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National Legal Aid Clinic for Women in Zambia - Evaluation Report published

The evaluation assessed the “National Legal Aid Clinic for Women’s (NLACW) Access to Justice Programme in Zambia”. The evaluation’s objective was to assess the performance of the NALCW Strategic Plan 2019-2023, and to provide input for the formulation of the next strategic plan. Through the access to justice programme, NLACW is committed to empowering women by facilitating their access to legal rights by way of legal representation, counselling and legal and human rights education as a distinct but integral part of the women’s movement. The evaluation team found both the organization and its specific services and activities to be highly relevant in the Zambian context, with impressive results as almost all indicators were above the targets one year before the end of the programme. Financial and organisational sustainability must be built as it currently depends heavily on a few key donors. The team recommended to Sida to keep funding the next NLACW strategic plan and engage actively with other like-minded donors. To NLACW, the team provided several recommendations on strategic approach, operational level and organisational strengthening.

Authors: Bente Topsøe-Jensen and Bwalya Penza.

Find the report here.

International Planned Parenthood Foundation - midterm review

Bente Consulting ApS undertakes the midterm review of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs' organization strategy for the support to IPPF in the period of 2021 to 2025. The midterm review comprises document review, interviews with IPPF headquarters in London, and field data collection in Uganda with the IPPF partner Reproductive Health Uganda. Bente Consulting ApS is the contractholder and provides QA, while the review is undertaken by an external consultant. The midterm review runs from September to December 2023.

National Legal Aid Clinic for Women in Zambia - Evaluation

The National Legal Aid Clinic for Women in Zambia supports vulnerable women and children in terms of legal representation and legal literacy. The NLACW works nationwide from three offices in Lusaka, Ndola and Livingstone and engages actively in advocacy at national level in order to ensure access to justice and gender equality in legislation and policies. NLACW trains paralegal officers and runs a network of paralegal desks in collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders. The evaluation focussed on the support to the Strategic Plan 2019-2023 provided by the Embassy of Sweden. It involved extensive field level interviews with clients, paralegal officers, churches, schools, Police, ministries and local government institutions. The evaluation started in August 2023, and the evaluation report will be presented in Lusaka at a seminar on 16 November 2023 and the evaluation report will be finalized by the end of November 2023.  The evaluation contract is held by FCG Sweden and Bente Consulting ApS provided the team leader.

Review of Global Focus (Danish NGO platform)

Bente Consulting ApS will undertake the review of the Danish NGO Platform 'Globalt Fokus', which counts 80+member organizations. The review is commissioned by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs as one of the main funders of the platform. The objective of the review is to ass GF's performance in delivering results, adherence to MFA guidelines for financial management, and the extent to which GF maintains and sustains relevance to its members. The review will focus on four critical areas: strategic, programmatic, organizational and financial management levels. The review will be undertaken by a team of three consultants and take place in May-July 2023.

Development of a women SME servicing framework - with FSD Mozambique

Bente Consulting ApS is contracted by Financial Sector Deepening Mozambique to provide input as international gender specialist to the World Bank finaced project on Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi).The project will run for 50 weeks from April 2023 and comprises four phases. Bente Consulting has an input of 24 wds, mainly focused on data collection methodology and technical assistance to selected financial institutions on development and roll-out of gender sensitive financial products.

The objective of the initiative is to address financial and non-financial constraints faced by women-owned/led SMEs in IDA and IBRD eligible countries and territories. The World Bank (WB) We-Fi Program covers activities implemented by the WB in support of the We-Fi public sector window activities. The Mozambique We-Fi project aims to i) improve WSME access to digital tools for improved access to financial services, ii) integrate gender in large firms´ procurement processes, iii) increase WMSEs´
digital skills to expand their ability to access to markets.Under the access to finance component, the project will support two financial institutions in
developing and strengthening their digital financial service offering targeting WSMEs,including through streamlined gender-oriented offering and improved outreach and dissemination. The activity seeks to directly benefit at least 450 WSMEs associated to the financial institutions and complement the current program’s focus on orienting gendered financial products towards digital channels for maximizing outreach to WSMEs. Results will increase WSMEs access to financial services and adoption of digital financial services. Findings also seek to inform other relevant project operations focused on WSMEs and SME access to finance, in a way that the resulting approaches could be scaled-up to reach out to a wider user base.

Bente Consulting ApS - company profile 2023

Bente Consulting ApS is a minor woman-led Danish consultancy company (VAT registration no. 33352956) operating since November 2010 in the area of civil society, human rights and development planning. The company offers services in the full project/program management cycle from baseline and feasibility studies, strategy development, project/program design and formulation, appraisals, reviews and evaluations, as well as monitoring, thematic evaluation studies and learning assignments; organizational capacity assessments; development of toolkits; and process facilitation.

Working in a participatory and inclusive way is a company trademark, putting the client and the research object in focus by active engagement and open communication. Although small, the company operates with an extensive network of professional contacts in Europe, Africa and Asia, including formal arrangements with e.g. FCG Sweden, NIRAS International, COWI A/S, ITAD, and Altair Asesores Spain. The network also counts collaboration with a wide range of smaller and medium-sized agencies and individual consultants in Scandinavia and African countries, e.g. Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, as well as India, Myanmar and Egypt. In addition to the main focus on East and Southern Africa, the company has undertaken several assignments in Asia, West Africa, the MENA region, East Europe, the Balkans and Latin America. Working languages are English, Portuguese, French and Scandinavian languages.   

The company’s main areas of experience are related to human rights in the broader sense with specific focus on civil society, democracy and governance; civil, political and labour rights; women and gender rights; youth engagement; sexual and reproductive health rights; disability rights; and land tenure rights; as well as market system development and financial inclusion. In addition, the company has substantial experience in rural development and sector planning in health, education and environment, as well as assessment of funding mechanisms.

The company’s client portfolio counts multiple donor agencies, e.g. Danida, Sida, Norad, FCDO (former DFID), SDC, ADA, UN agencies and the World Bank, as well as a number of national and international NGOs, e.g. ActionAid, WeEffect, Financial Sector Deepening Africa/Zambia/Mozambique, and Scandinavian trade union organizations.

Democratic Values, Human Rights and Civic Space in Uganda - Feasibility Assessment and Program Design

Bente Consulting ApS is doing the Feasibility Assessment and Program Design of a new Danish program in Uganda. The focus is on Strengthening Democratic Values and Protection of Human Rights and Civic Space. The assignment is commissioned by the Embassy of Denmark in Uganda and was won through a restricted tender procedure.

The Feasibility Assessment will include comprehensive documents review to harvest past expereince and lessons learned to be held against a context analysis, a gap analysis and a mapping of donor initaitives. The Program Design process will involve i.a. development of a program Theory of Change, identification of detailled areas of intervention, development of partnership implementation arrangements and funding modalities, risk assessment and management, as well as MEAL framework.

The work is carried out by an international team of three consultants and a quality assurance expert. Two consultants are based in Uganda, the team leader from Bente Consulting is from Denmark, and the quality assurance expert from Sweden. The assignment will run from end of December 2022 to July 2023 with the majority of the work in the period of January-February 2023. 

Review of International Disability Alliance (IDA).

Review of International Disability Alliance (IDA). The review of IDA will assess the partnership model and downstream grant delivery chain from donor agencies (Sida, FCDO and Norad) to IDA and member organisations. IDA is an umbrella organisation for 14 global and regional network organisations of people with disability. The review will comprise in-depth analysis with IDA head office in Geneva and New York, e-questionnaires with all member organisations, on-site visit to 1-2 partner organisations  The review will run from November 2022 to April 2023. Read more about IDA here.

Global Partnership for Education (GPE) - review

Bente Consulting ApS undertook the mid-term review of the Danish organization strategy for contribution to the World Bank hosted Global Partnership for Education (GPE). GPE is a multilateral partnership and fund that aims at strengthening education systems in developing countries in order to increase the number of children who are in school and learning. GPE brings together developing countries, donors, international organizations, civil society, teacher organizations, the private sector and foundations with the overarching aim of achieving SDG 4: quality education for all through assisting governments to strengthen education systems through funding and developing sector plans. The review took place from August to October 2022 and included online interviews with GPE head office in Washington, online case study of GPE in Somalia and a one week field visit to GPE suppoted activities with Ministry of Education in Kenya. A comprehensive review report was submitted with a draft outline for a new organization strategy for Danish support to GPE 2023-2025.

  

Bente Consulting ApS 
Egholmvej 32A, Agersoe
DK - 4244 Agersø
Denmark

+45 2257 2207 (Denmark)
+258 82 7679 357 (Mozambique)

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Skype: bentetopsoejensen

CVR-number: 3335 2956

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