Final Evaluation of Transboundary Rivers of South Asia (TROSA) Phase II: Rivers, Rights, Resilience

I.        Background

Oxfam is an international confederation of 21 organisations, working together in 79 countries. As part of a global movement for change, we are working together to end world poverty and injustice. We work with thousands of partners in countries around the world, and employ staff in a wide variety of posts. We work directly with communities, and we work with the powerful to enable the most marginalised to improve their lives and livelihoods and have a say in decisions that affect them.

Transboundary Rivers of South Asia (TROSA) is a multi-year program commenced in 2017 and supported by the Government of Sweden. TROSA Phase II: Rivers, Rights, Resilience (started from Dec 2022) aims to improve cooperation in governing shared water resources and strengthening resilience to climate change of riparian communities in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basins. The program works directly with communities in selected locations within the transboundary Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) river basins, across countries.

TROSA is a multi-partner initiative with six international and ten national partners working with Oxfam International in the region. A Program Management Unit (PMU) under Oxfam International coordinates the programme, with support from two country offices in Bangladesh and Nepal.

The current phase of the programme works toward the following outcomes:

• Outcome-1: Strengthened climate-resilient livelihoods of communities living in the transboundary GBM river basins
• Outcome-2: Improved and inclusive management of transboundary river ecosystems and protection of biodiversity across the GBM river basins
• Outcome-3: Strengthened leadership of civil society, especially women, Indigenous People, and youth to influence government and private sector on water governance across and between the transboundary GBM basins
• Outcome-4: Strengthened cooperation, collaboration and accountability across and between the transboundary GBM river basins

II.      About the final evaluation for TROSA II

Due to  phase out of Sida’s Strategy for Regional Cooperation in Asia and the Pacific Region, TROSA is also phasing out of activities by 30th of June 2026. The programme has done a mid-term review in 2025 following an approved ToR in line with Sida’s requirements.

Sida requires that:

• Evaluations shall conform to OECD/DAC’s Quality Standards for Development Evaluation. The evaluators shall use the Sida OECD/DAC Glossary of Key Terms in Evaluation.
• Evaluations should be utilisation-focused, i.e. put emphasis on who the intended users of a specific evaluation are and the intended use of the evaluation. The evaluation process shall be designed, conducted and reported to meet the needs of the intended users.

The final evaluation of TROSA II will be an end-term evaluation building on the Mid-term Review and focusing on results achieved by the Programme overall and following the Sida requirements.

All Oxfam programme evaluations also follow Oxfam’s Common Approaches to Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning and Social Accountability (CAMSA) principles.

This evaluation will be used by a set of primary and secondary users

Primary users include all TROSA partners and communities, including women and youth groups, PMU, Steering Committee, Oxfam Novib and Oxfam in Asia Regional Platform and Sida.

Secondary users include potential donors, regional and sub-regional institutions in the regions, such as UNESCAP, UN Water Convention, Joint River Commission (JRC), Water and Energy Commission (WEC) of Nepal; and Networks/communities of practice (CoP) on evaluation.

Evaluation Scope:

The Evaluation will start by April 2026 and be completed by June 2026 (report due to Oxfam in July 2026 for review and consultation, and to Sida by September 2026).

• Phases: The evaluation will cover TROSA Phase -II program duration (December 2022-June 2026) and will also take into account continued results from Phase 1 (2017-22).
• Partners and stakeholders: The evaluation will cover all TROSA partners and allies, governance units (PMU, Steering Committee) and other relevant stakeholders directly or indirectly engaged in the project and people we work with in TROSA phase-II.
• Processes: Key processes of design, partnership, implementation, budget and fund management, governance of the program, communications, MEAL, audits, risk management and adaptations will be analyzed to look at their relevance, coherence, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability.
• Geography: The evaluation will cover program implementation basins and communities in Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan. TROSA Phase II, being a regional water governance initiative, a focus of the results and impacts evaluation will be at the basin and regional levels. This will also assess the coherence and connectedness among diverse activities and strategies for more basin and regional level outputs and impacts.
• Transboundary Cooperation: Transboundary cooperation is an important element of the programme. This evaluation will analyse the impact of transboundary cooperation among partners and other program stakeholders.
• Learning Synthesis: Analyse and collate the learning and reflection on the different dimensions of program implementation, key approaches, and strategies for influencing various stakeholders and decision makers, lessons learned on innovation, unintended changes, and external factors that supported Oxfam and its partners.

Key Evaluation Questions (KEQs)[1]:

A set of KEQs will help analyze and assess aspects of:Results and Impacts:

1. To what extent has the programme generated, or is expected to generate, significant positive or negative, intended or unintended, high-level results? How have community led processes contributed to river & associated ecosystem health improvement? What are the learnings from TRoSA?
2. Has the programme had any positive or negative effects on gender equality? Could gender mainstreaming have been improved in planning, implementation or follow up?
3. Has the program been designed and implemented to improve transboundary cooperation in worsening climate change situation in South Asia? How has TROSA contributed to improving cooperation among stakeholders?
4. How has the programme dealt with the recommendations received during mid-term review in 2025

Effectiveness:

1. To what extent has the intervention achieved its objectives and its results, including any differential results across groups?

1. Has the M&E system delivered robust and useful information that can be used to assess progress towards outcomes and contribute to learning?
2. How have TROSA contributed on inclusion and empowerment of youth, women and marginalised communities in river governance?  

Coherence:

3. How are the programme results connected across different basins and actor groups and contributing to the desired change/s at the basin levels?
4. How has the partnership mix and cooperation mechanism of TRoSA worked? What could be improved for any future programmes like this?
5. Was the partnership approach adopted appropriate in terms of addressing capacity and implementation challenges at the local, national and regional levels?

Efficiency:

1. To what extent has the intervention delivered results (output, outcome and impact) in an economic and timely way?
2. How efficient was the program in adapting to changing context, unforeseen challenges (political/social context) and repurposing to meet the expected results and capitalize on potential opportunities? How was the programme managed under the shifting political and donor landscape, what were the key adjustments and how effective were they? What are the learnings for future programmes in terms of management?

Sustainability:

1. To what extent will the intervention or part of the intervention continue, or are likely to continue, despite the ending of Sida funding?
2. To what extent has the programme been successful in mobilizing allies and like-minded networks and actors to ensure sustainability of the results, processes, strategies, systems and impacts?
3. Has the programme included voices of the communities especially women and youth at various stages of the implementation to a satisfactory degree?  How has TRoSA built/contributed to climate resilience of river dependent communities? What worked and why? What are the recommendations for similar future programmes, based on the learnings of TRoSA?

Evaluation Schedule (Tentative)[2]:

The estimation of work in the following table is for a team of consultants and work in each of the countries. Short-listed applicants will be requested to prepare an indicative timeframe of the evaluation and methodologies. Below describes a possible timeframe.

• April 2026: Review of key program documents and reports; introduction with program partners and stakeholders; and refining the evaluation framework and methodology
• April-May 2026: Field Work
• May- Early June: Present preliminary findings to the Steering Committee/TROSA partners for comments and suggestions to proceed to comprehensive analysis and report writing.
• June: 2026: Draft report; validating findings with partners (and beneficiaries)
• July: Finalisation and submission of report to Oxfam and present key findings to Sida/Embassy of Sweden in Thailand.

Key Deliverables:

1. Final evaluation report (in English) analysing key findings and learnings (no more than 30 pages - excluding annexes- responding to key evaluation questions). The structure of the report will be discussed and agreed upon with the successful candidates.
2. An Evaluation Learning Brief (4-6 pages) capturing the evaluation framework, key questions, method, findings and recommendations. 
3. A presentation of the key findings through a workshop

Recruitment Qualifications:

Oxfam is requesting tenders from evaluation teams or institutions. The team should have competencies and a sound understanding of complex regional influencing programming that focuses on civil society strengthening, policy influencing and gender equality in the context of natural resources governance, as well as local representation and leadership from the programme region (South Asia) for contextual knowledge and understanding. Qualified women are encouraged to apply.

Minimum Qualifications:

Required

• >7-year experience in international program evaluation, with significant knowledge and experience of evaluation concepts and approaches for advocacy and influencing programs;
• Academic degree (Master’s as minimum) in natural resources management, climate change, international development, business and human rights and gender equality;

• Demonstrated experience in evaluating regional programs, gender equality, civil society strengthening, policy influencing and natural resource management.
• Demonstrated experience with different designs and methodologies for evaluation, including those with a participatory nature.
• Strong qualitative and quantitative analytical skills.
• Demonstrated high-level proficiency in written and spoken English, with clear and concise analysis, and in developing reports that include visual representation of data. 

Preferred

• Knowledge of working with CSOs and their engagement in water cooperation and hydro-diplomacy issues.
• Experience conducting international research in South Asia.

• Available language skills other than English (team members with competencies in the following: Nepali, Hindi, Bengali and Bhutanese).

• Good understanding of GBM basin contexts and the larger geopolitics, hydro-diplomacy, gender equality and human rights issues in these regions.
• Good understanding of roles of and relations between governments, sub-regional/regional forums, corporate and civil society actors on transboundary water governance, inclusive business and human rights.
• Prior experience in research on countries in which TROSA operates

• Understanding of Sida requirements.

Data Protection: The evaluation agency will follow the data protection policy of Oxfam while collecting, processing, and storing the programme-related data.