Call for Proposals: External Endline-Evaluation with a forward-looking approach of the Media Reform Programme in Ethiopia 2020-2024

Fojo Media Institute (Fojo) at Linnaeus University (Sweden) and International Media Support (IMS, in Denmark) are jointly implementing a media development programme in Ethiopia between January 2020 and February 2024. The name of the programme is “Media Reform in a Time of Change. Promoting Journalism and Democracy”. The programme is jointly funded by the Swedish and Danish Embassy in Ethiopia.

The programme has three levels of objectives:

OVERALL OBJECTIVE: Men and women in Ethiopia have access to independent and balanced public interest journalism, enabling democratic and peaceful citizen engagement and accountable governance.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES: Key actors contribute to an overall media reform in Ethiopia to ensure an open, diverse and democratic media landscape from local to national level, and to the production and dissemination of public interest journalism characterized by professionalism, gender equality and inclusive community engagement.

OUTCOME AREAS: The third level of objectives or expected results are at outcome level, the following three are divided into large thematic or subject issues:

• OUTCOME 1: MEDIA REFORM – Institution Building, Cooperation & SelfRegulation: Key actors are strengthened to contribute to developing and implementing a legislative and institutional framework that supports a free and self-regulated media, ensures public access to information and promotes
  an informed and engaged citizenry.
• OUTCOME 2: JOURNALISTIC PROFESSIONALISM: Journalism, Management and Viability Sustainable quality journalism emerge, and targeted media are strengthened to be become financially sustainable by public interest journalism and more viable business models.
• OUTCOME 3: Gender, age, social and & ethnic diversity Media organizations and media coverage from national to community level reflects the full composition of society – enhancing media literacy, dialogue, and community building focusing on diversity as a strength.

The results framework contains expected results in terms of bridging outcomes with attached outputs. The framework also has quantitative and qualitative indicators for monitoring of progress. The endline evaluation will cover the period January 2020 – February 2024.

Requirement of qualifications for the endline evaluation

Must qualifications:

1. The consultant applying for the endline evaluation must have a proven track record of evaluations of media development cooperation projects and programmes
2. The consultant must have a thorough understanding of the media field and media development sector and how it related to key civil and political rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of opinion and self-regulation of the media.
3. The consultant shall have experience of assessing empowerment of people and the multidimensional poverty approach.
4. The consultant must have an advanced degree, at least Master level, in relevant fields such as journalism, development studies, human rights, political science, law, project management and others.
5. Language requirements: All team members should be fully proficient in English. Within the evaluation team it is also necessary to have at least one member with full proficiency in the local language Amharic.

Qualifications assessed as merits:

1. Experience of media development assessments/reviews is considered a merit
2. Experience from public development cooperation agencies related to democracy, media and human rights in Ethiopia is considered a merit.
3. This procurement is open to individual consultants and consultant companies that can demonstrate technical and operational capacity to carry out such assessments, wherever they are based.

Minimum content in the tender/offer

It is suggested that the tender contains the following sections:

1. Introduction
2. Understanding of the endline evaluation TOR
3. Methodological approaches
4. Methods on data collection and data analysis
5. Presentation of evaluation team, fulfilment of required competences, division of roles and responsibilities and CV for each member (maximum 5 pages per CV)
6. Suggested tentative timeline and work plan
7. Two references to similar assignments

Learn more here about the call and apply.