Terms of Reference

Date of Issue: 10 November 2009
Closing Date: 23 November 2009

I. BACKGROUND

Phase-1 (2003-2007) of the UNODC executed South Asia regional project titled "Prevention of Transmission of HIV among Drug Users in SAARC Countries" emphasized the need for developing capacity in the region for scaling up of HIV intervention among IDUs and other opiate users in view of the heterogeneity that exists in the South Asia region in the pattern of drug use as well as HIV prevalence among drug users. The project facilitated the process of the developments of protocols on treatment and care, which were field-tested by selected national/regional learning centers, and initiated the establishment of model quality interventions with a view to enabling governments, service providers and others to facilitate the scaling up of interventions.

Phase - II of the project began in September 2007 and is being jointly executed by UNODC, WHO (SEARO) and UNAIDS (RST) in partnership with the governments and civil society partners in South Asia

The project since its inception of phase - II is supporting the planning of national responses with respect to the scale required to prevent HIV among drug users. The rationale for this proposal is three-fold: (i) responses to HIV prevention among drug users need to be comprehensive in nature; (ii) responses need to be at sufficient scale to contribute to HIV prevention and reduction in HIV prevalence among drug users; and (iii) a skilled workforce drawn from both government and civil society is required.

The overall goal of this project is to reduce the spread of HIV among drug using populations in SAARC countries and its purpose is to assist governments and communities to scale-up comprehensive prevention and care programs for drug users, especially Injecting Drug Users, and their regular sex partners. Based on the UNAIDS Prevention Strategy, the project contains the following elements:

1. A supportive policy and an enabling program environment ;
2. Involvement of drug user communities in program development, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation so as to address their felt needs;
3. Outreach, including peer education, access to condoms and primary health care(including treatment for sexually transmitted infections;
4. Access to sterile needle and syringe programmes
5. Drug substitution treatment and,
6. Strengthened prevention to care continuum, including Voluntary Counselling and Testing and access to antiretroviral therapy

II. SCOPE OF THE REVIEW

The mid-term review of the phase II of the Project will assess the overall response in terms of the four project components:

1. Advocacy to support change in policy and practice
2. Effective risk reduction approcahes to reduce HIV transmission among drug users especially IDU and their regular sex partners.
3. Scaled-up risk reduction interventions to reduce HIV transmission among drug users especially IDU and their regular sex partners.
4. Project mangement

On the basis of its examination, the review team will document inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes. The review will identify whether mid course corrections in the design and implementation of the project need to be made in the light of the new data and experience in the initial years of implementation. To ensure the achievement of the goal and objectives of the project, the mid-term review will specifically:

1. Review the progress of project implementation against the project's design and timelines.
2. Comment on the extent to which the objectives of the project continue to be consistent with beneficiaries' requirements, country needs, global priorities and partners' and donors policies.
3. Review the project's linkage with national programming (in terms of planning, policy and strategy) and the contributions of the project to date to scaling up a comprehensive harm reduction programme in each country
4. To identify strengths and weakness in project implementation and assess the extent to which the objectives of the activity are likely to be achieved.
5. Provide recommendations to support mid-term correction of project activities.

III. REVIEW PROCESS

Methodology

The MTR is planned for maximum five weeks and includes a desk review period of maximum one week, travel of max. three weeks to four selected countries and one week for report-writing. The MTR will start as soon as suitable evaluators have been identified, ideally around mid-November 2009.

Desk Review: The desk review involves the review and analysis of the original project document, agreements reached with national counterparts and donor agencies, baseline documents, financing agreements, and reports submitted to project review meetings and minutes of review meetings, semi-annual and annual reports, mission reports, reports of trainings and workshops,, software, Intervention Toolkits and publications produced by the project ,monitoring tools developed by the project as well as any other documents, presentations as required. Documents will be made available by UNODC to the evaluation team prior to the commencement of the mission. Any other documents that may be requested by the review team will be made available as requested. The desk review will take place for a maximum of one week.

Mission Travel: The review team will travel to four selected countries. The country visit will include participation of the Government counterparts, mentor agencies, partner NGOs and other stakeholders.

The review team will interview representatives from the competent authorities where training programmes were conducted, interview participants of the training programmes especially those who underwent Training of Trainers (ToT) programmes (core staff of partner NGOs), and visit at least three sites where peer-led and other comprehensive risk reduction interventions had been mounted. The team will also interview drug users and regular sexual partners who are clients of the project. Additionally, the team should visit at least two Regional Learning Centres. The review team may use questionnaires, observation and other participatory techniques to gather information with regard to both the review and the redesign of Phase II of the project.

The review team will have meetings in Delhi with the project management/team and AusAID on the review and its process as well as with other institutions as deemed appropriate by the team.

1. The team will use instruments and mechanisms to capture the widest possible information on project deliverables. This should comprise a mix of questionnaires, site visits, personal in-depth interviews, tele-communication, focus group discussions, key stakeholder meetings etc. The team is expected to deliver a full report on the review outlining (i) the assessment of the current situation, (ii) main findings per country and project component (iii) key recommendations for deliverables per project component until project end and (iv)any other recommendation. The acceptance of the final report is subject to consultation with project partners, stakeholders and the technical advisory group (TAG) on the findings of the draft report.

Composition of the review team

The review team will include two experts with at least seven years of experience in project/programme evaluation, project planning, implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation, as well as in-depth knowledge and technical expertise to work with drug users and other vulnerable populations in the context of HIV prevention specially in hard to reach settings. The team will be accompanied by a project member.

Time line

The MTR is planned to take place over a period of maximum five weeks including initial meetings and a wrap-up meeting in Delhi and travel to four countries. The provisional agenda detailing timelines and agendas per country will be provided to the team in due course and can be further fine-tuned during the initial Delhi visit.

How to Apply

Applications for this vacancy should be sent by email to shveta.aima@unodc.org no later than 31 December 2009