EOI invited To Empanel Consultant For Evaluation Of Skills for Energy in Southern Africa Project

ILO/EVAL intends to hire a consultant to conduct the Final Independent External Evaluation of the Skills for Energy in Southern Africa Project through this Expression Of Interest (EOI).

Introduction: The International Labour Organization (ILO), with funding provided by the Government of Sweden, is supporting the Kafue Gorge Regional Centre (KGRTC) to implement the Skills for Energy in Southern Africa (SESA) Project, a three-and-a-half-year intervention. The overarching development objective is to “Increase uptake of Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency and Regional Energy Integration interventions in Southern Africa, leading to a more sustainable and low-carbon energy mix” through skills development and the establishment of Public-Private Development Partnerships in Zambia and in the SADC region.

The background and context of this development intervention is that reliable access to energy is vital for economic development, business, and employment. One of the factors that impede universal access to secure, clean and sustainable energy in the SADC region – and that contribute to widespread chronic poverty and lack of decent work in rural areas – is the lack of skills in renewable energy, energy efficiency and regional power pooling technologies, which reduces the ability of power producers to generate, transmit and distribute sufficient sustainable energy.

The SESA intervention, a Public-Private Development Partnership (PPDP) is facilitating transfer of technical skills from international and local energy companies to power technicians and managers in Southern Africa through the SADC’s Kafue Gorge Regional Training Centre (KGRTC) in Zambia. The focus is on contributing to SDG 7 by responding to the power industry’s needs for skills development in the areas of renewable energy, energy efficiency and regional energy integration, but also to SDG 4 on skills and training, and SDG 8 on sustainable economic growth, productive employment and decent work. The expected impact is an increased uptake of renewable energy, energy efficiency and regional energy integration interventions in Southern Africa, leading to a more sustainable and low carbon energy mix.

The Project is expected to facilitate partnerships with the private sector, strengthen KGRTC’s capacity to become the Centre of Excellence for energy training in the region and will result in a significantly higher number of power technicians, engineers and managers that are skilled in and able to apply up-to-date technologies in renewable energy, energy efficiency and regional energy integration.

Evaluation Background: The ILO considers evaluation as an integral part of the implementation of development cooperation activities. The evaluation in the ILO is for the purpose of accountability, learning and planning and building knowledge. It should be conducted in the context of criteria and approaches for international development assistance as established by the OECD/DAC Evaluation Quality Standard and the UNEG Code of Conduct for Evaluation in the UN System.

The project will follow the ILO Policy on Evaluation for Development Cooperation projects and the Development Cooperation Internal Governance Manual. A project of this nature, which takes over 30 months to implement and with a budget under 5 million, needs to undergo a mid-term internally managed evaluation in year 2, and a final independent evaluation in year 3 to be conducted by an independent Evaluation Consultant. A mid-term internally managed evaluation of the project was completed in March 20231.

Evaluation Purpose: The overall purpose of the final independent evaluation is to promote accountability, assess progress, bottlenecks and strengthen organizational learning among the Office, ILO constituents, and key stakeholders. The specific objectives of the evaluation are to:

  1. Establish the relevance of the project design and implementation strategies in relation to the SADC region national and regional policies on energy, final beneficiaries’ needs, ILO and UN development frameworks and on skills development around energy related strategies;
  2. Determine the extent to which the project has achieved its stated objectives and expected results integrating gender and non-discrimination, social dialogue and tripartism, international labour standards and a fair transition related to environment
  3. Identify the supporting factors and constraints that have led to the results, including implementation modalities chosen (how and why);
  4. Identify unexpected/unintended positive and negative results of the project;
  5. Examine the implementation efficiency of the project;
  6. Analyse the extent to which the project outcomes will be sustainable and will have potential, either positive or negative, impacts on project-targeted institutions and final beneficiaries;
  7. Provide recommendations to the project key stakeholders towards achievements of project outcomes;
  8. Identify lessons learned and good practices to inform key stakeholders for future similar interventions.

Evaluation Scope: The final evaluation will focus on the 48 months of the project, namely from January 2021 to the end of December 2024, assessing all the results and key outputs that have been produced in this period.

The evaluation will integrate gender equality as a cross-cutting concern throughout its deliverables and process. It should be addressed in line with EVAL guidance note n° 4 and Guidance Note n° 7 to ensure stakeholder participation.

Evaluation Deliverables:

  • Inception report (with detailed work plan and data collection instruments)
  • Draft and Final Evaluation Reports
  • Executive Summary

Last Date For Submission: 15 October 2024