Job Description

Consultancy for Project Final Evaluation: Building Resilience through Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration to Prevent Violent Extremism in Indonesia

Search for Common Ground (Search) Indonesia is seeking to hire a consultant to carry out a final evaluation for its project “Building Resilience through Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration to Prevent Violent Extremism in Indonesia”. For this consultancy, Search Indonesia seeks to procure the services of an independent, external consultant(s) to design, plan and conduct a rigorous project final evaluation. The objective of this evaluation is to document project achievements and lessons learned from the 24-month project on preventing violent extremism in Indonesia.

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Background of the Organization*
Search (www.sfcg.org) is an international peacebuilding organization that strives to find local solutions to today’s toughest violent conflicts — and save millions of lives in the process. It is working in 33 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the USA. It works with governments, civil society, state institutions, youth, women, media organizations and other stakeholder groups to promote peace, reconciliation, tolerance, and collaboration across dividing lines.

Search has been working in Indonesia since 2002. As a diverse country, Indonesia is facing challenges in managing social harmony and tolerance within the heterogeneous society. Search, in collaboration with local partners, is supporting the process of building peaceful culture through media programming, dialogues, outreach activities, and capacity strengthening. Search Indonesia works primarily with youth, especially in the universities and schools, government agencies and officials, and communities in the vulnerable areas to prevent violent extremism as one of the challenges of peace and tolerance in Indonesia.

Background of the project
Despite being a moderate Muslim-majority country, Indonesia has had many of its citizens actively involved in transnational violent extremist movements, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In order to address this challenge, Search has been implementing a two-year project aiming to build government and local capacity to address both the supply and demand factors related to the spread of violent extremist ideology in Indonesia. The project started on 30 September 2020 and will end on 30 September 2022. The project activities focus on enhancing local resilience to religious narratives used to spread this ideology, promoting alternative positive narratives, and improving national rehabilitation and reintegration programs to decrease the risks of returnees being motivated to embrace such ideologies.

With the approaching end of its implementation period, the project needs to be evaluated to enable Search and the project partners to document the project’s key achievements, lessons learned, and areas that can be further improved in the next projects.

Project objectives
The overall objective of the project is to strengthen comprehensive community-based responses to violent extremist radicalization, recruitment, and recidivism. The* specific objectives of the project are: *
Objective 1: Enhance community resilience to violent extremist narratives.
Objective 2: Improve community-grounded R&R programs designed to support P/CVE efforts and reduce recidivism and recruitment by returnees.

Target groups for the project:
Primary target groups: prison counselors and parole officers, religious counselors (government and non-government affiliated), CSOs, social workers, psychosocial workers, and youth in Greater Jakarta, Cirebon, Garut/Tasikmalaya, Greater Solo, and Palu/Poso.

Secondary target groups (Government counterparts): Religious Harmony Forum (FKUB), National and Political Unity Agency (Kesbangpol).

The project outputs and activities include the following:
P/CVE Training for the religious counselors, CSOs, and other related stakeholders in the target area.
Arts and cultural events with youth and women to promote national identity and reduce extremism and intolerant views.
Media and digital messaging campaigns with workshops for religious counselors, youth organizations, DGC Public Relations Officers, and other related stakeholders.
R & R Training for R and R practitioners; prison and parole officers, religious counselors, social workers, psychosocial workers, and other related stakeholders on R and R efforts in the target area.
Local reintegration forums to increase coordination and collaboration among R and R practitioners in the target area.
Production and dissemination of stories and videos of former convicted terrorists, deportees, and returnees.
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Objectives of the Evaluation
Search as an organization is committed to conducting evaluations for its projects in order to maximize the effectiveness of its programming and engage in continuous improvement and learning within programs and across the organization. The evaluation will be carried out in consultation and in participation with key relevant stakeholders, appropriate community groups, or key civil society individuals. The final evaluation intends to measure the immediate impact of the project, specifically whether the stated goal, objectives, and results have been met.

The purpose of the evaluation is to document achievements of the expected results and lessons learned through a participatory process engaging Search, CSOs, local communities, and other key society stakeholders. The evaluation will aim to ascertain if and how the project yielded its intended results.

Evaluation criteria and key evaluation questions
The evaluation will be based on the OECD-DAC peacebuilding Evaluation Criteria (relevance, effectiveness, intermediate impact, efficiency, and sustainability), investigating their set of questions, and utilizing and/or addressing the performance indicators described in the project document:
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Relevance
1. To what extent the project intervention is relevant to addressing the current conflict dynamics surrounding the evolving trend of violent extremism in the target areas?
2. To what extent did this project comply with the targeted community needs and existing issues?
3. What is the relevance of the interventions as perceived by beneficiaries and stakeholders?
4. How relevant were the instruments (capacity-building workshops, community dialogue sessions, etc.) used during the project to the local communities' needs and capacities?
5. How did this project maintain its relevance amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and the political, economic, and social challenges in the target areas?

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Effectiveness_*
What are the major outputs and outcomes of this project vis-a-vis the logframe?
To what extent were the project and its activities successful in achieving its stated goals and objectives? What major factors are contributing to the achievement or non-achievement of objectives?
To what extent has the project been effective in building multi-stakeholder coordination and collaboration in P/CVE and R and R efforts in the target area?
How effective were the training sessions in building the capacities of P/CVE and R and R practitioners to better efforts on the P/CVE and R and R process?
How effective were the dialogue sessions, arts, cultural events, and other activities in shifting participants’ attitudes and behavior, and relationships toward tolerance and diversity?
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Efficiency
Have resources (funds, human resources, time, expertise, etc.) been allocated strategically to achieve outcomes? Have resources been used efficiently?
Have activities supported by the strategy been cost-effective? In general, do the results achieved to justify the costs? Could the same results be attained with fewer resources?
Have project funds and activities been delivered in a timely manner?

Intermediate Impact
How has the project contributed to creating better coordination and collaboration on P/CVE and R and R efforts within state institutions, CSOs, and local communities?
How has the project been successful in fostering critical thinking among key community leaders? How has the project contributed to P/CVE and R and R efforts in target locations?
How has the project contributed to improving national and local government’s role in ensuring the multistakeholder collaboration process in P/CVE and R and R efforts?
How has the project contributed to enhancing the roles of key actors (prison and parole officers, religious counselors, CSOs, social workers, and local communities) in actively contributing towards multi-stakeholder collaboration in P/CVE and R and R efforts?
How has the project contributed to reducing extremism and intolerance views among society in target areas?
Has there been any evidence of increased resilience of communities (especially youth) to radicalization and recruitment by VEOs?
What are the broader changes, positive or negative, intended, or unintended, of the interventions in the context?

Sustainability
Is there a project exit strategy developed? If yes, how does it frame the sustainability aspect of the project?
To what extent do the objectively verifiable results have the potential to sustain beyond Search support?
Have new mechanisms been designed to continue any work initiated by this project? If yes, will the initiatives be sustainable post-project?
To what extent have the participating stakeholders, government agencies, youth, and community members taken ownership of the project and or planned or have already stated independent new initiatives?

Lesson learned:
1. What are the major lessons learned that would help inform similar initiatives in the future?
2. What could have been done differently to make the project be of higher quality and of greater impact?
3. What are the good practices emerging out of this project implementation?

In addition to the above lines of inquiry, the evaluation is expected to provide information on specific indicators listed in the Project Tracking and Monitoring Evaluation Plan, taking into account that some of the targets and/or indicators may change depending on ongoing discussions with the donor:

• Percentage of leaders in project areas who can attribute an increase in people’s knowledge of potential solutions to extremism and how to engage the relevant authorities to Search’s project intervention (disaggregated by location, gender, and age).
• Percentage of participants and audience members who indicate that arts and culture events increased their support for initiatives around tolerance and inclusion (disaggregated by location, gender, and age).
• Percentage of government workers who attended the training and who claim that coordination with at least 50% of other agencies/bodies listed in the survey is effective (disaggregated by location, gender, and age).

The evaluation is also expected to generate data on 2-3 Global Impact Framework indicators through the survey. The indicators (not more than 3) will be shared during the inception phase.

Methodology of Evaluation
a) Approach
The SFCG approach to evaluation is grounded in the guiding principles of our work: participatory, culturally sensitive, committed to building capacity, affirming and positive while honest and productively critical, and valuing knowledge and approaches from within the context. SFCG and the hired evaluator will agree upon a joint set of evaluation standards when negotiating the final contract of agreement.

b) Scope
The evaluation will cover project activities/initiatives that are implemented in six (6) project locations; Greater Jakarta, Cirebon, Garut/Tasikmalaya, Greater Solo, and Palu/Poso. The evaluation sample should adequately cover the project target areas and be representative of the key stakeholders and intended beneficiaries.

c) Methodology
The evaluation will employ both quantitative and qualitative methods. Both quantitative and qualitative data will be analyzed with gender, age, locations, and ethnicity/religion disaggregation. The qualitative and quantitative findings are expected to be synthesized in accordance with the project indicators.

The sampling methodology for the tools and/or instruments will be designed by the consultant, referring to the project’s Monitoring Tracking and Planning and in coordination with the Search Project Manager, Project Officer, DME Officer, and the Senior Regional DME Specialist. The total sample size should be drawn from the total target population of the project locations. The sample size should be agreed upon with SFCG before signing the contract. A reasonable sample size should be proposed using a 95% confidence level and a 5% margin of error.

The data collection process could be included but not limited to the project’s key actors' discussions (Search team, key stakeholders, beneficiaries, trainers, and other consultants that Search hired during the project).

Stakeholder meeting: A focus group discussion will be conducted to assess the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of the project amongst Search team, key stakeholders, such as DGC and MoRA, trainers, and other consultants that Search hired during the project. This should be conducted at least once in Jakarta. At least 1-2 FGDs should be carried out in at least 4 locations.

KIIs: Semi-structured interviews will be the chosen tool for engaging with the project beneficiaries to assess the intermediate impact and the lesson learned aspects of evaluation. The consultant should approach five types of beneficiaries; religious counselors, DGC officers - prison and parole officers, CSOs, other government institutions - social affairs workers, and youth in five project areas. Face-to-face KIIs are preferred. At least 5 KIIs from each location should be interviewed.

Furthermore, as part of the data collection and analysis process, the consultant is required to respect the following Ethical Principles:

• Comprehensive and systematic inquiry: The consultant should make the most of the existing information and full range of stakeholders available at the time of the review. Consultants should conduct systematic, data-based inquiries. He or she should communicate his or her methods and approaches accurately and in sufficient detail to allow others to understand, interpret and critique his or her work. He or she should make clear the limitations of the review and its results.
• Competence: Consultants should possess the abilities, skills, and experience appropriate to undertake the tasks proposed and should practice within the limits of his or her professional training and competence.
• Honesty and integrity: The consultant should be transparent with the contractor/constituent about any conflict of interest, any change made in the negotiated project plan and the reasons why those changes were made, and any risk that certain procedures or activities produce a misleading review of information.
• Respect for people: Consultants respect the security, dignity, and self-worth of respondents and program participants. The consultant has the responsibility to be sensitive to and respect differences amongst participants in culture, religion, gender, disability, age, and ethnicity.

Key Duties of Consultant
1. Collect, analyze, and document information related to P-CVE and R&R in Indonesia and other assigned areas, gathering information from NGOs, religious groups, and academics; and monitoring national and international media.
2. Develop assessment instruments with SFCG input through a comprehensive inception report in English. The KII and FGD checklists need to be translated into Bahasa Indonesia once approved by ILT.
3. Interview selected key informants and conduct FGDs with the beneficiaries and related stakeholders.
4. Produce a report based on a report template agreed with SFCG Indonesia and furnish a set of recommendations based on research findings and best practices to counter or prevent extreme narratives.
5. Present research findings to SFCG Indonesia and its stakeholders

Deliverables
The final deliverables of the evaluation will include the following documents:

• A 6-10 pages (excluding annexes) long inception report, containing an evaluation plan matrix, outlining the specific data collection strategy, responsibility, data collection tools/draft questionnaires and a detailed work plan within 10 working days after signing the contract. The KIIs and FGDs checklists (detailed) and survey questions should be annexed. The plan should consider the following principles:

a) Inclusiveness, the methodology should include a wide range of viewpoints, specifically gender and age sensitivity.
b) Mixed-method approaches, both qualitative and quantitative methods need to be present in the methodology.
c) Rigor of evidence gathered information needs to be reliable and transparent.

• A draft final evaluation report for review by Search staff within (3 weeks) of the completion of the data collection.
• A fully English-edited final evaluation report (in MS word format), is due within (5 weeks) of the completion of the data collection. The report should be no more than 30 pages in length (excluding appendices) and be based on the requirements in the Search External Evaluation Guidelines (available on the web), including actionable, data-based recommendations for Search as well as suggestions for similar future programming.
• Final electronic copies of all data collected (this includes survey data entered through excel; the format needs to be approved by Search before use; also, notes of all FGDs done).
• The final evaluation summary report should strictly be written in the English language and should be around 3-4 pages
• The tentative structure of the final evaluation report will be as follows:

1)Cover page
2)Executive Summary of key findings and recommendations.
3)Introduction, including brief context description
4)Methodology
5)Evaluation findings, analysis and conclusions with associated evidence and data are clearly illustrated. The findings section should be subdivided into sub-chapters according to the evaluation criteria.
6)Recommendations for the future, which should be practical and linked directly to findings and conclusions;
7)Appendices, including evaluation tools, questionnaire, and brief biography of the evaluator.

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Search will maintain consultants’ independence in writing their findings. Both the final and the summary report will be credited to the consultancy team and will be placed in the public domain, including on the Search website (www.sfcg.org/ilt/evaluations) and the global learning and sharing on Portal ConnexUs (www.cnxus.org).

Budget
This total final evaluation will be budgeted up to USD 8,000. The consultant(s) should propose a detailed budget to cover all evaluation activities. Travel costs to conduct KIIs must be reflected as well in the budget proposal.

Duration & Deadlines
The duration of the contract will be a total period of 10 weeks to begin from 1 July 2022 to 20 September 2022 (TBC). The consultant will negotiate final dates and deadlines with the Search Indonesia DM&E Officer.

Logistical Support
SFCG will provide preparatory and logistical assistance to the evaluator, which includes:

• Background materials (project proposal, implementation plans, progress reports, success stories, etc.)
• Quantitative and qualitative documentation of project activities.
• List of potential Interviewees (and their contact information) for KIIs and FGDs
• Technical assistance with the review and approval of tools and reports.
• Meeting arrangements with stakeholders and beneficiaries

Team Members
The evaluation will be conducted by an individual/consultancy managed by the evaluation focal point at Search with technical oversight from the Senior Manager of ILT.

Evaluator’s Competencies
Search seeks an experienced evaluator(s) with the following qualifications:

• Master’s degree in

Job Type: Full-time