Ireland’s Civil Society Partnership (ICSP) for A Better World, Mid Term Review at Sightsavers, Freetown, Sierra Leone

Programme Impact and Outcomes:

Programme level Impact statement: Positive transformative change in systems, services and experiences for target populations – especially people with disabilities, and women and girls – to reach those furthest behind in selected Central and West African countries.
Programme level Outcome statement: Citizenship, education and health systems are sustainably strengthened so they meet the priorities and uphold the rights of targeted populations.
Outcome statements for each thematic area
Citizenship and Political Participation (CPP): Governance systems and processes in Cameroon, Senegal and Sierra Leone are more inclusive, accessible, and responsive to people with disabilities, so they can meaningfully engage in decision-making and active citizenship.
Inclusive Education (IE): Strengthened inclusive education systems result in increased access to, and quality of, inclusive education for girls and boys with disabilities in Cameroon and Senegal.
Eye Health (EH): Improved and more equitable access to quality eye health services for all target populations in Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone, with a focus on women and people with disabilities.
Climate Action (CA): Increased integration of climate action initiatives, especially on climate adaptation and mitigation, into eye health, education, citizenship and political participation work in Cameroon, Liberia, Senegal, and Sierra Leone.

Responsibilities
Purpose of the Mid Term Review Consultancy:

Context and Purpose:

The ICSP programme is a five-year programme, and an End-term Evaluation (ETE) is planned to take place in 2026, covering data from the first three years of the programme. The rationale to conduct a Mid-Term Review (MTR) in 2025 is primarily to inform internal learning and implementation, to better understand the capacity development needs of partners, and to strengthen evaluability at the end term.

Additionally, Sightsavers Ireland has committed to reviewing and updating the ToC on an ongoing basis, as part of an adaptive management approach. The midpoint of a project is an opportune time to review the programme logic and revise some of the specific change pathways to make sure that they reflect the reality on the ground. It is also important to ensure that all elements of the programme are included in the ToC which may not have been made explicit at the design stage. Therefore, Climate Action will be a particular focus area. The revised ToC will also have an important role in informing the ETE.

Sightsavers takes an inclusive and participatory approach to evaluation and learning activities and the MTR will seek the perspectives and experiences of the people and communities we serve. The structure of the MTR approach is designed to incorporate and reflect the lived experiences of people with disabilities and provide a structure for which it can be fed into programme learning.

The target audience for the findings of the MTR will be the Sightsavers programme staff, global programme support and advisory teams within Sightsavers Ireland, project partners in each country, and the consultants who will conduct the ETE. Although the MTR is not a contractual requirement, the final outputs will also be shared with the donor.

Scope

The MTR will cover the programme period from its inception in January 2023 up to the end of December 2024. The MTR will cover all thematic areas, with a particular focus on Climate Action, as well as cross cutting workstreams such as gender, young people and locally led development. The review will also seek to involve people with different types of disabilities and impairments to understand a variety of different experiences. The review will be small in scale, in comparison to the size of the programme, and it will not be feasible to conduct in-depth enquiries into all aspects of the programme.

Methodology

This MTR will take a participatory and inclusive approach, ensuring that the views and experiences of the people and communities we serve, including women, girls and people with disabilities, are listened to and reflected. There will be two main evaluative activities as part of this MTR:

Most Significant Change (MSC) story collection and selection (Q1-Q2 2025)

ToC review workshop (Q2 2025)

Outputs and Deliverables

A draft and Final Inception Report in English and French (tbc) detailing the overall technical approach and detailed methodology
Delivery of MSC story collection workshops and selection committees in selected projects
Summary of the selected MSC stories in a short report (in English and French), including 2 rounds of feedback and revisions
Delivery of Theory of Change review workshop (for each thematic area)
A proposed revised Theory of Change (programme level, GCE)
Data sets (Excel or Word files) for all collected data (quantitative and qualitative)
PowerPoint slides in French and English summarising the MTR process and key outputs from the review.
Final report in English and French, including 3 rounds of feedback and revisions. The report will bring together all of the MTR activities into a cohesive report with key learnings and recommendations

Skills and Experience
Consultant specifications

The above activities will be contracted to an external independent consultancy company or team through a competitive open tender process. It would be beneficial if some team members are located in the programme countries (Cameroon, Senegal, Sierra Leone or Liberia). Team members should have the following core competencies and experience:

Extensive experience in monitoring and evaluation for international development project/programmes, with strong skills in both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Experience using Most Significant Change and other participatory evaluation methods is essential
Prior experience working in some, if not all, of the programme countries is essential, including primary data collection and participatory workshops.
Thematic expertise in inclusive eye health, citizenship and political participation, inclusive education is essential with comprehensive understanding of Climate Action, and preferred practices/policy issues at national and global levels.
Strong expertise in disability inclusion and gender mainstreaming.
Experience of carrying out multi-country reviews and Theory of Change review exercises of an appropriate scale
Ability to source and manage additional support with relevant services such as data collection, translation, sign language interpretation, and transcription, in the programme countries
The team lead should have significant experience of managing multi-national teams to conduct evaluations including complex data collection. An experienced team member dedicated to evaluation coordination, administration, and logistics would be highly beneficial.
Ability to produce clear, concise, and analytical reports in English, with excellent attention to detail, and to meet agreed deadlines.
Experience of producing learning and summary documents to share findings and recommendations with diverse audiences in clear and engaging ways. Familiarity with accessible design principles would be advantageous.
Excellent communication skills in written and spoken English. It is essential that some team members are fluent in written and spoken French, in order to facilitate smooth data collection in francophone areas. Knowledge of other local languages in the programme countries is also highly desirable.