Terms of Reference for External  Evaluation MECO–ECOTRA[1] & SPERI[2] (Period 2010-2013)
 
MECO-ECOTRA is the Grassroots Foundation towards Traditional Civil Society Organizational & Institutional Development beyond national, territorial, social, and political borders. It is the visionary, strategic and practical direction of SPERI’s journey based on the interactional principles of Biological Human Ecology Theory which underlies SPERI’s approach to the daily challenge and obstacles as well as advantages when working with the Indigenous People in the Mekong region. It is a vital partner of SPERI and always leading SPERI forward from 1995 – 2005 – 2015 and continuing up to 2025.
 
MECO-ECOTRA 2015-2025 focuses on consolidating livelihood sovereignty (MECO-ECOTRA’s dignity) which is inter-related with 1) the right to Land (basic); 2) the right to performance one’s own religion on one’s own land (unique); 3) the right to practice their own knowledge in daily farming (practice); 4) the right to decide what to grow on their land (holistic); and 5) the right to co-govern in their land (strategic).
 
The Agreement to finance a three year program was approved by ICCO “MECO-ECOTRA development strategic framework from 2010-2013 which has been implemented via a contract Project number: 76-03-02-015 with total budget of the program is 1.000.000 Euro, in which ICCO (Inter-Church Organization for Cooperation and Development) – the Netherlands - approved 60% of the total budget. The remaining 40% was later on raised through support from: 1) Bread for the World (BdfW) - Germany; 2) CCFD (The Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development) – France; 3) Norwegian People’ Aids (NPA); and a small grant from UNDP in Vietnam.
 
The objectives of the external evaluation are to determine the effectiveness of the project in achieving its outputs and outcomes as part of a process of consolidating lessons learned and providing recommendations that will be helpful to the organization’s programming of activities for the next phase of Mekong Community Networking and Ecological Trading development.  In this context, the evaluation should provide answers based on the following criteria: 1) Relevance – do we do the right thing? 2) Effectiveness – do we reach the objectives of the project? 3) Efficiency – do we reach the objectives with an acceptable level of means? 4) Development impact – do we contribute to objectives on a higher development policy level? 5) Sustainability – is the impact sustainable?

[1] Mekong Community Networking for Ecological Trading = MECO - ECOTRA

[2] Social Policy Ecology Research Institute - SPERI