Tenders are invited for Consultant - End of Project Evaluation Justice for Women. Closing Date: 3 Oct 2025 Type: Consultancy BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT 1.1 Background and Context of the Project The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA Network) is a regional coalition of civil society organizations operating across Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Somaliland, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Uganda. Founded in 1995 by grassroots activists, SIHA works to advance gender equality by combating systemic oppression, ending gender-based violence (GBV), dismantling harmful cultural and religious norms, and expanding womens access to justice and economic opportunities. Through advocacy, capacity-building, and direct interventions, SIHA empowers marginalized communities, particularly in conflict-affected regions, to challenge patriarchal structures and drive social change. Since 2023, SIHA, in partnership with FIDA and local WRAs, has implemented the Justice for Women project across Sudan and Ethiopia. Funded by the Open Society Foundation, this multi-country initiative aims to enhance womens access to fair and gender-responsive justice systems in fragile and patriarchal legal environments. The project prioritizes female legal professionals and womens rights advocates (WRAs) as central agents of change, working to challenge discriminatory laws, advance strategic litigation, and improve survivor-centered legal services. The projects roll-out in Sudan coincided with the outbreak of war in April 2023, which deeply impacted the countrys legal infrastructure, displaced program actors, and exacerbated womens vulnerability to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). Despite these setbacks, SIHA and its partners adapted their strategies, shifting timelines and delivery methods to maintain core project goals while responding to the evolving context. Through a combination of legal empowerment, policy advocacy, sub-granting, and public legal education, the project has supported womens access to justice at both the grassroots and institutional levels. It also addresses intersectional barriers such as class, rurality, and gender-based violence, contributing to a more equitable and inclusive justice landscape across the Horn of Africa. 1.2 Description of the Project Across Sudan and Ethiopia, women and girls face deep-rooted systemic barriers to accessing justice. Despite formal legal frameworks and commitments to gender equality, the justice systems in these countries often reflect and reinforce patriarchal structures, limiting the legal protection and redress available to women, particularly those who are economically vulnerable, living in rural areas, survivors of violence, or otherwise marginalized. Legal systems in the region are often marked by: Weak enforcement of gender-sensitive laws Limited legal literacy among women Gender-insensitive procedures within formal and informal justice mechanisms A lack of institutional support for survivor-centered legal services Additionally, womens rights advocates/activists (WRAs) and female legal professionals are often excluded from decision-making spaces and therefore lack the institutional capacity, legal tools, or financial resources to challenge systemic injustice through legal reform or strategic litigation. To address these challenges, the Justice for Women project was developed by the SIHA Network, in partnership with FIDA and national-level WRAs. The project is grounded in a feminist, intersectional, and human rights-based approach and seeks to transform how women in the Horn of Africa experience the lawnot as a tool of exclusion or punishment, but as a mechanism of protection, voice, and equality. The project is structured around two interlinked outcomes: Female lawyers and WRAs engage in law reform and strategic litigation to advance gender justice. Lawyers and community paralegals deliver survivor-centered legal services, improving womens access to justice at the community level. Implementation strategies vary by country due to the differing legal landscapes, political/social contexts, and the distinct needs of women in each setting. In Sudan, the eruption of war in April 2023 profoundly altered the justice environment, requiring urgent, flexible interventions focused on documenting conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), legal first response, and protection for women in a context of widespread displacement and institutional breakdown. In contrast, Ethiopia, while also marked by certain levels of fragility and inequality, has presented greater space for engagement with formal justice structures and legislative processes, allowing for a stronger focus on strategic litigation, legal reform, and the strengthening of womens leadership within the legal profession. A core feature of the project is the development and roll-out of aTraining of Trainers (ToT) manual**,** tailored to each national context. In Sudan, ToTs emphasized trauma-informed, crisis-responsive legal support; in Ethiopia, they focused on policy engagement, litigation strategy, and reform pathways. The ToT model supports a cascade training approach among WRAs, legal aid providers, and community-level actors. The project also includes sub-grants to local legal aid clinics and WRAs to support outreach, legal service provision, and advocacy. A baseline assessment was conducted in 2023, providing critical data against which the endline evaluation will assess changes in legal access, service delivery, institutional capacity, and stakeholder engagement. 1.3 Strategy and Theory of Change/Results Chain The Justice for Women project is grounded in a feminist, participatory, and rights-based Theory of Change that recognizes legal systems as both a site of oppression and a powerful tool for transformation. The projects strategy combines structural and community-level interventions to improve access to justice for women and girls by enhancing legal capacity, fostering collective action, and promoting survivor-centered legal support. It assumes that by equipping womens rights advocates and legal professionals with the tools, resources, and networks to engage in legal reform and service provision, systemic change can be driven from the ground up. The projects results chain is structured around two key outcomes, supported by targeted outputs and activities in each of the targeted countries. 2. PURPOSE OF THE EVALUATION The final evaluation aims to assess the effectiveness of the Justice for Women project in advancing access to fair, gender-responsive justice systems for women and girls in Sudan and Ethiopia. The evaluation will examine the projects relevance, impact, effectiveness, efficiency, adaptability, and sustainability, with a focus on its dual strategy: Strengthening the capacity of legal professionals and WRAs to drive legal and policy reform through strategic litigation and advocacy. Enhancing the delivery of survivor-centered legal services through trained lawyers, paralegals, and community legal support structures. The evaluation is also expected to explore how the project contributed to dismantling systemic legal and social barriers that prevent women from accessing justice, and how it amplified the voices and leadership of female legal actors across the Horn of Africa. Additionally, the evaluation will: Identify key challenges and lessons learned, particularly in navigating the evolving context of the war in Sudan. Highlight promising practices that can inform future feminist legal empowerment initiatives across the region. Assess the projects contribution to shifts in community attitudes toward the legal rights of women and girls. Analyze how strategic partnerships, networks, and sub-granting mechanisms support systemic change and local ownership. Evaluate to which extent the project ensured accountability to its stakeholders, including legal professionals and WRAs, community members, implementing partners, and the donor. The evaluation will draw comparisons with the 2023 baseline assessment, helping to identify concrete changes in institutional capacity, legal service access, and policy engagement over the course of implementation. 3. EVALUATION OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE 3.1 Scope of the Evaluation The evaluation will draw from baseline data (2023) and compare it with findings to identify measurable change. It will also assess the projects adaptability, especially in Sudan, and its accountability to key stakeholders. Cross-cutting themes: gender equality, feminist approach, human rights, and intersectionality. 3.2 Objectives of the Evaluation Overall, the evaluation will: Assess the entire project (May 1st, 2023 October 25th, 2025) against effectiveness, relevance, efficiency, sustainability, adaptability, and impact (intended and unintended) in strengthening access to gender-responsive justice systems in Sudan, and Ethiopia. Identify lessons learned and promising practices (knowledge generation) for future programming. Ensure a gender-responsive, human rights-based approach across all criteria. 3.3 Specific Objectives 1. Determine the extent to which the project achieved its intended outcomes, especially in: Enhancing the ability of womens rights activists (WRAs) and female Lawyers to document sexual violence in conflicts, modify policies, and take part in strategic litigation. Increasing the availability and caliber of gender-responsive, survivor-centered legal services, particularly strengthening the position of community-based first responders. Increasing awareness and legal literacy among women and communities regarding womens rights and legal procedures and promoting the cooperation of WRAs and other legal professionals in the three targeted countries. 2. Document lessons learned and good practices, such as: Strategies for legal capacity-building of women in the legal sector (e.g. Tender Link : https://reliefweb.int/job/4171424/consultant-end-project-evaluation-justice-women
