Terms of Reference for the Mid-term Evaluation of the Programme Intervention Gender Equality 4 Sustainable Development East Africa

Background
horizont3000 is Austria’s largest non-governmental development organisation, supported by 11 Catholic member organisations. It partners with civil society actors in Africa, Latin America, and Oceania. Its work focuses on sustainable livelihoods, human rights, and gender equality, using three main instruments:

• Co-financing development projects and programmes.
• Technical advisory services through international and regional experts.
• Knowledge management and learning via its platform knowhow3000.

In East Africa, horizont3000 works through its Regional Office in Kampala, supporting 21 partner organisations to empower rural communities, promote climate resilience, defend land rights, and advance women’s empowerment.

About the Framework Programme

The Gender Equality 4 Sustainable Development (2023–2026) Framework Programme, co-funded by the Austrian Development Cooperation, is implemented in 10 countries worldwide. It has three strategic outcomes:

1. Promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.
2. Mainstreaming gender in sustainable livelihoods and human rights.
3. Enhancing knowledge management on gender equality through knowhow3000.

In East Africa, the programme covers 24 projects with a budget of EUR 7.8 million, reaching 96,000 direct participants (52% women) and an estimated 930,000 people indirectly. Activities include;

• Sustainable livelihoods: smallholder farmer training, eco-friendly agriculture, village savings, cooperatives, entrepreneurship, and renewable energy.

• Human rights & civil society; land rights advocacy, education, legal aid, and women’s rights promotion.

• Organisational capacity: gender analyses, self-assessments, gender action plans, male engagement strategies, and peer learning.

  About the Evaluation

  This midterm evaluation will review programme progress between January 2023 and mid-2025, and provide recommendations for the next phase (2027–2030).

  Objectives

• Assess the relevance, coherence, and effectiveness of gender-transformative approaches.

• Evaluate how partner organisations mainstream gender in livelihoods and human rights projects.

• Identify good practices and lessons learned to strengthen strategy and implementation.

• Scope & Methodology

• A participatory, gender-sensitive, human rights-based approach.

• Mixed methods: document review, surveys, key informant interviews, focus groups, and 4–6 case studies (with suggested focus on Uganda & Tanzania).

• Deliverables include; Inception Report, Theory of Change, Draft & Final Evaluation Reports, and workshop presentations.

  Required Skills & Experience

  The evaluation team must demonstrate the following;

• Proven experience completing at least 2 evaluations of similar budget/size and 3 evaluations on gender equality and/or women’s empowerment in development cooperation.

• Strong expertise in gender equality, women’s rights, and experience leading gender-responsive evaluations across sectors.

• Advantageous knowledge in climate-smart agriculture, natural resource management, climate change adaptation, and land rights.

• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in qualitative evaluation methods (FGDs, case studies, surveys).

• Experience in planning and conducting evaluations in East Africa (Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan).

• At least one team member must hold a Master’s degree or higher in Gender Studies, Development, or Social Sciences; others must hold relevant degrees.

• Proven ability to work with civil society organisations of varied sizes and backgrounds in the region.

• Excellent English writing and editing skills; local language knowledge is an advantage.

• Teams should be gender-diverse (2–4 members), with a clear team lead. All members must participate across all phases.

• Independence: team members must not have been involved in the design/implementation of the programme under evaluation.

• Proofs required: CVs of all team members and reference assignments.

  For full details, please check the complete Terms of Reference here
  ???? https://horizont3000.org/media/pages/jobs/jobs/ee25c79e9a-1759217321/tor-for-midterm-programme-evaluation_gender-equality-4-sustainable-development-east-africa_final.pdf