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Tenders are invited for Consultancy for the Endline Evaluation of RAPID + Program. Closing Date: 31 Mar 2026 Type: Consultancy Background The Millennium Water Alliance (MWA) is a permanent global alliance of leading humanitarian and private organisations that convenes opportunities and partnerships, accelerates learning and effective models, and influences the WASH space by leveraging the expertise and reach of its members and partners to scale quality, sustained WASH services. Founded in the year 2002, MWA seeks to advance high standards for program quality, transparency and accountability and work with its members, governments, communities, private sector partners and other key stakeholders to bring to scale effective and sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene education solutions. MWA therefore sees WASH beyond a service but as a platform for advocacy, social enterprise, economic empowerment, and gender justice. The Resilient Arid Lands Partnership for Integrated Development Plus (RAPID+) program is a five-year program running from November 2021 October 2026 convened and led by MWA. The program has primary funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Corporation (SDC) and contributions and investment funds from private sector actors, four facilitating partners including CARE Kenya, the Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Food for the Hungry (FH) and World Vision (WV) and five hosting county governments. RAPID+ aims to improve access to water and rangeland services for 200,000 people in the five counties of Garissa, Isiolo, Marsabit, Turkana, and Wajir counties. RAPID+ activities are being implemented using a gender transformative lens and systems development approaches. These two aspects are expected to embed sustainability and inclusivity in the program. Project Goal and Objectives The goal of RAPID+ is to improve access to safe and sustainably managed water and rangelands in RAPID+ counties to contribute to resilient livelihoods for communities in a peaceful environment. The program is contributing to this goal through two outcomes: (1) Pastoralist communities have increased access to sustainable and safe water for multiple uses benefiting men, women, and youth, and (2) Pastoralist communities have improved access to safe and ecologically healthy rangeland resources that promote greater integrity, social cohesion, and gender equity. The RAPID+ Theory of Change states that If we improve access to sustainable and safe water for multiple uses that benefit men, women and youth and also improve access to safe and ecologically healthy rangeland resources that promote greater integrity, social cohesion and gender equity through strong public, private and community institutions; then communities in the target areas will have increased income, gender equity and empowerment, enhanced livestock systems, a more peaceful environment, conserved ecosystems and improved health status; and therefore, resilient livelihoods that promote peaceful cohesion and gender equity will be achieved. Summary of Program Achievements Over the past four years, the RAPID+ programme has demonstrated strong performance against its original targets across the five counties. The programme has met its targets for transboundary rangeland management committees, establishing 31 committees against a target of 26, and reached 232,821 community memberssurpassing the target of 200,000 women, men, and youth. Targets for water management committees were fully achieved, with all 45 committees established as planned. Progress against institutional strengthening targets was also substantial, with 10 out of 11 Water Resource User Associations supported and 396 county government front-line officers reached against a target of 400, reflecting near-complete achievement in these areas. More importantly from a systems change perspective, the program has created mind-set shifts in private sector participation with all stakeholders (private, government, INGO and donor) involved in the program. Through working on publicprivate engagement, locally led models, and market-responsive approaches, the program has successfully mobilised significant private-sector co-investment in service delivery. RAPID+ has also introduced and tested innovative models, ranging from PAYGO irrigation and enhanced O&M financing mechanisms to community-based insurance schemes, that deepen sustainability in the water sector. In parallel, rangeland value chains, such as gum Arabic, honey, and fodder production have grown, contributing to diversified livelihoods and stronger local markets. These achievements are articulated below. RAPID+ has formally partnered with 11 private-sector actors, including Acacia Water, Aqua Clara, Boreal Light, Davis & Shirtliff, Epicenter Africa, Global Communities, Maji Milele, Solargen, Virridy, CocaCola Foundation, and Alseyee Bio. Engagements have ranged from supporting the establishment of regional branches in Northern Kenya (e.g. Maji Milele) to piloting telemetric monitoring of borehole functionality (e.g. Virridy). Through these partnerships, RAPID+ has leveraged an estimated USD 2 million in private-sector investment for water and rangeland interventions, including contributions from both formally engaged partners and informal private-sector actors operating at county level. The programme has piloted three models to strengthen private-sector engagement in the water sector: the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) irrigation model; the Drought Resilience Impact Platform Fixing Uptime Now and Decision Improvement (DRIP FUNDI) model; and the Diocese of Lodwar Insurance Scheme to support the operation and maintenance of water systems. One of the operation and maintenance models developed under RAPID+, DRIP FUNDI, facilitated 63 borehole repairs across the five programme counties in 2025, contributing to improved service reliability and community-level climate resilience. In Turkana County**, nine rural water points** have been transferred to the rural water utility, Turkana Rural Water Company (TURWASCO), demonstrating progress in operationalizing rural water service delivery models. Through targeted institutional-strengthening support, Marsabit Water and Sewerage Company improved its standing in the Water Services Regulatory Board league tables, rising from 87th to 78th position- a 10-place improvement in water service delivery performance. This upward movement signals strengthened financial and operational management at the utility and enhances its credibility with funders and partners, positioning it closer to long-term commercial viability. The program supported the generation of USD 44,830 in revenue from rangeland products, including gum arabic and honey, strengthening livelihoods in rural communities across the RAPID+ counties. Purpose of the Evaluation The Endline Evaluation will assess the outcomes of RAPID+ and the attribution, causality, and contribution of program interventions over its five-year implementation period from November 1, 2021, to April 30, 2026. The period between May 2026- October 2026 is focused on program close-out activities and hence will not be included during the evaluation. Evaluation Questions / Objectives The evaluation will have four key objectives outlined below: Assessing the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability of the program based on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Criteria. Establishing unintended and emergent outcomes and systemic shifts generated by the program through outcome harvesting. The evaluation will inform MWA and its partners if the approaches employed successfully met the programs goal of expanding sustainable access to water and rangelands services through systems development approaches. The evaluation is expected to inform future programming which will focus on improving water access for inclusive economic development in Northeastern Kenya. The consultant is expected to highlight opportunities and pathways (based on their evaluation of RAPID+) of leveraging water for economic development. The Endline Evaluation will provide conclusions and recommendations on the following questions: Relevance: To what extent did the RAPID+ design respond to beneficiaries, and partner/institution needs, policies, and priorities. Coherence: Were the result indicators for the RAPID+ program and their means of verification adequate? What possible adjustments would be recommended in future programming? Effectiveness: To what degree have the program activities met the intended outcomes and results set out in the logical framework? Efficiency: To what extent did RAPID+ deliver results in an economical and timely way? Impact: To what extent did RAPID+ generate significant positive or negative, intended, or unintended, higher-level effects? Sustainability: To what extent will the net benefits of the intervention continue. Gender mainstreaming: To what extent was the program gender transformative? Synergies: To what extent were synergies achieved with other activities implemented by other Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) as well as with local initiatives? To what extent has the program embraced Systems Development (SD), Private Sector Engagement (PSE) and Development (PSD) in water and rangelands service delivery? Program design: Which program design components need to be improved, changed and or omitted in similar programming in the future? Scope of work and Evaluation Methodology The endline evaluation shall; a) Cover the entire project duration until start of the evaluation (November 2021- April 2026) while also taking into consideration ongoing activities. (b) Cover all the program target counties- Wajir, Garissa, Marsabit, Isiolo and Turkana. (c) Cover other program partners including county governments, implementing partners, private partners among others. The c Tender Link : https://reliefweb.int/job/4202252/consultancy-endline-evaluation-rapid-program
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