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2022 - new assignments in Zambia and Brazil

Second half of 2021 included a short assignment with SOS Børnebyerne in Kenya facilitating a regional program planning workshop in August; a Gender Audit of Financial Sector Deepening Zambia in September - November; and the assessment of applications from 18 Danish NGOs for Strategic Partnerships 2022 - 2025 with Danida from September to December.

The start of 2022 holds a number of assignments through FCG Sweden's framework contracts with Sida and Norad. On these contracts, I am part of FCG's core group of team leaders - and this will materialize in the following contracts in the start of 2022: 

  • Evaluation of the Sida-funded Strengthening Accountability Program II implemented by Diakonia in Zambia. We are a team of three consultants - the two team members are based in Zambia, and the team leader from Bente Consulting will be working remotely from Denmark. The assignment will run from January to April 2022.
  • Reviews of two Norad-funded CSOs in Brazil: IPAM and Imazon. We are a team of three consultants who will all be working remotely from Denmark, Finland and Mozambique. The assignment will run from February to May 2022. These reviews were originally scheduled to start in March 2020 , but have been on corona standby for two years.

Danida Strategic Partnership applications

In 2021, Danida renewed its strategic partnerships with Danish NGOs for the period 2022 - 2025. The selection of strategic partners was through an open call, which resulted in 18 applications. The assessment was carried out by a team of external consultants in close collaboration with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Danida). In addition to the assessment of applications, the assignment also included preparation of assessment tools, training of MFA staff involved in the process and drafting of assessment notes. The contract was held by HN Consultants, and Bente Consulting provided the team leader. The assignment took place from September to December 2021.

Gender Audit - Financial Sector Deepening Zambia

Bente Consulting - in collaboration with Bwalya Penza, independent gender consultant - is undertaking an organizational Gender Audit of Financial Sector Deepening Zambia.The work is carried out remotely and involves document review, interviews with all FSD Zambia teams, a staff survey, and interviews with external implementing partners and clients (government institutions, financial institutions and companies). The methodology is based on the EIGE Gender Audit tool, addressing the four areas of political will and leadership; technical capacity;accountability and systems; and organizational culture. In addition to the Gender Audit report, a Gender Mainstreaming Action Plan for the coming 2-3 years will be prepared. Read more about FSD Zambia here. The Gender Audit is carried out in the period of September to November 2021.

SOS Children's Villages - workshop facilitation

In August 2021, Bente Consulting facilitated a week's regional workshop in Kenya for the SOS Children's Villages partners from Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somaliland and Denmark. Based on their previous work with national youth workshops and national needs assessments / context analyses, we went through problem analysis, stakeholder mapping, results framework and an overall Theory of Change - and produced the building blocks for a program addressing the specific challenges of young people leaving various care arrangements. Like in Denmark, also African young people having been brought up outside their own family, the transition into adulthood after the age of 18 may be tough.

2021/1 - a productive period

Holidays count-down…. Finalizing one of the most productive 6-months period in my life as an independent consultant. In collaboration with a lot of great co-consultants, this has since January this year resulted in the following reports:

  • Gender Peer Review for Financial Sector Deepening Africa Network (30 pages main report + facilitation of 10 workshops)
  • Kosovo Agency for Gender Equality - evaluation of Swedish support (44 pages main report + technical proposal + inception report) - for FCG in collaboration with Ariana Qusaj-Mustafa
  • AIDS-fondet review for CISU (24 pages main report + Inception Note) - in collaboration with Camilla von Schroeder
  • UN Women Innovation Facility - review of Danish support ( 31 pages report) - in collaboration with Charlotte Kanstrup
  • UNFPA Innovation Fund - review of Danish support (32 pages report) - in collaboration with Charlotte Kanstrup
  • Evaluation of LO Norway’s collaboration with OTM-CS in Mozambique (36 pages main report + technical proposal + Inception Note) - in collaboration with Elias Ainadine
  • Evaluation of Foundation for Civil Society in Tanzania (50 pages main report + technical proposal + Inception Note) - for Niras in collaboration with Stephen Kirama, Adelaide Kisinda and Linda Helgesson Sekei.

In addition, a few other jobs were also completed:

  • Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion initiative (WDFI) 2021–2025 - guidance and QA on writing of project proposal for Financial Sector Deepening Mozambique
  • Assessment of 19 NGO applications for Danida Strategic Partnerships 2022-2025 - for HN Consultants in collaboration with Christian Boehm and Søren Langhoff
  • Human Rights Based Approach in program management - presentation at University of Nairobi webinar - in collaboration with Joshua Nyamori

Time for taking a good long break before I am back by mid-August for new and exciting jobs:

  • Facilitation of a one week regional planning workshop for SOS Børnebyerne in Nairobi - with physical presence! August 2021.
  • Gender mainstreaming and accountability roadmap for Financial Sector Deepening Zambia in September - October 2021.

Have a nice summer all of you - and a special thank you to all the great colleagues with whom I have worked this first half of 2021!

 

Evaluation report published: Swedish support to Agency for Gender Equality, Kosovo

The report from the final evaluation of Swedish direct grant support and consultancy to the Agency for Gender Equality, Kosovo is finally published by Sida. The final evaluation of the Swedish support to Agency for Gender Equality (AGE) in Kosovo was commissioned by the Embassy of Sweden in Kosovo. It took place from November 2020 to February 2021, i.e. towards the end of the project agreement activity period. The evaluation covered the entire project period of 2015 to 2020. It was based on document review and more than 30 virtual interviews with key stakeholders from AGE, the Kosovo government and municipal partners, civil society organizations, academia, donor agencies and the Embassy of Sweden. It was undertaken as a virtual exercise due to COVID-19 with the implicit limitations in terms of lack of personal contact and triangulation of information against observation. The report is relevant if interested in institutional support to national gender equality strategies and Swedish development cooperation. Link to the report.

Evaluation of LO Norway's partnership with OTM-CS in Mozambique

LO Norway has supported the Mozambican trade union movement OTM-CS since long time. The partnership support in recent years has been provided under an agreement from 2015-2018 and a subsequent agreement from 2019 to 2023 with an overall development goal of contributing to decent working conditions for workers, strengthening organizational capacity for collective bargaining, representation of women, and advocating for political change. The evaluation will focus on learning on project and organizational development and provide recommendations for the next steps in implementation. It will be qualitative and based on a mix of physical and virtual interviews. The evaluation is carried out in collaboration with Farol Consultoria e Serviços and will run in the period of April to June 2021.

Assessment of Strategic Partnership EOIs - Danida

Danida has invited interested Danish NGOs to present Expressions of Interest for the next round of strategic partnerships from 2022 to 2025. HN Consultants won the tender and Bente Consulting provides the team leader for the assignment. Main tasks will be assessing eligibility and capacity of 19 applicants based on defined criteria. The assignment runs in April 2021.

Evaluation of Foundation for Civil Society in Tanzania

Foundation for Civil Society (FCS) in Tanzania is undertaking an endline evaluation of their Strategic Plan 2016 - 2020 with the aim of documenting results and drawing lessons learned for the formulation of the next Strategic Plan. NIRAS Tanzania is providing the team and Bente Consulting the team leader for the evaluation which takes place as a mixture of virtual and physical meetings and interviews. Internal stakeholders (FCS founding members, board and management), their grantees (currently approx. 130 smaller CSOs) and cluster leads (major, national NGOs), development partners (SDC, Sida and Danida), as well as relevant national and local government institutions are interviewed. Surveys with former grantees as well as all current grantees will be undertaken. The focus of the evaluation is on relevance, coherence and coordination, effectiveness and efficiency, as well as impact and sustainability. A special focus is on gender and social inclusion (youth, disability, minorities]. The FCS grants support initiatives in social accountability in different sectors (agriculture, education, health and water), social inclusion and fight against harmful practices, and women's land rights. Capacity building is a pivotal activity in strengthening civil society voice. The evaluation runs from February to June 2021.  

  

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

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