Somalia: Terms of Reference: Final Evaluation -Improving Access to Life-Saving Water and Food for Drought Relief Project in the Bay, Bakool and Gedo Regions

TERMS OF REFERENCE: FINAL EVALUATION: IMPROVING ACCESS TO LIFE-SAVING WATER AND FOOD FOR DROUGHT RELIEF PROJECT IN THE BAY, BAKOOL AND GEDO REGIONS, SOMALIA

Organization: Adeso - African Development Solutions, www.adesoafrica.org

Project: Improving Access to Life-Saving Water and Food for Drought Relief Project in the Bay, Bakool and Gedo Regions

Position Type: Short-term Consultancy

Study/Assessment Topic: Final Project Evaluation

Position Location: Bay, Bakool and Gedo Regions of Somalia

Duration: Twenty-Five (25) Days

Reporting To: MEAL Manager

Working With: Adeso and NIS Program Teams (Also working with the Programs Development and Quality Team in Nairobi)

Starting Date: Immediately

Application Deadline: 18th March, 2018

Vacancy Contact: Please send applications to consultancy@adesoafrica.org– Adeso will only respond to short-listed applicants.

ORGANIZATIONAL BACKGROUND

Adeso is an expanding and vibrant African based international development and humanitarian organization. At Adeso, we work with African communities who are yet to realize their full potential; working inside these communities to create environments in which Africans can thrive. Our belief that economic, social and environmental security is the bedrock of a healthy community drives the nature and intent of our programming. We work to prevent and overcome situations that adversely affect community well-being by: reinvigorating the economy, developing skills for life and work, providing humanitarian aid, and influencing policy.

For the past 20 years we have strengthened rural livelihoods through environmental awareness, training, technology transfer and innovative humanitarian projects in pursuit of a peaceful, self-reliant, and greener future.

Adeso is an exciting and dynamic organization experiencing managed rapid growth. It offers sound employment conditions with opportunities for personal growth and development.

NIS first established its presence in Somalia in late 2011 with the implementation of a pilot solar street lighting project in Mogadishu designed to increase the legitimacy of the local administration by increasing its capacity to deliver public services. NIS has highly-skilled national and diaspora staff in-country that effectively navigate the complex political and security landscape and maintain a focus on the immediate-term needs that are met in order to achieve visible results. NIS has established effective networks with access to key actors within the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS), the Somali diaspora, civil society, private sector and local and regional administrations.

The close working relationship with government bodies allows NIS to assist the government in the implementation of projects aimed at filling the development gap and build the capacity of local administrations to deliver public services in their jurisdictions. NIS’ country strategy combines stringent security requirements with increased access to a wide range of Somali stakeholders.

NIS manages security risks by implementing a low profile – high preparedness strategy. Its cornerstone is based on receiving security risk information from local sources, using local security resources and a “local face”.

PROJECT SUMMARY

Adeso is seeking a competent consulting firm specialized in evaluating integrated food security and livelihood, WASH, stabilization, conflict prevention and resolution, community cohesion project to evaluate the ‘Improving access to water and food for drought relief project’ in Bay, Bakool and Gedo regions of Somalia. The consultancy is for a period of 25 days to begin in the last week of March 2018 and will include desk review, field data collection, data analysis, report writing and presentation of the findings to field teams and PDQU team in Nairobi. We do encourage consultancy firms or groups who can assign one consultant specialized in peace building, food security and livelihood, and WASH to send in their technical and financial proposal.

BACKGROUND FOR CONSULTANCY

Improving access to water and food for drought relief project in Bay, Bakool and Gedo regions of Somalia funded by Somalia Stability Fund is an immediate-effect response project aimed to address the critical and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Somalia including stabilisation, conflict prevention, conflict resolution and community cohesion. It combined humanitarian assistance and early recovery interventions to provide life-saving support, community stabilisation, conflict resolution and community cohesion in Bay, Bakool and Gedo regions, and to allow them to strengthen their resilience in recurring water scarcity and food insecurity. It operated as a stakeholder partnership based around technical expertise, engagement and coordination with the private sector and local governance structures as well as humanitarian coordination bodies, and guided by humanitarian principles. With the aim to save the lives of the most at risk families and strengthen community resilience and water infrastructure, the consortium’s interventions were aligned to meet the overall impact, outcomes and outputs of the project.

OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The main purpose of this assessment is to determine whether the project achieved its specific objectives and overall intended impact on the lives of target beneficiaries including their families, communities, and local authorities.

The final evaluation will also help determine some impacts signs the project has produced on the main target communities, in terms of meeting livelihood needs, resolution and mitigation of conflicts, stabilisation of those communities in terms of livelihoods, conflict prevention, resolution and community cohesionand as well as enhancing and strengthening of local stability. The evaluation will also gauge the level of community and other stakeholder participation and ownership of the implementation process including the identification of the intended and unintended outcomes, best practice and lesson learned as well as challenges arising from project implementation.

The inception phase of the project included the undertaking of the project baseline used to help set project benchmark. The baseline report will be used heavily to guide the end-line evaluation both as a source of benchmark data as well as in general terms where conclusions and recommendation on the way forward will be derived. Also, the assessment will reference the project baseline to determine the extent at which the objectives, target outcomes and impacts have been achieved.

SCOPE OF WORK

The end-line evaluation of this project will be carried out through: visits to project sites in Bay, Bakool and Gedo regions of Somalia; indirect data collection will be done through extensive literature review; direct data collection through extensive HH interviews, government officials, and communities’ informants from different livelihood groups who have been involved either directly or indirectly in the project. Specific guided areas of focus are as follows:

1.Appropriateness

· The evaluation must report back on the appropriateness of this particular intervention in meeting the objectives.

· Were the activities developed necessary and were the way they were implemented appropriate to the context and culture?

· Was the choice of interventions appropriate to the context?

2.Connectedness

· Does the project’s approach and activities fit within international priorities such as the millennium development goals?

· Does the project have any linkage with other program by other agencies working in the same regions?

· Did the work of Adeso compliment the activities of other stakeholders, such as INGOs, NGOs and UN agencies in the project sites or adjacent villages?

3.Coherence

· Did the activities complement one another?

· Does a success in one activity increase the potential success of another activity?

· How well did Adeso link the activities on the ground?

4.Coverage

· Evaluate the coverage of the project.

· Was the coverage too small to have an impact or too large that the benefits are spread too thin to have impact?

· How has the coverage affected other aspects of the project such as monitoring?

· Was the area the right area chosen for this sort of project?

5.Effectiveness

· How well did the project design meet the objectives and extent to which the objectives were achieved?

· Was the number of beneficiaries reached by the various activities acceptable?

· Were the activities implemented well?

· Could there have been better ways of implementation that may have led to improved outcomes?

· To what extent has the external assumption in the proposal held true and how well were the mitigating measures put in use?

6.Efficiency

· Evaluate project activity management and implementation, and resource allocation and utilization including human resources and financial management.

· Evaluate the involvement of stakeholders in the design of projects and identification of gender equalities and women empowerment support areas.

· How realistic is the potential sustainability of the infrastructures constructed or rehabilitated and groups supported?

· Evaluate the gender balance in relation to beneficiary participation and benefits.

· Assess the value of internal controls i.e. monitoring tools, information management, activity plan and implementation.

7.Impact Signs

· Determine the impact of the project activities to improve infrastructures and enhancing capacity to government officials in the target population.

· Assess the impact of the project activities to increase number of empowered men, women and children representing their communities.

· Evaluate the impact on conflict mitigation as a result of the project design.

· Highlight any unintended impacts of the project.

8.Sustainability

· Evaluate the design of the project in relation to sustainability and replicability.

· Evaluate whether the project activities implemented will live beyond the life of the project period and continue to contribute to improving the target regions.

· Efficiency of activities geared at sustainability.

9.Lessons Learnt

· Identify lesson learnt and provide recommendations both general as well as specifically in relation to approach, design, delivery modality, governance, etc. for future programming purposes.

METHODOLOGY

The consulting firm is expected to review and refine the methodology proposed in this ToR, taking into account the original project proposal and baseline survey report and in consultation with key personnel from Adeso and SSF. The key components of the proposed methodology include qualitative and quantitative methods such as questionnaires, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. To the largest extent possible, field data should be collected using participatory appraisal techniques. District local authorities, elders, women and youth groups, minorities and other community members from each target location should be interviewed as well as government partners from the respective line ministries.

The following are expected to be considered while developing evaluation methodology:

· Data and information from various secondary sources including reports from the project.

· Review of Adeso’s M&E reports and other project-related documents.

· Developing data collection tools and framework to guide the process of data collection which will be presented to Adeso for feedback and approval.

· Exploring the possibility of deploying short-term local personnel with greater access to target areas to undertake data collection.

POSSIBLE FIELD WORK

The Consultant shall prepare an evaluation schedule to operationalize the assessment for the stipulated period of consultancy. The work plan will describe how the assessment will be carried out, bringing refinements, strategy, specify and elaboration to the terms of reference.

The Consultant will need to provide his/her own travel plan insurance and the same will be applicable to personnel independently deployed for data collection.

CONSULTANCY PERIOD

Twenty-five (25) days.

DELIVERABLES

· Initial work plan and inception report for the evaluation including study methodology and process of data collection to be presented to Adeso for feedback and approval.

· Final work plans and data collection for approval prior to field work in Bay, Bakool and Gedo regions.

· Interim evaluation report with preliminary analysis and observations, submitted for feedback and comments.

· Presentation of the main findings of the draft evaluation report for final consensus building to the field team in Bay, Bakool and Gedo regions, and Adeso program development and quality team in Nairobi for comments.

· Final evaluation report in English.

EXPECTED PROFILE OF THE CONSULTANT

· Have an advanced degree and experience in Social Sciences, Law, Conflict Management and Peace-building, protection programming and evaluation, or development evaluation / masters level degree on the assessment thematic focus areas- WASH, FSL and conflicts management programs evaluations.

· Demonstrable experience in leading evaluations of humanitarian programs responding to major disasters, with specific emphasis on cash programming and conflict resolution.

· Knowledge of strategic and operational management of humanitarian operations and proven ability to provide strategic recommendations to key stakeholders.

· Strong analytical skills and ability to clearly synthesize and present findings, draw practical conclusions, make recommendations and to prepare well-written reports in a timely manner.

· Experience in qualitative data collection and analysis techniques, especially in emergency operations.

· Excellent working knowledge of Somalia and the Horn of Africa.

· Proven ability to conduct field studies and to write clear and concise research reports in English. List of publications may be requested.

· Good interpersonal skills and understanding cultural sensitivities.

· Readiness to travel to Somalia and conduct direct standard monitoring and evaluation activities.

EVALUATION AND AWARD OF CONSULTANCY

Adeso will evaluate the proposals and award the assignment based on technical and financial feasibility. Adeso reserves the right to accept or reject any proposal received without giving reasons and is not bound to accept the lowest or the highest bidder. Only those shortlisted will be contacted.

QUALIFICATIONS

Adeso will conduct interviews on an on-going basis. All applicants must meet the minimum requirements described above. Only short-listed candidates/firms will be contacted. Adeso is an equal opportunity employer. Each application should include the following:

· CV (s) with details of qualifications, experience, telephone number and names of three referees (preferably those having worked for in similar assignments);

· Technical proposal that summarizes your understanding of the ToR and proposed methodology;

· Financial proposal providing estimates of all assessment costs including daily consultancy fees in US$. Daily consulting rate is negotiable, although should be commensurate to Adeso consultancy terms and standards; and

· The foreseen work plan for the days.

COPYRIGHTAND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

In consideration of the fees paid, the Consultant expressly assigns to Adeso any copyright arising from the works the consultant produces while executing this contract. All images (whether used for online or print purposes) must however bear the consultant’s photo credit, as specified by international intellectual property rights. The consultant may not use, reproduce or otherwise disseminate or authorize others to use, reproduce or disseminate such works without prior consent from Adeso.

All applications should be sent to consultancy@adesoafrica.org by the 18^th March, 2018 with “**Drought relief project** Final Evaluation” on the subject line. The selection committee will review all applications as they arrive. All applicants must meet the minimum requirements described above, and those unable to meet these requirements will not be considered.

Each application package should include the following:

• An application letter addressing the selection criteria including how the consultant’s previous experience matches the consultancy objectives as well as the interest for the position. It should also indicate the candidate’s availability and consultancy rates. The letter should be no longer than two pages;
• A sample of recent work;
• Updated CV including relevant work experience and qualifications;
• Contact details of 2 references.

Applications not including all of the above information will not be reviewed.Adeso is an equal opportunity employer.