Consultancy Opportunity: Cases Of Change And Evaluation And Learning

Request for Proposals: Refining 'Cases of Change' approach for Multi-Country Learning and Evaluation
1. Background
2024 is the second year of Christian Aid Ireland's (CAI) 5-year development programme, funded by Irish Aid under Ireland Civil Society Partnership (ICSP).
ICSP is implemented across seven countries: Burundi, Colombia, El Salvador & Guatemala, Israel occupied Palestinian territory, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe. The programme is largely implemented by 33 local civil society partners. The programme goal is, "marginalised women and men, sexual and gender minorities and communities claim their rights and hold power holders to account to address the root causes of inequality, to live in sustainable peace." Each Partner organization has their own goal and theory of change. Partners work on a wide range of context-informed issues related to governance and human rights, gender equality and social inclusion, peacebuilding and conflict prevention, and climate action. Partners' focus of work spans from the community/ individual level to national/ international levels of focus. ICSP has a strong emphasis on civil society; one of its four objectives is "Partner Agency: Partner organisations have increased agency; they are stronger, can do more and can relate better."
The programme uses a power-informed, adaptive management approach with a strong focus on inclusion and conflict. This adaptive management approach informs our approach to MEAL.
Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation for this programme responds to the fact that the nature of change
that the programme seeks, and the change process itself, is complex and evolving. Indicators and predefined outcomes, which tend to be static, show a small piece of the story, and may become irrelevant.
From 2025 the programme will use a 'cases of change' methodology to monitor change at the country
programme outcome level. The decision to adopt this approach is informed by previous experiences using outcome harvesting. More information on the initial design of the cases of change is in in Annex 1.
From 2025 between 1 and 4 'cases of change' per country programme will be gathered annually. Cases
should help the country programme (team & partners) to articulate key changes their programme
contributed to, including detail, context and journey. Each case is 'rated' along several criteria (see Annex
1). By end 2027 each country programme should have between 6 and 10 cases. As the number of cases for a programme grows, they should provide learning content for the team (compare, contrast, combine).
CAI recognises the potential in using these cases of change to contribute to portfolio level learning across countries:
- In 2025, all cases gathered to date will form the backbone of a portfolio level mid-term review,
supported by an external consultant.
- In 2026, all cases gathered to date will form the backbone of a portfolio level final evaluation
(building on the mid-term review), supported by an external consultant.
- In 2027, a further learning exercise will build on the learnings of 2025 and 2026 to date.

2. Consultancy Objectives:
CAI seeks an external consultant, to help us to:
1. Refine the 'cases of change' methodology and process. Working with CAI and country teams to
evolve thinking on the following areas:
a) Deeper definition of 'what counts' as a case of change (building on documentation of cases
emerging/ anticipated)
b) How to facilitate a diversity of cases across the portfolio (e.g. across different subject matter,
and/or focus on community, national or meso levels)
c) Greater clarity of what constitutes 'good enough' evidence and documentation.
d) Refining a documentation template
e) Refining content of cases, including the tentative ratings (see Annex 1)
f) Proposal for process of cases of change development (from identification, to elaboration,
evidence gathering and write up, with potential for further periodic review/ updating) with
outline of roles of responsibilities (external consultants, CAI, country teams, partners) and
resource implications.
g) Training/ feedback session with Christian Aid staff

2. Fully articulate the methodology to use the cases of change for Portfolio level learning (MTR 2025,
Evaluation 2026).
h) How to move from individual cases to evaluative conclusions
i) Role of (future) external consultant in case development
j) Work with CAI to advise on time and technical support requirements, as well as suggestions
for participation of partners and CA/I, with a view to informing project management and
resource allocation.

In responding to these, the consultant will be able to build on existing CAI resources and thinking and will
be able to engage with Country Teams to elaborate responses.
Notes: this is a consultancy for 2024 only. CAI will publish further Requests for Proposals for 2025 and 2026 exercises.

3. Consultancy scope:
No travel is required, and the consultant can be based in any country. Engagement with country teams and CAI will enhance the process, but deep engagement with partner organisations is unlikely.
CAI have conducted significant thinking on this approach, with support from INTRAC, which the consultant is expected to build on (noting however that CAI are very open to feedback and adaptation).

A critical success factor is that the deliverables are tailored to the available resources (human and
financial), team structures, ways of working and partner relationships. Thus, it is expected that the
consultant will spend some time in an 'empathy' phase (i.e. getting to know us).

4. Consultancy Team Requirements
Essential:
• Demonstrated experience and expertise outcome harvesting/ process tracing/ cases of change
methodologies.
• Experience of working in partnership with civil society
• Ability to design and use evaluation methodologies that are appropriate for complex/
complicated and adaptive programmes.
• Fluency in English and clear verbal and written communication skills
• Experience in managing and conducting complex, multi-country evaluations and/or learning
exercises.
• Experience of adaptive management
• Skilled in designing and clearly communicating processes that are practical, easy to understand,
and tailored to the specific context.
• Available to complete this piece of work by mid December 2024.

Desirable:
• Fluency in written and spoken Spanish (French a bonus)
• Proven ability in storytelling, helping others to 'tell their story'.
• Demonstrated experience and understanding in the ICSP technical areas (Realising Human
Rights, Tackling Violence, Building Peace, Gender Equality) and an understanding of gender and
inclusion and conflict sensitivity as cross-cutting issues.
• Experience and understanding of at least some of the ICSP programme countries.
5. Proposals & Selection process
Financial Information
The available budget for this phase 1 is €9,000, inclusive of all VAT and costs.


How to apply
Please submit a proposal in response to this RFP . Proposals should include:
• A brief outline demonstrating appreciation of the piece of work to be completed, and proposed
methodology.
• Confirmation of availability to complete the assignment by mid-December 2024.
• A profile of the proposed person/ team, including key roles and responsibilities
• Costed proposal in Euro, with breakdowns by key deliverables and estimated number of days,
including any additional fees and VAT.
• Please also submit two pieces of work completed by the proposed team of relevance to the
proposed consultancy, and a concise resume for each team member.1

Submission of proposals
Please submit your proposals to both ******, cc'ing ******, with the subject line, 'Cases of Change and Evaluation and Learning' on Friday 25th October 2024.

We welcome any questions or clarifications to ****** before October 18th.

Selection Process
Applications will be assessed based on the quality of the proposal, ability to meet requirements above, and overall budget. A shortlist of applicants will be requested to participate in a short interview in the first week of November.

The selected consultant/s will be asked to sign and abide by Christian Aid's Code of Conduct.

Annex 1: Cases of Change
An initial outline of cases of change methodology, processes and documentation has been developed. It will be the role of the consultant to further develop this, and we expect to be challenged on thinking already done. Some highlights of thinking to date is outlined below.
All country programmes have identified 'example cases' they would like to gather, if their programme was
successful.
Inspiration: Cases of change were inspired by experiences using Outcome harvesting in our previous
programme phase. Strengths of outcome harvesting were the discussion of 'contribution' and 'significance', as well as their qualitative nature. Challenges were in identifying outcomes, in particular those related to wide-spread changes in knowledge, behaviour, practice, and in analysing multiple cases at the programme and portfolio levels.

Content:
A 'case of change' describes a change in:
• Public agenda: Changes to the public environment that make sustainable change more likely
• Policy: Changes to constitutional policy and practice
• Significant behaviour change: Changes in behaviours of individuals or groups
• Civil society power: Strengthened community and civil society role and influence (including partner
organisations' agency)
• Power & Systems: changes in quality of relationship and interaction between different actors.
(This list is adapted from 'No Royal Road: Finding and following the natural pathways in advocacy evaluation' with further elaboration from INTRAC).

In line with our ToC, in contexts of significant civil society repression sustainable change may not be
realistic. The focus could then be on change in Partner and Rights Holder agency to act for an opportunity yet to come, or where negative change has been prevented, or slowed. Cases can also look at negative
change/ absence of change, although the number of these selected should be limited.
Cases are not case studies of individuals. Ideally, they will not look at an individual or specific instance of
change (e.g. a single Rights Holder doing something differently, a Power Holder taking a once-off action,
and even perhaps a very temporal change in situation).
A single case might be at, or across, micro, meso or macro levels, and similarly related to one, or multiple,
partners' work.

Documentation:
• The case will describe what the change is, how it occurred, and how the programme (partners and CA) contributed to it occurring. CAI currently proposes that a single case of change is a 2-to-5-page document, with supporting evidence/documentation included in an annex, as appropriate. A case will be mainly narrative, must be evidenced (i.e. go beyond reflection), and will include elements of judgement, as well as reflection and interpretation.
• Each case will be rated against several scales. One aim of using these scales is to provide a
means of bringing diverse cases together in the hopes of facilitating learning at programme and
portfolio level. The rating system will be refined with a consultant and country teams and
tested in the initial cases documented. The scales are as follows:
• The degree of change reflects how the extent to which change has happened since the start of the programme.
• The programme's contribution to change: assess the degree to which the programme has contributed to any change. This includes work by partners, their own partners supported by the programme, as well as CA/I. When assessing contribution to change it is important to consider not only the aggregate contribution, but also how different parts of the programme community have contributed to change, especially where the efforts of one have ended up boosting the effectiveness of the efforts of others.
• The inclusivity of the change:3 an inclusive programme is the process of ensuring that
everyone, regardless of gender, sexual identity or expression, age, race, caste, ethnicity,
social status, disability, religion, political affiliation or any other dimension of
vulnerability is treated equitably and given fair and free opportunity to participate and
have influence in activities, decisions and structures which affect their life. Inclusivity
takes into account both the inclusivity of the change process as well as the change
experienced.
CAI has developed drafts of these scales.

At Christian Aid we strive to be an inclusive and diverse employer and recognise the value that this brings in helping to build strong, creative and high performing teams.

We are actively encouraging racialised minorities, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, returning parents or carers who are re-entering work after a career break, people with caring responsibilities, people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, women, and older workers to apply. This is because these groups are under-represented within our teams, especially at senior level, and we recognise and value the contributions members of these groups make to strong, creative and high performing teams. To discuss this role in greater detail, please contact xxxx

We have a strong Christian ethos and we encourage applications from all faiths and none (with the exception of Director positions where there is a genuine occupational requirement to be a practicing Christian - Exempted under the Equality Act 2010).

All successful candidates will require a DBS/police check appropriate to the role and location and a Counter Terrorism Sanction check as part of your clearance for commencing your role with us. We also participate in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. In line with this Scheme, we will request information as part of the referencing process from job applicants' previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms their understanding of these recruitment procedures.

This role requires applicants to have the right to live and work in the country where this position is based and undertake the role that you have been offered. If you are successful and we make you an offer for the role, we will be required to conduct a right to work check on your immigration status in the UK. We will contact you regarding the documentation you will need to provide to evidence this.

You can expect a wide range of rewards and benefits, including a generous holiday allowance, a season ticket loan, and flexibility that will ensure you enjoy a good work/life balance.

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