Job: UNICEF Angola Consultant - Education For All (EFA) Evaluation - Place: Angola

The 2000 Dakar Framework for Action reaffirmed the right to education as a fundamental human right. The framework contains the overall goals and commitments of governments for achieving high quality basic education for all by 2015. It requested all countries to build on existing national sector strategies “to develop National plans of action by 2002”.

In 2001, Angola responded to these commitments by developing national Education For All (EFA) plan - “Plano de Acção Nacional de Educação Para Todos 2001-2015”. This plan complimented the on-going Ministry of Education’s (MoE) reform initiatives and has remained a critical document in helping to achieve both EFA targets and the Millennium Development Goals.

There has been no government lead evaluation of the EFA plan since its inception in 2002 and the time has now come to evaluate progress against the original targets and assess the effectiveness of the strategies which were put forward and to revise the plan as a result. There are only five years left until the 2015 target and a high quality evaluation has the potential to offer valuable information which can be used to correct strategies and modify implementation processes in order for the plan to have a better chance of succeeding. The revision of the EFA plan is a publicly stated commitment of the Angolan National Council for Children (CNAC) bi-annual plan for 2010-2011.

To ensure objectivity and impartiality, it is proposed than an external team be created, consisting of one international and two local consultants. The work is expected to take place in the latter half of 2010/first quarter of 2011.

The evaluation will be expected to:
• Assess the relevance of the EFA plan to the current development context and priorities of the country.
• Assess the performance (effectiveness and efficiency) of the EFA program in achieving the set objectives.
• Assess the impact of the EFA plan on education Reform and education sector as a whole.
• Assess the efficiency of implementation of activities i.e. cost per output analysis.
• Examine the institutional framework (departments, institutions at national, provincial and municipality levels, schools) and its effectiveness in terms of their roles and responsibilities, functionality and ability to deliver outputs of the plan.

To achieve these objectives the team will be expected to carry out the following tasks:
i. Develop an evaluation methodology and present it to the Ministry of Education (MED) and UNICEF;
ii. Organize and implement the evaluation in accordance with the approved methodology.
iii. Gather qualitative information aimed at obtaining good practices as well as quantitative data for the purposes of measuring progress against key EFA targets
iv. Visit 9 Provinces in Angola. Field visits should cover a representative sample of the country including rural and urban areas, and include areas such as ethnic minorities, disadvantaged provinces, etc
v. Visit 9 Provincial govermments and NGOs and/or CBOs involved in implementing the EFA plane Comissão Nacional Educação Para Todos (CNEPT), Grupo técnicos temáticos (GTT) and Comissões provinciais educação Para Todos (CNEPT)
vi. Prepare a final report containing the results, conclusions, recommendations and lessons learnt.

To support these tasks, MED and UNICEF will provide information, facilitate visits to the provinces, and guide the definition of the methodology to be used.

Expected Outputs - Final consultancy report containing the results, conclusions and recommendations for the revision of the EFA plan (maximum of 50 pages) / A presentation in Portuguese to the Ministry of Education, detailing the key findings and main recommendations

The assignment is expected to last for six months.

Proposal for consultancy detailing the method to be utilized, skills, references of the consultants and cost is to be sent to luandarecruitment@unicef.org by17July 2010.