Consultancy Services Evaluation and IPARD Program Impact Consultant

Indigenous Peoples Alliance for Rights and Development – IPARD
Cooperative Agreement No. 7200AA20CA00013

REQUEST FOR CONSULTANCY SERVICES

EVALUATION AND IPARD PROGRAM IMPACT CONSULTANT

A) BACKGROUND

Organization description

In 2019, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) established the FSC Indigenous Foundation (FSC IF) as the operational office for the Permanent Indigenous Peoples’ Committee (PIPC). FSC IF is a private interest foundation pursuant to Law No. 25 of June 12, 1995 of the Republic of Panama. The mission of the FSC IF is to unlock the enabling environment to secure Indigenous Peoples’ rights and promote sustainable forest-based solutions.

Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance for Rights and Development
FSC IF is the implementing partner of the USAID and FSC funded five-year Global Development Alliance Program: Indigenous Peoples Alliance for Rights and Development (IPARD). IPARD is guided by three development objectives:
● Objective 1: To organize and convene a Capacity Development Program for Indigenous Peoples’ organizations and stakeholders;
● Objective 2: To foster an enabling environment for Indigenous Peoples’ recognition, effective participation, and joint decision-making in matters affecting them, and;
● Objective 3: To promote Indigenous Peoples’ sustainable development based on sustainable economic models.

IPARD utilizes on three interconnected approaches to support Indigenous Peoples to overcome their development challenges:
A. Multi-Sectoral Approach (MSA): Under the strategic guidance of the IPARD Steering Committee (SC), IPARD convenes and leverages expertise from multi-sectoral. This approach ensures that IPARD considers the needs of Indigenous communities across a wide array of sectors. Based on the MSA, IPARD will bring diverse technical partners to support cross-sectoral projects that will achieve IPARD’s development objectives.
B. Country-Focused Approach (CFA): the IPARD’s programmatic strategy is guided by a country-by-country focus driven by specific national contexts related to Indigenous Peoples. IPARD implements a structured process to identify, assess, and select countries to target its programs. FSC IF works jointly with the SC, and as guided by the MSA, in order to select countries and identify key priorities and strategies.
C. Indigenous Project Management Approach (IPMA): Building on FSC IF’s network and relationships with Indigenous leaders and organizations around the world, IPARD pursues continuous dialogue, consultation, and feedback with Indigenous Peoples to inform the program. IPARD supports a forum through which FSC IF serves as a bridge between Indigenous Peoples, technical partners, national governments, and the private sector. IPARD invests in curating best practices and effective approaches and methodologies to ensure the strategic cohesion of multi-level partnerships.

Through these three approaches, IPARD aims to empower Indigenous Peoples’ organizations and catalyse an enabling environment where Indigenous Peoples can pursue their development.

We are Indigenous Peoples; our strategies and our future actions are shaped by ancestral knowledge, practices, cosmovision, values, and respect for Mother Earth and our past. We as FSC-IF are providers of Indigenous-based solutions, and our ancestral knowledge and traditions have driven Indigenous-based solutions for centuries. We are Indigenous Peoples; we are the owners of Indigenous-based solutions to global challenges, and the FSC Indigenous Foundation is the global vehicle to design, manage, facilitate, and scale up Indigenous-led solutions through multi-sectoral partnerships. The FSC Indigenous Foundation has an Indigenous perspective driven by Indigenous values, vision, principles, ancestral knowledge, and traditional practices connected to Mother Earth. FSC-IF is shaped to respond to key challenges and opportunities faced by Indigenous Peoples to achieve their cultural self-development, self-governance, and self-reliance. Driven by this perspective, the way we operate differs from traditional organizational planning because our cultural and traditional way of thinking, acting, and interacting do not fit into a predetermined Western tradition of thoughts, organizational management, or governance.

We are committed to work driven by our values of being guided by and supporting Indigenous Peoples’ values of: 1) Respect for Mother Earth Managing our lands, waters, and ecosystems with great respect to nature and care by recognizing that we only borrow them from future generations and 2) Respect for ancestral knowledge Keeping our promises to our ancestors to manage nature and the resources provided by the Mother Earth in a sustainable and respectful way.

B) CONTEXT

The IPARD program is completing its fourth year of implementation, and we see the need to begin systematizing the impact of program activities on Indigenous communities, IPOs, and implementing partners. This systematization will be done through the data collected over the years, through interviews, testimonies and above all through the identification of stories of change.
In this sense we see the need for the support of a consultant who can help us with the systematization of the data that will also support our social learning strategy.

C) OBJECTIVES

1. General Objective

To support the MESL team in systematising the impact of the IPARD program in Panama, Guatemana, Honduras, and Kenya by collecting and analysing data from Year 1-Year 4

Illustrative activities:

The consultant should coordinate and conduct all consultancy activities with the Monitoring and Evaluation Lead. Consultancy should include at least the following activities:

1. Develop, in collaboration with MESL Lead, a tool to systematise data from the IPARD program implementation in Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, and Kenya.
2. Systematize data on the program activities implemented in Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama.
3. Develop a protocol to start analysing the data for Kenya
4. Identify stories of change in Guatemala, Panama, and Honduras
5. Support with the social learning strategy with IPOS and implementing partners
6. Identify the key social learning agenda for FSC-IF programs and projects in Honduras, Panama, Guatemala, and Kenya including developing and implementing mechanisms and methodologies for identifying, documenting, and disseminating program Impact and learning.
7. Identify key issues around program quality and ensure MEL systems are improved to address these issues.
8. Support the implementation of beneficiaries and IPOS surveys, Outcome harvesting sessions, and end of activities evaluations, in close coordination with the M&E Lead and the technical team
9. Support M&E team members to maintain up-to-date records of project and program pillar level MEL data and information, including beneficiary reach.

Expected deliverables:

● Monthly reports that include specific data collection analysis and identification of stories of change in Panama, Honduras, Panama, and Kenya.

Technical and Financial Proposal:
The financial proposal should include a budget, explaining each line item (including the logistical expenses to develop the activities). All financial proposals should include taxes when applicable and explicitly note it in the budget.

Profile of the consultant/research firm:
1. Experience working with Indigenous Peoples Organizations
2. Experience in undertaking primary research for practical
purposes, using a mixture of primary and secondary evidence and a mixed
methods approach
Experience using and systematising data
3. Experience in conducting focus groups and undertaking qualitative data analysis
4. Experience developing and conducting online surveys
5. Experience in quantitative and qualitative analysis.
6. Expertise in the development of methodological and ethical frameworks for research.
7. Significant experience in convening and engaging a range of stakeholders
8. Experience conducting research with Indigenous communities or vulnerable population is desirable.
9. Experience conducting multi-country research is desirable
10. Previous experience working with international organisations and donors desirable
11. Demonstrated cultural awareness and sensitivity to the diversity of values, views, and approaches to issues relevant to the FSC IF
12. Strong oral and written communication of the team in English.

Coordination:
The consultant/research firm will coordinate the expected work with Monitoring and Evaluation Lead.

Duration of the assignment:
Period of Performance June 2024- November 2024.

Applications need to include the following documents:
1. CV of the consultants including descriptions of experience
2. Technical proposal (max 8 pages)
3. Financial proposal including an explanation of the budget line items.

Expected Budget:
TBD, based on offers.

Conditions for payments of the products:
The deliverables must be authorized by the MESL lead to proceed with other internal approvals and payment. All products must be delivered in digital format according to the expected activities detailed above and the following schedule and payment percentages.

Deliverable Payment Percentage Remarks
1. Monthly report that include specific data collection analysis and identification of stories of change in Panama, Honduras, Panama, and Kenya. 20% To be presented at the end of the month
2. Monthly report that include specific data collection analysis and identification of stories of change in Panama, Honduras, Panama, and Kenya. 20%
To be presented at the end of the month
3. Monthly report that include specific data collection analysis and identification of stories of change in Panama, Honduras, Panama, and Kenya. 20% To be presented at the end of the month
4. Monthly report that include specific data collection analysis and identification of stories of change in Panama, Honduras, Panama, and Kenya. 20% To be presented at the end of the month
5. Monthly report that include specific data collection analysis and identification of stories of change in Panama, Honduras, Panama, and Kenya. 20% To be presented at the end of the month