Society for Community Development in Cambodia (SOFDEC)
Evaluation Term of Reference
Sustainable Rural Livelihood Improvement Project
I. Background of project
The Society for Community Development in Cambodia (SOFDEC) is a Cambodian non-governmental organization founded in 2006. In 2011, SOFDEC was funded a 3 years project proposal (2011-2013) by HEKS, the Swiss Interchurch Aid. The project title is Sustainable Rural Livelihood Improvement, which aims at improving food security and incomes and contributing to poverty reduction through social and economic development of Cambodians. This project comprises of 6 objectives as the following:
- Objective 1: Village empowerment through organizing and strengthening community committees and developing village development plan
- Objective 2: Improving rice and vegetables productions of farmers
- Objective 3: Enhancing livestock productions of farmers
- Objective 4: Integrated rice-based farming systems
- Objective 5: Access to good quality water for human consumption, animal use and crop production
- Objective 6: Increase income generation through access to market for agricultural and handicraft products
In brief, SOFDEC implemented interventions on rice, vegetable, poultry, cattle and micro credits: comprised of cash credit, cow bank (revolving funds) and Rice Seed Bank. On agricultural interventions, the project provides trainings and organizes knowledge sharing among farmers. Other focuses are improved seeds (for rice), diversification of the production in the farms, vaccination for cattle and provided water wells. In order to improve or initiate access to markets, the project helps to organize the farmers into producers groups along products and/or project components. The advantage of producer groups is bigger volume of products which increases their chance on the local markets. SOFDEC supports the villages by executing market studies with opportunities for the villagers’ production.
SOFDEC works in collaboration with relevant government departments, local authorities and farmer organizations.
The proposed project will come to an end by December 2013. Therefore, SOFDEC plans to have project evaluation by the external individual consultant/firm.
II. Purposes and Scope of Evaluation
This project evaluation has the attempt to perceive the project achievement, key lesson learned and outcomes of the projects (as shown in table 1). The specific purpose of project evaluation is presented below.
- To assess the achievement of objectives and outcomes of the projects implemented from 2011 to 2013.
- To document the most successful interventions of the projects
- To provide specific recommendations for further improvement of SOFDEC projects
The evaluation is taking into account on the effectiveness, relevance and sustainability of the implemented projects.
- Effectiveness: To consider the effectiveness of SOFDEC intervention in the communities
There are some questions which shall be considered to ask.
- Have the planned output led to the achievement of the outcomes?
- Have unexpected output occurred?
- Have some design assumptions not held and, if that the case how has this affected project achievement?
- How effective was the risk management?
- Relevance: To assess how well the project was designed and how the projects’ interventions respond the local situation
- What value has the project added to its context?
- How appropriate was the project to the situation in the community?
- How important and worthwhile was the project to the situation?
- Are there changes in the environment, social or economic situations of the project?
- Is there evidence of better strategies or methods of addressing the identified problem/needs of the community?
- How can these be incorporated into a revised design or redesign?
- Sustainability: To assess the community potential for sustainability.
- What is the ability of target communities to maintain the higher level of livelihood that has been attained through project intervention?
The results of the evaluation are the basis for designing the proposal for new project phase 2014-2016.
The current working target areas are in 27 villages in 11 communes of 6 districts in Kampong Chhnang and Kampong Speu provinces. However, the evaluation will focus on 12 villages; 8 villages in Kampong Chhnang and 4 villages in Kampong Speu. Further discuss is welcomed for better results of evaluation.
The evaluation will employ participatory methods: Group discussion and semi-structured interview. Staff of SOFDEC will accompany consultant during group discussion and interview. The key respondents of evaluation include:
- The benefited villagers including community committee members, who implemented the interventions
- Other related institutions, especially the provincial department of agriculture.
A desk review shall also be undertaken during which all relevant project documents; including proposal (annual work plan), annual reports and progress reports are to be reviewed. This is to get an overview of the project as a whole, and particularly to identify the existing information concerning project implementation.
The evaluation will take place from 7 to 31 May 2013 (duration could be changed slightly, if requested). We offer 20 days, of which 10 days will be spent in field data collection, 10 days for reviewing secondary data, data analysis and report writing. Since SOFDEC staff will accompany the evaluator during data collection so that it should be done during working days.
