Evaluation Consultant (Team leader and Team members for the Mid-term Evaluation of the Forest and Farm Facility Phase II project)

The Office of Evaluation (OED) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) the mid-term evaluation of the second phase of the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) implemented by FAO. OED is seeking qualified national and regional consultants, with experience in community forestry and smallholder producer organizations, natural resource based enterprise development, community responses for climate resilience, participatory monitoring and evaluation approaches to join the evaluation team.

Reporting Lines

The consultants will work under the direct supervision of the Evaluation Manager and under the overall responsibility of the Director of the Office of Evaluation (OED).

The Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) is a multi-donor partnership programme between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the global alliance of agro-agencies mandated by farmers' organisations (AgriCord).

Building on phase I of the programme, FFF provides resources directly to FFPOs and offers a range of capacity-development services, including advocacy, information sharing, business incubation, access to financing and links to social services. Phase II of the FFF aims to scale up previous work with 10 partner countries and their FFPOs to 25 countries.

The goal of Phase II of the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) is to support forest and farm producers and their organizations to enable “Climate Resilient Landscapes and Improved Livelihoods”. The Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) supports forest and farm producer organizations (FFPOs) in improving livelihoods, while safeguarding the environment and responding to climate change.

FFF Phase II is structured around the following outcomes also contributing to several SDGs\:

• Outcome 1. More enabling policy and legal frameworks for FFPOs delivered through more FFPO-inclusive governance and cross-sectoral processes (SDG 16 & 17).
• Outcome 2. Increased entrepreneurship, access to markets and finance through gender equitable value chains delivered through new capacity to provide business incubation within FFPOs (SDG 1, 5, 8 & 12).
• Outcome 3. Improved delivery of landscape scale mitigation, adaptation and climate resilience for climate change through direct engagement of FFPOs and integration with inclusive livelihood approaches (SDG 2, 13 & 15).
• Outcome 4. Improved and equitable access to social and cultural services (SDG 3 & 10).

The programme is being implemented in nine core countries of Bolivia, Ecuador, Ghana, Kenya, Nepal, Viet Nam, Zambia, Togo and Madagascar (with Tanzania joining as a new core country in in mid 2020) and provides support to national, regional and global FFPOs for capacity sharing and advocacy.

The time frame covered by this mid-term evaluation is from the beginning of the project in July 2018 to the start of the evaluation process in July 2020. The evaluation will focus on results achieved across the four FFF expected outcomes at the national regional and international/global level, with a view to providing formative recommendations for the future implementation of the project. Case studies will be conducted through country visits in all three regions.

This Mid-Term Evaluation will be both a summative exercise, providing accountability on outputs and outcomes achieved to date, and also a formative exercise, providing valuable recommendations for the future implantation of the project.

• Contribute to the evaluation in their areas of expertise. Their terms of reference will derive and must conform to the terms of reference of the evaluation.
• Be responsible for conducting the evaluation and contributing to the development of the methodology in consultation with and under the supervision of OED. The evaluation team will participate in information sessions, interviews, field visits and will support OED in writing the final evaluation report. OED is responsible for the final report drafting, and will ensure its compliance with applicable evaluation standards. Individual terms of reference will be provided to the selected team members.

• Advanced university degree in fields related to forestry, community forestry, agronomy, social sciences, rural development and natural resource governance;
• with a focus on smallholder producers organisations and policy dialogue;
• Five years of experience in enterprise development and forest and farm producer organizations, indigenous peoples, smallholders, gender climate change mitigation and adaptation and governance issues in the context of rural development;
• A minimum of 5 years of relevant experience in evaluation, including participatory approaches, preferably of forestry projects and/or programs;
• Working knowledge of English (level C) and limited knowledge of Spanish and/or French (FAO official languages relevant for this evaluation);
• Candidates should have not been involved in the formulation, implementation or backstopping of FAO’s projects and activities to be evaluated, and will be required to sign a declaration of conflict of interest.

• Results Focus
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Building Effective Relationships
• Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

• In depth experience in at least one of the three regions – preferably more than one;
• Familiarity with rural development/ forestry project design, implementation and evaluation
• Understanding of the linkage between producer organizations and policy making across sectors;
• Experience in dialogue processes;
• Understanding of gender relevant approaches.