Call for Expression of Interest: National Consultant for Final Independent Evaluation ILO’s Project on Way-out of Informality

The ILO Country Office for Nepal is inviting a call for applications for the position of a National Consultant for Final Independent Evaluation ILO’s Project on Way-out of Informality.

News | 28 October 2016
The ILO is inviting a call for expression of interest for the position of a National Consultant who will work alongside the external international evaluation consultant and assist with logistics, and interpretation and other tasks assigned by the lead consultant.

Position:    National Consultant
Type of Contract:    External Collaboration Contract
Duty station:    Kathmandu, Nepal
Category:    External
Application Deadline:    07 November 2016
Languages required:    Proficiency in written and spoken English and Nepali
Expected duration:    Tentatively first half of December 2016

1. Background

South Asia is known to have the highest incidence of informal economy along with Africa in terms of number of persons employed, and the informal economy in Bangladesh, India and Nepal is estimated to absorb 50 to 60 percent of non-agricultural working population, comprising wage labourers, self-employed persons, unpaid family labour, piece-rate workers, and other hired labour.  This share rises to 80 to 90 percent if agricultural workers are included.

While informal economy derives certain benefits such as providing livelihood to those who would otherwise be without work or income, and large entrepreneurial potential, among others, the decent work deficit is a major concern of the informal economy where workers may be characterized by varying degree of dependency and vulnerability often resulting in a high degree of poverty.  Women, persons with disability, people affected by HIV-AIDS, bonded labourers and migrant workers are often at the lower end of the precarious and poorly paid work, and are subject to further social exclusion. Large decent work deficits in the rapidly growing informal economy in the context of limited growth of formal sector employment is a major challenge for the constituents in South Asia in realizing decent work for all. 

The ILO has been promoting decent work for all, and addressing the needs of vulnerable groups in the informal economy is central to ILO interventions. There have been on-going efforts by the ILO and its constituents to address the informal economy issues in one way or another through various technical cooperation projects and policy advisory services. In order to enhance efforts to address the informal economy issues, the Way out of Informality (WOI): Facilitating the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy in South Asia stated in 2012 with the following objective, outcomes and strategies:

The project’s development objective

To contribute to the shift in growth and employment policies to those that facilitate an accelerated expansion of formal sector, curb the growth of informal economy and reduce vulnerable employment

The expected outcomes

Outcome 1: The regulatory and policy environment in the target local areas made more conducive to formalization and protective to the risks of informalization
Outcome 2: Formal job growth promoted through job-rich growth strategies and an integrated formalization assistance in the target local areas
Outcome 3: Good practices and tools of promoting formalization better understood by the constituents and key stakeholders at the national level in South Asia

Project strategy

The project has been designed to demonstrate the integrated decent work strategy for the informal economy with emphasis on knowledge management and participatory dialogue.

The integrated decent work strategy for the informal economy covers seven interconnected policy areas: 1) growth strategy and quality employment generation; 2) regulatory environment, including enforcement of international labour standards and core rights; 3) organization on representation and social dialogue; 4) equity (gender, ethnicity, race, caste, disability, age); 5) entrepreneurship, skills, finance, management, access to markets; 6) extension of social protection; 7) local (rural and urban) development strategies. The project intended to apply the integrated approach to the extent possible.

Knowledge management is mainstreamed into the project strategy. Relevant studies, including good practices and innovative approaches, when available, will be shared to stakeholders through informed dialogue. The project also planned to conduct selected studies and surveys that may provide critical information and address knowledge gaps. 

Further, participatory dialogue is embedded in the project implementation processes. Through dialogue, consensus of stakeholders will be brought about and lead to successful engagement.

The project plays a facilitative role in support of the efforts and actions of the tripartite constituents and stakeholders to create a conducive policy and regulatory environment towards the formalization and prevention of informalization of targeted local economies.    

2. Purpose and scope

This independent final evaluation of the Project is being carried out in line with the requirements of the ILO Evaluation Policy . ILO project evaluations are conducted to provide an opportunity for the Office and its funding partners to assess the appropriateness of design as it relates to the ILO's strategic and national policy framework, and consider the effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of project outcomes. Project evaluations also test underlying assumptions about contribution to a broader development goal.

The purpose of this evaluation is to assess the relevance of the intervention objectives and approach; establish how far the intervention has achieved its planned outcomes and objectives; the extent to which its strategy has proven efficient and effective; and whether it is likely to have a sustainable impact. It is an opportunity to take stock of achievements, performance, impacts, good practices and lessons learned from the implementation of the project towards the formalization of workers and economic units in the informal economy businesses and workers and prevent the informalization of jobs in the formal economy.

Knowledge and information obtained from the evaluation will be used to inform the design of future similar ILO activities in India, Nepal and Bangladesh or countries in similar situations. It will also provide lessons for country-level implementation of Recommendation 204 concerning the Transition from the Informal Economy to the Formal Economy, which was passed during the 104th International Labour Conference in 2015.

Clients and users of the evaluation are

•    ILO Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific
•    ILO Decent Work Team in New Delhi, management, programme and finance units
•    Representatives of governments
•    Representatives of workers’ organizations
•    Representatives of employers’ organization
•    Country stakeholders
•    ILO HQ, DWT-New Delhi and CO Dhaka technical and programme backstopping officers
•    ILO-Japan as the funding agency

Scope

The evaluation will include all the activities undertaken by the project during the project period (1 June 2012– 30 November 2016) and will cover all geographical coverage of the project. In addition to the capacity building and knowledge sharing activities at the central and regional levels, pilot activities were implemented in the following areas:
•    Nepal: Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Chitwan, Kaski, Morang and Sunsari

The evaluation shall include all stages of the project, including initial project design, work planning, implementation monitoring and reporting. The evaluation shall also refer to the progress reports submitted to the donor, particularly the achieved outcomes and how lessons learned and recommendations were progressively followed up to attain desired results. The evaluation should also look at actual implementation mechanisms in line with initially planned implementation mechanisms, from the institutional set-up to the implementation plan and budget expenditures. How the strategies and approaches have progressed, changed or evolved over the four-year implementation period shall be examined to draw lessons from project experience.
Gender equality is an important cross cutting policy driver of the ILO. The evaluation will look particularly at how gender equality concerns were integrated throughout its methodology, strategies/approaches, data and all deliverables, including in the final report.

The evaluation shall verify good practices, if any, impacts and lessons learned from the implementation of the project. At the end of the evaluation, a set of practical recommendations for possible immediate adoption/ application should be made available, and could be further integrated to in ILO practices in future ILO projects. The evaluation shall identify approaches and / or activities that have proven to be particularly innovative, unique or otherwise valuable that can be referred to in regard to the formalization of the informal economy and preventing the informalization of the formal economy.

3.    Evaluation approach and schedule

The evaluation will use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods and the final methodology will be determined by the evaluator, taking into account suggestions from the stakeholders, in consultation with the evaluation manager.  The detailed methodology will be elaborated by the evaluation team on the basis of this TORs and documented in the Inception Report, which is subject to approval by the evaluation manager.
It is expected that the evaluation will apply mixed methods that draw on both quantitative and qualitative evidence and involve multiple means of analysis.

These include but not limited to: -

•    Desk review of relevant documents and related to the background of the project, context of the countries covered (statistics, national plans, informal sector definitions, etc.) performance and progress related to the project, including the initial project document, mid-term evaluation report, progress reports, monitoring and evaluation plan, mission reports, contracts and implementation agreements with partners, in-built project knowledge etc.
•    Interviews with the concerned staff in the Country Office in Nepal, management, programme and finance units, project team including key staff of other ILO projects that are linked to this project, and ILO staff responsible for technical backstopping of the project in ILO HQ, ROAP or DWT New Delhi either through conference calls or face-to-face interviews early in the evaluation process. An indicative list of persons to interview will be prepared by the project in consultation with the evaluation manager.
•    Interviews with the donor, project implementing partners, tripartite constituents, project target groups (participants in project activities) and other stakeholders, eg business management organizations, CSOs, community organizations, deemed relevant to answer the evaluation questions. Focus group discussions can also be arranged with selected implementing partners and beneficiaries.
•    Field trip(s) to selected locations for more in depth reviews at outcomes level of the respective project interventions. These will be based on suggestions from the project team and stakeholders in consultation with the evaluation manager.
•    Identify project good practices that contribute towards transition to formality.
•    Stakeholders’ validation workshop in each country will be held – upon completion of the field trips, to present the preliminary findings to key stakeholders.
Interview questionnaires per country will be prepared by the consultant in consultation with the evaluation manager to ensure context-specific questions and will be translated into the local language for ease of reference, if needed.

While the evaluator can propose changes in the methodology, any such changes should be discussed with and approved by the evaluation manager, and provided that the research and analysis suggests changes and the indicated range of questions are addressed, the purpose maintained and the expected outputs produced at the required quality.

All data should be sex-disaggregated and different needs of women and men and those marginalized groups should be considered throughout the evaluation process. 

It is expected that the evaluator will work to the highest evaluation standards and codes of conduct and follow the UN evaluation standards and norms. Transparency and objectivity will be observed at all times. ILO’s policy guidelines for results-based evaluation (2nd edition) 2012 provides the basic framework, the evaluation will be carried out according to ILO standard policies and procedures. ILO adheres to the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) norms and standards on evaluation as well as to the OECD/DAC evaluation quality standards.

4.    Professional requirements

Evaluator (National Consultant)
The final evaluation will be led by an international evaluator who will be responsible to produce the above deliverables.  He/she will be required to ensure the quality of data (validity, reliability, consistency, and accuracy) throughout the analytical and reporting phases.  It is expected that the report will be written in an evidence-based manner. 

The ILO will also recruit an independent national consultant who will work alongside the external international evaluation consultant and assist with logistics, and interpretation and other tasks assigned by the lead consultant.
 Specifically, the national consultant will be responsible for the following tasks:
•    Conduct a desk review of relevant documents and translate documents to English, if required
•    Pro-actively provide relevant local knowledge and insights to the team leader
•    Be available and present during the evaluation mission
•    Take part in the interviews with ILO constituents and key stakeholders, assist the team leader including interpreting between the local language to English and vice versa,  to make notes during interviews, and to write brief reports on main observations and conclusions
•    Contribute to the main report to be written by the team leader - the national consultant may be asked to contribute to certain sections in the draft and final report as requested by the Team Leader (International Consultant).
•    Participate and jointly facilitate the stakeholders' workshop.
•    Provide interpretation, where needed.
Qualification of the team member:
Preferably a local consultant with expertise in evaluation. Knowledge of local context, of other related local programmes/projects, and of associated local institutions and government structures will be a great asset.

Candidates for the national consultant intending to submit an expression of interest must supply the following information:

1.    A description of how their skills, qualifications and experience are relevant to the requirements of this assignment
2.    A list of previous evaluations that are relevant to the context and subject matter of this assignment.
3.    A statement confirming their availability to conduct this assignment and the daily professional fee expressed in US dollars.
4.    A copy of the candidate’s curriculum vitae (which must include information about the qualifications held by the candidate).
5.    A statement confirming that the candidate has no previous involvement in the delivery of the Way-Out of Informality Project or a personal relationship with any ILO Officials who are engaged in the project.
6.    The names of two referees who are able to be contacted.

5.    Application

The deadline to submit expressions of interest for the evaluation is by close of business on 07 November 2016 sent by e-mail with the subject header “Evaluation of WOI Project” to the Evaluation Manager, Lourdes Kathleen Santos Macasil at santos@ilo.org and copied to Ms Pamornrat Pringsulaka, pamornrat@ilo.org.