Somalia: Consultancy to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Training Sessions Provided to the Community Disaster Management Committees of BRCiS Consortium

Consultancy to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Training Sessions Provided to the Community Disaster Management Committees of the Building Resilient Communities in Somalia (BRCiS) Consortium

Terms of Reference

1. Purpose of assignment

Background information on the Consortium:

The Building Resilient Communities in Somalia Consortium was established in October 2013 with the overall objective to improving the resilience of vulnerable communities and households in seven regions, 27 districts and 90 communities of South and Central Somalia. Cutting across the 'Humanitarian – Development' spectrum, the BRCiS programme balances its response to short-term humanitarian needs with the longer-term aim of building community and household capacities to deal with the shocks and stresses. This way, the project provides a continuum of humanitarian and rehabilitation/development assistance that seeks to improve the absorptive (short-term) and adaptive (medium- and long-term) capacities of communities and households. In the communities that BRCiS works, this generally includes combinations of interventions related to Food Security, Livelihoods, WASH, nutrition, disaster risk reduction, natural resource management amongst others.

Context of the intervention

Community Disaster Management Committees (CDMCs) are groups established in each BRCiS location with a mandate of facilitating resilience-building at the community level. Depending on the communities, they are comprised of 9 to 13 members who share numerous tasks and responsibilities in resilience-building. For instance, in the event of recurring shocks, they are required to act as focal points disseminating information, and organizing the response. Throughout the programme, members of such committees benefit from specific trainings regarding Early Warning and Early Action, as well as Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation or Conflict Management. This is with the goal of increasing their capacities to better anticipate and respond to recurring shocks and stresses.

2. Objectives and Scope of Work

The objective of the commissioned consultancy is to evaluate the effectiveness of various trainings provided to CDMCs including Disaster Risk Reduction, Natural Resource Management and Early Action Trainings with a focus on exploring whether and how these contributed to increased community resilience in practice. Further, the evaluation report should document and assess gaps and achievements regarding the effectiveness of training conducted in informing community early actions against shocks and provide recommendations on the design of any future training conducted. Above and beyond which, the study should seek to asnwer the following preliminary research questions:

• What was the concept of CDMCs described in the proposal? What is the implementing agencies’ perception of it? Are there any significant differences in their approaches?
• How were CDMCs implemented? What is the composition of CDMCs: who participates in them? Are vulnerable groups well represented? How often do CDMCs meet? How are the roles and responsibilities of CDMC Members defined? What is the perception of CDMC Members towards their defined tasks as well as towards the community engagement process led by the implementing agencies ? How are CDMCs held accountable?
• What kind of training events did CDMCs receive and how were they designed by the different implementing agencies? Did the trainings lead to any significant changes in regard to early action against shocks in the training participants’ view? How could the various trainings received be further improved in their assessment?

Methodologically, the study is expected to rely on a range of qualitative methods including document reviews, key informant interviews, semi-structured interviews and case studies collecting information from various stakeholders including CDMCs members, community elderlies, local authorities, as well as BRCiS project managers.

3. Deliverables

• Provide an inception report
• Develop qualitative evaluation tools including interview questions and list of stakeholders to be surveyed
• Lead qualitative data collection and coordinate with BRCiS M&E Team throughout the evaluation process
• Perform data management, quality assurance, and data analysis.
• Present preliminary findings
• Write and present final evaluation incorporating the feedback received

4. Supervisor

The supervisor of the consultant is the BRCiS M&E Manager. More generally, the Consultant will work in close collaboration with the Consortium’s M&E Team and with relevant technical working groups.

1. Estimated duration of contract

It is estimated that the contract will take approximately 45 working days between 15 November 2018 and 15 February 2018.

1. Official travel involved

The consultancy requires extensive travel to BRCiS project sites across South Central Somalia. Work meetings are expected to be held in Mogadishu or in Nairobi.

7. Qualifications or specialized knowledge and/or experience required

Required qualifications for the consultant team is:

• An advanced university degree (Master's) in Social Sciences, Sociology, Anthropology or a directly-related technical field(s) - PhD preferred
• Strong experience in evaluating resilience programs in the context of Somalia; especially in the field of community engagement, governance and natural resource management and early warning and early action
• Significant field experience conducting and leading qualitative research/evaluations; be able to show experiences in designing evaluation, managing, and analyzing qualitative data
• Strong familiarity of the context in South-Central Somalia

9. Application

We welcome applications both from individuals, partnerships, and firms with a deadline of 4^th November 2018, 11:59pm (East Africa time). The consultant candidates are expected to submit a proposal covering the following content

1. Consultant profile

2. Evaluation questions and methodology

3. Analysis plan

4. Evaluation time-frame

5. Evaluation budget plan

6. References

7. Proposed team structure and respective CVs

8. Samples of previous relevant evaluation work

Please send the required documents throughso.logistics@nrc.no

if you have any query, please send to balint.nemeth@nrc.no or nasra.dahir@nrc.no