Call for consultancy services

POSTING TITLE: Consultant for Evidence Based Policy Outcome Assessment
PROGRAM: CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) and CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH).
WORK LOCATION: Home-based consultancy with travels to Africa and/or Asia and/or Latin America.

The International Potato Center (CIP) is seeking an experienced Consultant for an Evidence Based Policy Outcome Assessment, who will coordinate and implement a systematic Policy Outcomes assessment exercise.

The Programs: The CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) is led by the International Potato Center (CIP) with Bioversity International, the International Center for tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) and includes a wide spectrum of research for development stakeholders. This collaboration, with its combined scale and capacity, will increase the ability to advance research, share knowledge, and enhance uptake to increase research and development impacts. The purpose of RTB is to exploit the underutilized potential of root, tuber, and banana crops to improve nutrition and food security and foster greater gender equity especially among some of the world’s most poor and vulnerable populations.

The CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), is built on the notion that agriculture has the potential to do much more than contribute to basic food and income needs. A4NH is designed to fill the existing gap between agricultural development and its unfulfilled health and nutritional benefits. Within CGIAR, A4NH is an integrative program focusing primarily on the system level outcome to improve food and nutrition security for health. To explore nutrition and health impacts, we begin with consumption—of healthy, affordable, and safe foods—rather than with agricultural production alone. A4NH places strong emphasis on integrating gender and equity, as well as evaluation and impact assessment into its research, offering specific methods to support research and development by others.

Expected duration:

• This consultancy contract is for 5 months starting in December

About the Assessment

Both A4NH and RTB have been providing science-based advice to policy and decision makers at local, national and supra-national levels to create an enabling policy environment for developing and scaling sustainable food systems innovations, such as biofortified crops. There has been a lot of effort, but in some instances there is a lack of any systematic collection of lessons learnt and evidence of the outcomes of these initiatives. In cases where the outcomes were changes in policy or the enabling environment, both programs need documentation or evidence that utilizes a systematic approach outlining the role each stakeholder played and identifying critical stakeholder contributions to achieve these changes. The scope of the proposed assessment has been defined based on an internal consultation process that identified: 1) a set of policy changes and 2) the relevant recent/ongoing research for development (R4D) projects that provided policy advice, advocacy, scientific support to relevant stakeholders involved in the processes identified in the set of policy changes or shifts in the enabling environment.

The assessment process will be organized using the methodology known as RAPID Outcome Assessment (ROA) or a similar methodology proposed by the consultant.

The consultant, in coordination with the RTB-PMU and A4NH-PMU, may propose adaptations to the methodology depending on the complexity of the cases to be documented and on the secondary data available.
A list of relevant stakeholders and points of contact will be prepared by project leaders and an agenda for bilateral interviews arranged with the consultant. As much as possible, the interviews will be organized virtually.

Depending on the complexity of the case to be documented, a workshop could be organized to refine and validate the ToC and the project history. If the level of complexity is low and the number of key informants is limited. The refinement and validation process will be organized through bilateral interactions.
The refinement and validation step would also serve to identify the need for gathering additional evidence through interviews or existing documents.

Duties

• Document the relevant actions performed by the R4D projects
• Document the key changes in the policy environment and in policy/ regulatory/ program/ investment documents
• Establish plausible links/influences between R4D actions and key policy changes; document other actions/ factors (external to the R4D projects) that influenced the policy processes.
• Prepare/refine the theory of change (ToC) including key stakeholders and expected changes – outcomes, main project outputs and links/influences with outcomes, assumptions and risks and complement the ToC with a project history in the form of a timeline.

Qualifications/special skills

• Post-graduate qualification, at least at M.Sc. level, in fields such as international development, policy analysis and evaluation, social sciences.
• At least 10 years of relevant work experience in complex agricultural R4D programs and projects
• Publications in the field of analysis and evaluation of policies linked with food security, nutrition and climate change.
• Competencies in collecting, analyzing, and reporting disaggregated data, preferably in the context of agricultural research including both qualitative and quantitative research methods.
• Competences in structuring and managing interviews and focus group discussions

Deliverables:

1. Inception report with methodology proposed/adapted to the cases to be documented
2. ToC and project history for each selected case (template to be agreed with RTB-PMU)
3. Brief narrative report for each selected case
4. Manuscript for a publication (working paper or journal article to be decided in coordination with RTB-PMU)