The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland supports higher education institutions through two programmes: the North-South-South (NSS) programme and the Higher Education Institutions Institutional Cooperation Instrument (HEI ICI). The NSS programme supports mainly mobility and networking while HEI ICI focuses on capacity development of the partner country institutions. The two programmes are managed by the Finnish Centre for International Mobility (CIMO).

The current programme cycles of NSS and HEI ICI are ending at the end of 2014. This provides an opportunity for the Ministry to consider potential options for the future of the two programmes. The purpose of the evaluation is to support this work. The objective of the evaluation is to:

• provide a comprehensive overall independent view on the achievements, strengths and weaknesses of NSS and HEI ICI programmes;
• bring forth lessons learned and give recommendations on how programmes should be developed further to support higher education institutions’ active role in development.

The evaluation includes desk study, interviews in Finland and fieldwork in Vietnam, Kenya and South Africa.

Deadline: 20 September 2013

Link to the invitation to tender, terms of references and other information can be found on the following websites:

Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland

Tenders Electronic Daily