About IGSSS:        

Indo-Global Social Service Society (IGSSS) is a non-profit organisation working with the mandate for a humane social order based on truth, justice, freedom, and equity. Established in 1960, IGSSS works for development, capacity building and enlightenment of the vulnerable communities across the country for their effective participation in development. IGSSS implements and supports quality development programmes in different States and Union Territories in India to empower individuals and communities. Through its programmes on Sustainable Livelihood, Disaster Risk Reduction, Gender Equality, Urban Poverty Reduction and Youth Development, IGSSS has reached out to more than One Lakh families every year. The Programmes at IGSSS are targeted towards the poor, marginalized and vulnerable sections of the society with special emphasis on women and children.

Background of the Assignment:        

Indo Global Social Service Society (IGSSS) invites online submission of Expression of Interest (EoI) from organisations, individuals working or having experience in urban poverty reduction in carrying out an end line evaluation for the project action.

Name of the project:

Enabling sustainable and inclusive cities (Satat Shehar)

Duration of the project:

June 1, 2020, to May 31, 2023 for a duration of 36 months

Proposed States and Cities:

Delhi (DL), Gorakhpur (UP), Patna (BR), Ranchi (JH), Jamshedpur (JH), Cuttack (OD), Bhubaneshwar (OD), Raipur (CG), Durg (CG), Nagpur (MH), Bhopal (MP), Indore (MP), Guwahati (AS)

Satat Shehar Project Overview:        

Satat Shehar is a multi-city urban poverty thematic led IGSSS flagship project on working with urban poor community settlements to initiate the sustainable development framework for the Indian cities. It is implemented across 13 cities in 9 states with the overall objective and goal of Enabling sustainable and inclusive cities by the empowered urban poor communities through people led sustainable actions at the local, city, state, and national levels.

Satat Shehar & its Salient Features        :        

1. IGSSS commenced its urban interventions with the city makers program in 2008. And in the last 12 years the programme has gone through various phases both in terms of its reach as well as its evolving understanding of the urban issues. The first set of interventions planned to work with community groups through partner led actions, and both Samaveshi shehar (inclusive cities) phase 1 & 2 focused on rights of communities. This intervention also planned that CBOs, alliances and networks will come together at different level of interventions and strive policy change with respect to the urban poor in cities. Satat shehar is a gradual evolution from our intervention experience in the urban.
2. Vision for Sustainable Cities as the overarching framework for interventions – The changed context of Indian cities is the key reason for the proposition of an overarching framework of sustainable cities that address the not only the issue of inclusivity but equity along with the issues of sustainability, resilience, urban governance, and participation in the city making process. Alongside as a key emerging issue, introductory awareness building and capacity development of staff, CSO partners, Staff and networks on the concept of satat shehar/ sustainable cities will be undertaken to initiate engagement for sustainable urban development positively impacting the urban poor settlements (slums), thereby improving the housing and working conditions of the urban poor.
3. The conversion of program from partnership led to direct intervention led: Due to changed legal landscape, the project intervention has been now conceived wholly to be direct implemented by IGSSS in across a select number of cities. The erstwhile partners in the form of CSOs, CBOs and networks will remain as joint actors for engagement and campaigns, and specific support will be extended to local CSOs who will be capacitated to address the issues of sustainable cities. Thereby imagining partnerships from the earlier formal project-based collaborations to a more organic issue based non-financial collaborations to allow for transfer of knowledge and domain knowledge of emerging challenges of urban through networking at levels and scales.  
4. Developing the cluster approach and focused number of cities: With the change in mode of implementation, it was decided to deepen the direct intervention areas as opposed to the widely spread partnerships. Also, an overlapping of rural and urban interventions help decide the clusters of interventions emerging. As opposed to regional divisions of interventions, now the efforts will be further decentralized into clustered (state or even sub-state) division, with both rural and urban programs overlapping. This therefore directly translates into a reduced number of cities from the earlier 28 cities to now 13 cities where satat shehar project is being implemented. Most of the cities and cluster are also chosen to ensure that neediest, underdeveloped clusters of the country are addressed through interventions and the cities that is expected to see a lot of urbanization in the coming decade.
5. Focus on the ground and people led interventions: with the changed context, and the need to be closer to the ground, it is planned that interventions will be designed and led by the communities and people themselves. There are youth leadership programs along with community development initiatives that are planned to ensure community led development in the local level and thereby requiring more of a facilitating role by IGSSS staff in the interventions. The interventions are imagined in three levels, one at the community level, secondly at the level of city and states where network actions are expected to result in changed policies. And at the national level in the form of networking and coalition building with IGSSS urban poverty thematic leading the actions.
6. Stressing on innovative approaches and income generation for COVID realities: To kick-start the interventions and to ensure the project aims for sustainable practices innovative models have been dovetailed into the project implementation of Satat Shehar. Like – community-based Resource Facilitation Centres, that will ensure more accessible locations for communities to get access, improve the informal settlements (slums) they are living in, and in future aim to resolve their residential and livelihoods concerns. These centres will be run by trained community volunteers. To propagate urban resilience and climate change practice models with be identified, documented and scaled with support, and shared for wider implementation across CSO networks. Also, COVID-19 pandemic has brought a livelihood crisis that will be only ameliorated with income generation and community institution models that this intervention aims to support and nurture for the long term.    

Specific Objectives of the project:

Goal:         Enabling sustainable and inclusive cities by the empowered urban poor communities through people led sustainable actions at the local, city, state and national levels.  

Objective 1 –         260 number local formal community collectives of urban poor in 13 cities are actively engaging with the relevant stakeholders on local issues of identity & entitlements, living & working conditions by developing climate resilient local action plans.

Objective 2 –         130 CSOs in in select cities and states are capacitated/ strengthened to engage on the issues of residential, livelihood rights and climate justice of urban poor for sustainable cities.

Objective 3 –         Urban poverty thematic hub in IGSSS leads/ supports a national level coalition with strong regional & international linkages for national level policy engagement and mainstreaming of pro-urban poor, climate justice within the sustainable city framework

Major Objective of the Assignment:

Mid-term assessment of the project Enabling sustainable and inclusive cities (Satat Shehar)

Specific Objectives:

1. Assessing the impact of project Satat Shehar on the urban poor communities in last 2 years of the project implementation.  
2. Overall impact of project and the efficacy of the project framework.

Expectations:

1. Provide IGSSS with an independent, evidence–based assessment of how the programme strategies adopted in Satat Shehar address the relevant issues and how they contributed to the goals in Satat Shehar project. Assessment to be based on DAC framework.
2. Provide recommendations by capturing the learning, best practices to replicate and improve the performance of the programmes.
3. Assess the systems, process, and programmatic approach of IGSSS and give recommendations for improvement and development of strategies.
4. Explore on the future scenarios of urban interventions for IGSSS, and how best to align IGSSS actions with communities keeping in mind the changing global scenario and increasing challenges vis-à-vis climate change and urbanization in Indian context.

Areas for Assessment Broadly organized as per DAC criteria:

Relevance:

• To what extent are the objectives of the programme are valid? And are also in alignment with the needs of the key constituencies being worked with?
• Are the activities and outputs of the programme consistent with the overall goal and the attainment of its objectives? Are the activities and outputs of the programme consistent with the intended impacts and effects?
• Are the project and its objectives relevant to the needs of target groups (generally based on the objectives and indicators)
• Was the intervention design and implementation based on an unbiased assessment of needs, capacities of the different groups and areas?
• Have the appropriate constituencies been chosen, keeping in mind the scope of the program? How are they complementary?
• Have appropriate partners been chosen, keeping in mind the scope of the program? Is the technical, thematic, financial and programmatic support, offered by IGSSS, in alignment with the program objectives? What do the staff feel about the same?
• The pertinence of objectives and methodologies of Satat Shehar vis-à-vis global changes to provide insights how to address these as IGSSS core-work (affected by global change).
• Were constraints and risks regularly identified and analysed? How did internal or external factors and constraints affect the project? To what extent the project has been able to adapt and/or mitigate the effects of such factors?

Effectiveness:

• To what extent have the project objectives been achieved / are likely to be achieved?
• What were the results that IGSSS and communities struggled to achieve?
• What are the unintended results that have been achieved?
• What were the major factors influencing the achievement or non-achievement of the objectives? Share external and internal factors as well. Keeping in mind the changes at the national and international/ global level vis-à-vis project actions.
• Assessment of effectiveness of the approaches and strategies adopted in the project
• Assess the effectiveness respective methodologies on all levels of intervention – the settlement level, and the city level/ cities, and development of India.

Efficiency:

• Were project activities cost-efficient? Were the resources (including human resources) optimally utilized given project outreach in terms of number of beneficiaries reached out to?
• Was the programme or project implemented in the most efficient way compared to alternatives?
• Were the knowledge management processes efficient during staff transition? Were the staff have a full clarity on the entire project?
• Assess whether the new structure that emerged after September 2020 – Thematic, State Units – is coping with the program needs. Assess whether there is adequate synergy and communication between all levels.
• Assess whether the vision building for the Urban Poverty Alleviation programme has been robust enough to be able to be clearly translated to multiple communities alike
• Assess the role of IGSSS in facilitating community led action and the ownership of communities into the local level project actions.
• Assess the efficacy of the Planning Implementation Monitoring Evaluation (P.I.M.E.) cycle adopted in the program
• Review roles, responsibilities, and skills of staff at different levels from the perspective of efficient administering of the project

Impact

• What has happened because of the programme or project (social, environmental, and economic effects)?
• The positive and negative changes produced by a development intervention, directly or indirectly, intended, or unintended.
• What has happened because of the programme or project?
• What real difference has the activity made to the beneficiaries? Did the intervention contribute to the resiliency of the communities?
• How many people have been affected?
• How the project is helpful to improve the quality of life of urban poor community in respect to climate emergency and even at the pre- during & post climate emergencies
• How effective is the youth led strategy in addressing climate & gender justice
• How policy makers are engaged with the project
• How the project focus on an urban transformation if at local to global level. A national platform has been formed in this. How to corelate

Sustainability:

• What is the key evidence that the benefits resulting from the programs are likely to be sustained on the ground?
• Has the project been informed with future perspectives for strategic planning and consequently financing and the role of IGSSS within urban poverty?
• Assess the extent of beneficiary involvement in project decision-making and their sense of ownership of the development process being supported and facilitated through the project
• Assess the strength of the CBOs constituted and their linkages with wider city and state networks; also, the quality of the leaders who have emerged from the interventions
• Has there been any additional value add to the existing project actions?
• Has a transition or exit strategy been planned from the early stages of the project?
• Is the present structure effective and sustainable and is it able to withstand program withdrawals – are there sufficient checks, balances and are the state and the national office in sync with each other?

Coherence

• What other projects by (international) donors/agencies exist in the sphere of the project and what relationships exist so far?
• Recommendations for further collaboration with any of the identified projects/institutions

Accountability

• Has information been provided to the beneficiaries about the organization, the principles it upholds, the behaviour it asks of its staff, the project it implements, and the assistance it seeks to provide?
• Has the inclusiveness of representation been ensured, involving the participation and commitment of beneficiaries in all phases of the project?
• Do staff sign a code of conduct or similarly binding document? If so, do they receive orientation on this and other relevant policies which allows them to understand it properly?
• Have communities and individuals been consulted on the design, implementation and monitoring of the complaints processes?
• Was there communication about how the mechanism was accessible and the scope of issues it could address?
• Is the complaints handling process documented, in operation and easy to access?
• Have complaints been handled in a timely, fair and appropriate manner that prioritizes the safety of the complainant and those affected at all stages?
• Are complaints received about staff? How are they handled?

Cross cutting issues:

• How are other thematic areas and programs in IGSSS contributing to the Satat Shehar project? Have there been cross learning and support mechanisms inbuilt?
• Satat Shehar is working with various thematic areas within one single project- Gender, Youth, Climate Change, DRR. It would be nice to also analyse the intra and inter thematic outcomes on the urban poor.
• Are leadership and strategic needs of women being addressed in the project?
• Are networks/alliances working on gender issues in the urban scape being reached out to?
• Has gender disaggregated information in MIS been collected and analysed adequately?

Suggested Methodology:

There are basically two layers or levels at which the project action is occurring:

• Thematic, State coordinators and city staff, Participating families – actors, beneficiaries and stakeholders
• CSOs and network partners

For the assessment, a cross sectional design is proposed wherein both quantitative and qualitative components is to be used to assess the outputs and outcomes.  Consultant of the study will finalise the design and tools with a core team from IGSSS

• Perusal of secondary information and related documents.
• Field visits to at least 4 cities. Ie. More than 25% of implementation cities. There will be a criterion devised for selection of the cities basis the region, size, continuity of interventions and so on.
• The consultant/ agency will be responsible for overall management of the assignment including facilitation of discussion with partner, beneficiaries, CBOs as per the need for discussion, ideas and suggestion during the analysis period and deeper analysis.
• Collecting data from the Households and direct participants of the existing project and various stakeholders through a standard questionnaire, using a suitable sampling method.
• Conducting Focus Group Discussions with different groups, institutions at the community level involved in the project implementation
• Conducting qualitative interviews with staff of IGSSS to understand their perspectives, challenges and vision of the project and ensure

• IGSSS – New Delhi level briefing and meeting with Project Team.
• Interaction with Managers and State Coordinators at the State Offices.
• Interaction with CSOs and networks that IGSSS has contributed to at state, national levels.
• Interaction with funding partners and their point persons.

• The consultant/ agency will use tools but not limit only to the following: (a) secondary literature review, (b) key informant interviews. Detailed methodology, including the design of data-collection tools and formulation of specific questions will be developed by the consultant in in consultation with the Core team of IGSSS
• Use of Participatory tools for evaluation will be encouraged adhering to objectives of the Evaluation Study
• As per detailed scope delineated above, the action needs to be captured at all the two levels through a proper mix of methodology.

Deliverables:

A comprehensive report of the evaluation (maximum 40 pages including annexures) submitted to IGSSS, in English, containing all detailed information, recommendations and an executive summary.

The following products are expected from the consultancy team:

• Short inception report proposing the evaluation approach, methodology, and costs.
• Kick-Off workshop presenting the evaluation approach, methodology, schedule and objectives to the key stakeholders and management team (IGSSS). Along with supporting agencies / funding partners of the project.
• Participatory debriefing workshop to present and discuss the preliminary findings and recommendations with the Project Team, representatives of the target group, IGSSS representatives.
• Preliminary evaluation report in English including findings and conclusions according to DAC evaluation criteria, recommendations and the following attachments: List of abbreviations, list of institutions visited, and persons interviewed, consultants schedule during the field phase, list of used documents, data and literature, brief professional profile consultant.
• Executive summary in English with key findings and recommendations.
• ONE-Pager summarizing the key findings and recommendations on max 1 A4 page (front & back)
• Debriefing meeting of the consultancy team with IGSSS, and project funding partners, to present and discuss the preliminary evaluation report.
• Power-Point Presentation of the final evaluation report

Logistics:

Logistics coordination support will be extended by the IGSSS Head Office for making the necessary travel arrangements for the field visits as well as coordination with partners and state offices. Accompaniment from the head office is not envisaged. State level travel and field work will be facilitated by the concerned State/ Project Coordinator.

Crucial Dates:

1. Publishing Date                                                                                                                20th Sep, 2022
2. EoI Document Download time                                                                        27th Sep, 2022
3.         EOI submission last date                                                                                        27th Sep, 2022
4.         Selection of Organisation/ Individual                                                        30th Sep, 2022
5.         Submission of Documents and Due Diligence                                30th Oct, 2022
6.         Final ToR signing                                                                                                        05th Oct, 2022
7.         Submission of Plan, Tools – Instruments and Roadmap        05th Oct, 2022
8.         Initiation of Assignment                                                                                        05th Oct, 2022
9.         Field Assignment completion                                                                        30th Oct, 2022
10.         Draft Report Submission                                                                                        30th Oct, 2022
11.         Presentation of Report                                                                                        30th Oct, 2022
12.         Incorporation of Feedback and Final Report Submission        05th Nov , 2022

Name of Authority:

Indo-Global Social Service Society (IGSSS) https://igsss.org

Eligibility of the Applicant:

1. All NGOs/ Institutions having experience in related areas are eligible to apply
2. Organizations/ Institutions It must be registered u/s 12 A of the Income Tax Act, 1961
3. Individuals with necessary experience can also apply
4. Experience and expertise required:

• Experience in the field of urban poverty reduction through community led development.
• Understanding of gender, caste, LGBTQIA+ and other social groups in India from the lens of urban poverty.  from the lens of urban poverty.
• Experience of working through a convergence approach with different government schemes and programs.
• Experience of innovative use of technology, information, and communication tool to facilitate sharing and dissemination
• Knowledge & Experience of aspects of global change (climate crisis, urbanisation, democratization, environmental crisis…)

5. The applicant should be Impartial and independent of the parties

Duration of the Assignment:

30 – 40 days

Last date of Submission of EoI :        

27th September 2022

Selection Process:

Stage 1:        EoI (Expression of Interest) Submission, Screening, Shortlisting

Stage 2:         Proposal Submission, Finalization and Signing of Agreement

Email id for queries and communication:

aravind@igsss.net, julius@igsss.net 

Opening and screening of EoI:

• EoI will be screened by a committee formed by IGSSS.
• Submission of EoI does not guarantee that the EoI will be accepted.
• Decision of the Screening Committee of IGSSS will be final.
• IGSSS is no way obliged to respond to the rejection of the EoI.
• IGSSS also reserves the right to accept or reject any EoI, and to annul the call for EoI process and reject all EoIs at any time prior to screening and selection procedure, thereby incurring any liability to the affected Organization or any obligation to inform the affected Organization or organizations of the grounds for the organization’s action.
• IGSSS will inform the shortlisted NGOs for the next step after the decision of the screening committee.
• Personal canvassing is strictly prohibited.

Due Diligence:

Physical/ Virtual Due Diligence will be carried out to verify the legality of documents of individuals/ Organizations or institutions

Signing of ToR:

After the verification of documents, IGSSS and the selected consultant/ organization or institution will enter into an agreement as per the existing norms, rules and regulation of IGSSS.

Contents of the EoI Strategic Response Form:        

1. Cover Letter
2. Strategic Responses
3. CVs and profiles of the evaluators
4. Documents, evaluation studies of similar kinds to help ascertain the capacities and skills

Process of filling the EoI Strategic Response Form:

• Download the EoI Strategic Responses Form Final EOI FORM – SATAT SHEHAR.docx
• Fill the required sections.
• Submit the form along with Interest letter by the due date through email with subject: EoI for Mid Term Evaluation of Enabling Sustainable and Inclusive Indian Cities (Satat Shehar) Project to hr@igsss.net. Last date of Submission is 27th Sept 2022