In 2018, the Government of liberia passed the Land Rights Act (LRA). This legislative framework is a milestone in land legislation, paving a passage for more equitable, fair land rights for the citizens of Liberia. Nearly 70 percent of Liberia’s 3.3 million citizens live in rural areas and own their lands collectively according to customary laws. Despite strong customary claims, for the past six decades the Liberian government claimed all lands as owned by the state and allocated roughly 35-40 percent of the country to foreign investment without consulting community members. Disputes related to overlapping boundaries, rightful ownership, conflicting claims and land grabbing are the most pronounced among communities as well as between communities and concessionaires. Communities in general are affected by concessions due to a lack of transparency in allocating land to concessions made by the government. Most of the concession contracts are negotiated in Monrovia with little or no consultations, neither are the agreements shared with local communities. In addition, activities undertaken by concession companies, such as production of palm oil, rubber, extraction of gold, diamonds and iron ore, have severely impacted the environment and its surrounding.

The project builds on several other interventions including the “Strengthening Conflict Prevention through Establishment of Multi-stakeholder Platforms and improved Alternative Livelihoods in Concessions Areas” which supported the establishment of structures called Multi-Stakeholders Platform (MSP) to educate communities about their rights and how they can benefit from their lands through concessions; the “Liberia Decentralization Support Programme (LDSP)” that supported the de-concentration of essential services through a concept of establishing County Service Centers (CSCs) where community members can access these services; and “Strengthening Local and Traditional Mechanisms for Peace at Local and National Levels” that supported the establishment of local Early Warning and County Peace Committees structures to mediate and report conflict related issues.

To address the continued challenges on land governance and related conflict, the UN Peacebuilding Support Office approved a project implemented by UN Women, UNDP and WFP and entitled “Sustaining Peace and Reconciliation through Strengthening Land Governance and Dispute Resolution Mechanisms”. The project was  funded by the UN peacebuilding Fund (PBF) for a budget of $4 million over three years. The project has been supporting the implementation of the Land Rights Act (LRA) and Local Government Act (LGA), the latter of which was also passed in 2018 and should fully devolve political, administrative and fiscal authorities to counties over a ten-year period. The joint implementation of the two Acts aim to provide opportunities for empowering rural communities, including women and youth, by allowing them to manage their land and land-based resources to advance their economic growth and development, and thus contributing to a reduction of land-related disputes in conflict prone counties (Grand Cape Mount, Sinoe, Maryland and Nimba). It is also worth noting that, the proposed interventions aim to tackle the major problems identified by the Government, development partners and CSOs and respond to the issues identified in the conflict analysis and land related assessments.

In light of this, UN Women Liberia, the lead Agency for the project, is seeking to hire 2 Consultants: an International Lead Evaluation Consultant and a National Evaluation Consultant to conduct the end of project Evaluation. The International Evaluation Consultant will lead the evaluation process and decide on planning and distribution of the evaluation workload and tasks. The National Evaluation Consultant will provide requisite support to the International Evaluation Consultant throughout the evaluation process, including support with local access, cultural aspects and logistics.

Description of the joint Project

The joint project titled “Sustaining Peace and Reconciliation through Strengthening Land Governance and Dispute Resolution Mechanisms” is funded by the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund.  The project is being implemented by UNW, UNDP and WFP in Nimba, Grand Cape Mount, Sinoe and Maryland Counties. In these counties, the project is strengthening the capacity of County Land Offices and further linking them with existing land dispute-related structures as well as the new structures created through the passage of LRA as well as supported the initial steps of formalization of customary land as a measure to prevent disputes relating to customary landowners and users. In addition, several interventions aimed to strengthen existing semi-formal and informal land dispute resolution mechanisms such as Multi-Stakeholder Platforms and the new mechanisms established with LRA such as CLDMCs, with a view to reducing conflicts in a more transparent, effective and gender and youth responsive manner. The project started in January 2020 and was due to end in January 2023, an implementation period of 36 months. The total budget for the entire project duration is USD 3,996,522.48. A three month No Cost Extension has been sought to finalise some residual activities as well as this evaluation.

At national level the initiative supports the implementation of the 2017 Peacebuilding Plan, which was integrated into the Pillar 3: Sustaining Peace of the Government’s national development plan – the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD). PAPD also calls for improving socio-economic human rights by passing and implementing the Land Rights Act to improve land tenure security; developing a regulatory framework for the actualization of the Liberia Land Authority Act; securing access to land by harmonizing of customary and statutory land tenure systems; and strengthening community land administration and governance framework (ensuring the inclusion of youth, women, and marginalized community members).

Likewise, it is aligned with the 2018 National Gender Policy which clearly calls for supporting women, land tenure and property rights including advocating for and promoting women’s access and control over land/land-based resources, and other forms of property and assets. In addition, there is alignment with the Liberian National Action Plan on Women Peace and Security (2019-2023), which emphasizes the importance of land, inheritance, and property rights for women. Moreover, the proposed intervention has been designed to support the Government of Liberia to implement the LRA and LGA including the Legal Aid Policy (2019) and the Land Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Policy.

The Government has identified land-related issues as critical drivers of conflict as well as the root causes of inter-community divisions. Land disputes at the local level impede development and have the potential to turn into large-scale conflicts. The passage of the Land Rights Act and the Local Government Act has significant peace dividends if successfully implemented. The Local Government Act provides for the decentralization of services and brings government closer to the people thereby reducing the potential of conflicts and addressing some of Liberia’s main conflict triggers and grievances. Further to this, the effects of environmental hazards vis-a-vis concessions are more likely to fuel conflicts in addition to already existent land disputes. Dialogue and confidence-building between concessionaires and communities will be an integral part of the proposed project, so that peacebuilding opportunities are not missed.

Key partners and beneficiaries of the project also consulted during project development include; communities from targeted counties, Rights and Rice Foundation (RRF), Government institutions such as the Liberia Land Authority (LLA), Office of the Legal Advisor to the President (OLA), and the Peacebuilding Office (PBO), the National Bureau of Concessions (NBC), National Centre for Coordination of Response mechanisms (NCCRM), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concession companies and civil society organizations.

In cognizance of past and ongoing projects in the land sector, the project aims to tackle major problems identified by Government and CSO partners and responds to the issues identified through the existing conflict analysis and land related assessments. The project outcomes respond to two key aspects; responds to the limited capacity of the Government to prevent land related conflicts and aims at strengthening the effectiveness, transparency and inclusiveness of land administrative structures at national and county levels. The second outcome aims at strengthening the existing land disputes resolution mechanisms.

The detailed project document including the results framework can be found as an annex to this TOR.

Project Theory of change and outcomes/outputs

IF customary governance authorities and communities in targeted counties are aware of the LRA and LGA, existing land disputes resolution mechanisms, concession agreements, and their role as well as have an improved understanding of women’s and youth rights to land; IF County land offices, county land boards, and Community Land Development and Management Committees in targeted counties have the capacity, procedures and systems in place to formalize customary land in a way that reflects rights and needs of all community members; IF existing semi-formal land dispute resolution bodies (i.e. MSPs) have the capacity to provide a safe and inclusive platform for communities, government, and concession companies to resolve disputes in a gender and youth responsive manner; IF communities including women and youth in targeted counties have the capacity and skills to participate in formal and informal land dispute mechanisms; IF institutional capacity of LLA/NBC/EPA are strengthened to effectively prevent potential conflict triggers arising from concessionaires (i.e. environmental hazards and limited livelihood opportunities); IF Early warning and response mechanism become more sensitive to land disputes;THEN Land management will be more effective and inclusive, and land disputes will be better prevented and managed in targeted counties because existing semi-formal and informal land dispute resolution mechanisms; and government land management systems and capacities will be strengthened to reduce land related conflicts.

The Theory of Change is based on the following assumptions: 

• Existence of Government commitment to implement the LRA, LGA and the ADR policy at national and sub-national level;
• The Government is willing to mainstream gender in their policies, rules and procedures;
• Concessionaries are willing to deliver their commitments;
• Targeted communities are willing to change attitudes towards women, youth and vulnerable group’s rights to land;
• Stakeholders (Government, private sector, CSOs, Development partners) are able/willing to coordinate to maximize the impact of their work;

Objectives

• The evaluation will be guided by the standard OECD/DAC evaluation criteria and GERAAS criteria list; i.e., a focus on relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, coherence, sustainability, and Human Rights and Gender Equality.

The objectives of the evaluation are to:

• Assess the relevance of the intervention, strategy and approach in the implementation of the women’s Peace and Security Agenda and achievement of women’s land rights and  the broader peacebuilding needs of Liberia as well as the needs of the targeted communities;
• Assess the effectiveness of the project implementation, including what outcomes and outputs were achieved and how they contributed to peacebuilding objectives;
• Assess the efficiency of the project towards the achievement of results, including efficiency of project management, M&E and coordination, timeliness, value for money;
• Assess the project coherence including quality of the inter-agency coordination mechanisms that were established at country level, but also coherence with previous relevant interventions and with interventions by other actors; 
• Assess sustainability of the project;
•  Determine whether human rights approach and gender equality principles are integrated adequately in the project..
• Assess the overall impact of the project in terms of changing behaviors and attitudes related to land conflict and land management and Women, Peace and Security in this theme.
• Identify and highlight important lessons learned, best practices and, strategies for replication and provide actionable recommendations for the design and implementation of future interventions.
• Identify and highlight innovative approaches in all aspects of the project
• Document and analyze possible weaknesses in order to improve next steps of UN programming  in the area of women, peace, and security programming and land governance;

Scope of the evaluation

The evaluation will cover the implementation period of the Joint project, thus, January 2020 to January 2023 (36months).

It is intended that as much as possible the evaluation will provide a comprehensive assessment of the joint program covering all three levels of the program scope and their interconnections: 

Community level - assessing how the joint programme initiatives, particularly by implementing partners on the ground, have created favorable conditions for women to exercise their rights to land, and led to enhanced participation of women in land governance and decision-making processes, dispute resolution processes etc.

• County level – analyze achievements of significant impact of the programme on the capacities of county level land administration
• National level - analyzing achievements over the last months of implementation, more specifically what have been the successes, opportunities missed, and constraints encountered.
• The project implemented in four counties, Nimba, Grand Cape Mount, Maryland and Sinoe. The geographic scope of the evaluation will be decided in consultation with the evaluation team during the inception phase. The project targeted four counties and challenges that might hinder the data collection process at county level is the bad condition of roads during rainy season.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Consultant will undertake the following tasks, duties and responsibilities:

Review of Documents:

• UN Women will gather and share with the consultants all relevant reports and documents including the baseline study, the perception survey. The evaluators shall familiarize themselves with the programme through a review of relevant documents, including, but not be limited to: Project document, Joint Programme Work Plan, Annual and Semi-annual progress reports, Programme Monitoring reports Project procurement and financial reports, Minutes of Project Management meetings, Policy briefs, studies and any other technical reports, etc.

Key Informant Interviews:

• The evaluator shall do a comprehensive stakeholder mapping in the beginning to identify the key informant interviewees. The evaluator shall carry out key informant interviews with major stakeholders. The interviews should be organized in a semi-structured format to include for instance. focused group discussions; individual interviews; surveys; and/or participatory exercises with the community or individuals. The information from this assessment will be used as a baseline for PAPD and UNSCDF.

Field visits: During site visits, the evaluator will carry out interviews with the community, making sure that the perspective of the most vulnerable group is included in the consultation. This shall include Focus Group discussions.

Required Skills and Experience

Evaluation team composition, skills and experiences

• The evaluation team will be comprised of two evaluation experts: The Evaluation Team Leader (International Consultant) and Evaluation Team Member (National Consultant). The Evaluation Team Leader will have the overall evaluation responsibility and accountability for the report writing and data analyses. The independent consultants or team will report to and be managed by UN Women.

Education

• Master’s Degree in social sciences, Monitoring and evaluation, development studies, gender studies, international relations or related fields;

Experience and Skills

•  peace and security;
• Proven experience with gender-responsive evaluations is a requirement;
• Fluency in English, with the ability to produce well written reports demonstrating analytical and communication skills
• Good mastery of information technology required for organized presentation of information, including quantitative information and graphical presentations, and for organizing information and materials is desirable
• Experience in Evaluating  Land governance programmes is an added advantage
• Excellent understanding and commitment to UN Women’s mandate.
• Previous experience working with the UN is an asset
• Experience in West and Central Africa Region and specifically Liberia context is an asset

Language and other skills:

• Proficiency in oral and written English
• Computer literacy and ability to effectively use the Internet and email. 
• Excellent facilitation skills
• Should have the ability to work will people of different cultural background irrespective of gender, religion, race, nationality and age.  

Source: https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=111023