Consultancy Services for Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) under the Peace and Stabilization Programme for West Africa (PSP WA), 2025-2028

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Embassy of Denmark, Ghana has entered into a contract regarding the the Danish Peace and Stabilization Fund (PSF). The Danish Government has developed the Peace and Stabilization Programme for West Africa (PSP WA), 2025-2028, with the strategic objective of ensuring that instability in key border areas in West Africa is mitigated through local and regional capacity development. The programme builds on past Danish peace and stabilization efforts in the Sahel by expanding its programmatic focus to include Coastal West African (CWA) countries, including Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, and Togo. The border areas between Burkina Faso and these CWA countries are of particular interest to this programme, as this is the area where the spill-over of instability from the Sahel towards the coastal countries of West Africa is currently most pronounced. The PSP WA implements Denmark’s Whole-of-Government (WoG) approach as required in the Strategic Framework for the Peace and Stabilisation Fund (2023-2027) and the Guidelines for the Peace and Stabilisation Fund (2023). It comprises of six projects that contribute to three pillars. The first pillar consists of three projects implemented by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with civil society organisations (CSOs) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The pillar aims to support at-risk communities in prioritised border areas to manage natural resource conflicts through dialogue, stabilisation facilities, and mitigate threats from violent extreme organisations. The second pillar focuses on strengthening regional law enforcement training capacities of CWA countries towards more strategic and coherent law enforcement in the region, as well as applying these in border areas at risk. The implementing partners for this pillar include the UNODC, Danish National Police, and Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR). The third pillar will be implemented by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Defence Command Denmark (DCD), where the focus is on military training and strengthening the response capacities of prioritised regional and national institutions in counter-terrorism and IEDs. Whereas the first and second pillars are ODA-financed, the third pillar is financed by non-ODA contributions. The MEAL contract entails monitoring of the first and second pillar, and evaluation and learning across all three pillars. Considering the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous nature of the programme’s context, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (MFA), represented by the Royal Danish Embassy (RDE) in Accra, Ghana (hereinafter referred to as the “Client”), intends to engage a Consultant to provide monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) services at both the programme and project levels for the stated programme duration. In line with the adaptive management principles underpinning the Danish Peace and Stabilization Programmes, the Consultant will support the Client in the further development and implementation of a robust MEAL system. This system must effectively capture, assess, and communicate reliable and relevant data to inform programme management, ensure accountability, and show achieved results. The Consultant's approach should be responsive to the complex and volatile security context in the region and align with the principles of the “Doing Development Differently” (DDD) approach, emphasizing adaptability and continuous learning. Strategic oversight and coordination of the Consultant’s role will be anchored at the Royal Danish Embassy in Accra, in close collaboration with the Department of Migration, Peace, and Stabilization (MIGSTAB) and other relevant departments within the MFA in Copenhagen, and external stakeholders. The objective of the Agreement is to support the Client in responding to its MEAL responsibilities including strengthening its monitoring and reporting capacities. The purpose of the Assignment of the external Consultant is to support and quality assure that the programme and its projects, the Client and implementing partners achieve and document results in an evidence-based manner. The Consultant will in particular help the Client to quality assure partner results through assessing the data collected and validating the results a.o. through selective field visits, including by supporting communication by programme stakeholders of selected documented strategic results.