Consultancy for Evaluation of the Project "Legal advice for prisoners and ex-prisoners" phase 1 funded by Bread for the world

TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR EVALUATIONS

Project N-VNM-2021-0294 "Legal advice for prisoners and ex-prisoners" phase 1

funded by Bread for the world

The Viet Nam Lawyers Association (VLA) is the largest legal professional organization in the country with legal consulting centers in many provinces and cities with the task of disseminating and providing legal advice to people, especially disadvantaged or vulnerable groups, including prisoners and persons newly released from prisons.

While the economy has been constantly growing over the last years, the country is also confronted with the inequality in accessing the law, especially for disadvantaged people such prisoners. This situation is aggravated by a fragmented legal framework and limited number of legal consultants/lawyers. A lot of detainees therefore do not learn about their rights, including the right to apply for shortening their prison term or apply for pardon, for conditionally releasing from prisons… Once a person was released from the prison, his/her re-integration into the society poses another obstacle. Many ex-prisoners cannot get a job or do not properly fulfill their obligations to get their criminal records expunged on time or commit another violation of the law, partly due to insufficient institutional re-integration efforts after, but also during times in prison.

In that context, VLA, together with its branches and legal consultancy centers (LCC) in provinces and cities, have been disseminating and providing legal advice to prisoners and persons newly released from prisons. The scale of those activities depends on LCCs' resources.

With the purpose of creating conditions and a mechanism to promote those activities, from 2021, with the sponsorship of the Bread for the World (BFTW), VLA has been implementing the project "Legal advice for prisoners and ex-prisoners" phase 1.     

The project's development goal is to contribute to strengthen the rights of prisoners and ex-prisoners in Viet Nam. The two objectives of the project are (i) to support prisoners and ex-prisoners to successfully reintegrate into society; (ii) to improve access to legal aid for prisoners and ex-prisoners with the contribution of social organizations.

The project is planned to be implemented in 7 provinces and cities: Hanoi, Lai Chau, Hoa Binh, Thai Nguyen, Thanh Hoa, Ben Tre, Soc Trang.

The direct beneficiaries of the project are prisoners, ex-prisoners and VLA legal consultants.

Provincial Lawyers' Associations and their affiliated LCCs in those 7 provinces and cities directly carry out free legal dissemination and consultancy for prisoners and persons newly released from prisons.

In order to carry out the project activities, the Provincial Lawyers Associations and their affiliated LCCs have coordinated closely with the prisons and provincial police agencies.

2.    Cause and objectives of the evaluation

The project "Legal advice for prisoners and ex-prisoners" phase 1 will end in November 2024. Before the project ends, project construction for phase two will be conducted. In order to have a basis for building a suitable phase 2 project, there needs to be an assessment of the results of phase 1 project implementation.

The evaluation results and recommendations stated in the evaluation report will be used by BFTW and VLA in the discussion process to develop the phase 2 project.

The evaluation will be carried out in March 2024 by an independent external expert or a team of experts (depending on available budget).

3.    Key questions

The evaluation will focus on the assessment of the following questions and issues:

• Are the Project's goals consistent with the needs of beneficiaries, and the mission and strategy or policies of VLA and BFTW?
• The extent to which the project's objectives have been achieved as of the time of evaluation.
• Efficiency: adequacy of the deployed resources in relation to the achieved results and effects.
• The degree of contribution of the project to the overall/long-term goal.
• Other changes or positive impacts (if any)
• Sustainability of project impacts

4.    Evaluation design/methods

The evaluator will design tools to assess the issues mentioned in section 3. Given the characteristics of the direct beneficiaries, the assessment is carried out through documents and reports related to the results of the project activities, opinions provided by VLA, provincial Lawyers associations and their LCCs, people directly participating in implementing activities, people who have completed prison sentences and benefit from activities (if possible), other agencies and organizations (if any).

5.    Process of the evaluation/time frame

The evaluation will be carried out within about 01 month, specifically:     

• Week 3 of February (19-25 February 2024): planning the assessment, building tools and preparing necessary issues to carry out the assessment;
• Week 4 of February and week 1, 2 of March (26/02 - 10/3): conducting assessment;
• Week 2 of March (11-17 March 2024): developing the draft assessment report;
• Week 3 of March (18-24 March 2024): providing comments on the draft report;
• Week 4 of March (25-31 March 2024): completing the assessment report.

6.    Expected products

The expected products of the assessment will include:

• Evaluation plan (19 February 2024);
• Assessment methodologies and tools (21 February 2024);
• Draft assessment report (17 March 2024);
• Comments on the draft assessment report (24 March 2024)
• Final assessment report in English and Vietnamese, between 30-35 pages long excluding appendices, times new roman font, size 12, single line spacing (31 March 2024).

7.    Key qualifications of the evaluators

The person selected to conduct the assessment must meet the following qualifications:

• University or higher degree in law, social sciences or development;
• At least 5 years of experience in monitoring and evaluation of development projects;
• Good knowledge/understanding of the legal and judicial system in Vietnam;
• Strong analytical and assessment skills, computer skills, report writing skills;
• Proficiency in English and Vietnamese;
• Working experience with VLA or CSOs in Vietnam would be an asset.

8.    Content of the evaluator’s offer

The evaluator’s offer must include the following documents:

• CVs;
• Technical/specific proposal with short explanation and justification of the methods to be deployed;
• Financial proposal including complete cost estimate that includes both, the fee as well as any ancillary costs to be incurred, such as transport, accommodation, taxes, fees and costs of workshops in the scope of the evaluation etc;

The evaluator’s offer should be sent to VLA via email ([email protected] ) no later than 24:00 PM on 14 February 2024.