WeAct Project Final Evaluation Term of Reference
Overview
| Application deadline | April 30, 2025 |
| Contract start and end date | May, 2025 |
| Duration | May to July 2025 |
| Program sector(s) | Climate Change |
| Project/Program name | Empowering Communities through Participatory Climate Actions (WeAct) |
| Type of consultancy | External End-of-Project Evaluation |
| Project/Program location | 15 villages in Long District, Luangnamtha Province |
| Consultant location | In-country would be preferred |
| Funded by | Bread for the World |
Background about CARE
CARE International is a global NGO working to end poverty and achieve social-justice. We rebuild and improve the lives of the most vulnerable groups, especially women and girls who are often the most marginalised individuals in their communities and face unequal access to social and economic rights. In 2024, CARE worked in more than 100 countries around the world, supporting 200 million people from vulnerable communities to fight poverty and social injustice. To date, CARE supported over 52 million participants to promote lasting change in their lives, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.
CARE International in Lao PDR began its operations in 1992 and has worked since then to improve the lives of vulnerable groups in both rural and urban areas, particularly the ethnic minority communities. CARE works in partnership with community members, the government, local civil society organisations, and the private sector. CARE currently implements projects in seven provinces: Vientiane Capital, Phongsaly, Luang Namtha, Luangprabang, Salavan, Champasack and Sekong.
CARE’s “Marginalized Women and Girls” program in Laos empowers women and girls through integrated initiatives focusing on women’s health, economic empowerment, and climate resilience, utilizing evidence-based practices to drive sustainable socio-economic justice. This is achieved by strengthening health systems, combating gender-based violence, improving food access, fostering resilient livelihoods and inclusive value chains, and enhancing climate adaptation through community-driven action plans that combine scientific and traditional knowledge, ultimately contributing to poverty reduction and a more equitable society. CARE Laos commits to women and girl empowerment, locally led and globally scaled through a comprehensive approach to long-term commitment to building local capacity as central to our mission.
Program Introduction and Background
The “Empowering Communities through Participatory Climate Actions” (WeAct) project has been implemented from January 2023 and ends in December 2025. The project is funded by Bread for the World and seeks to enhance sustainable agricultural opportunities, strengthen community participation, and empower women financially in Long District, Luang Namtha Province. The WeAct project addresses the heightened vulnerability of Lao PDR to climatic hazards such as floods and droughts, which have severely impacted agricultural production and infrastructure, exacerbated by recent changes in weather patterns.
The project’s objectives focus on three main areas: enhancing sustainable agricultural opportunities through community-based climate change adaptation action plans, strengthening community participation and women’s financial empowerment, and developing evidence-based learning exchanges at both community and national levels. To achieve these objectives, the project implements a range of activities, including providing training sessions on climate smart agriculture and climate change, supporting the development of Community Adaptation Action Plans (CAAPs) for 15 villages, and offering technical training on climate-adaptive agricultural livelihoods. Additionally, the project aims to build capacity among women in 15 villages, establish Village Saving and Loan Associations (VSLAs), and facilitate learning exchanges for farmers to share their experiences and challenges.
The project overall objective is “Contribute to strengthened resilience and adaptive capacity of the most vulnerable communities to climate-related hazards in Lao PDR”; and its 2 specific objectives are
- Specific objective 1: Enhanced community capacities and conducive environment in sustainable agriculture through transformative community-based adaptation and local government partnership in Luangnamtha.
- Specific objective 2: Strengthened community participation and women’s empowerment in Long District, Luangnamtha province.
The outcome indicators are summarized as follows:
| Objectives and indicators | Outputs |
| Overall objective: Contribute to strengthened resilience and adaptive capacity of the most vulnerable communities to climate-related hazards in Lao PDR. | |
| OO1: Number of climate-related regulations, policies or strategies considering the needs of the most vulnerable communities by the district offices of agriculture and forestry (PAFO and DAFO) | OO1: At least 1 climate-related regulation, policy or strategy considering the needs of the most vulnerable communities by the district offices of agriculture and forestry (PAFO and DAFO) |
| Specific objective 1: Enhanced community capacities and conducive environment in sustainable agriculture through transformative community-based adaptation and local government partnership in Luangnamtha. | |
| SO1.1: Percentage of increased crop harvest by participating households using climate resilient agriculture practices promoted by the project. | SO1.1: 50% increased crop harvest by participating households using climate resilient agriculture practices promoted by the project. |
| SO1.2: Percentage of participating households using climate resilient agriculture practices promoted by the project.
|
SO1.2: 80% of participating households using climate resilient agriculture practices promoted by the project.
|
| Specific objective 2: Strengthened community participation and women’s empowerment in Long District, Luangnamtha province. | |
| SO2.1: % of community decisions reflect women’s and girls’ needs | SO2.1: 70% of community decisions reflect women’s and girls’ needs |
| SO2.2: % of women benefiting from investing in sustainable livelihood projects | SO2.2: 80 % of women benefiting from investing in sustainable livelihood projects |
Qualitatively, the consultant will measure the change and impact of the intervention by using the OECD DAC criteria to determine the project’s relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability as part of the evaluation. The following are the guiding questions for each DAC:
- Relevance: Is the intervention doing the right things?
- Coherence: How well does the intervention fit?
- Effectiveness: Is the intervention achieving its objectives?
- Efficiency: How well are resources (human, financial, time) being used?
- Impact: What difference is the intervention making?
- Sustainability: Will the benefits last?
Also, the consultant will measure the CARE System Impact at Scale: scale deep (impacting cultural roots), scale out (impacting greater numbers), and scale up (impact laws and policy).
The purpose of the end-of-project evaluation is to assess the progress and achievement of project impact, outcomes, and output against the project logical framework, to assess the progress of project reach to climate justice impact area under CARE’s Global Indicators for Measuring Change, and to identify the challenges, best practices, lessons learned and recommendations to improve the project or modification for the remaining project period based on the project’s Theory of Change and Logical Framework. The baseline results will be compared with this final evaluation. It is important to note that some project indicators were not measured at the baseline study and that the end-of-project evaluation needs to consider techniques to show changes between project start and finish.
Evaluation target group
The assessment population will include the direct target participants/beneficiaries and stakeholders/partners such as government staff at provincial and district levels, cluster representatives, remote ethnic farmers from both genders; also, village members, village representatives, CSO staff from Sustainable Agriculture & Environment Development Association (SAEDA) and Rural Development Association (RDA), and CARE International personnel in Vientiane and in Luangnamtha. Note: The actual number of these target groups will be terminated later between the consultant and the project team.
Nine villages were strategically selected from Long District based on population size, language group, and other relevant factors to ensure a representative sample.
Scope
The evaluation will cover at least 60% or 09 villages of the project’s 15 target villages. The data collection is expected to be conducted in the same villages as baseline. The sampling should ensure that the village covers diversity, ethnicity, gender, distance, as well as economic status. Total household members to be met will be provided later based on the number of the population in the selected villages.
The following are the suggested procedures for the consultant for this evaluation.
Phase One:
- Review all documents related to this project, including the logframe, and CARE’s related strategy documents: CARE Vision 2030, Climate Justice Strategy, Marginalized Women and Girls- Long-term Program Strategy, Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, Gender Equality and Women’s Voice Strategy, Annual narrative and financial reports. Research on climate change. Gender-based Violence Nexus. Other related documents such as Lao national socio-economic development plan.
Phase Two:
- Develop study design and sampling methodology.
- Present inception report along with data collection tools and organizes online or face to face meeting with CARE team for preparing and making plan before conducting the data collection training, including questionnaire with interview questions etc.
- Provide data collection tool training to enumerators and translate data collection tools into Laos (if the tools are in English); and pilot the tool.
- Lead the data collection process in the field with multiple target groups along with the enumerators to ensure the data is collected effectively. It is strongly recommended that the lead evaluation consultants travel on the field trip with the data collection team.
Phase Three:
- Lead cleaning and validation of quantitative and qualitative data
- Conduct all data analysis
- Present the evaluation result through a data validation workshop
- Prepare draft report and take feedback for finalization of the report and presentation of key findings. Please expect multiple rounds of feedback.
- Provide a one-page summary of the report after the final version is submitted.
Approach and Methodology
The final evaluation will take a mixed-method approach based on the following:
- A mix of quantitative and qualitative instruments and methods will be used.
- A participatory approach should be adopted to capture the perspectives of key stakeholders and project participants/beneficiaries.
- The methodology will be gender and target-group (ethnicity) sensitive.
- Sampling will be discussed and decided together with CARE. The final evaluation will not cover all target villages, but the sampling will be purposeful and represent local diversity (i.e. distance to roads, gender, ethnicity, type of production, access to land).
- Train staff as enumerators of data collection, especially project staff, CSOs, and government partners who are invited to join the process of the evaluation.
- Present findings to relevant partners/stakeholders/CARE Staff
- All project target groups of beneficiaries should be included during the data collection process.
- The data collection should be disaggregated by age and gender and any other relevant diversity criteria in line with the project’s Theory of Change and MEAL standard.
- All raw data (including data entry forms, database of entered data, graphics, and analysis for each village) shall be made available to CARE Staff and submitted with the final evaluation.
Roles and Responsibility
Team Members and Roles
| Phase | Responsible Person | Primary Tasks |
| Planning | MEAL Advisor, Climate Change team, and Project Manager | Lead in the facilitation evaluation process and managing the external consultant by collaborating with CARE Germany, CSO Partners, and government partners. |
| External Consultant | – Lead in designing the necessary methodology and tool for evaluation by collaborating with CARE Laos’ program team and CARE Germany and Bread for the World.
– Lead in providing training to the data collection team on methodology and tools to be used in the evaluation. – Ensure the appropriate team composition by collaborating with the CARE team regarding ethnic groups. – Lead in writing the inception report. |
|
| Data Collection | MILKA Advisor & Project Manager & Project Team | – Lead in facilitating the logistics and making an appointment with the selected target groups mentioned above.
– Provide relevant information and data as requested. |
| Consultant | – Lead in collecting the data following the data collection plan (interview CARE team, GoL and CSOs partners including the target group). | |
| Data Analysis | External Consultant | – Lead in cleaning the data and data processing/translation if required.
– Lead in analyzing the data following the objective and requirement from the final evaluation ToR and approved inception report. – Cross-check all data to ensure that collected data meets the needs of the final evaluation objectives and requirements. |
| Reporting | External Consultant | – Debriefing for the community representative and government partners at the district level.
– Debriefing for the program team from CARE Laos, CARE Germany, and relevant Partners. – Provide a full evaluation report. – Provide a one-page evaluation summary. – Provide key findings presentation in the PPT format. |
Deliverables
Below are summaries of key deliverables:
| Deliverable | Description | By when |
| Inception report | Including the methodology, sampling, tools, and the guiding principles of the evaluation and data analysis plan. | W3-4 May, 2025 |
| Data collection | Conduct field data collection in 09 villages in Long district, Luangnamtha province. | W1-2 June 2025 |
| Draft final evaluation report (max 30 pages, annexes excluded) | Included:
I. Cover Page II. Table of Contents III. Acknowledgments IV. Abbreviations V. Executive Summary VI. Brief Project Overview VII. Methodology – Brief Final Evaluation Design – Sampling strategy – Data analysis plan VIII. Key limitation and ethical Considerations to Final Evaluation IX. Results, analysis, and discussion (for final evaluation specifically including a log frame showing final evaluation status for selected indicators). X. Conclusion and recommendations XI. References with proper citation XII. Appendices or Annexes XIII. Photos are CARE property and will be annexed to the final report together with consent forms. (Please refer to CARE Evaluation template) |
W1-2 July, 2025 |
| Indicator summary table | Update the indicator in the log frame (compared Baseline and Final Evaluation) | W2 July, 2025 |
| PowerPoint presentation (debriefing) | Includes the methodology, sampling, tools, key findings, imitations, and recommendations from the final evaluation study | W2 July, 2025 |
| Cleaned qualitative and quantitative data sets. | The consultant should deliver, at minimum, all files including quantitative data sets (raw and refined products), transcripts of qualitative data, and others in an easy-to-read format and maintain naming conventions and labeling for the use of the project/program/initiative and key stakeholders. | W2 July, 2025 |
| Completion of the approved final report | Following the feedback on the draft report – submit the final version along with one page evaluation summary and materials to CARE | W3 July, 2025 |
Timeframe
Fieldwork for the final evaluation is expected to start in June 2025. The final report is expected to be submitted no later than W3 of July 2025.
The following table shows the anticipated work schedule:
W2 June, 20251W3-4 June, 2025 Sub-total4
| Item | Specific Task | Days | Tentative dates | |
| 1 | Pre-field activities | Project literature review – CARE to support with project documents | 1 | W3-4 May, 2025 |
| Design methodology and plan data collection.
Develop final evaluation study tools. |
2 | |||
| Inception report | ||||
| 2 | Field activities | Travel to Long District, Luangnamtha Province | – | W1-2 June, 2025 |
| Training on data collection and preparing for fieldwork | 1 | |||
| Data collection in 09 villages in Long District | 9 | |||
| Consultant travel to VTE | – | |||
| Sub-total | 10 | |||
| 3 | Report writing | Data analysis | 2 | W3 June 2025 |
| Prepare the draft Report | 3 | W3 June 2025 | ||
| Prepare presentation for CARE senior program team and CARE Germany & relevant partners | 1 | W4 June, 2025 | ||
| Finalize the report (considering comments from CARE) and submit the finalized report to CARE. | 2 | W1-3 July, 2025 | ||
| Sub-total | 8 | |||
| Grant Total | 22 |
NOTE: CARE in Laos will cover the consultant’s transportation and accommodation during data collection in Luangnamtha, except perdiem and travel insurance.
Selection Criteria
| 1 | Experience | § At least 5 years experience in the fields of climate change adaptation, agriculture and food security programming, gender, and women’s empowerment in Lao PDR or southeast Asia.
§ Demonstrated strong social research and reporting skills, including experience conducting quantitative and qualitative research. § Demonstrated successful experience in conducting project final evaluation studies, especially for development projects. § Demonstrated good understanding of gender issues, and women’s empowerment in Laos. § Relevant technical experience (e.g. climate change, agricultural and food security, gender mainstreaming, ethnicity, VSLA, rural livelihoods, institutional development, etc.) is preferred. |
| 2 | Qualification | § Relevant post-graduate qualifications. |
| 3 | Technical skills | § Research, survey (e.g. PRA/PLA), stakeholder interviews (ranging from field level to national level stakeholders), report writing, and presentation.
§ Ability to work autonomously and demonstrated skills in leading final evaluation projects. |
| 4 | Language | § Excellent command of English (writing and speaking).
§ Experience in Lao PDR and Lao language skills are desirable. |
| 5 | References | § A minimum of two referee contacts who have managed the proposed consultant previously. |
As a matter of course, all consultants are subject to the following policies:
- CARE Lao Child Protection Policy.
- Terrorist Check Safety and Security Management Plan.
- CARE Code of Conduct.
How to apply
If you are interested in this role, please submit your (1) CV, (2) cover letter, (3) two references, (4) proposed final evaluation study plan, and (5) cost quotation (daily rate) to: Lao.contracts@care.org by 30th April 2025, please include the text: “Application for WeAct Final Evaluation Consultancy” in the subject of your email.
Note that the cost quotation should include the consultant’s daily rate as well as any materials and travel costs required for the consultant to complete the evaluation outlined above.
For specific technical and more information, please contact Ms. Nouandam Kommana at Nouandam.kommana@care.org
