Afghanistan: Evaluation of Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) Programme

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1. Background

1.1 Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA):

Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) is a non-governmental, non-profit, membership based and value driven organization established in 1980 with the mission of empowering individuals, communities and local organizations, primarily in rural areas and with particular focus on women, girls, boys and vulnerable groups such as people with disabilities so that they may participate fully in society and influence their own development. SCA is presently implementing development programmes in Health, Education, Disability and Rural Development in 14 provinces with a total annual budget of roughly USD 40 million. The main contributors to SCA budget are Sida, World Bank and increasingly, private contributions and donations. SCA has more than 5,000 staff and manages its operations through the Kabul Management Office (KMO), Stockholm Management Office, five Regional Management Offices and two Liaison Offices.

SCA strategic plan 2014-2017 focuses on rural communities, women, children and persons with disabilities. It built upon SCA’s previous successes and competencies. Service delivery, capacity development, advocacy, gender mainstreaming and rights based approach are the key building blocks of the new organizational strategy. Strategic plan 2014-2017 emphasizes working in close collaboration with the communities that SCA supports. Its programmatic activities are guided by respect for the context and the principle of local ownership. Emanating from a rights-based perspective, SCA supports the capacity development of rights holders in the form of civil society organizations. It continues to commit itself to strengthening the voice of women and enhancing the capacities of civil society organizations to engage women more meaningfully.

1.2. Programme Description: Disability is a cross cutting issue within SCA programming and the organization has strategically included persons with disabilities as right holders in all its five strategic objectives. The organization implements both community and institutional based rehabilitation programmes along with inclusion of disability in health, rural development and education programmes. The Disability Programme of SCA operates from a Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) perspective of the World Health Organization for rehabilitation, equalisation of opportunities, poverty reduction and social inclusion of people with disabilities’ (ILO, UNESCO & WHO, 2004).^[1] The comprehensive CBR programmes of the organisation include five sub-components namely social integration, employment support, special and inclusive education, physical rehabilitation services and capacity & institutional development. The programme is planned and coordinated by the disability programme unit based in Kabul and implemented from four regional offices in Mazar-e-Sharif, Ghazni, Taloqan and Jalalabad in 13 provinces covering 45 districts. The activities under the programme include awareness raising and mobilising community, home and institutional based therapy, provision of assistive and mobility devices, home based education, centre based preparatory education, mainstream children with disabilities in regular schools, vocational training, loan and employment support, sports and recreation activities, organising and sensitizing people with disabilities at community level, and supporting Disabled Peoples’ organisations to advocate for their rights. In addition to that disability programme provides technical support for inclusion of disability in health, education and rural development programmes

2. Purpose and Scope of the Evaluation:

After decades of implementation of Community Based Rehabilitation programmes, SCA plans to evaluate its Disability Programme to determine the progress made towards inclusion and assess whether there is a real shift from welfare and medical approach to right based approach. There is also a need to understand how effectively the CBR programme is contributing towards empowerment, participation and inclusion of men, women and children (boys & girls) with disabilities. The purpose of evaluation is:

“To use the findings of evaluation as the basis for the future strategic direction concerning “disability programme” in the upcoming strategic plan of the SCA as well as share the best practices (if identified) to widely influence the sector at national level.”

2.1. Objective and Specific objectives of the evaluation

The overall objective of the evaluation is:

“To evaluate relevance, effectiveness, approaches and sustainability of current CBR and inclusion programme, develop a strategic guideline for future disability and inclusion programme and build the capacity of the staff on disability inclusive development programme “

Specific Objectives:

• To assess outcomes and the impact of the CBR programme implemented by SCA in Afghanistan on men, women and children (boys and girls) with disabilities, draw conclusion and recommend appropriate measures to improve the quality of the programme


• To assess how the programme addressed gender inequality within an entire cycle of disability programme


• To assess the appropriateness of strategy/design/ approaches of the CBR programme in consultation with target groups such as right holders and duty bearers.


• To assess the inclusiveness of SCA as an organisation and other programmes at policy, programme design and practice level and the capacity of the disability programme to provide technical guidance


• Support to knowledge management: To assess the experience and expertise and existing tools and materials, compile them with additional inputs from the CBR staff, manager and the senior disability programme specialist of the disability programme.


• To develop a guideline with a clear future strategy for the disability programme, develop a training plan based on the guideline and build the capacity of the disability programme staff on revised future strategy3. Scope and Evaluation Methodology:

3.1 Scope.

Following criteria and guiding questions can help the consultant/s to plan the evaluation of the programme:

Relevance

• Considering disability as a cross cutting issue in the SCA, to what extent are the DP components of the result matrix is still valid and how the activities and outputs of the disability programme consistent with and contributing to the intended outcomes and strategic objectives of SCA?


• To what extent right based approach and gender equality has been incorporated in programme design and implementation?


• Is disability inclusion incorporated in the design of other programmes?


• To what extent empowerment programme like support to the Disabled Peoples Organizations is meeting the strategic objectives of SCA?

Effectiveness

• Assess how effective are screening, need assessment of persons with disabilities and planning process of CBR programme?


• Review how effectively the CBR worker carries out the community based health, education, livelihood, and social integration and empowerment activities.


• To what extent rights of men, women and children (boys and girls) with disabilities effectively addressed within the programme


• Assess how effectively the disability programme team coordinating with other development programme units within and outside SCA programme for mainstreaming disability in development and political agenda.

Efficiency

• Are the activities planned in a very cost effective way? If not, what could be alternative strategy to make it cost effective?


• Are the human resources, positioned appropriately and effectively used for the programme planning and implementation?


• Are the programme planned and implemented in a SMART way or is there any alternative ways of implementing the programme activities?

Impact

• Whether the programme has been successfully leading to achieve the overall outcomes and strategic objectives of the strategic plan?


• What changes has the programme has brought in lives of targeted men, women and children (boys and girls) with disabilities and their families within last five years?


• How the perceptions of community and family members changed towards men, women and children (boys & girls) with disabilities and whether target persons with disabilities have been well integrated within the community?


• How effectively men, women and children (boys and girls) with disabilities have been included in other programmes of SCA?


• What is progress towards empowerment of persons with disabilities and their organisations?

Sustainability

• Assess the participation of the community, people with disabilities and other stakeholders and approaches adopted in planning, designing, implementation and monitoring of the programme


• Assess how persons with disabilities (men, women and children with disabilities), family members and the community are empowered to sustain the programmes by themselves.


• Assess how people with disabilities and their families are organised in the community and linked to DPOs to advocate for their rights


• Assess knowledge and skills of staff to address the needs and rights of persons with disabilities with specific focus on women and girls with disabilities


• Assess the progress towards sustainability of Disabled peoples’ organisations and Associations and their programme after withdrawal of support by SCA.


• Assess what programme benefits of the programme likely to continue after the withdrawal of the funding?

3.2. Methodology

The consultant will develop evaluation plans and methods based on TOR and in consultation with the Disability Programme and the Monitoring and Evaluation Units based in Kabul. The evaluation should include both quantitative and qualitative methods and the data from different sources should be triangulated to conclude findings of the evaluation. The consultant will present a detailed description of sampling strategy, data collection instruments and procedures, sources of information and procedure of data analysis. The respondents in the evaluation will include SCA staff, target groups, including men, women and children (boys & girls) with disabilities, Disabled Peoples’ Organizations, the community and stakeholders both from the private sector and the government.

In preparation for this consultancy and familiarize with the work of the CBR programme, the consultant will undertake a desk review of key strategic documents such as disability CBR reports, SCA strategic plan 2014-17, Operation manual, strategy documents, work plan, action plan, annual report, evaluation report of disability programme and different assessments and evaluation conducted in the past at his/her home. S/he will prepare an inception report and share it with the SCA before leaving the home country to carry out the evaluation in Afghanistan. The inception report detailing the survey/study design together with the draft data collection tools will be reviewed and approved by SCA before carrying out the evaluation in the field.

While the above outline provides the minimum of what SCA expects to be done and covered by this evaluation, the consultant will propose additional approaches and strategies for undertaking this evaluation which will be approved by SCA. Overall the evaluator should propose methods to ensure that the findings of the evaluation and further recommendations are based on strong and reliable evidence. Evaluation methods should be consistent with answering evaluation questions and the recommendations should be appropriate to Afghanistan context and in line with international standards and guidelines.

4. Scheduling (timetable/work plan)

The consultancy will be carried out in two phases and will be for about 15 weeks, which does not include weekends, and travel days from home country and back. The first phase of consultancy will be for 10 weeks to carry out the evaluation and the second phase will be for five weeks to develop guideline and build capacity of staff. However, the duration of consultancy will be mutually decided based on the plan submitted by the consultant. The consultant will submit timetable and work plan with clear deliverables at each stage of the process along with the proposal, which will be reviewed and finalised in consultation with the Disability Programme Manager, the Senior Disability Programme Specialist and M&E Advisor/M&E Manager. The evaluation is expected to start from 20^th June 2016 to till the end of December 2016 with two months of break in between. The evaluation will be taken place in three regions such as Eastern Region, Northern Region and North Eastern region. However, the capacity building programme will be for all four regional offices where the disability programme is operational.

5. Reporting and Deliverables

Inception Report: The consultant will submit and inception report before arrival in Afghanistan. The inception report should cover the consultant’s understanding of the terms of reference, the methodology to be used for evaluation and a work plan/schedule for field visits and major deadlines (the format to be provided by the SCA)

Draft report: The consultant will do the desk review and field visits before developing the draft evaluation report. The evaluator should prepare the report in the prescribed format supplied by SCA and submit to the Disability Programme.

Final Report: The consultant will present the findings before a panel and receive the feedback within a week. The final report should be submitted by the end of the first phase of consultancy.

Future strategic guideline: The consultant will develop a strategic guideline suggesting changes in the current CBR programme and recommend strategy for inclusion of men, women and children with disabilities in other development programme of SCA

Capacity building of the Disability programme staff: The consultant is expected to come up with a training plan based on the findings of the evaluation. After due approval by SCA, he/she will train key staff of the disability programme to enhance capacity for implementation of the redesigned CBR and inclusive development programme. At the end of the training the consultant to submit a training report (SCA to provide a reporting format)

6. Management of the task

A panel consisting senior management team, including the Programme Director/Deputy Programme Director, the M&E Advisor/M&E Manager, the Disability Programme Manager, the Senior Disability Programme Specialist will review the proposal and assign the job. The disability programme will take care of the administrative issues of the consultation.

7. Swedish Committee for Afghanistan’s (SCA) Commitment towards consultant

SCA is contracting agency for the proposed evaluation of CBR and inclusion programme. SCA through its disability programme team based in Kabul Management office and regional offices are actors and main stakeholders in the programme. Therefore, the disability programme team will support and take part in the assessment. The major roles and responsibilities of SCA include

• To provide relevant project-related information and documents,


• SCA to facilitate meetings with different stakeholders, target groups and duty bearers


• SCA will provide to and fro flight tickets and other travel costs from the country of residence of the consultant as well as flights and land transportation within Afghanistan for field visit including accommodation and office space. SCA will support one more travel after completion of the first phase of evaluation.


• SCA will provide consultancy fee as per the agreement which may be deposited in the bank account of the consultant


• If necessary, SCA will provide a translator during the field trip.


• SCA will also cover the necessary visa and insurance costs.


• SCA will provide necessary security updates and guidance during the stay of consultant in Afghanistan

8. Qualification, experience and competencies required for the assignment

8.1 Essential qualifications and experience

• Master Degree in Development, Disability and development, Social Work or Management


• Minimum 10 years of experience in planning and implementation of Community based Rehabilitation and inclusive development programme.


• Experience on right based approach to disability and working in the development sector in a conflict situation can be considered as an added advantage.


• Extensive experience on monitoring and evaluation of disability, development and inclusion programme


• Experience in developing strategy for community based rehabilitation and inclusive development programme


• Good understanding of gender issues and power structures at the community level.


• Objectivity and ability to operate systematically with minimal supervision.


• Result-oriented and committed to respecting deadlines.


• Highly proficient in written and spoken English. Should be able to produce a quality report and guidelines for future strategy at the end of the mission

8.2. Desirable qualifications and experience:

• Updated knowledge current approaches to CBR and inclusive development


• Background knowledge of the historical and political situation in Afghanistan.


• Experience of working in a volatile situation


• Flexibility to adapt to the evolving situation


• Knowledge of spoken Dari or Pashto a plus


• Experience in conducting the capacity development programme

[1] http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2004/9241592389_eng.pdf, accessed on 18 March 2012.