HelpAge International TOR for Consultancy for SAG Programme

HelpAge International (HelpAge) has a vision of a world in which all older people fulfil their potential to lead dignified, active, healthy and secure lives.

HelpAge International’s mission is to work with its partners to ensure that people everywhere understand how much older people contribute to society and that they must enjoy their right to healthcare, social services and economic and physical security.

Globally HelpAge International’s work is organised in the following thematic areas:

• Secured Income
• HIV/AIDS and Health
• Emergencies and Recovery
• Rights and Discrimination
• The Global Movement

HelpAge International and its partner HelpAge Kenya are looking for an external resource person to submit an expression of interest and interpretation of the Terms of Reference for undertaking a review of the 3-year project implemented between April 2009 to March 2012 entitled: Sponsor a Grandparent Programme.

Overview of the Programme

The Adopt a Granny (AAG) and Sponsor a Grandparent (SaG) Programmes in Kenya have supported the welfare of older men and women for over 20 years.

The Sponsor a Grandparent programme which was an improved approach to the former AAG programme was initiated in 2006 and operates as a three-year programme through partnership with local organisations responsible for delivering projects to improve the lives of vulnerable older people in line with HelpAge’s global strategy.

HelpAge Kenya has acted as the local Managing Partner for HelpAge since 2006, often as a conduit for channeling funds and coodinating reports and their submission to the HelpAge International in the UK.

Funding from the scheme is based on the submission of proposals from invited local partners whose projects are vetted by HelpAge and HelpAge Kenya against the SaG Proposal guidelines.

The current SaG cycle of projects for 2009-2012 is supporting over 3,000 older people (including over 600 carers of orphans and vulnerable children) through 29 projects run by local partners.

The activities for older people across the 29 projects are diverse, but can be categorised into four areas: food and nutrition support, basic healthcare, Non-food items, regular cash transfers and income generation activity support.

Our partners in the SaG programme are often faith or community-based organisations, committed to provide direct support to the needs of older people but with relatively limited experience or knowledge on approaches that build ownership and sustainability in the longer term.

Consequently projects have been more focused on activity based intervention with limited emphasis on impact or outcome to measure longer term changes.

As such, we have come to realise assessing the effectiveness or impact of such a programme heavily oriented towards providing welfare is problematic without an external review.

Although the programme which has evolved from its original AAG form to SAG in 2006 has many positive features and has provided services to many thousands of older people, it has been recognised that with the level of resources available there are a number of inherent weaknesses that need to be examined.

First, the large number of projects/partners scattered in a vast geographic area has limited the opportunities to share scalable good and/or cost effective practices.

Second, this has also limited the ability of the programme to build the capacity of partners to improve their programme design, implementation and monitoring of projects by learning and adopting innovative practices.

Beyond a basic exercise to confirm implementation of the proposed activities by the 29 partners, the review exercise will be an opportunity to capture activities that are proven to be sustainable, innovative and effective (based on agreed parameters such as level of older people’s empowerment, promotion of participation by older people, extent to which the programme increased access to other services by influencing other actors to change their policies and practices.

Purpose of the Review

The programme review has several purposes:

• A desk-based verification exercise on the coverage of activities for all 29 projects based on submitted reports.
• A sampled project audit of partners to perform a field-based, activity, beneficiary and implementation approaches verification on a selection of approximately 50% of projects under the programme.
• Documenting effective practices based on field visits to a selection of approximately 50% of projects with a specific focus on access to health, HIV and care services; livelihoods; supporting older carers; empowerment, participation and sustainability, including an assessment of the effectiveness, relevance and value for money of the practices.
• Improve knowledge of our partners’ areas of specific expertise, as a reference for future potential engagements or partnerships with HelpAge Kenya or HelpAge.
• Identify any points of urgent action related to the protection of older people or children, compliance on implementation and management of the projects.
• Review of organisational structures in order to identify gaps and make recommendations for improving the organisation’s engagement in community based programmes addressing the needs of older people.
• Confirm implementation of the reported activities, based on documented or verbal evidence from the partners, older people and other stakeholders.
• Assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the activities undertaken in terms of the perceived value to the older people supported and by the partners.
• Document views of other players/stakeholders and local authorities on how they perceived the programme and the partner’s work and its contribution to reducing poverty and fitness to the local development priorities and strategies .
• Establish how gender issues are being addressed by the programme and the effects of the activities on older men and women;
• To record the practice used by the projects to:

1. support improved access to health, HIV and care services by older people
2. improve the capacities of older carers to support themselves and their grandchildren (orphans and vulnerable children)
3. empower older people to participate in project activities, leadership role and/or wider lobbying activities with local or national authorities. This should include an assessment of how accountable and transparent the partner has been to older people, families, community members and stakeholders with regard to beneficiary selection, activity programmes, budgets and funding
4. build capacities to sustain any of the activities without further external funding

• Collating a partner skills register: collection of information on the wider activities and expertise of partners, with examples.

Duration and timetable

The proposed time period for the review is between 28th November 2011 to 28th February 2012

Expected documentation

All interested consultants are requested to write an expression of interest by:

1. Interpreting the TOR
2. Explaining in detail the methodology to be used in carrying out the assignment
3. Providing a detailed professional budget indicating daily professional rates;
4. Explaining their competences to meet the requirements of the assignment
5. Providing the duration of the assignment and when ready to undertake the assignment.
6. Providing evidence of similar work undertaken in the recent past (not more than 3 years), including contact details of references

Interested candidates should apply to: (please give your name and email address) and put a deadline, giving like five days for potential candidates to prepare their submission.

Deadline for application: 11th November, 2011

Please send your application by email to: helpage@helpage.co.ke

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