Introduction
Founded in 2006, Sonke is a womxn’s rights organisation that is committed to feminist principles, using a rights-based and gender-transformative approach to achieve human rights and gender justice. Sonke’s foundation came about as a result of the shared understanding that violence against womxn and girls constitutes one of the gravest and most pervasive human rights violations and that it undermines South Africa’s new democracy in far-reaching ways. A further driving motivation was a belief that gender inequalities, gender norms, and power relations underpinning domestic and sexual violence are bad not only for womxn but also for men.
Recognising that these norms and the harmful perceptions of what it means to be a man or a womxn encourage men to engage in high-risk behaviours, Sonke established with a firm conviction that men and boys have a critical contribution to make in ending violence, in transforming gender roles and ultimately in being part of the solution to achieving gender justice. In line with the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) motto,
‘Leave No One Behind’, Sonke prioritises work that improves the lives of the most marginalised populations, such as refugees and migrants, sex workers, the LGBTQI community, prisoners and ex-offenders, people living with HIV, children, and youth.
As a non-partisan civil society organisation, Sonke works with community-based organisations, faith-based organisations, UN agencies, media, academic institutions, government, international NGOs, private sector, multilateral agencies, international human rights bodies, development partners, and intergovernmental agencies to achieve human rights and gender justice.
Sonke works at a community, national, regional, and global level. In South Africa, Sonke is a registered NGO with offices in the Western Cape Province (Cape Town), Gauteng Province (Johannesburg and Diepsloot), Mpumalanga Province (Bushbuckridge), and Eastern Cape Province (Butterworth). Our Wellness Centre is situated in Gugulethu, Cape Town. In addition to its offices in South Africa, Sonke has offices in Kampala in Uganda, Lesotho, and Buea in Cameroon and works in 24 countries across Southern, Eastern, Central, and Western Africa.
Background
Sonke is a South African-based non-profit organisation working throughout Africa. The organisation asserts that women and men, girls, and boys in all their diversities can work together to resist patriarchy, advocate for gender justice, and achieve gender transformation. Sonke envisions a world in which violence of any form is socially unacceptable and dramatically reduced; a world in which duty-bearers – multilateral agencies, governments, religious and traditional leaders, the private sector, community leaders – and womxn, men, and gender-non-conforming people take action to address violence.
Between 2020 and 2024 the organisation implemented the Rights, Action, Accountability and Sustainability strategy. Over the past 5 years, Sonke has significantly contributed to gender justice and human rights in the region through various programs including Gender Transformative Approaches (GTA), Men Care 50/50 and the development of the State of Fathers Report. Furthermore, the organisation has enjoyed its growth in the region as a secretariat of the Men Engage Africa Alliance Secretariat. The current strategic plan is being funded by approximately 30 donors. The organisation continued to provide technical support to various organisations and private businesses through its Fee for Service projects (FFS).
The strategic plan for the period 2020-2024 has been guided by four key strategic objectives which are
- Rights: Individuals and communities are aware of and able to articulate their rights.
- Action: Individuals, institutions, organisations, and communities put their knowledge into action for the realisation of rights.
- Accountability: Duty bearers, including government, multilateral institutions, the private sector, and Sonke, are accountable for collective responsibilities and obligations to advance gender equality and health and human rights as laid out in national and international law.
- Sustainability: To ensure the gender justice and human rights sectors are sustainable through increased funding, improved capacities, stronger partnerships, and a stronger evidence base.
Objectives of the Consultancy
This Terms of Reference aims to invite interested consultants to submit a proposal for the evaluation of Sonke’s 2020-2024 strategic plan in line with Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) evaluation standards (Relevance, Coherence, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Impact and Sustainability). Internal reviews and project evaluations have been conducted for some of the projects and they have already confirmed significant results. Therefore, this assignment focuses on outcomes and objectives achieved in the delivery of the 2020 to 2024 strategic plan, which will form part of the foundational documents for the development of the 2025-2029 comprehensive strategic plan. Furthermore, this assignment has the following specific objectives:
- Evaluate the implementation of the 2020-2024 strategic plan in line with the OECD evaluation criteria highlighting and describing the critical changes, outcomes and impacts realised by the beneficiaries under the above-mentioned strategic objectives.
- Undertake organisational internal and external environmental assessments, and endline evaluations completed on specific projects (GenG, Masiphephe, CWW, UNTF, MEA and PTY etc.) and document how they have affected or enabled the implementation of the strategy and the changes required to implement the new strategy.
- Develop comprehensive recommendations which will be used to develop the 2025-2029 strategic plan.
Key Evaluation Questions abed on OECD Standards
| Evaluation Criteria | Key question |
| Relevance | Is the intervention relevant to the needs of the stakeholders and to the achievement of strategic goals? |
| Coherence | How well did the project design and objectives fit into the strategic plan and the needs of the stakeholders? |
| Effectiveness | Did all the implemented interventions achieve the strategic objectives? |
| Efficiency | How well were resources were being used by all interventions? |
| Impact | What difference did all projects implemented under the strategic plan make? |
| Sustainability | Will the effects of the intervention last long? |
Scope of the assignment
The consultant will be responsible for the following tasks:
- Select an appropriate sample to conduct a comprehensive review of all projects and programs developed and implemented under the 2020-2024 Strategic plan including proposals, donor reports, end-term evaluation reports, baseline evaluation reports internal, planning and review meeting notes.
- Review relevant National, Regional and Global policies, research documents, and media statements that Sonke contributed to during the implementation of this strategy.
- Assess the policy and legal environment for Sonke’s involvement in promoting gender justice, human rights and the reduction of violence against women and girls.
- Collect and analyse primary data from targeted beneficiaries, organisations and other relevant implementing stakeholders under each strategic pillar. This includes Feminist movements, MEA Alliance partners, Youth networks, Government departments, regional and global organisations, and political, religious and traditional leaders who have been researched by any of Sonke ‘s interventions during the implementation of the strategy.
- Collect and analyse information from a community of practices, consortiums forums, networks National councils to which Sonke has significantly contributed over the past four years.
- Review the effectiveness and relevance of organisational systems and procedures including financial, human resources, management, strategic information and communications, research monitoring evaluation learning, and subawards and resource mobilisation on their effectiveness to support the implementation of the strategic plan.
- Evaluate the strategies’ effectiveness, especially strategies such as Men Care 50/50, SRHRand Gender Transformative Approaches.
The consultant must carry out these tasks diligently to provide valuable insight that would inform the organisation’s future planning and impact.
Expected deliverables
A 50-page maximum strategic plan external evaluation report depicting results and impact. The report should include:
- A summary of methodology and tools used.
- Progress towards achievement of objectives (Rights, Action, Accountability and Sustainability).
- An analysis of the achievement of each objective using OECD evaluation standards.
- Environmental factors which include internal (SWOT) and External (PESTEL).
- Key lessons learned from the implementation.
- Key recommendations that should be considered for the development of the 2025-2029 strategic plan.
Key deliverables and timelines
| No. | Deliverable | Deadline |
| 1. | Evaluation Inception Report | By 16 April 2024 |
| 2. | Provision of Feedback by Sonke | By 29 April 2024 |
| 3. | Data Collection (KII and FDG’s) | By 20 May 2024 |
| 4. | Draft Evaluation Report + key findings presentation | By 25 June 2024 |
| 5. | Feedback by Sonke on draft report | By 12 July 2024 |
| 6 | Final Evaluation Report | By 31 July 2024 |
Roles and responsibilities
The lead and co-lead evaluator will be responsible for undertaking the evaluation from start to finish and for managing the evaluation team under the supervision of the evaluation task manager from Sonke Gender Justice for the data collection and analysis, as well as report drafting and finalization in English.
Required Competencies
Team lead and co-lead
- Evaluation experience at least 10-15 years in conducting external evaluations, with mixed-methods evaluation skills and flexibility in using non-traditional and innovative evaluation methods.
- Expertise in gender, and human-rights-based approaches to evaluation and issues of violence against women and girls.
- Expertise in evaluating programs working with Gender, GBV, and Masculinities, in the region,
- Experience with program design and theory of change, gender-responsive evaluation, participatory approaches, and stakeholder engagement.
- Specific evaluation experiences in the areas of ending violence against women and girls.
- Experience in collecting and analysing quantitative and qualitative data as well as data visualization.
- In-depth knowledge of gender equality and women’s empowerment.
- A strong commitment to delivering timely and high-quality results, i.e., credible evaluation and a report that can be used.
- A strong team leadership and management track record, as well as interpersonal and communication skills to help ensure that the evaluation is understood and used.
- Good communication skills and ability to communicate with various stakeholders and to express concisely and clearly ideas and concepts.
- Regional/Country experience and knowledge: in-depth knowledge of South Africa.
- Language proficiency: fluency in English, and a good command of the regional languages such as Portuguese and French will be beneficial.
Management Arrangements for the evaluation
The overall evaluation will be managed by Sonke’s Research Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (RMEL) unit. Evaluators will liaise with the Sonke RMEL unit and program staff for relevant project documentation and clarification, and assistance in liaising and connecting with relevant stakeholders and primary and secondary beneficiaries. The Sonke RMEL unit will also set up feedback/check-in sessions to discuss any further support or clarification required. All evaluation deliverables will be approved by the Senior Management Team (SMT).
Budget
The total budget for the evaluation is R450 000,00 which includes all travel costs for the evaluation team.
Application Procedures
All application documents below should be sent to the Research Monitoring and Evaluation Manager, Attention Mr. Jacob Segale at jacob@genderjustice.org.za by COB 22nd March 2024
- Full Evaluation Proposal highlighting proposed methodology, sampling techniques, ethical considerations, safeguarding, and work plan including CV of the project team.
- A comprehensive budget outlining the costs associated with all activities in the work plan.
- A sample of recently completed External evaluation report.
- Three written references with contact details.
