed and agreed with the evaluation team, but we envisage a work schedule based on the following phases

• Literature review, development of detailed methodology and data collection tools, finalisation of work plan and production of inception report
• Data collection
• Results feedback/validation workshop
• Analysis of the data and drafting of the report
• Integration of comments and finalisation of the report after feedback
• Dissemination of evaluation results

Methodology

The detailed methodology will be proposed by the evaluation team and will be reviewed and approved by International Alert. The evaluation would adopt a much more qualitative than quantitative approach. The dimension of causality and attribution of changes is paramount, and calls on the notion of counterfactual, which uses the comparison group (control group or reference group). One of the major limitations of this evaluation is the difficulty of identifying the appropriate comparison group, given that the projects were complex and had a high contamination effect on potential comparison groups. The methodology used will also have to compare the results achieved on borders that have always had intervention from our projects from 2011 to the present day with those that have had little intervention (much less activity).

In this way, International Alert will leave the evaluation team free propose mixed and innovative methodological approaches, which reconcile rigour and flexibility and which can adapt to changing contexts and provide a more nuanced understanding of impact.

This assessment will include the following main stages:

1. Document review, development of the detailed methodology and data collection tools, finalisation of the work plan and production of the inception report. The main project documentation will be provided to the evaluation team for a desk review and will include for each project concerned: the project proposal, the logical framework, the budget, the final report submitted to the donor, the baseline study and evaluation reports, and any other relevant reports. Following the document review, the evaluation team will prepare the detailed methodology, work plan and data collection tools. All of this will be included in the inception report, which will need to be reviewed and validated by the International Alert team.
   1. Data collection. Fieldwork will be carried out in a sample of agreed intervention areas. International Alert will provide the evaluation team with lists and contacts of various project partners, beneficiaries, and stakeholders so that the evaluation team can make a selection.
   2. Feedback workshop. At the end of the field data collection and before the submission of the draft report, the evaluation team will conduct a feedback workshop with key stakeholders to present their initial observations.
   3. Analysis of quantitative and qualitative data and drafting of the evaluation report, in full compliance with the terms of reference.
   4. Integration of comments and finalisation of the report after feedback
   5. Dissemination of evaluation results. This phase will be led by International Alert, but the evaluation team will be able to propose ideas and recommendations on dissemination, and will provide a power point presentation with a summary of the report.

It should be noted that other organisations also implemented initiatives to promote cross-border trade in the Great Lakes region during the same period. These include Search For Common Ground, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Pole Institute, CCF, iPeace or ProFemmes, IOM, UNDP and Partner Africa. In addition, there are key players at regional and international level, such as TradeMark Africa (formerly TradeMark East Africa), the World Bank, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

Please note that the above are just some of the requirements for this role. For the full role requirements, please click here to view the terms of reference.