Terms of Reference

Prottasha Management of Information System (ProMIS) Development

1. Nature of the consultancy:

Under the Supervision of the Bangladesh Migration Data Analysis Center (BMDAC) in coordination with Regional M&E Officer from IOM’s Regional Office in Bangkok and the Programme manager for the project based in Bangladesh, IOM Bangladesh intends to engage a Consulting Firm to conduct a Comprehensive Mid Term Review (MTR) of the Prottasha project, taking the form of a process evaluation to understand the fidelity of the project to the set objectives.

2. IOM Project to which the Consultancy is contributing:

Bangladesh: Sustainable Reintegration and Improved Migration Governance, implemented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and funded by the European Union (EU). The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the sustainable reintegration of returnees and the Progressive achievement of Goal 10.7 to facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed policies.

The specific objectives (SO)of the project are to ensure that;

• SO, 1: Irregular migrants returning to Bangladesh are sustainably reintegrated (Reintegration component)
• SO, 2: The capacities of the Government of Bangladesh and other migration actors are strengthened to manage migration at central and local levels and to ensure reintegration of irregular migrants (Migration Governance component)
• SO, 3: Returning Migrants, aspirant migrants, families, communities and local government and private sector actors are empowered to make informed decisions about migration, and adopt and promote safe, orderly and regular, migration behaviours, including remittance management (Awareness raising component).

3. Mid Term Review (MTR) Purpose

The purpose of the MTR is to evaluate and review the progress of the implementation of the project and assess the relevance of project design, effectiveness and performance of the project, efficiency of project management and implementation, sustainability, as well as attention to cross-cutting issues (gender and human rights).

The MTR is being conducted for practical use by the:

• Project management team to improve the implementation of the activities under the IOM Bangladesh Mission portfolio;
• IOM and EU Institutions, to document good practices, evaluate their satisfaction with project activities and results and assess value for money for the results accomplished so far; and
• IOM staff supporting similar projects by sharing lessons learned and good practices. In addition to the above primary users, the MTR report and translated two-page brief will also be shared with the government and other relevant stakeholders to understand the trajectory of the project and areas requiring modifications.

4. Scope of the Review

The MTR will cover the period April 2017 to April 2019 and use inclusive and participatory approaches to cover all relevant stakeholders. These include IOM at national, regional and HQ offices, BRAC as the implementing partner (national, district, upazila, union and community level) and the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) officials at different Ministries.  The private and public sector enterprises will also be interviewed as stakeholders in this review. The MTR will cover all the three project components, reviewing how far each moved against the workplans and all the identified returnees from Europe who enrolled as beneficiaries for sustainable reintegration by end of Year 2.

The Consulting Firm will be responsible for preparing and carrying out data collection and analysis and producing the deliverables outlined below. The firm should provide periodic feedback as needed on progress and any challenges faced. The firm will prepare an Inception Report that will provide more details on the methodologies to be used, to include a review matrix, initial drafts of interview guides, and agenda for interviews and field visit schedule (to be coordinated with IOM Bangladesh and BRAC). The firm is expected to collect quantitative and qualitative data at national, sub national and community level to answer the review objectives. The data should be disaggregated by sex and age, where applicable. Finally, the firm must follow the IOM Data Protection Principles, UNEG norms and standards for evaluation, and relevant IOM guidelines.¹

5. Criteria for the MTR

The MTR will use some of the criteria from the OECD-DAC criteria namely relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability as well as cross-cutting issues of gender and human rights. The firm should ensure that the findings are analysed with special focus on the gender and human rights issues mentioned elsewhere in this document.

6. Review questions

The firm is expected to expand and operationalize on the below review questions;

Relevance

• How do the intended results align with and support government policies and national strategies?
• How has the project responded to the needs of the target beneficiaries, both the needs of government and beneficiaries?

Effectiveness:

• How have the activities, project outputs and outcomes been implemented and achieved in accordance with the stated plans, or are they on track to being achieved?
• What were the major external factors influencing the achievement of the project’s expected outputs and outcomes, including both contextual factors and other related interventions?
• How could the project reinforce its ability to achieve the intended results more effectively?

 Efficiency

• To what extent were resources (time, funds, expertise) adequate to implement the activities and achieve the outputs?
• How well were the resources (funds, expertise, and time) used so they could be converted into results?

Sustainability:

• What is the likelihood of the generated benefits to continue once external support ceases?
• What are the major factors affecting sustainability, including any identified challenges faced by IOM, the implementing organization and national/sub national stakeholders? And, how the project should address these challenges to increase its result’s sustainability?

Human Rights and Gender

• To what extent were human rights and gender related issues considered in design and implementation?
• Is the project benefiting stakeholders equally, particularly returnees (regular and irregular) regardless of their socio-economic background?

IOM Bangladesh is interested in all conclusions that can be reached by the firm on the above questions, but the conclusions (including lessons learned) and recommendations should give focus if possible to assess the extent to which the project is on course to achieve the project objectives and suggest recommendations to modify the project based on changed context.

7. Proposed MTR Methodology

The proposed methodologies will involve a combination of desk review and in-depth interviews to gather and triangulate data from beneficiary and partner with project data (secondary quantitative and qualitative data). Specifically, the following methodologies are proposed, and to be revised by the firm as agreed during the inception phase:

• Review of project documents (proposal, reports, work plans, monitoring data, budget, financial report, annexes etc.); relevant IOM strategies and guidance; relevant national strategies and action plans (home-based, desk study);
• Individual interviews with project beneficiaries, to assess reintegration sustainability and satisfaction with services received (field work in Bangladesh)
• Focus group discussions with project beneficiaries and staff (field work in Bangladesh)
• Key in-depth informant interviews with the donor (EU), IOM staff, BRAC staff at all levels, state and non-state authorities, (field work in Bangladesh);
• Observations of field-based activities, including provision of immediate assistance, awareness raising activities, community meetings among others (field work in Bangladesh)
• Collate and analyse key findings, make informed and analysis-based conclusions including lessons learned, develop recommendations and produce draft report (home-based);
• Disseminate the preliminary findings for validation by stakeholders (Bangladesh)
• Produce final MTR deliverables in English language (home-based).

The following is the proposed review design, and will be finalized at the Inception Phase;

Project Component: Sustainable Reintegration (SO,1)
Non-experimental design, using a reconstructed Theory of Change

• Methodology: Mixed methods (surveys, key informant interviews, case studies, most significant change stories)
• Sampling: Purposive (Target for survey is all beneficiaries profiled by end of April 2019, +/- 800)

Project Component: Migration Governance (SO,2)
Non-experimental design.

• Methods: Key informant and in-depths interviews with selected beneficiaries
• Sampling: Purposive

Project Component: Awareness Raising (SO,3)
Quasi experimental (propensity score matching), comparing exposed and unexposed

• Methods: Survey
• Sampling: Stratified random sampling (superimposed on the sample for Sustainable Reintegration).

The firm will execute the review with the support and oversight of the Head of Bangladesh Migration Data Analysis Centre (BMDAC) who will serve as the MTR Manager to support and oversee the process and the Prottasha Project Manager for programmatic guidance.

8.  Deliverables

The deliverables expected from the Consulting firm include the following:

• Inception report should include a detailed methodology, review matrix and workplan. The MTR Matrix will demonstrate the Firm’s understanding of the ToR and outline data collection and analysis plans, to be completed and reviewed by BMDAC and the Project Team prior to the field visit.
• Study Protocol, to include all the data collection tools that will be used, the data collection schedule, and all areas of the assignment that the firm requires support from the Mission.
• MTR Draft Report, using an agreed structure, summarizing all the findings of the primary and secondary data. All the key stakeholders will provide feedback to the report.
• PowerPoint Presentation, summarizing the key findings in a systematic way, to be presented as preliminary findings to the stakeholders, and solicit their feedback.
• MTR Final Report will be produced, incorporating feedback from the stakeholder workshop and comments from project staff.
• Review Brief (two pager) to facilitate sharing of the key findings, conclusions and recommendations.

All deliverables are to be written in English and meet good language standards. The final report should meet the standards laid out in the UNEG Quality Checklist for Evaluation Reports and comply with IOM internal guidelines on Housing and styling.

9. Workplan

Based on the TOR, the firm will have a series of inception meetings and carry out a review of documents provided by the Head of BMDAC and the Project Manager and draft the Inception Report for review by the Prottasha team.

The field visit is planned to take place from end of May to June 2019. A precise timeline will be established with the selected firm and will consist of the following stages.

A. Inception Phase

In the desk research Phase, the relevant project documents should be reviewed: The Project proposal, budget, the relevant guidelines, flash updates and reports with the annexes.
Deliverables: The firm will prepare (i) an Inception Report with detailed methodology, MTR matrix, workplan, indicative list of people to be interviewed, and (ii) A Study Protocol, with the tools and field visit schedule.

B. Data Collection Phase

The firm will carry out the assessment in the ten districts in Bangladesh including national level stakeholders. The data will be collected according to the agreed methodology and field visit schedule.
Deliverables: Complete dataset, and transcripts from the qualitative methods. 

C. Analysis and Report Writing Phase.

This phase is devoted to the development and submission of the draft MTR report, and two-page brief.
Deliverables: The firm will submit a Draft MTR Report. Based on comments to the draft report, the firm will submit a PowerPoint Presentation, the Final report along with a two-page summary of findings and an Exit and Sustainability strategy brief.

The estimated workload and responsibilities’ allocation read as follows:

10. Submission Package and Method of Applying:

Each Submission should include the following:

• Technical proposal: Including methodology, work plan, details of organization/consultants including experience and expertise. Cleary indicate the profile of the Lead Consultant and the team that will work on the assignment.
• Financial proposal: an all-inclusive proposal with a breakdown of all costs considering the following:
• Proposal must include professional fees and all data collection fees
• Costs associated with the National Sharing and Validation Workshop and publication of the reports will be borne by IOM.
• Sample Reports: Two recent sample of Evaluation or Review reports, of related work concluded during the past 2-3 years.

Interested Consulting Firms are invited to submit documents stated below by 5 May 2019, through e-mail to: faahmed@iom.int & CC: nafza@iom.int;  mentioning the RT/CO-287/2019/008: Mid Term Review of the Prottasha project in subject line. Please keep the attachment size under 9 MB.

For any queries please write to: pjasi@iom.int

¹ These Include: IOM M&E Guidelines for AVRR_PARA projects

IOM is an equal opportunity employer and women are encouraged to apply.
IOM Offices and vehicles have smoke-free work environment.