Midterm Performance EvaluationVietnam Sponsorship of Save the Children in Lao Cai

Client: Save the Children in Vietnam

Time: 03/2019 – 09/2019

Overview: Save the Children (SC), through Vietnam Sponsorship Programme, is partipating in the building up of human capital in Vietnam. The programme aims at giving children the best chance for a lifetime of success by transforming the lives of children and ensures children have the healthy start, opportunity to learn and protection from harm. The beneficiaries of the programme are not restricted to children but broadened to include families, community leaders and organizations to realize supportive institutions, systems, policies and services.Starting from 2013, Sponsorship Programme now covers an Impact Area of 23 (out of 95) communes in five districts of Lao Cai, which is one of the most disadvantaged areas of Vietnam characterized by a high percentage of ethnic minority population and persistent rate of multidimensional poverty. Also adopting the life-cycle approach, the programme implements four age-appropriate thematic areas that as a whole covers 0-18 age group.

The goal in this assignment is to provide Save the Children a reliable and comprehensive midterm performance evaluation of the Sponsorship Programme, the information from which Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD), School Health and Nutrition (SHN), Basic Education (BE) and Adolescent Development (AD) Save the Children to plan the programme for the remaining period of implementation (until 2022). The evaluation will assess the status of children, families, and communities on key indicators, while simultaneously identify progress to date and identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the Sponsorship program. In addition, the evaluation will also explore to what extent the programme has made progress on plans for “transfer of ownership”.

Main tasks

• Design sampling procedures for the survey
• Design the surveys (grade 4 students, lower secondary students and out-of-school adolescents): Develop the questionnaires, prepare the manuals and train enumerators.
• Pilot the data collection tools
• Design and implement qualitative tools including Key Informant Interviews and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with different beneficiary groups in project locations.
• Collect data quantitatively and qualitatively through fieldwork.
• Build the database: Supervise the data entry and cleaning, to ensure the data availability for the analysis.
• Produce a mid-term evaluation report.