Evaluation of World Business Council on Sustainable Development – SNV partnership

Introduction
SNV’s corporate evaluations in 2011 aim to inform and support some of the major strategic and substantial transitions SNV is going through over the coming years. Networks and alliances form an important component of this process. The World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD) – SNV partnership, which was focused on further development and integration of the Inclusive Business approach in sustainable development, provides a case from which we can extract lessons for future collaboration in our lead sectors between SNV and WBCSD and possibly other partners.

The Alliance was established in April 2006 and committed SNV Latin America (LA) and the WBCSD to work together to promote the concept of Inclusive Business (IB) in several countries of Latin America. It was explicitly seen as a two year experiment that involved risks as well as opportunities. Following an evaluation in 2008, the alliance was renewed up to 2010. In 2009, the Alliance ceased to have its own funding and most Alliance activities became mainstreamed in SNV LA’s IB practice.

The Alliance aimed to promote private-sector involvement in development through brokering and partnerships, Advocacy, and Awareness and knowledge management. The overall logic behind the partnership is presented in Figure 1. The Alliance was instituted by means of Alliance offices with National Business Facilitators (NBFs) and local advisor teams in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

Figure 1. WBCSD - SNV partnership model.

Whilst the Alliance was mainly focused on Latin America, the Alliance has also induced and supported several IB initiatives, especially by SNV Vietnam, but the Alliance as such was not implemented there.

Purpose
The purpose of the evaluation is to evaluate how the partnership has promoted the IB concept as well as the development results of the partnership. Secondly, the evaluation aims to assess the extent to which SNV has been able to mainstream the Alliance activities and learn from the partnership. Lastly, the evaluation should provide recommendations for future partnerships. The main evaluation questions are:
• To what extend has the Alliance contributed to the development of the IB approach and how?
• What have been the development results of the Alliance’s projects? What key factors have promoted or hindered these results?
• Would the same results, both in terms of promoting the IB approach and actual development, have been achieved without the Alliance and with similar or higher or lower costs? Why?
• To what extend has SNV become able to incorporate the activities it initially needed the Alliance for? What key factors have promoted or hindered this?
• What lessons can be extracted for future partnerships in general?
• What recommendations can be made for future cooperation with the WBCSD in broadening scale of current IB initiatives and for extending scope of IB to other sectors (especially WASH and renewable energy)?

Together with the evaluator(s) an evaluation matrix will be developed detailing the evaluation questions, indicators and method(s) and included in an inception report.

Scope
Together with SNV, the evaluators will select cases for some more in-depth analysis of the WBCSD-SNV partnership (possibly two countries in LA and SNV Vietnam). The selection with an evaluation plan will be included in an inception report. Travel will be limited to LA and possibly Geneva or The Hague.

Deliverable
The main deliverables of the evaluation includes an evaluation report including recommendations. An evaluation report format will be developed by SNV in consultation with the evaluator(s) and will be formalised in an inception report to be finalised in the evaluation preparation phase.

Profile Service Provider
- Evaluation expertise
- Experience in the fields of international development aid
- Expertise in organisational development and partnerships
- Knowledge of capacity development theory and practice
- Knowledge of the inclusive business and Base of the Pyramid and approaches
- Solid research skills
- Fluency in English and Spanish

The evaluation should be conducted by one evaluator.

Time schedule and budget
Deadline for submission of proposals is November 1st 2011. The evaluation will commence November 7th allowing for fieldwork to be finalised in 2011. The final report will be submitted in January 2012. It is estimated that preparation and fieldwork will take four to five weeks. Writing the final report may require one week.

All direct cost (travel, accommodation, per diem) will be covered by SNV Head Office (HO). SNV HO is bound by SNV procurement provisions limiting evaluation consultancy fees to a maximum of €800 p/d.

Selection criteria and procedure
Selection of the Service Provider will be based on the following evaluation criteria:
- Proposed approach and methodology 30%
- Competencies and clarification roles 50%
- Price 20%

Request for Proposals
Through this Request for Proposals SNV invites qualified Service Providers to submit proposals. The proposal should:
- Express understanding of the evaluation purpose
- Propose an approach and broad outline of methods to be employed
- Provide daily consultancy fee and overall budget (excluding direct costs)
- Describe proposed evaluator’s competencies and proof thereof (include 2 evaluation / research reports related to the evaluation subject, evaluator’s CVs, company profile)
- Propose roles and responsibilities of the evaluator
- Indicate evaluator’s availability in the period November 2011 – February 2012
- Include a declaration of independency from organizations that have been involved in relevant advisory or implementation activities related to the WBCSD - SNV partnership and SNV and/or WBCSD IB promoting activities.

Proposals should be submitted to mroefs@snvworld.org, Dr Marlene Roefs of the Managing for Result Unit of SNV Head Office. Deadline for submission is November 1st of 2011.

Organisation SNV Dutch Development organisation

Country Netherlands

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