Consultant for Formative Evaluation on Cash Voucher Assistance (CVA) in the Philippines

Purpose of the Service

With a particular focus on the unique needs and vulnerabilities that women and young people face, UNFPA Philippines responds to humanitarian emergencies by building national and sub-national capacities and by delivering information and services to promote and fulfill the sexual and reproductive health of these vulnerable population groups, including their right to protection from gender-based violence and other harmful practices. These responses contribute to addressing UNFPA’s three transformative results of zero maternal deaths, zero unmet need for family planning and zero gender-based violence by 2030 - pre-existing risks which are especially heightened in times of emergencies.

The Philippines is the world’s 9th riskiest country (World Risk Index 2019) and this has led the Country Office to continually innovate in its overall programming so that the package of assistance remains relevant, efficient, effective, and sustainable in responding to women’s unique needs not only from a purely humanitarian perspective but more broadly in the context of a humanitarian-development-peacebuilding triple nexus. Since 2019, after the UNFPA Asia-Pacific Regional Office signalled the need for stronger Cash Voucher Assistance (CVA) programming in humanitarian contexts to fulfill part of the commitments to the Grand Bargain agreement in 2016, the CO gradually expanded its CVA programming starting with Cash for Health and, more recently, with Cash for Protection. Building on previous lessons from the CO’s years of experience implementing Cash for Work to address GBV in emergencies, the CO integrated and implemented CVA in conjunction with other more traditional interventions such as information and demand generation, capacity building of duty-bearers and responsibility-holders, direct service delivery, and strengthening of coordination mechanisms.

As of August 2020, the Philippines CO has completed two projects with CVA components: (a) Humanitarian Trust Fund (HTF) to respond to the displacements from the Marawi City armed siege (August 2019 - June 2020) and (b) CERF Rapid Response to the North Cotabato earthquakes (December 2019 - July 2020). Preliminary frameworks, designs and implementation mechanisms have been developed and monitoring data gathered from these projects that can support a systematic review of what has been done and achieved so far and the generation of recommendations to address both strategic and operational gaps and improve the intervention’s relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, and scalability/replicability. In this context, a formative evaluation is necessary to help the CO determine which aspects of the implementation worked well or not, and why. Also, this evaluation will inform the re-design of the CVA framework, including its Theory of Change and results framework.

Stetler et al. defined formative evaluation as “a rigorous assessment process designed to identify potential and actual influences on the progress and effectiveness of implementation efforts” and “enables researchers to explicitly study the complexity of implementation projects and suggests ways to answer questions about context, adaptations, and response to change”. It is an appropriate approach to respond to critical questions such as:

1. Feasibility of implementation strategies;
2. Extent of fidelity to original Implementation or intervention design;
3. Degree of real-time implementation;
4. Efficacy/effectiveness of interventions;
5. Reach relative to actual/representative subject participation rate;
6. Status and potential influence of contextual factors, whether anticipated or unanticipated, that facilitate or hinder successful implementation;
7. Response of, feedback from, and in-depth information on project participants;
8. Ability of potential adopters to replicate critical implementation processes; and
1. Adaptations necessary to achieve optimal change.

Building on the above theoretical guidance, this Terms of Reference defines the scope of work this consultancy will undertake for the Formative Evaluation of UNFPA Philippines’ CVA programme, which is supported by and being co-developed with the UNFPA HQ Humanitarian Office and the APRO Humanitarian Unit.

Scope of Work

For the period 1 October to 15 December 2020, the Consultant will design and operationalize the formative evaluation to cover the stakeholder experiences and feedback, implementation processes/mechanisms/systems, risks faced and managed, results achieved, and lessons generated from two UNFPA completed projects (HTF- and CERF-funded). The Consultant will supplement this evidence base with the CVA implementation experiences and lessons of other organizations and contexts.

More specifically, the Consultant will consider the following minimum expectations in designing and implementing the formative evaluation

• Cover the CVA programme of UNFPA Philippines in general and specific interventions such as Cash for Health, Cash for Protection and Cash for Work in particular;
• Reconstruct the various CVA interventions’ theories of change (TOC) and results frameworks based on the implementation of the two completed UNFPA projects;
• Employ mixed methods to obtain relevant data and information on the quantitative and qualitative progress and achievements of the CVA programme;
• Independently assess the programme’s and interventions’ relevance, alignment and contribution to UNFPA’s transformative results, and their progress towards the expected outputs and outcomes;
• Map and assess the participation and contribution of key stakeholders, processes/systems/mechanisms, contextual factors, potential risks that arose with the introduction of CVA, and mitigation measures introduced vis-a-vis actual vs. expected results and intended/unintended consequences of CVA implementation in order to identify critical factors that facilitated and/or hindered programme success;
• Draw key lessons from the implementation of the two CVA projects - supplemented by a review of lessons from other projects, organizations, and contexts - using transformative sexual and reproductive health, gender-responsive and core CVA programming principles, and the triple nexus (humanitarian - development - peacebuilding) lens;
• Based on the evaluation findings, provide clear, forward-looking, and actionable recommendations - including revised TOCs/programme frameworks, results frameworks, and suggestions for enhanced stakeholder engagement, programme design, systems and processes - to inform future replication and scale-up of the intervention, as adapted to different contexts;
• Comply with research ethics and WHO ethical standards, including for working with GBV and other personal data; and
• Adapt the evaluation design to comply with “minimum health protocols” related to COVID-19 prevention. This may entail adopting a combination of virtual and face-to-face interviews. The consultant shall also adhere to UNFPA’s guidance on adapting evaluations to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Below are the recommended questions for the formative evaluation to respond to. The list is subject to discussion, refinement, and finalization between the Consultant and UNFPA on what are realistic to address within the term of the consultancy based on the Inception Report to be submitted by the consultant: