Introduction

Climate change impacts everyone everywhere, but not equally. Specific groups such as women, youth, indigenous people, and marginalized ethnic groups are far more vulnerable to climate shocks. Yet, these groups barely have a say in climate decisions, both at national and global level.

To that end, with the financial and technical support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands (MoFA) under the ‘Power of Voices’ (PoV) framework, organisations in the Global South and North, namely Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), Fundación Avina, Slum Dwellers International (SDI), SouthSouthNorth (SSN), Hivos and WWF-Netherlands established an alliance known as the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) Alliance. The vision of this Alliance is that “by 2025, local civil society groups have claimed a central role as empowered innovators, facilitators and advocates of climate solutions.” 1

Since 1 January 2021, the Alliance members have been working together to deliver an adaptive programme of activities which is being implemented over a period of five years in six regions namely Bolivia- Paraguay, Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Tunisia, and Zambia, as well as a Dutch and global component This document is the Terms of Reference for the End Term Evaluation (ETE) for the entire implementation period of January 2021 until December 2025. We now seek applications from firms or companies to further develop the evaluation methodology and implement the evaluation between April and August 2025. Interested applicants or firms can apply until December 1st.

Program Context and Theory of Change

The VCA program emerged during a critical juncture in global climate action (2021-2025), responding to intensifying climate impacts that disproportionately affect communities in the Global South. At program inception, the global climate governance landscape was characterized by stark power imbalances between Global North institutions and local actors, with the COVID-19 pandemic further exposing these inequities while simultaneously demonstrating the effectiveness of locally led solutions. Baseline assessments revealed that less than 10% of global climate finance reached local communities, with women-led organizations receiving minimal resources and Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) facing systematic exclusion from climate decision-making processes. This context of limited support for locally-led solutions, despite their proven effectiveness, shaped VCA’s strategic approach.

Operating across Indonesia, Kenya, Zambia, Tunisia, Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay, VCA functions as an alliance that unites diverse voices from civil society, including women, youth, Indigenous people, the urban poor, and digital activists. The program envisions a world where civil society is respected as a co-creator of locally relevant, inclusive, and fundable climate solutions. The VCA works to contribute to this vision through three main outcomes that shape the core pillars of the VCA Theory of Change (Annex I):

1. Diverse civil society is collaborating on a shared agenda and co-creating scaled, locally-shaped solutions that benefit people and nature.
2. Amplified citizens’ voices shape public debate on the just transition to low-carbon and climate-resilient futures.
3. Civil society contributions to climate solutions are taken into account in policy, practice and budget allocations in our countries.

VCA advances its objectives through three strategic interventions:

1. Mutual Capacity Strengthening for developing and scaling innovative climate solutions;
2. Agenda-Setting and Movement Building that amplifies voices through storytelling; and
3. Joint Lobbying and Advocacy to align policy and financial flows with locally-shaped solutions.

These interventions are underpinned by core principles of women’s leadership, gender equality, and an intersectional approach that addresses multiple dimensions of power imbalances related to gender, race, class, and other identities.

The program’s transformative Theory of Change positions locally-led, gender-responsive climate action as fundamental to sustainable climate solutions. It hypothesizes that when local civil society organizations and marginalized groups gain enhanced capacity, resources, and recognition, they can effectively drive climate solutions that reflect local realities and needs. This change process operates through three interconnected pathways: strengthening locally-led solutions, advancing gender-transformative approaches, and amplifying Southern voices in climate governance.

The Theory of Change acknowledges several critical assumptions bridging the ‘missing middle’ between interventions and desired outcomes. It recognizes that increased capacity and resources for local actors will lead to effective climate solutions only if power holders value local knowledge systems – requiring sustained advocacy and evidence-building. Similarly, the pathway from enhanced women’s participation to gender-transformative climate action assumes that formal inclusion translates into meaningful influence, necessitating efforts to transform institutional cultures. The connection between Southern-led climate initiatives and shifted power relations in global climate governance assumes that local success can catalyse systemic change through strategic multi-level engagement.

External factors that may influence these pathways include shifting donor priorities, political transitions affecting civic space, climate-induced disasters disrupting implementation, and competing development agendas. The program also acknowledges potential rival explanations for observed changes, such as parallel climate justice initiatives, broader social movements, or autonomous local adaptations – factors that the evaluation must consider when assessing attribution and contribution to observed changes in climate action dynamics.

This programme is operationalized through an adaptive governance structure comprising the Steering Committee, Joint Programme Team, Programme Advisory Committee, National Advisory Committees, specialized Task Forces (Finance, Communications, PMEL), Regional Teams, and the Global Programme Team, working in concert to ensure responsive and cohesive climate action.

Scope and objectives of the evaluation

In 2025, the Voices for Just Climate Action will conduct an End-Term Evaluation (ETE) covering the implementation period between January 2021 and December 2025. A theory-based evaluation approach will be employed to assess the extent to which the program’s activities have contributed to achieving its intended outcomes and impacts. This approach will rely on the program’s TOC to guide the evaluation, focusing on the pathways through which the program was designed to bring about climate justice, empowerment, and resilience among local communities. The evaluation will involve an in-depth analysis of the underlying assumptions, contextual factors, and mechanisms that influenced the program’s outcomes, allowing for a nuanced understanding of the program’s effectiveness in various implementation contexts. By examining both expected and unexpected outcomes, the evaluation will provide insights into the validity and coherence of the ToC, offering recommendations for strengthening similar climate action programs in the future.

The primary objectives of the end-term evaluation for the VCA program are to generate actionable insights and build knowledge on effective strategies for fostering locally led climate solutions. The evaluation has two main objectives: knowledge objectives and action objectives. The knowledge objectives focus on understanding how VCA’s strategic pathways—strengthening locally-led solutions, advancing gender-transformative approaches, and amplifying Southern voices—contributed to program outcomes, providing critical lessons on what worked, what did not, and why. The action objectives are designed to inform decision-making for VCA stakeholders, including Alliance partners, donors, national governments, and civil society organizations (CSOs). These stakeholders will use the evaluation findings to refine their approaches, enhance policy advocacy, and ensure that financial and operational support effectively sustains locally driven climate solutions. The evaluation results will also serve to inform future programmatic directions and provide an evidence base for advancing locally led climate justice initiatives within and beyond VCA.

The evaluation scope has been informed by and should follow the guidance of the MoFA (Annex III), which highlights the importance of a twofold focus on both programme design, implementation, results and crosscutting themes, as well as partnership collaboration within the programme and with the Ministry and Embassies.

The VCA ETE will furthermore consider the lessons learned, recommendations and conclusions from the Mid-Term Review, and how these were implemented during the second half of the programme.

Main evaluation questions

The overall aim of the evaluation is to derive key lessons learned from the VCA program implementation and recommendations on how these inform future programming. We aim to do that through the following questions:

1. To what extent, how and why has or VCA been able to contribute to an expansion/ deepening of civic space (related to climate action), where climate action voices are present and heard or not?
   1. To what extent and how did VCA contribute to a diverse civil society that is collaborating on a shared agenda and co-creating scaled, locally shaped solutions that benefit people and nature? What were factors contributing to successful strategies?
   2. To what extent and how did the VCA contribute to amplified citizens’ voices that shape public debate on the just transition to low-carbon and climate-resilient futures? What were factors contributing to successful strategies?
   3. To what extent and how did the VCA contribute to civil society contributions to climate solutions being taken into account in policy, practice and budget allocations in our countries? What were factors contributing to successful strategies?
   4. What unintended positive and negative outcomes did the VCA programme contribute to, particularly in relation to how these affected marginalized groups?
2. To what extent and how has the VCA programme demonstrated the value of the Alliance being more than the sum of its parts?
   1. To what extent and how were outcomes achieved through joint efforts of multiple Alliance members?
   2. To what extent and how did Alliance members improve programme implementation through their thematic experience, networks, focus areas or other qualities?
3. To what extent are VCA interventions aligned with strategies of VCA partners, Alliance members, strategic partners and policies?
   1. To what extent and how have principles of local ownership been applied in engagement with local partners, and did the VCA programme address the most pressing needs of the local partners?
4. To what extent and how have VCA partners increased institutional sustainability or achieved other forms of sustainability?
5. What do the VCA strategies, achievements and adaptive management teach us about the validity of the VCA Theory of Change and its underlying assumptions?
   1. To what extent and how has an adaptive approach been used in VCA and added value to programme implementation?
   2. Which components of the ToC require revision?
6. To what extent and how did VCA improve the efficiency of its approach to getting resources to the local level over the course of the programme? What lessons can be learned?

The main evaluation questions rare informed by several OECD / DAC criteria (relevance, effectiveness, impact, coherence, efficiency and sustainability) as well as on cooperation and coordination, and cross-cutting themes, related to results achieved on outcome level and the original Theory of Change.

Methodology and Design

The following section outlines approaches and methods that are appropriate for the programme and approved in the IOB’s 2022 and 2024 guidance on quality evaluation criteria. The consultant is expected to outline robust a methodology that speaks to these in the inception report.

The evaluation is expected to follow the guidelines provided by the MoFA and adhere to IOB’s revised and updated (2024) evaluation criteria and the UNEG Ethical Guidelines. We invite the consultancy firm to propose a mixed methodology approach (quantitative, qualitative and triangulation) which will adhere to these guidelines, aims to answer the evaluation questions and contribute to the purpose of the evaluation. The methodology should combine breadth and depth through a desk review and 3 country case studies in preselected VCA countries.

The evaluators should aim for appropriate levels of triangulation and avoid selection bias and consider that the people most important to be heard, such as rightsholders from marginalized groups, are often the difficult to reach.

Key considerations should include:

1. Informed consent from all participants.
2. Confidentiality and anonymity of data sources.
3. Cultural sensitivity and respect for local customs.
4. Data protection and secure storage of evaluation data

Theory based approach

Evaluators should take a theory-based approach that aims to validate and test key Theory of Change assumptions during the evaluation. This will require engaging Global and country level teams on the Theory of Change during the inception period and using appropriate methods, for example in the effectiveness analysis.

Case studies

The case studies aim to provide examples of VCA implementation and not to draw conclusions on the entirety of the programme. They will focus on the countries Brazil, Indonesia and Kenya. Country selection is based on criteria relating to programme size, diversity, applied strategies and thematic areas by the VCA PMEL team, prior to the formulation of this Terms of Reference.

Suggested methods for the evaluation:

Desk review

During the desk review, the consultants look at documents produced before and during the implementation of VCA. This should include the VCA proposal document, baseline report, MTR as well as databases with monitoring data on harvested outcomes, partners and their capacities, local solutions, policy influencing, leveraging finance, GESI and NLGF.

The proposed methodology should aim to incorporate additional studies. Prior to or during the execution of the final evaluation, additional studies will be supervised by the PMEL team, that aim to shed light on key elements of VCA that will also serve as input for the evaluation. These studies will be performed by a combination of external consultants and programme staff and are expected to be done before or during the analysis stage of the evaluation. These studies are:

1. Assessments of promising local solutions
2. Study on the application of Gender, Equity and Social Inclusion principles in programme design and implementation
3. Study on the learnings and results of the Next Level Grant Facility (NLGF)

Effectiveness analysis

Evaluating effectiveness will be a key component of this End Term Evaluation and should build on a theory-based approach. Important aspects of the methodology should be 1) reference to Theories of Change and the use of causal chains to develop hypotheses during desk reviews and before primary data collection 2) validation of causal chains and TOC assumptions through collected data and 3) the consideration of other factors and alternative hypotheses that may have affected the results.

Examples of qualitative evaluation methods that are approved by the IOB are evaluation quality criteria, such as Realist Evaluation; Contribution Analysis; Process Tracing and General Elimination Methodology may therefore be considered. Other methods like Most Significant Change; Success Case Method; Outcome Mapping and Method for Impact Assessment of Programmes and Projects are considered less suitable for substantiating claims of effectiveness.

Stakeholder involvement

The evaluation will ensure broad stakeholder involvement, including rightsholders, local communities, and other relevant actors. This may be done through:

1. Stakeholder mapping exercise during the inception phase.
2. Inclusive sampling strategies for Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and focus group discussions.
3. Stakeholder validation workshops to discuss preliminary findings

Interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs)

For answering several evaluation questions, interviews can be done with key informants from Alliance members, other involved people or independent experts as well as members of the local target groups. Evaluation questions answered through the case studies should, where possible, involve local partners and their constituencies.

Data analysis

The analysis will combine quantitative and qualitative approaches to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the program’s impact. A robust framework for integrating findings from different sources will be established, ensuring that diverse perspectives are considered in the final evaluation. The team will use triangulation to ensure the validity and reliability of findings.

Timeframe and deliverables

The consultancy firm will be required to deliver the following products:

Activity

Key deliverables

Timeframe

Consultancy firm or company contracted – By 15 December 2024

Inception phase – January 2025 – April 2025

• Inception report including study on key documents, evaluation design, methods for evaluating effectiveness, sampling etc., and detailed planning
• Feedback workshop with the VCA Reference Group
• Inception workshop with Alliance members, strategic partners and other relevant actors

Evaluation phase – April – August 2025

• Desk review on VCA studies, interviews and other methodologies
• Primary data collection in country case studies and implementation of effectiveness analysis
• Sharing of preliminary observations and identification of gaps in collected data
• Field notes and reflection

Data analysis and review phase – August – October 2025

• Draft report shared with the VCA Secretariat
• Presentation of data overview preliminary conclusions
• Feedback workshop with VCA Reference Group
• Validation meeting with Alliance members

Finalization – December 2025

• Final report shared with VCA Secretariat
• Review and approval by VCA Reference Group
• Final report to MoFA
• Presentation with findings and recommendations to stakeholders, in particular MOFA

Final Evaluation Report Structure

The final evaluation report should clearly articulate the connections among the findings, overarching conclusions, and recommendations tailored for the Alliance members and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA). The report must include, at a minimum, the following sections:

• Executive Summary: A concise overview of the evaluation, highlighting key findings and recommendations.
• Introduction: An outline of the purpose and scope of the evaluation, including the objectives and target audience.
• Context: A description of the relevant background information, including the program’s goals, the broader environmental landscape and changes in context during programme implementation
• Evaluation Methodology: An explanation of the approaches and methods employed in conducting the evaluation, including data collection, sampling and analysis techniques.
• Results and Analysis by Evaluation Question: A detailed presentation of the findings organized by each evaluation question, supported by data and analysis.
• Conclusions: A summary of the key insights derived from the findings, reflecting on the program’s performance and impact.
• Recommendations: Actionable suggestions based on the conclusions, aimed at informing future strategies and decisions for the Alliance and MoFA.
• Country case study annexes

Qualifications and experience required

VCA is seeking a consultancy firm or team of consultants to oversee the entire evaluation process. The evaluators and affiliated organisations should not have been involved in the design or implementation of the project under evaluation – either with the organisation responsible for implementation or at the MoFA. Additionally, they must maintain complete impartiality with no vested interest in the ultimate outcome of the evaluation.

The team should together cover the following requirements:

• Technical expertise the areas of lobby and advocacy, capacity strengthening, civic space, gender, youth, inclusion, multi-stakeholder partnerships, policy development, climate adaptation, nature-based solutions and leveraging finance;
• Evaluation expertise, ideally with complex theory-based program evaluations with multiple partners and in multiple countries;
• Experience with in-depth analysis of the underlying assumptions, contextual factors, and mechanisms that influence programme outcomes
• Experience with outcome harvesting and methodologies that enable the evaluation of contribution and effectiveness using approaches that are considered appropriately rigorous;
• Familiarity with feminist evaluation approaches;
• Methodological experience: facilitation skills, presentation skills, evaluation development, ability to reconcile diverse interests;
• Demonstrated understanding of ethical considerations in data collection, particularly when engaging with vulnerable populations;
• Regional experience with multiple regions/ countries where the partnership is active, at least in the case study countries Indonesia, Brazil and Kenya;
• Very good organizational, collaboration and communication skills;
• Excellent writing skills and experience with bringing together different reporting formats;
• The evaluation team should be fluent in at least English, Indonesian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Fluency in all four languages is highly desirable.
• Ability to travel, and availability between December 15th, 2024, and December 15th, 2025.

Location of assignment

The lead consultant will be responsible for overall coherence and synergy and international data gathering. The lead consultant will need to convene with the rest of their team to ensure coherence and coordination of research. It is possible that this is done from outside of the Netherlands or other programme countries. Consultants with regional expertise will gather data regionally in Brazil, Indonesia and Kenya. They will have to travel in the regions and possibly at least one time to Europe.

Evaluation management

The commissioner of the final evaluation is Thandiwe Chikomo, the director of the VCA programme. The lead consultant or consultancy firm coordinates with the VCA PMEL team and reports to the director.

The VCA PMEL team will be the main point of contract for the evaluation and provide the consultants with all necessary documents. During the inception phase, the detailing of evaluation questions and ensuring common understanding, evaluation methodology and planning will be discussed and coordinated with the VCA PMEL team. The PMEL team will ensure timelines are in place and followed and provide support when needed.

The VCA works with a Reference Group, consisting of VCA internal and external experts with thematic and evaluation expertise. This Reference Group will be responsible for reviewing and approving the inception report, draft end report and final end report.

All official written work related to the engagement and agreed deliverables are to be sent as a digital copy.

The contacts of the PMEL team are:

Name: Stanley Walet
Email address: swalet@wwf.nl

Name: Bitamisi Nyakato
Email address: nyakato@akinamamawaafrika.org

1. Selection of applicants

For consideration for this opportunity, please prepare an Expression of Interest that includes both (1) a Technical Offer and (2) a Financial Offer. Inclusive of the proposed methodology and budget, your Expression of Interest should be no longer than ten pages in total.

1. Technical Offer:
   Provide a proposal detailing the the general approach to the evaluation (including research design, methods for evaluating effectiveness, sampling, appropriateness of the analysis, evaluation methodology matrix). The proposal should also contain a work plan and the CVs of core team members, demonstrating relevant expertise and qualifications and work samples/references. All applicants must declare any potential conflicts of interest within their application.
2. Financial Offer:
   Present an overview of the estimated costs of services in an appropriate cost table. Include consultant charges and all direct and indirect costs anticipated. Specify costs for travel, document reproduction, and any additional resources required for the evaluation. The proposed budget should not exceed EUR 120,000 in total.

How to Apply:

Application Submission Deadline:
Using the subject line “Expression of Interest – VCA End-term Evaluation”, please submit your proposal by 1st December 2024 to Stanley Walet (swalet@wwf.nl) and Bitamisi Nyakato (nyakato@akinamamawaafrika.org).