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Terms of reference for

Baseline and M&E Consultant

Strengthening Women Skills and Employment in Artisanal Wood

Production in Upper Egypt

Implementing organization: Egypt Foundation for Integrated Development-El Nidaa

Assignment duration: 20 working days in 6 weeks.

Deadline for Submission: August 21st 2017

Funding agency: Drosos Foundation

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1. Introduction

Drosos Foundation is committed to enabling disadvantaged people to live a life of dignity. To-
gether with partner organisations, it develops and supports projects that have a direct bearing
on the effective and sustainable improvement of living conditions, and seeks, wherever it is
involved, a long-term impact. Drosos Foundation focuses on the development of life skills of
disadvantaged children, young people and young adults through promoting creativity and eco-
nomic independence. It is convinced that life and technical skills are key elements in personal
development as they empower individuals to take control of their lives and make a positive
contribution within their community.

Drosos Foundation was established in 2003 as a private not for profit organization dedicated
to supporting community development, based in Zurich, Switzerland. It is ideologically, politi-
cally and religiously independent. The Foundation is active in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Moroc-
co, Palestine and Tunisia as well as in Switzerland and in the eastern parts of Germany.

It is within this context that Drosos Foundation is supporting the current project, “Strengthen-
ing Women Skills and Employment in Artisanal Wood Production in Upper Egypt” imple-
mented through the partner Egypt Foundation for Integrated Development-El Nidaa

2. Summary of project

El Nidaa has started working in Upper Egypt since 2012 focusing on job creation and building
skills for employability. Using the ‘One Village One Product’ (OVOP) model in 28 villages in
Qena, Sohag and Luxor governorates, interventions were designed to produce one competitive
manufactured product and expands to form a viable economic cluster to complete the value
chain with marketing and sales. Wood and Furniture cluster was among those developed,
whereby small workshops working on wood turning (arabesque), wood sculpting (oyma),
mother of pearl inlay, and camel bone sculpting and inlay were set up, each providing 20-30
women with training and production facilities to earn viable income.

Building on the above, Drosos and El Nidaa are collaborating on a 4- year project to upgrade
the wood and furniture cluster in Qena by setting up a wood production facility, that is finan-
cially sustainable offering advanced equipment, business support, child and health care ser-
vices to women. More specifically the project will:

a) Establish a social enterprise in the woodwork sector that ensures sustainable jobs for
100 beneficiaries
- Establish and operate a modern handmade furniture production unit addressing vari-
ous elements of the value chain, starting from the raw materials to the production of
final goods.
- Build the skills of and employ 100 young women selected from El Nidaa’s wood train-
ing workshops.
- Introduce new designs of high quality products related to Egyptian handmade car-
pentry, woodturning, wood sculpting, hand saw, mother of pearl inlay and camel bone
sculpting.

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 - Develop and implement a large scale marketing strategy including sales to businesses
(from business to business, B2B) and sales to individual customers.
b) Create an enabling environment for women economic participation and children well-
being.
- Establish nursery and pre-school classes for 200 children adopting the preschool cur-
riculum of UNICEF that addresses life skills for children under six.
- Conduct regular health check-ups for children and enhance the health awareness of
working mothers.
- Raise the community awareness regarding the value of women’s economic participa-
tion and barriers hindering women work.
c) Create awareness of the project model for replication and policy influence on the em-
ployability of women in Upper Egypt.
- Document, disseminate and advocate the projects outcomes and lessons learned
among the respective policy makers and the development actors.
- Develop and publish policy briefs and case studies to showcase the opportunities and
challengers with regards women employability in Upper Egypt.

The project started in July 2017.

3. Purpose and objectives of the assignment

El Nidaa has been working in the targeted area for 5 years piloting small workshop training
and employing women. A rigorous monitoring and evaluation system needs to be set up to
enable the partner to assess the impact of this OVOP model within the local context, and distill
lessons learned in the approach towards implementation for replication. This will also enable
the partner and Drosos to carry out Contribution Analysis towards the mid-term and final
phase of the project, to be able to identify the extent to which this project and approach of im-
plementation has contributed to the observed results in the targeted community, and which
factors where essential for such effect.

In that context, Drosos Foundation will contract a consultant(s) to support the project partner
in developing the project baseline information, gather key data to inform implementation,
develop M&E tools for the project and build knowledge and skills of project staff on monitor-
ing, reporting and documentation. The consultant will work closely with El Nidaa Project
Manager and team, under the overall guidance of Drosos Programme Manager
The specific objectives of the assignment are:

3.1 Support the design and implementation of the project baseline:

- Lead the design of the project baseline assessment
- Propose cluster -level baseline data and tools of collecting them
- Guide and supervise the project team during fieldwork and data collection.
- Support the project team in the analysis of collected data and development of simple
and standard reports.
- Finalize baseline report.

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3.2 Support the review of the necessary M&E tools:
- Review of the logical framework including the results and indicators. Introducing indi-
cators relevant to the OVOP model, local approach of implementation and sustainabil-
ity of the model
- Develop a detailed M&E framework with roles and responsibilities on data collection
for indicators in the log frame including tools to be able to track changes on the situa-
tion of beneficiaries
- Develop the project documentation plan
- Develop necessary monitoring and data collection tools that addresses the project logi-
cal framework
- Make necessary revisions and refinement of project indicators.
- Deliver training on the use of M&E tools to project staff.

4. Deliverables
- An inception report that includes a detailed methodology and time plan will be submit-
ted upon the final selection of the consultant
- Baseline report.
- Developed M&E tools
- Training of project staff on M&E tools.
- Training of project staff on reporting and documentation
- The consultant will update the Drosos Programme Manager on progress at least four
times during the assignment.

5. Timetable

The assignment is expected to commence towards the beginning of September 2017. The total
duration of the assignment is 20 working days over a period of 6 weeks.

6. Expected experience of the evaluator(s)

The consultant (s) should have:
- Strong experience in design, monitoring and evaluation.
- Experience in gender specific economic empowerment projects in rural areas would be
an asset.
- Strong writing and presentation skills in English and Arabic.

7. Consultants’ proposals
- Interested consultant should submit a proposal including the following:
- Capability statement and background information on similar tasks performed by your
organization/main consultant.
- CVs of the consultant (s).
- Level of effort (broken down per person to desk review, preparatory meetings, field re-
search, report writing, communication/ dissemination, training, etc.).
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 - Work plan per week with deliverables.
- Detailed budget.

8. Deadline

Deadline to submit proposals is Monday August 21st 2017. Technical and financial pro-
posals should be submitted via email to the following:
- Mona Ghander, Drosos Programme Manager : ghander@drosos.org
- Dr. Walid Brekaa, Managing Director El Nidaa : wbrekaa@enid.org.eg

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