Call for Application: Consultancy for Mid-Term Project Evaluation

Background

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is a regional, independent, non-partisan, non-governmental organisation that works to promote freedom of expression and media development across West Africa. In the last 27 years, the MFWA has worked with both governmental and non-governmental stakeholders and partners at the national, regional and international levels to contribute to improving the media and freedom of expression landscape in West Africa. More details about the MFWA and its work can be found on our website.

The MFWA, with support from, and in partnership with Co-Develop, is implementing the second phase of its Digital Public Infrastructure Journalism Project over a period of two years, June 2024 to May 2026. The project is aimed at enhancing public awareness, debates, participation, inclusivity and uptake of Digital Public Infrastructure in West Africa through increased professional media reporting and public discourse on Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), as well as Digital Public Goods (DPGs), in the region.

The project’s objective is to build the capacity of 60 journalists to better understand and report on DPI/DGPs issues. It also seeks to partner at least 60 newsrooms across four target countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Benin and Togo) for increased publication of quality reports and programmes on DPI/DPG issues on their respective platforms.

The following are the project’s expected outcomes

1. Increased knowledge and skills among a total of 60 journalists (at least 40% females) from Nigeria (30), Ghana (10) Benin (10) and Togo (10) and their media organisations for reporting on DPI/DPGs issues
2. Partnership with 60 news media organisations for the publication of reports on DPI/DPG issues
3. Increased media reporting and programming on issues of DPI/DPGs in the target countries, and in West Africa generally
4. Existence of a dynamic website that provides relevant and comprehensive information on DPI/DPGs developments in West Africa and Africa
5. Increased engagements on DPI/DPG issues at the regional level with ECOWAS
6. Increased public awareness and uptake of DPI/DPGs especially in the four target countries

With year one of the project successfully ended (June 2024 – May 2025), the MFWA seeks competent Consultants to evaluate the project and produce a report highlighting progress made, outcomes achieved, lessons learnt; and make recommendations to inform the second year of the project and future programming. The objective and scope of assignment are detailed below.

Objective:

To assess and determine progress and outcomes, document learnings and make recommendations for year two and future programming.

Scope of Work

To conduct a mid-term evaluation of the MFWA DPI journalism project to assess its achievements and impact vis-à-vis the project objectives and expected outcomes; and also, to highlight challenges and gaps and make recommendations on how they can be addressed to improve on the implementation of the year two activities. The specific tasks for the assignment include

• Read the project documents, activity reports, and other relevant documents/reports to be abreast of the project demands
• Develop a data collection instrument for the evaluation, with inputs from the MFWA
• Sample and conduct interviews and focused group discussions with DPI fellows, editors, partner newsrooms and staff of the MFWA
• Produce a mid-term evaluation report highlighting key achievements, challenges and recommendations for improvements in the implementation of the second year of the project and future programming.

Timelines:

The assignment shall be executed within a period of one month.

Consultant’s Profile

The consultant should have:

1. At least a degree in monitoring and evaluation, journalism, media studies, or relevant social science field
2. At least five years experience in performing similar functions
3. Familiarity with the concepts of digital public infrastructure and digital public goods
4. Familiarity with the media landscape in the project target countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Benin and Togo)
5. Ability to work independently and meet deadlines.
6. Excellent analytical and report-writing skills.
7. Working knowledge of French will be an added advantage

Application Process

Interested qualified consultants should submit:

• Applications detailing relevant qualifications, expertise and experience.
• Curriculum vitae (CV)
• Brief technical proposal outing proposed methodology for conducting the mid-term evaluation with at least one sample of previous evaluation report
• Financial proposal detailing consultancy fees.

Mode of Submission of Applications

All applications should be sent to applications[@]mfwa.org with a copy to vivian[@]mfwa.org on or before July 15, 2025. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Terms & Conditions

• The consultant will work under the supervision of the MFWA project team.
• All intellectual property rights of the reports will belong to MFWA.
• Confidentiality of all data and findings must be maintained.