Call for Consultant: Project Evaluation

Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique (French Institute for Research in Africa Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan), IFRA-Nigeria, invites consultants based in Nigeria to apply for the opportunity to undertake an evaluation exercise on a digitization project, halfway between research, arts and actions, which has run between 2022 and 2024. This project has been funded by a grant called Fonds de Solidarité pour les Projects Innovant (FSPI) from the Embassy of France in Nigeria.

The project focus and theme are Digital technology at the service of Nigerian heritage: for protection, training and dissemination. To achieve the main objectives of the project, IFRA-Nigeria management divided the project into five different components. First, the aim was to reflect the diversity of Nigeria's cultural, social and historical heritage. Secondly, it was to put the everyday implementation of the project in the hands of Nigerian institutions and people. The management engaged with non-governmental organizations, government Institutions, and organizations that work in synergy to manage each of the components.

Project Objectives

• Structuring Franco-Nigerian relations in the sectors of protection, promotion and dissemination of Nigerian heritage and inserting IFRA-Nigeria at the heart of these synergies;
• Building a fair partnership and collaboration models aimed at co-constructing projects and jointly mobilising French and Nigerian expertise to develop skills;
• Demonstrating the relevance of such an approach through the implementation of high-impact projects that are easily replicable and provide deliverable added value in the medium term.

This project is subdivided into five (5) components which are structured into several activities to achieve the above-set objectives.

Component 1: Protecting political activists’ archives to write another history of Nigeria.

In this component, we have engaged digital technology to preserve a very special set of Nigerian historical records: the archives of known and unknown Nigerian activists who were pro-democracy and known for pushing a socialist agenda for Nigeria. They were all categorised as the archives of the Nigeria left. This component is managed by the Centre for Democracy Development (CDD) located in Abuja and their activities for the project span across the nation. To engage CDD on the project, IFRA-Nigeria draws on CDD’s historical network and role as a rallying point for pro-democracy research and programming to catalyze wider efforts to preserve and disseminate Nigeria’s heritage of civic activism. Researching the records of the digitized archives and the process of executing the project is a key section of this component.

Component 2: Digitising and promoting the documentary collections of the National Museum of Lagos

In this component, we engaged digital technology to preserve the documentary collections of the National Museum of Lagos. These collections are of different categories ranging from Archaeological files of K.C Murray to different ethnographic reports in words and photographs, maps, colonial assessments and intelligence reports of districts in Nigeria and many more. The National Museum Onikan Lagos is the first headquarters of the defunct Department of Antiquity which later became the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM). This unique nature of the National Museum Onikan Lagos as a living heritage space presents a very need to have her documentary collections digitized and promoted. To promote the digitized archives of the National Museum Lagos artists of different orientations of expression were engaged to create artistic work from the digitized archives of the National Museum Lagos. This is a 100% government agency.

Component 3: Creating a digital archive of the intangible and tangible heritage of Benin (Nigeria).

This component aimed at creating a digital archive of both intangible and tangible heritages of Benin. This archive will be made available via a dedicated website. The Institute for Benin Studies based in Benin City and the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) are the institutions engaged to execute component 3. Photographing and filming are the major digital technologies employed in this component.

Component 4: Promoting the religious architectural heritage of Ibadan using digital technology

In this component to harvest varying ideas and perspectives, a workshop on the religious architectural heritage of Ibadan was organized by IFRA-Nigeria, after which digitalization of selected religious buildings will be done by ICONEM, with the training of Nigerian researchers in techniques for digitising religious architectural heritage at the centre of the whole process. The end product is the creation of an interactive digital map of notable places of worship in Ibadan. Cell Generation is the organization that manages this component.

Component 5: Protecting the urban archaeological heritage of Ile-Ife through the use of digital technology.

With component 5 of this project, we propose to create a digital map of the digitized and mapped urban archaeological heritage of Ile-Ife (Potsherd Pavement, cultural sites and archaeological sites) that is accessible via a dedicated link. Training in the preservation of archaeological heritage and raising public awareness of the need to protect urban archaeological heritage with a specific focus on working with stakeholders in the field of cultural heritage, custodians of religious spaces, secondary and tertiary institutions and engaging in partnerships with National Museum Ile-Ife, Natural History Museum Obafemi Awolowo University, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology University of Ibadan. EPOT Integrated Concept, a consortium of researchers in Social Science and Humanities based in Nigeria, was engaged to manage this component.

2. Purpose of the consultancy

This consultancy exercise is part of the monitoring, evaluation and learning process to inform further support and project design or future development. The purpose of this consultancy is to conduct a final project evaluation.

The ultimate beneficiaries of this evaluation are the implementing institutions and the donors namely, Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique (French Institute for Research in Africa), IFRA-Nigeria, and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

3. The objectives, scope, criteria and questions of the evaluation

The final evaluation shall assess areas including:

– Has the Project been implemented as planned?

– What obstacles were faced and how were they addressed during implementation?

– What results were achieved by the Project?

– What lessons can be learned from how IFRA-Nigeria managed the implementation of the Project?  

The evaluation questions will be based on five criteria: relevance, impact, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability. An indicative, but not exhaustive list, of the questions is provided below. The evaluation questions can be further refined by the consultant or consortium to properly address the uniqueness of each of the five different components and the institutions engaged in the execution of the FSPI project.

• Relevance

– To what extent do the intervention objectives address identified needs of preserving Nigerian Heritage?

– How far did the design of the intervention project address the problems identified?

• Effectiveness

– What has been the progress made towards the achievement of the expected results?

– What are the reasons for the achievement or nonachievement?

• Efficiency

– How efficient were the project architecture, processes, and mechanisms in addressing the different areas of intervention?

– What possibly hampered its efficiency?

– To what extent the management of the relationships among stakeholders was effective in establishing a real partnership aiming at the success of the intervention project?

• Impact

– To what extent has the project helped young researchers and professionals in the related fields become more efficient?

– To what extent has the project helped consolidate gender equitable practices in research and empowerment in implementing the projects?

– Has the intervention caused a significant change in the use of digital technology for the preservation and presentation of Nigerian heritages?

– How did the intervention cause higher-level effects (such as changes in ease of access to the heritage digitally conserved under this project)?

– Did all the intended target groups, benefit equally from the intervention?

– Is the intervention transformative?

– Does it create enduring changes in norms including gender engagement, norms and systems, whether intended or not?

– Is the intervention leading to other changes, including “scalable” or “replicable” results?

– How will the intervention contribute to changing the conservation, preservation and presentation of historical and cultural heritage?

• Sustainability and ownership

– To what extent are the outcomes of the project likely to continue producing effects after the end of its funding?  

– What are the factors that hampered the impact and sustainability of the project?

• Coherence and complementarity

– To what extent are the activities implemented within the project coherent with the methods, goals and objectives submitted in the project proposal?

– To what extent were coordination mechanisms established and how have they contributed to the coherence and efficiency of the project implementation?

• Added Value

– How did the implementation of the Project ensure complementarities and generate synergies with other programs and Institutions involved?

– What are the strengths and weaknesses of having Nigerian actors and Nigerian Institutions implement the project?

NOTE: IFRA-Nigeria is open to further elaborate evaluation questions and customized methods to conduct this evaluation assignment, because of the varying nature of each of the components and the diverse backgrounds and fields of each of the component managers. We believe taking into account these unique features will make the end product of the evaluation exercise a true reflection of the project.

4. Evaluation methodology

Apart from comparing actual results to initially planned ones, to the possible extent of looking at relevant indicators set out at the design stage, the assessment of impact has to provide concrete quantitative and qualitative indications of the impact brought about by component managers' activities, to the extent possible. This means also that when comparing the impact, it should be taken into account the average costs and efforts incurred to achieve that level of impact. The evaluation methodology will include document reviews, surveys and interviews with the component managers' staff as well as participants, cooperation partners and the donor or donor representative. The evaluation will rely on data generated from this physical or virtual contact or engagement between the evaluation team or representative and the actors engaged in the implementation of the project.

5. Expected deliverables

The deliverables that the evaluator(s) will be accountable for producing are:

1: An inception report, including a fine-tuned evaluation and monitoring plan developed based on the proposal submitted by the evaluator, containing the methodology, phases, etc., and including the schedule with key dates and related details, the proposed data collection methods and data sources to be used for answering each evaluation question.

2: A draft final evaluation report, which should be delivered with adequate time to allow discussion of the findings and formulation of comments.

3: The final evaluation report should contain a satisfactory response to the evaluation questions in the Terms of Reference. The recommendations should be supported by the findings and conclusions and their implementation should be feasible.

The final evaluation report should be logically structured, containing evidence-based findings, conclusions, recommendations and – if applicable – lessons learnt, and should be free of information that is not relevant to the overall analysis. The report should be presented in a way that makes the information accessible and comprehensible.

A tentative outline of the evaluation report could include the following: Executive Summary, Introduction Purpose of the evaluation, Description of the objectives of the evaluation, Evaluation methodology, and Difficulties encountered during the evaluation.

Findings related to evaluation questions

Additional relevant findings.

Conclusions

Recommendations

Lessons learnt

Annexes (including a list of interviews, questionnaires and documents reviewed, etc.)

The timeframe for the deliverables on this evaluation engagement is four months. A draft of the monthly timeframe and deliverables will be required as part of the application materials (see below), which will later be fine-tuned during the first meeting between the selected evaluation consultant and the project team.

All the reports and expected outputs shall be produced in English and French, using the appropriate style and structuring the text in a clear and concise way. All draft reports will be submitted to the project management in electronic form by e-mail and in a format compatible with MS Office software. IFRA-Nigeria reserves the right to request the necessary additional revisions of the reports in order to reach an appropriate outcome and quality control requirements. The final report should be usable for publication.

6. Fee and Working Conditions

The evaluation consultant and his/her team will work directly with the FSPI project manager in visiting different project component managers' institutions and report directly to the director of IFRA-Nigeria.

The maximum budget for this consultancy, covering all the deliverables to be achieved by the consultant as listed above, should be between 4,000 to 8,000 Euros (that would be paid in its Naira official equivalent). The allocated budget includes consultancy fees, travel and subsistence required for field interviews, interpretation and translation costs, if any.

This application is open untill midnight of 31^th of May 2024.

7. To apply

Application to be submitted to Joseph Ayodokun  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and copy Dr Barbara Morovich at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and Dr Delphine Manetta at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The application materials should include the following but not be limited to, as many materials that can prove the proficiency and capacity of the consultant or consortium applying for the job.

• An application statement of interest to participate in the evaluation of the FSPI project
• A description of the team of the consultant applying for the job (academic and proficiency certification, resume, verifiable job done and bios).
• A draft of evaluation methods that will be used to address a project of applied research and the specificities of each of the five components of the project.
• Draft of detailed monthly timeframe for the execution of the project evaluation and deliverables.
• Description of a working budget based on the proposed fund for the engagement.