External End-of-Project Evaluation

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• ACCESS 2.0 – Phase 2: Advancing Capacity for and Coverage of the Essential Services Package through Systems Strengthening
• Donor / contracting authority: European Union (European Commission)
• Implementing organization: International Rescue Committee (IRC) – Libya
• Locations: Benghazi, Sabha, Souq Al Jumaa and Al Kufra, Libya (18 supported health facilities)
• Project duration: January 2024 – December 2026
• Evaluation period: Approximately 40 calendar days, 21 November–31 December 2026
• Maximum budget USD 20,000, all costs included
• Proposal submission deadline 08/11/2026

1. Background

ACCESS 2.0 is a three-year IRC project supporting Libya’s primary health care system in coordination with the Ministry of Health (MoH), Primary Health Care Institute (PHCI), District Health Offices (DHOs), WHO and other health-sector actors. The project works in Benghazi, Sabha, Souq Al Jumaa and Al Kufra and supports 18 health facilities.

Overall objective: To contribute to improved health outcomes in the Libyan population, particularly among people most at risk or vulnerable.

Specific objective: To improve access to and utilization of essential health services, ensuring equity for vulnerable populations in targeted municipalities.

Theory of change: If the ESP is drafted and implemented consistently in targeted PHCCs and service quality improves, access to and utilization of essential health services for vulnerable populations will improve.

Implementation in Al Kufra started in May 2025, in an emergency-affected context. Estimated direct beneficiaries are approximately 160,000 according to the proposal; the evaluator will use the latest verified figures available at inception.

The project focuses on six areas:

• Implementation of the Essential Services Package (ESP) in targeted facilities.
• Improved quality of health services.
• Community-level health service delivery.
• Capacity strengthening of national health personnel.
• Promotion of healthy behaviours and practices.
• Improved health and health-system indicators.

2. Purpose and Scope of the Evaluation

The purpose is to provide an independent assessment of what ACCESS 2.0 achieved, how well it was implemented, what is likely to be sustained, and what should inform future programming.

• Cover implementation from January 2024 to 30 November 2026.
• Cover all four municipalities and all 18 supported health facilities, with a proportionate sample of community level interventions.
• Assess achievements across the six project outputs and their contribution to improved access and use of essential health services.
• Compare locations while considering contextual differences, including Al Kufra’s emergency-affected context and shorter implementation period.
• Assess close-out and handover arrangements using available documentation and stakeholder interviews; as the evaluation concludes shortly before the project end date, this should be noted as a limitation.

The evaluation should assess reasonable contribution to improved health outcomes; it is not expected to prove population-level causal attribution, repeat baseline/end-line studies or conduct new large-scale representative surveys.

• 3. Key Evaluation Questions
• Area Core question
• Area: Relevance & coherence

Did the project respond to priority health needs and align with national, municipal and health-sector priorities?

Area: Effectiveness

What were the main achievements across the six outputs, what gaps remain,

• and were results delivered with appropriate quality?
• Area: Contribution to objective and goal
• How did project achievements contribute to access to and use of essential health services, particularly for vulnerable groups?
• Area: Efficiency
• Were financial, human and material resources used appropriately and efficiently, and what affected timely delivery?
• Area: Sustainability
• Which capacities, systems and service improvements are likely to continue, and what supports or threatens sustainability?
• Area: Significant change & learning

What important intended or unintended changes occurred, what worked well or

less well, and why?

Area: Cross-cutting issues

How well did the project address equity and inclusion, gender and vulnerability, accountability, community participation, adaptation, conflict sensitivity and safeguarding?

4. Methodology and Safeguards

The consultant/team will propose a lean, theory-based mixed-methods approach, guided by the OECD-DAC criteria and the project theory of change. The approach should maximize use of existing evidence and collect primary data selectively to verify, explain and contextualize findings. At minimum, the evaluation should include:

• Desk review of key project documents, monitoring data, assessments, surveys and available HMIS/DHIS2 information. The evaluation is not expected to independently audit or recalculate project indicators or repeat baseline/end-line studies; instead, the evaluator should assess the relevance, consistency and limitations of available evidence and use it appropriately.
• Rapid structured verification visits to all 18 supported health facilities, subject to IRC security/access decisions, using a concise observation checklist, limited key-informant discussions, and photographic documentation where appropriate and permitted. These are not repeat facility assessments or comprehensive record abstraction. Where access is not possible, the constraint must be documented and an agreed remote alternative applied; such substitutions should remain exceptions.
• Focused interviews and/or discussions, using purposive sampling, with health workers and facility managers, DHOs, PHCI/MoH, IRC staff and selected community actors/beneficiaries. Bidders should justify a proportionate sample by stakeholder group and municipality that is sufficient for credible triangulation.

Remote interviews may be used where appropriate. IRC staff may facilitate introductions but will not be present during interviews or discussions with health workers, community members or beneficiaries.

• Small targeted quantitative data collection may be proposed only where essential and feasible within existing field visits and budget. Statistically representative municipal or subgroup estimates are not expected.
• Triangulation of project records, existing quantitative evidence, facility observations and stakeholder perspectives, including comparison across municipalities. Findings should reflect the strength and consistency of the supporting evidence and identify important contradictory or missing evidence where relevant.
• Analysis of sex, age, disability and nationality/displacement status where the available evidence permits.
• A clear limitations section covering evidence gaps, data quality, access constraints, selection/recall bias and implications for findings. Where evidence is mixed or limited, this should be stated explicitly and reflected in the confidence placed in conclusions.

Before primary data collection, the evaluator must submit concise procedures for informed consent, confidentiality, safeguarding/referrals, anonymization, secure data handling and any required ethical review. Data collection involving minors is not permitted unless explicitly approved by IRC with appropriate consent/assent procedures. Respondents must not be required to disclose legal or migration status where this could create a protection risk.

5. Deliverables and Timeline

At contract start:

• Day 1 is the contract start date.
• IRC will share the core document package and available datasets at contract signature and will request relevant access letters/permissions before Day 1.
• IRC will provide consolidated comments on the inception report within one working day.

• Minimum requirement
• Deliverable/milestone: Inception Report
• Timing: Day 5 (26 Nov 2026)

Minimum requirement: Desk-review synthesis, including confirmation of data availability, use and limitations; refined evaluation matrix with judgement criteria/evidence signals and data sources; justified sampling/stakeholder matrix by municipality; facility observation checklist; interview guides; ethics/data-protection protocol; fieldwork/deployment plan, quality-assurance arrangements and responsibilities.

Deliverable/milestone: Fieldwork/ data collection

Timing: 27 Nov–13 Dec

Minimum requirement: Rapid verification visits to all 18 facilities and focused stakeholder data collection, subject to access/security. Remote interviews with IRC staff may start on Day 6; facility and community data collection start once IRC has approved the inception tools and ethics protocol. Parallel deployment/local research support may be used where proposed and appropriately supervised. Any access-related substitution must be documented.

Deliverable/milestone: Preliminary findings/ validation

Timing: 14–16 Dec

Minimum requirement: One virtual or in-person validation session with IRC and invited stakeholders to discuss emerging findings, evidence gaps and initial recommendations. A separate designed slide deck is not required.

Deliverable/milestone: Draft Evaluation Report

Timing: By 20 Dec

Minimum requirement: Draft addressing agreed questions, findings, conclusions, limitations and prioritized recommendations.

Deliverable/milestone: IRC review

Timing: 23–27 Dec

Minimum requirement: One consolidated round of IRC comments.

Deliverable/milestone: Final Report and handover

Timing: 31 Dec

Minimum requirement: Final report, matrix, tools, clean anonymised data/notes, action matrix, and Arabic translation of the executive summary.

Final report: normally 25–30 pages excluding the executive summary and annexes. Deliverables are in English; the final executive summary (maximum 3 pages) must also be provided in Arabic. Findings should distinguish documented evidence, evaluator interpretation and stakeholder perceptions. Conclusions should be traceable to the evaluation questions and supported through triangulation.

Recommendations should be specific, feasible, evidence-based and prioritized, and identify responsible actors, timeframe and indicative resource implications.

6. Management, Security, Data and Budget

• The consultant/team will report to the designated IRC Libya focal point and coordinate with MEAL and Health teams.
• IRC will provide core project documents/data, introductions/access letters, appointment coordination and applicable security guidance. Other logistics and costs are the consultant/team’s responsibility; IRC will not provide in-kind support.
• Fieldwork may be modified or suspended based on IRC security/access decisions. The consultant/team is responsible for personnel safety, required insurance (including medical and, where relevant, evacuation cover) and compliance with IRC security guidance.
• All evaluation reports, tools, clean anonymised primary data/notes generated specifically for the evaluation and analysis files must be handed over to IRC using agreed arrangements. Existing IRC datasets do not need to be recreated or reformatted. Personally identifiable information should not be included in final datasets unless explicitly approved by IRC. Evaluation data or findings may not be published or shared without written IRC authorization.
• Maximum budget: USD 20,000, inclusive of professional fees and all evaluation-related costs. IRC anticipates approximately 25–30 professional person-days across the team; this is indicative, not mandatory.

Proposals must demonstrate a realistic level of effort and deployment model that maintains required field verification across all four municipalities and 18 facilities. Parallel deployment or short-term local research support may be proposed where it improves feasibility and cost-efficiency, with clear quality assurance, supervision and role allocation.

Payment schedule: 30% on approval of the inception report; 40% on submission of an acceptable draft report; 30% on approval of the final report and complete handover.

7. Required Qualifications

The assignment may be undertaken by an individual consultant with short-term local field assistance, or by a small team/firm. The proposed structure must demonstrate practical capacity to work across all four municipalities within the fieldwork window. Parallel local deployment may be proposed, but the lead evaluator must retain clear responsibility for methodological oversight, analysis, quality assurance and final reporting.

• Lead evaluator: relevant advanced degree with at least 5 years of progressive evaluation/research experience, or relevant bachelor’s degree with at least 7 years, including experience leading comparable health or health-system evaluations.
• Strong mixed-methods evaluation experience in primary health care, health-system strengthening or related programmes in humanitarian or fragile settings, including qualitative methods, routine health/monitoring data analysis, contribution analysis, triangulation and concise evidence-based reporting.
• Knowledge of quality of care, referral systems, workforce development, community health, inclusion and safeguarding.
• Good understanding of the Libyan context; experience across East, South and West Libya is an advantage.
• Arabic and English capacity within the proposed team.
• Ability to handle sensitive health and vulnerability data securely and ethically.

8. Application Procedure

Proposal submission deadline: 08/11/2026

Interested individuals, teams or firms should submit a complete proposal by the deadline. Only complete and compliant applications will proceed to technical evaluation.

The proposal should include:

• Technical proposal (maximum 8 pages, excluding CVs and annexes) describing the proposed OECDDAC/ theory-based methodology, sampling, deployment across all 18 facilities, workplan, triangulation approach, quality assurance, ethics/data protection and team level of effort. The indicative evaluation matrix and sampling matrix may be provided as annexes of up to 4 pages in total.
• Financial proposal in USD with a clear cost breakdown and assumptions, not exceeding USD 20,000 all inclusive.
• CV(s), role allocation, availability, and contact details for two professional referees for the lead evaluator.
• Two examples or links to comparable evaluations completed in the last five years.
• Signed declaration of no conflict of interest, including any previous involvement in the design, implementation or monitoring of ACCESS 1.0 or ACCESS 2.0.
• Written confirmation that field team members are legally able to work and travel in Libya for the assignment period.

Mandatory requirements

• Application received by the stated deadline and includes all required documents.
• Total proposed price does not exceed USD 20,000, all costs included.
• Lead evaluator meets the minimum qualification.
• Team demonstrates Arabic and English capacity.
• Team confirms availability for 21 November–31 December 2026.
• Required conflict-of-interest and legal work/travel confirmations are included.

9. Selection Criteria

Compliant proposals will be assessed using the following simple criteria:

Criterion: Technical approach and methodology

Weight: 40%

Criterion: Relevant experience and qualifications

Weight: 30%

Criterion: Cost competitiveness / value for money

Weight: 20%

Criterion: Team composition, availability and ability to deploy

Weight: 10%

Professional Standards: All International Rescue Committee workers must adhere to the core values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct . Our Standards are Integrity, Service, Equality and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Safeguarding , Conflicts of Interest, Fiscal Integrity, and Reporting Wrongdoing and Protection from Retaliation.

IRC is committed to take all necessary preventive measures and create an environment where people feel safe, and to take all necessary actions and corrective measures when harm occurs. IRC builds teams of professionals who promote critical reflection, power sharing, debate, and objectivity to deliver the best possible services to our clients.

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