Type of contract: Consultancy

Location: Home-based with potential in-person training visit

Duration: 20-25 working days (over 3-4 months), no full time required.

Start date: Mid May 2025

End date: 31 August 2025

Deadline to apply: 27 April 2025

Are you passionate about the defence of human rights and capacity building? Do you have an international experience as an evaluator? If so, this mission might be for you! Apply here!

Organisation

The International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) is an independent, non-governmental organisation dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights. We achieve this by supporting human rights defenders, strengthening human rights systems, and leading and participating in coalitions for human rights change.

Background information

ISHR seeks to engage one or several independent consultant(s) to conduct an evaluation of its flagship training programme, the Human Right Defenders Advocacy Programme (HRDAP) which has for over 10 years providing support to human rights defenders (HRDs) in understanding and engaging with the international human rights mechanisms, primarily those of the United Nations. HRDAP has over that period trained more than 200 human rights defenders working on diverse topics such as advancing women’s rights; defending the rights of LGBTQI+ persons; combatting racism; working on human rights issues in highly restrictive environments; or working on environmental issues, Indigenous communities or corporate accountability.

HRDAP training programme

The Human Rights Defender Advocacy Programme (HRDAP) is an intensive capacity development programme created by and for human rights defenders. The programme brings together committed activists who seek to build their international advocacy skills, expand their networks and leverage them to achieve change in their respective communities.

Through ISHR’s flagship learning programme, defenders get a chance to:

gain new knowledge and tools to ensure their voice is central in international human rights decision-making particularly at the United Nations
explore and compare the benefits of engagement with the UN Human Rights Council, the Special Procedures, the Universal Periodic and the Treaty Bodies, and examine how they can use them to bolster their work at the national level
develop strategies and techniques to increase the potential of their national and regional advocacy work and contribute to human rights change on the ground.

HRDAP hybrid model combines 2 months of interactive online learning using our virtual platform, completed by an intensive 10-days training in Geneva for on average 16 defenders.

The programme is a whole organizational effort, led by ISHR Training and Advocacy Manager with multiple staff providing support and dedicated coaching and supervision sessions to human rights defenders based on their thematic or regional focus. More information about the programme and its last 2024 edition can be found here and here.

Objectives of the external evaluation

The overall objective of this study is to assess the relevance, effectiveness (including impact), efficiency and sustainability of HRDAP and take stock of lessons learnt to establish recommendations for future strategic planning.

HRDAP has changed in its format since 2014 and has proven to be successful for its primary audience in terms of global satisfaction. The programme has evolved significantly in terms of delivery methods, scope and management due to external factors such as the development of online learning, the covid-19 pandemic and also internal factors such as ISHR growth and staff turn-over. Although for most of the time, global surveys have been conducted among participants and within programme staff, ISHR has not conducted a dedicated external evaluation of the programme.

The primary users of the evaluation report will be the ISHR staff (in particular the programme team and directors' groups) who will use the findings and recommendations to inform ISHR strategies and future programming, including the building of a training strategy. The secondary users will be the institutional donors and human rights defenders interested in the programme.

This evaluation should:

Assess HRDAP’s impact and effectiveness on its primary audience, over the past 6 years and identify its addedvalue in

comparison to other similar programmes
Identify any unexpected outcomes or impact of HRDAP (positive or negative) on the target groups;
Assess the relevancy of the programme and its responsiveness to HRD’s needs in the continuously changing external environment they operate in
Evaluate ISHR’s internal management processes (including financial), and their, efficiency in supporting HRDAP’s objectives
Provide recommendations on possible programme improvements addressing identified gaps and building on the programme’ s strengths.
Provide recommendations on programme’s scale and components with regards to its efficiency and sustainability in the current environment.

Scope and methodology of the evaluation

The scope of work for the evaluation should include the review of the whole HRDAP process (planning, selection of participants, online and in-person module delivery, programme evaluation) with a particular focus on the hybrid training component and impact of the programme on the HRDs’ work in home countries in the past years.

We expect the evaluation to include at least the following tasks:

Review relevant programme and organizational materials (including the e-learning tool ISHR Academy, training evaluations , monitoring reports, ISHR strategic framework etc.)
Engage with at least 8 programme participants through a dedicated interview or a discussion (plus reviewing additional interviews or evaluation materials from HRDAP participants conducted during the past 6 years)
Engage with at least 7 other key stakeholders through interview, surveys and solicitation of inputs
Review existing training programmes (one or two) similar to HRDAP provided to HRDs, if relevant
Attend selected online (and in-person if possible) sessions of the programme
Other tasks identified by the consultant.

Timeframe and budget

The evaluation is expected to be conducted between May – July 2025 and completed by August 2025. Candidates should include an estimate of the time required to complete the assignment in the proposal.

The estimated budget for this evaluation should not exceed USD 11,000 and should specify daily or hourly rates, other costs and include a total cost.

Deliverables

Evaluation workplan
1 oral presentation of key findings (in-person or remotely) to the director group
1 oral workshop or presentation to ISHR Staff during their strategic retreat
Summary of interviews (lately to be included in the report)

Final evaluation report (10-15 pages, excluding annexes), including an Executive Summary (2-3 pages) in an accessible, easyto-

read format. The final evaluation report will be full and detailed, intended for internal use and possibly donors. It shall include recommendations.

All deliverables should be written in English.

Profile of the consultant

Minimum Bachelor’s degree in education, human rights, social sciences, political sciences, international relations, or related fields
Demonstrated experience in designing, implementing and overseeing project evaluations or combination of education, training and experience
Demonstrated experience with qualitative and quantitative Monitoring & Evaluation data collection and analysis methods
Inter-cultural communication skills
Strong facilitation, presentation, and communication skills
Ability to use online tools to conduct interviews such as Teams, Zoom etc.

Desirable:

Experience and knowledge of UN human rights bodies
Experience as Trainer of Trainers .
Experience as a human rights defender appreciated.

The evaluator will need to demonstrate that no perceived or actual conflict of interest would arise during the evaluation. The evaluator will need to work within the timeframe outlined above. The evaluator will need to be able to demonstrate the ability to gain the trust of the partner organizations and defenders targeted in this programme.

Application process

Please submit here your application with documents in PDF format. Read the complete ToR here.

Applications need to be submitted by 27 April 2025 (11:59 pm CET)

Documents to be included:

CV
Cover letter
Brief statement of work plan (3 pages max) including: evaluation approach and methodology, data collection strategy, data analysis plan
Examples of, or links to, evaluations completed with similar elements
2 references
Detailed costs of the evaluation in USD (20-25 days envisaged). Payments will be made according to the schedule above in several times.

International Service for Human Rights, Geneva

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