• Time Commitment: 25 November 2024 to 21 February 2025
• Budget: Up to AUD 18,000 (includes any potential travel)
• Location: Home-based, with travel to Timor-Leste

INTRODUCTION - Covalima Community Centre

Covalima Community Centre (CCC) is a community-based organisation with extensive experience supporting community development in Covalima district, Timor-Leste. CCC was established in 2000 with a vision to build a community in which everyone has the opportunity to develop their capacities so that they can contribute to the social and economic development of the District of Covalima. CCC works in five areas: empowerment of women; improving agriculture and environment practices; education and training with a focus on young women and men; increasing access to education and employment opportunities; improving the health of community members and increasing knowledge of land rights.

International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA)

IWDA has partnered with CCC since 2009, focusing on rural women’s leadership and economic empowerment. IWDA is an Australia-based feminist organisation, resourcing diverse women’s rights and feminist organisations primarily in Asia and the Pacific, and contributing to global feminist movements to advance our vision of gender equality for all.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Rural Women’s Development Program (RWDP) has been funded by the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) through the Australian NGO Corporation Program (ANCP), contracted by IWDA and implemented in partnership with CCC since 2009. IWDA will manage the contract for this consultancy.

RWDP is primarily focused on promoting women’s leadership and participation at the municipal, community level and within the home, through leadership, advocacy and gender equality training to elected women leaders and other women in the community. Through RWDP, CCC also hosts quarterly forums with relevant stakeholders in the Covalima area, to share information on intersectional women’s rights issues including gender-based violence (GBV), gender equality, disability inclusion and access to services. RWDP aims to create an enabling environment for women’s leadership and participation by engaging with community leaders and male partners and addressing their role as ‘gate-keepers

As a secondary focus, RWDP contributes to women’s financial independence through supporting ‘livelihoods’ focused women’s groups with their small business activities and improving safe, inclusive access to markets. These activities work towards social empowerment outcomes; providing women with opportunities to participate in work and life outside the home.

Underpinning RWDP is the focus on women’s safety through awareness raising activities on gender-based violence (GBV) and human trafficking with the community; gender equality and GBV training for women and male partners; and facilitating access to support services and the formal justice system through the referral network.

RWDP also works with the community and existing suco disaster risk committees to promote inclusion of more women and provide training on disaster risk assessment and support setup of new suco disaster risk committees.

Under RWDP, IWDA provides program management support to CCC (finance and narrative reporting, safeguarding compliance) and also supports CCC’s organisational capacity strengthening, especially in relation to the development and implementation of a succession plan for CCC.

Rural Women’s Development Program has five program outcomes:

RWDP was re-designed following an evaluation in 2015, and the first iteration of the new design was implemented from July 2017 to June 2021 (with a one-year bridging period in-between). This four-year phase was evaluated in 2021, with recommendations informing the second phase of the program.

The second phase (July 2021 to June 2025) continues to work to achieve targeted outcomes under the previous phase. Outcomes 1,2,3 and 5 were targeted outcomes in the first/second phase up to the end of FY24-25; these outcomes remain highly relevant in the current context. In FY22/23 the program also incorporated an additional (new) outcome area (Outcome 4) focused on climate change.

CONSULTANCY OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this consultancy is to support and enable CCC's RWDP Program. To achieve this, the consultant(s) will combine elements of program evaluation and organisational evaluation, to assess:

• The impact and effectiveness of the program:
  • Program successes and enabling factors

• Impacts of program at the individual, family and community level
• Key factors contributing to program impacts / successes
• How the partnership with IWDA has support the achievement of program outcomes and outputs:
  • Program challenges, barriers and risks
• Key challenges, barriers and risks
• How the program has addressed those challenges, barriers and risks
• What needs to be done to address the unsolved/remaining challenges, barriers and risks
• The extent to which the program and IWDA’s support has increased CCC’s organisational capacity
• CCC’s organisational strengths:
  • CCC’s areas of strengths, including program management and implementation, monitoring and evaluation, operational and financial systems, human resources, resource mobilisation, etc.
  • Effectiveness of CCC’s disability inclusion approach
  • Effectiveness of CCC’s succession plan
• Partnership with IWDA as a support to CCC’s organisational capacity:
  • How the partnership with IWDA has contributed to CCC’s organisational development
  • How IWDA’s support can/should be improved
• Recommendations based on the findings for CCC and IWDA to strengthen the impact of the RWDP program, IWDA’s partnership with CCC and enhance CCC’s organizational capacity and sustainability
• Outputs from the evaluation are expected to support CCC in planning and delivering its program and future focus areas for organisational strengthening.

SCOPE OF WORK

The consultant(s) are expected to consistently demonstrate feminist, decolonial ways of working during this consultancy. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Inclusive, effective communication, including cross-cultural communication;
• Meaningful collaboration with CCC and IWDA in the analysis and interpretation of evaluation findings; and
• Ensuring that the process and outputs of the evaluation are directly and immediately useful to CCC.

The consultant(s) are expected to:

• Prepare a detailed methodology and submit this for ethics review to IWDA’s internal review board. The methodology should include agreed evaluation questions, an evaluation risk matrix, list of interviewees, draft data collection tools and proposed consent form(s).
• Desktop review of key program documents including annual project plans, donor reports and CCC’s relevant program documents.
• Interviews with CCC staff, Board and volunteers, and external stakeholders who can provide insight into the effectiveness and impact of the program, and CCC’s organisational capacity.
• Deliver a concise draft report that clearly responds to the evaluation questions in the approved methodology and provides supporting data (e.g. quotes from interviews). It should also provide recommendations to further build impact of RWDP and enhance thecapacity and sustainability of CCC and to inform future program design including specific recommendations to address identified risks and for IWDA to support the partnership.
• Plan and facilitate a participatory workshop that engages CCC and IWDA staff in joint analysis and validation of evaluation findings.
• Submit a final report that incorporates feedback from CCC and IWDA.

We anticipate that interviews will be conducted in person in Suai, Timor-Leste. The joint analysis and interpretation workshop will also be held in Suai. Domestic travel will be required for this consultancy, as well as international travel for consultant(s) not based in Timor-Leste. This is part of the overall budget.

REQUIREMENTS

The consultant, or team of consultants, should be able to demonstrate the skills and experience listed below:

Essential

• Language proficiency in both English and Tetum
• Experience working in the Timor-Leste, preferably engaging with local women’s rights or community organisations;
• Competence in cross-cultural communication;
• Capabilities in program evaluation, as well as organisational capacity assessment or strategic evaluation;
• Experience in conducting interviews and desk reviews;
• Experience in designing and facilitating participatory workshops; and
• Understanding of feminist and decolonial evaluation principles.

Desirable

• Experience working with rural women & rural women’s organisations
• Experience in gender analysis; and
• Tertiary qualifications in a relevant discipline, such as social science or international development.

Preference will be given to a consultant, or team of consultants, who have cultural competence in one or more countries in South-East Asia and to females consultant/s.

Find the full Terms of Reference here.

A position description is attached.