India: Bonded Labour Evaluation Consultant (Fluent in Punjabi, Hindi, and English)

Anti-Slavery International is seeking a consultant for an end of project evaluation in North India. The Irish Aid-funded project (2012-2015) aimed to contribute to the eradication of bonded labour in 300 brick kilns in Punjab through improving enjoyment of rights, providing legal assistance, improving working conditions, facilitating greater access to entitlements and empowering workers through organisation and worker groups. Anti-Slavery has worked with two partner organisations in India to achieve this aim: Volunteers for Social Justice and Centre for Education and Communication.

Term of Reference:

Partners: Anti-Slavery International, Centre for Education and Communication (CEC), Volunteers for Social Justice (VSJ).

1.Aim of the Project

Debt bondage, a form of contemporary slavery, is a practice whereby workers are bound by advances or loans, which their employers use as a means to exert forced labour and grossly exploitative wages and working conditions, creating unprecedented levels of hardship. It violates numerous UN human rights conventions including the Supplementary Convention on Slavery and rights enshrined in several International Labour Organisations (ILO) Conventions. The Indian Constitution and various statutes also prohibit bonded labour, although implementation and enforcement are deficient.

Despite its illegality, bonded labour is endemic within the brick industry in India, where no specific government mechanisms regulating brick kilns or the actions of kiln owners exist. The kilns are considered part of the informal sector and operate without oversight, and kiln workers do not enjoy the rights and entitlements that workers in formal sectors benefit from.

Anti-Slavery International with its local Indian partners CEC and VSJ have been implementing a three-year project which seeks contribute to the eradication of bonded labour in 300 brick kilns in India. The overall aim of the project is to ensure male and female brick kiln workers enjoy rights, improved working conditions, greater access to entitlements and benefits and are able to organise themselves, resulting in reduced vulnerability and the elimination of bonded and child labour.

Originally, the project aim was to work in 300 brick kilns in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, however throughout the term of the project it was decided to focus on one state – Punjab – in order to concentrate resources and thereby increase the chance of impact in this state.

2. The objectives of the project are:

1)Access Entitlements of State:60,000 workers under forced or bonded labour system in 300 kilns are able to access government benefits and social entitlements.

2)Promotion of decent work and working conditions in brick kilns:15,000 children no longer work; 45,000 adult workers in 300 kilns enjoy improved working conditions; including recognition of equal rights of 24,000 women workers.

3)Liberation of labourers in extreme condition of bondage:3,000 labourers in 300 kilns, including 1,200 women and 750 children, are released from extreme cases of bondage (including physical and sexual abuses) and protected from re-bondage.

4)Empowerment of brick kiln labourers:At least 40% of labourers in 300 kilns (24,000 people, including 9,600 women) become members of the state level brick kiln workers’ society, and other sub-groups and committees affiliated to the society.

3. The purpose of the evaluation is to:

• Identify the impact of the project. By impact we mean the positive and negative direct and indirect consequences of the project.
• Allow Anti-Slavery International to learn about what has been achieved through the project and the challenges encountered in implementation.
• Allow Anti-Slavery International to share lessons learnt with internal and external stakeholders.
• Allow Anti-Slavery International to account to local stakeholders and funders for the project’s achievements.
• Ascertain whether funds were used effectively and efficiently to deliver results (though the evaluator will not conduct a full audit).

4.The Evaluation Report

The evaluation process and report should comply with the Evaluation Quality Standards of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Additionally, the Evaluation Criteria of the DAC should be used as a reference when preparing the content of the report. This criteria is also broadly included under Section 5 below ‘Content of the Report’. The Bond Evidence Principles should also be used in the evaluation.

The final report should contain:

1. Executive Summary
2. Background Information on the context of the project and partners
3. Purpose of the evaluation and methodology applied
4. Results and discussion
5. Four detailed case studies
6. Conclusions
7. Recommendations, including details as to how they might be implemented.
8. Appendices (including all technical details, including a list of interviewees and team schedule)

The main body of the report must not exceed 30 pages. The report should be written in English and presented to Anti-Slavery International in hard copy and electronic formats, with the electronic document in a format compatible with MS Word.

The final report will also be made available to external audiences on the website of Anti-Slavery.

The evaluation should begin in September, with the final report to Anti-Slavery International in hard copy and electronic formats by mid October 2015.

Content of the evaluation report:

Relevance

Consider the extent to which the project activities are suited to the identified needs, priorities and policies of the target group, beneficiaries and donor, considering the following questions:

· To what extent are the objectives of the project still valid?

· Are the activities and outputs of the project consistent with the overall goal and the attainment of its objectives?

· Are the activities and outputs of the project consistent with the intended impacts and effects?

· Did the project seek input from beneficiaries on the methodology used and the support provided? Describe how this input was sought. Are there any examples of how the project changed course as a result of feedback from beneficiaries?

Effectiveness
A measure of the extent to which the activity attains its objectives.
In evaluating the effectiveness of the project, please consider:

• The stated outputs of the project as laid out in the project log frame; based on the evidence you have collected and analysed, to what extent have each of the outputs been delivered and targets/milestones reached as envisaged?
• What were the results of the individual outputs? What changes were brought about?
• Taken together, to what extent did the outputs achieve the desired objective?
• What were the major factors influencing the achievement or non-achievement of the objectives?

Impact
The positive and negative changes produced by a development intervention, directly or indirectly, intended or unintended. This involves the main impacts and effects resulting from the activity on the local social, economic, environmental and other development indicators. The examination should be concerned with both intended and unintended results and must also include the positive and negative impact of external factors. When evaluating the impact of the project, please consider the following questions:

· What has happened as a result of the project?

· Were the changes brought about by this project relevant and favourable to the workers’ needs in relation to both improving decent working conditions and eradicating bonded labour in the brick kilns? If yes, further explain did the brick kiln workers benefit from this project? If so, how?

· How did the project identify and assess impact?

· What is the evidence to support that the changes /benefits did occur? For example, specify any sample surveys used in the evaluation, numbers of people interviewed etc.

• Have the methodologies and approaches used by all partners been effective to bring about change? What have been the most effective methodologies and approaches?

· Explain if the project produced any unanticipated consequences or outcomes that were not intended? For example: Were there any positive unexpected benefits? Did something negative happen as a result of the project? Were these learnings documented and shared?

· Identify any gaps in the project that has resulted in the needs of bonded brick kiln workers not being tackled comprehensively.

Sustainability

Sustainability is concerned with measuring whether the benefits of an activity are likely to continue after donor funding has been withdrawn. Projects need to be environmentally as well as financially sustainable.
When evaluating the sustainability of a programme or a project, it is useful to consider the following questions:

· In what ways has the project ensured sustainable outcomes and benefits beyond Irish Aid’s funding?

· Do elements of this project require future funding? Which aspects of the project do stakeholders wish to continue with, and why? Has funding been secured?

· Please assess the need, if any, for any follow-on or related project and what the objectives of such a project should be. Please link to impact (particularly the overall aim of contributing to the eradication bonded labour), community needs not addressed, etc.

Efficiency

Efficiency measures the outputs -- qualitative and quantitative -- in relation to the inputs. It is an economic term which signifies that the aid uses the most appropriate resources possible in order to achieve the desired results. This generally requires comparing alternative approaches to achieving the same outputs, to see whether the most efficient process has been adopted.
When evaluating the efficiency of a programme or a project, it is useful to consider the following questions:

• Has the project been cost effective, delivering value for money? Consider the below:

Economy

What has the project management done to buy and use inputs at a value-for-money price? What did the organisation do to effectively manage unit costs but maintain quality?

Efficiency

How did the project ensure that resources (inputs) were used efficiently to maximise results?

Effectiveness

Do you consider the project has been effective in bringing about the anticipated changes for beneficiaries and target groups?

Equity

To what extent have the project’s services been made available to/reached all the people that they are intended to?

· Were objectives achieved on time?

· Was the programme or project implemented in the most appropriate way compared to alternatives?

Programme management

Evaluation of programme management is useful to identify effective methods. In evaluating effective methods it is useful to consider the following questions:

· What was the overall theory of change for this project? Was it suitably effective in bringing about lasting change in this area or are there gaps in this process?

· How effective has project management been? What were the major challenges and gaps in the planning and implementation of the project?

· Assess the quality of monitoring undertaken throughout this project: were regular monitoring tools easy to use and did they capture all relevant information? To what extent were the indicators for measuring outcome appropriate? How could monitoring be improved upon?

· Assess whether the working relationship between partners, including communication, was sufficient and appropriate. ? If not, how could working relationships be improved upon?

· Did the project identify and manage risk effectively? How might this be improved?

Capacity building

· Please assess whether partner’s capacity was built throughout the project and how. Where possible, identify if the partner found the capacity building useful, and how this capacity building led to change/improvement in the project.

· Provide an assessment of partners’ capacity needs going forward.

· If possible, please assess whether other relevant stakeholders’ capacities were built throughout the project and how. Where possible, identify if the stakeholders found the capacity building useful, and how this capacity building led to change in the project or context.

Learning

• What are the key lessons learnt from this project? How were these lessons identified by partners, and could this process be improved upon?
• How have lessons been documented, shared and implemented? Have any parts of the project changed in light of lessons learnt along the way? Suggest any ways that this process (identifying, sharing, implementing learnings) could have been improved upon.

Challenges and enablers

Summarise in bullet points the main challenges faced by the project as well as things that helped it along the way.

Recommendations

Summarise five to ten key recommendations to aid future programming by Anti-Slavery International in India.

Methodology

Anti-Slavery International will consider Bond’s evidence principles when reviewing candidates’ approach papers and we would like proposed methodologies to meet the principles as far as possible.

· Develop a mixed methodology framework and questionnaire for data collection (e.g. semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, etc.) for approval by project partners. Conduct a desk based review of the project documentation and other relevant materials. The aim is to synthesize and verify existing information as part of the evaluation. Further data should only be collected if key primary data is missing.

· Conduct interviews with partner staff members: Anti-Slavery International, CEC and VSJ.

· Visit the areas in the Punjab where the project operates and interview a range of stakeholders including: former and current brick kiln workers; children of former and current brick kiln workers; former and current members and leaders of worker collectives and unions relating to the brick kilns; school management and staff; brick kiln owners if possible; and VSJ in-field programme staff. In Delhi, visit and interview CEC, National Human Rights Commission staff and government officials if possible.

· Prepare four detailed case studies from at least two different clusters highlighting the impact of the project.

· Present a preliminary overview of findings to partners in India and Anti-Slavery International and receive comments before preparing the draft evaluation report. The final report should include information on the process by which preliminary findings were shared and discussed with stakeholders, and how any resulting changes in the report were included.

· Prepare the final report in English, complete with an executive summary and recommendations. Recommendations must also include details as to how they might be implemented.

· Submit a draft to Anti-Slavery for written comment before finalising the report, to minimise the chance of inaccuracies and to maximise ownership of the findings.

Point of contact throughout the evaluation will be Sarah Mount, South Asia Programme Coordinator at Anti-Slavery International.

1. Specification of the Consultant

Essential selection criteria include:

· Extensive experience in evaluation of projects, specifically projects run by similar non-government organisations

· Knowledge of bonded labour and work experience on the issue of bonded labour

· Experience of participatory data collection approaches

· Fluent in Punjabi

· Fluent in English

· Independent of all partners

Desirable selection criteria include:

· Fluent in Hindi

· Extensive knowledge and work experience in bonded labour in India

Applications should be sent to Sarah Mount, South Asia Coordinator at Anti-Slavery International at s.mount@antislavery.org

Please provide the following information as part of your application:

-Curriculum Vitae

• Approach paper setting out how you would approach the evaluation, including a schedule of activities, time frame and budget. Please note that the maximum overall amount available for evaluator fees is £5000.

The evaluation will take approximately six weeks and will require travel in India and liaison/discussion with Anti-Slavery staff in London. The consultant should be available from September, with the report to be finalised in mid-October.

The consultant should have extensive evaluation experience, knowledge of bonded labour and be fluent in English and Punjabi. Additional criteria are outlined in the Terms of Reference above

The deadline for applications is midnight on**Friday 21 August**, with interviews to be held in person or via Skype the week beginning 24 August 2015.