Final Evaluation of the Leveraging and Expanding Agri-Aqua Production in Bangsamoro (LEAP) Project

Organisation: People in Need
Location: Philippines
Contract: Consultancy
Deadline: 17 November 2026

For detailed information, click this link. https://drive.google.com/drive/u/3/folders/1YLOcoIjszvoDH6sdzAIGIoIowTa7x_WM

Terms of Reference (ToR)

Funded by the European Union

1. Background

About People in Need

People in Need (PIN) is an international non-governmental organisation founded in the Czech Republic in 1992. It has implemented hundreds of humanitarian and development projects across Europe, Asia, Africa and Central America. PIN began its operations in the Philippines in 2013 in response to Super Typhoon Yolanda, and its programmes have since grown to cover market systems development, sustainable livelihoods, disaster resilience, renewable energy, peace and social cohesion, including in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

PIN seeks the services of a qualified external evaluator or evaluation team, referred to in this ToR as the Evaluator, to conduct the final evaluation of the LEAP project. The assignment will be carried out in close cooperation with the PIN project and MEAL teams and the consortium partners.

About the LEAP Project

The Leveraging and Expanding Agri-Aqua Production in Bangsamoro (LEAP) project develops the coffee and seaweed value chains in the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi (BaSulTa) in BARMM. It is implemented by People in Need as lead applicant, together with the co-applicants MARADECA and UNyPHIL-Women, under the European Union’s Bangsamoro Agri-Enterprise Programme (BAEP). The project runs from 1 July 2023 to 31 December 2026.

Overall objective: To contribute to a peaceful, cohesive, secure and inclusive development of agri- and aqua-culture value chains in Bangsamoro.

Specific objective: Coffee and seaweed production improved in quality, diversity, consolidation and its response to the needs of the market.

Outputs

• Output 1: Coffee and seaweed value chains in the island provinces are mapped, analysed and better coordinated.

• Output 2: Individual farmers and farmer or fisher folk groups are equipped for diversified, quality production through access to crop and sea inputs and extension services.

• Output 3: Farmer and fisher folk small social enterprises within the coffee and seaweed value chains are established and strengthened.

• Output 4: Enhanced post-harvest and processing facilities are in place.

Target Groups

The main target group is coffee and seaweed farmers, small farmer groups and cooperatives in Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, a minimum of 2,000 farmers, with particular focus on women, youth and indigenous people.

Other target groups are traders and input suppliers in the three provinces; local, regional and provincial authorities, including MAFAR, MTIT and OPAG and the provincial agricultural offices; and academia, in particular MSU Tawi-Tawi.

The final beneficiaries are farmers, cooperatives and traders across BARMM and the general population of the island provinces.

2. Purpose and Objectives of the Evaluation

The final evaluation will assess the extent to which LEAP achieved its objectives and results, and how the intended and unintended changes came about. In line with the project design, the evaluation is conducted by an external evaluator with strong expertise and experience in markets development in the Philippines. It will provide lessons and recommendations that assist PIN, the consortium partners and other stakeholders to enhance the impact of future interventions in BARMM.

The specific objectives of the evaluation are to:

• Assess the project's performance against its overall objective, specific objective and the four outputs, measured against the logframe baseline and targets.

• Identify what worked, what did not, and why, across the coffee and seaweed value chains and the three island provinces.

• Generate practical lessons learned and actionable recommendations for future value-chain programming in BARMM.

• From a market systems perspective, the evaluation should assess not only what LEAP delivered, but the extent to which the project contributed to changes in how the coffee and seaweed market systems function. This should include changes in relationships, incentives, behaviours, capacities and roles among farmers, cooperatives, private-sector actors, service providers and public institutions, and the likelihood that these changes will continue, adapt or expand beyond direct project support.

3. Scope of the Evaluation

Type of evaluation. This is a performance evaluation against the standard OECD-DAC evaluation criteria. Impact is assessed as the project's plausible contribution to change measured against baseline values, and not through a counterfactual design. A separate impact evaluation of the programme will be conducted by the European Union, so this evaluation focuses on performance and does not attempt to measure the macro-level impact indicators.

Period under review. The whole project duration, from 1 July 2023 to the time of the evaluation.

Geographic scope. The three island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, with in-person data collection in each province.

Coverage. The evaluation covers the whole project, both the coffee and the seaweed value chains, the specific objective and all four outputs, assessed against the logframe baselines and targets.

4. Evaluation Criteria and Questions

The evaluation applies the standard OECD-DAC criteria of relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability, together with EU added value, inclusivity and gender equality and social inclusion, and cross-cutting themes. The questions below are the key areas to be answered. The Evaluator is expected to refine them and develop the corresponding judgement criteria, indicators and data sources in an evaluation matrix as part of the inception report.

Relevance

• To what extent did the project respond to the real needs and priorities of coffee and seaweed farmers in the island provinces, including women, youth and indigenous people?

• To what extent were interventions informed by identified market demand, commercial opportunities and underlying constraints within the coffee and seaweed market systems, as opposed to primarily responding to the immediate needs of producers?

• Was the project design and its modalities of support appropriate and conflict-sensitive given the security context of the island provinces?

Coherence

• How well did the project align with BARMM priorities and relevant sector roadmaps, and complement the work of MAFAR, MTIT, OPAG, the provincial agricultural offices and other actors in the coffee and seaweed sectors?

• How coherent were the interventions internally, across the four outputs and the two value chains?

Effectiveness

• To what extent were the specific objective and the four output targets achieved, measured against the baseline?

• How did results differ between the coffee and seaweed value chains, and what explains the differences?

• How well did the distinctive components perform, in particular the coordination platforms, the private nurseries, the post-harvest and processing facilities, savings groups, and the solar technologies and climate services?

• What were the major factors influencing the achievement or non-achievement of results?

Market Systems Effectiveness

• What market-system constraints did LEAP successfully address, and which constraints remain binding for the growth and inclusivity of the coffee and seaweed sectors?

• What changes occurred in the behaviour, practices, relationships and incentives of key market actors as a result of LEAP?

• To what extent have market actors taken ownership of functions initially supported or facilitated by the project?

• Is there evidence that practices, services, business models or relationships introduced or strengthened through LEAP have been adopted by actors beyond those directly supported by the project?

• Where systemic change has not occurred, what prevented it (weak commercial incentives, capacity constraints, institutional barriers, limited demand, conflict dynamics, project design or another factor?)

Efficiency

• Were the financial and human resources used economically to deliver the outputs across two value chains and three provinces?

• Did the consortium model of PIN, MARADECA and UNyPHIL-Women deliver in an efficient and well-coordinated manner?

• Was implementation timely, including the use of the 6-months extended implementation period to December 2026?

Impact (Contribution)

• What significant changes occurred in production, quality, diversification, market access, sales and household income, and to what extent did LEAP plausibly contribute to these changes? What other actors or contextual factors contributed to the observed results?

• Were there different effects for women, youth and indigenous people, and any unintended effects, positive or negative?

EU Added Value

• What did EU funding of this project add beyond what regional or national actors could have delivered on their own?

Sustainability

• Are the coordination platforms and the emerging industry bodies, such as the Sulu Coffee Industry Development Board and the Basilan Coffee Industry Cluster Council, likely to continue functioning after the project ends?

• How durable is the institutional anchoring of the seaweed value chain, which is weaker than that of coffee?

• Are the post-harvest and processing facilities likely to be maintained and continue to operate independently?

• Are the social enterprises and savings groups viable beyond the life of the project?

• For key functions supported by LEAP, which actors now have both the capacity and commercial or institutional incentive to continue performing these functions without project support?

• If LEAP support ended completely, which changes would continue, which would weaken, and which would stop, and why?