Somalia: Household Economy Analysis (HEA) and Baseline Assessment for Building Resilience through Social Safety Nets in South-Central Somalia Project

Terms of Reference

Household Economy Analysis (HEA) and Baseline Assessment for Building Resilience through Social Safety Nets in South-Central Somalia Project

Organization

Social Safety Nets consortium (SSNP Consortium)

Project

Building Resilience through Social Safety Nets in South-Central Somalia Program

Position Type

Short-term Consultancy

Study/Assessment Topic

1. Consultancy assignment to conduct Household Economy Analysis (HEA) of Building Resilience through Social Safety Nets in South-Central Somalia Program;

2. Consultancy assignment to conduct baseline assessment of Building Resilience through Social Safety Nets in South-Central Somalia Program.

Position Location

Kismayo, Lower Juba Region

Afmadow, Lower Juba Region

Dhobley, Lower Juba Region

Duration

40 days

Reporting To

Consortium Coordinator

Wor**king With**

SSNP consortium staff, ACTED and Adeso Monitoring and Evaluation focal points

Starting Date

3^rd May 2016

Application Deadline

9^th May 2016

Vac**an**c**y Contact**

Please send applications to consultancy@adesoafrica.org, Adeso will only respond to short-listed applicants.

1.PROJECT SUMMARY

The Building Resilience through Social Safety Nets in South-Central Somalia Program implemented by ACTED and Adeso is a longer term, predictable, market-based intervention which has the potential to help households manage their own coping mechanisms and livelihood opportunities, minimizing the negative impacts of shock events. It aims at reducing lower Juba community’s vulnerability to acute and chronic food insecurity.

The ACTED-Adeso Social Safety Net Programme (SSNP) Consortium aims to provide a sustainable opportunity for resilience building for communities chronically affected by food insecurity and humanitarian crises in Lower Juba. Targeted communities will benefit through the delivery of predictable and regular cash transfers to vulnerable households, alongside investment in diverse livelihood bases and the provision of support and community led preparedness, early warning and timely response systems. Resilience will be strengthened not only at the household level directly, but through implementing improvements to systems and policies in terms of early warning and disaster preparedness.

The program will reach 6,000 households with regular cash transfers and livelihood support, and the overall communities - an estimated 18,000 households, will benefit from improved access to early warning messaging, disaster risk reduction and a scale-up of cash transfers in the event of a shock or disaster event. The project will support a body of research on Social Safety Net Programming, enabling service providers to continue to deliver better designed Safety Net interventions into the future.

The target locations for the proposed project include three districts of Lower Juba region, namely Kismayo, Afmadow and Dhobley, where ACTED and Adeso each have a strong presence. The SSNP consortium will aim at implementing a similar approach in other locations, in particular in Burhakaba, with complementary funding sources.

2.SOCIAL SAFETY NETS PROGRAM (SSNP) CONSORTIUM

The ACTED-Adeso SSNP Consortium, established in early 2013, aims to provide a sustainable opportunity for resilience building for communities chronically affected by food insecurity and humanitarian crises in Lower Juba. Targeted communities will benefit through the delivery of predictable and regular cash transfers to vulnerable households, alongside investment in diverse livelihood bases and the provision of support and community led preparedness, early warning and timely response systems.

Both ACTED and Adeso have extensive experience of and presence in humanitarian programming in Somalia, in particular in South-Central Somalia and Lower Juba.

ACTED has been working in South-Central Somalia since 2009, and has developed strong relationships with communities and local authorities through the provision of food security, WASH and livelihood programming. ACTED Somalia's areas of intervention are located in South Central Somalia, across the Juba’s (Middle and Lower), Bay and Gedo regions supported by an operational area office in Mogadishu. ACTED has operated emergency response programs, most notably offering vital humanitarian assistance during the 2011 drought, and is now moving towards resilience building. In 2012 the security context and constraints on programming in Dinsoor and Sakow forced the organization to make a decision to close these project sites and relocate activities to Baidoa, El Waq and Kismayo following needs assessments done in both areas. As a result, in 2013 ACTED adapted programming to support urban communities including IDPs, host and minority groups to enhance food security, strengthen livelihoods and improve access to water, sanitation and hygiene.

Adeso, formerly known as Horn Relief, is an African-based organization established in 1991 in response to Somalia’s devastating humanitarian crisis and civil war. Adeso has been working in Somalia since 1994, and in this time has worked in Lower Juba (Dhobley, Afmadow, Kismayo and Badhaade districts) and Gedo Regions (El Waq, Luuq, Belet Hawa and Dollo districts), as well as in Galmadug, Bari, Sanaag, Mudug and Sool Regions in Puntland and Somaliland. The organization was been working with Somalia’s pastoralist groups, particularly women and youth, to prevent, manage and overcome situations that adversely affect a community’s well-being. Adeso’s Somali operations include 10 field offices delivering programs in five thematic areas: integrated food security, education, water and sanitation, natural resource management and humanitarian response interventions.

3.ASSESSMENT GOAL

The overall goal of the assignment is to allow the consortium refine the design of the SSNP project to help build household and community level resilience; to drought and other hazards in Lower Juba region of South Somalia.

4.PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

SSNP consortium is looking for a reputable consulting firm with professional experts in undertaking Household Economy Analysis (HEA), social protections, food security assessments, livelihoods and markets integration to help design and undertake a crucial livelihoods-based framework that will help provide a clear and accurate representation of the inside workings of Lower Juba communities household economies at different levels of a wealth continuum;

The firm will also in the second Phase of the assignment, help undertake (After targeting has been undertaken) a comprehensive baseline assessment in the project areas of Kismayo, Afmadow and Dhobley in Lower Juba which will serve as benchmark against which impact results will be measured at the end of the project. This is to ensure proper orientation of the programme while highlighting a number of aspects of the project that are properly designed before implementation.

Household Economy Analysis (HEA)

Based on the principle and understanding of ways to make ends meet for people, the Household Economy Analysis (HEA) will be essential to assess how community livelihoods will be impacted by their economic or ecological change; with the results helping the SSNP consortium refine, re-design and plan interventions that will support households copying strategies. This will be through the analysis of:

· How Households in the community in different social and economic cycles get the food and cash needed;

· Community and Household assets, available opportunities hidden or open to them and the constraints being faced.

· Any open options to communities at the times of crisis through analyzing any connections of different livelihood groups and different villages; this gives a picture of how community assets are shared or allocated within the community and who gets what from whom.

The results will also be used in intervention planning, shock response, early warning, monitoring and evaluation, poverty analysis and reduction, and research content analysis. It is envisaged that this assessment will use the two main components of Household Economy Analytical framework[1] i.e.

1. Baseline

· Livelihood Zoning.

· Wealth Breakdown.

· Livelihood Strategy Quantification.

1. Outcome Analysis

· Problem Specification.

· Analysis of community coping strategies.

· Projected Outcome.

The expected HEA outputs will include;

1. Development of geographical targeting criteria.
2. Development of HH’s targeting criteria.
3. Setting of and refining of cash entitlement per livelihood group, district or thematic area.
4. Livelihood zoning map.
5. Vulnerability analysis.

Baseline Assessment

Carry out a comprehensive baseline assessment in the project areas of Kismayo, Afmadow and Dhobley which will serve as a benchmark against which impact results will be measured at the end of the project.

The baseline assessment to be undertaken just after the HEA will help assess the situation and establish benchmark indicators based on the Programme logic to inform its Monitoring and Evaluation plan and form platform for the impact evaluation following the set programme indicators.

Based on project indicators, the assessment will also help in providing programming information to define the livelihood opportunities to be strengthened in the course of the project helping SSNP consortium refine targeting criteria to be employed in this project.

The baseline assessment will also help determine the necessary market information confirming the capacity of the market to absorb the cash-programming and livelihood inputs including the kinds of cash for work structures to be rehabilitated per village. Specifically, the study will focus on project oriented indicators including the wider Adeso impact measurement indicators linked to food security and livelihood thematic area with a view to establish market system for agricultural products and the absorption capacity for various skills, particularly on market integration and access.

The baseline survey to be undertaken should include:

· An analysis of the current targeted household’s situation, opportunities, gaps, and vulnerabilities and challenges to be addressed. This will be through identification of essential and non-essential commodities that have economic potential in both domestic and integrated markets, for further analysis.

· An comprehensive analysis of the targeted households situation and their capacity in relation to households income including but not limited to an analysis of their purchasing patterns, transport and

distribution networks and market absorption capacity of livelihood products.

· Recommendations for programmatic approaches to address the immediate priorities with regards to strengthening and expanding livelihood opportunities and systems.

The expected Baseline outputs will include:

· Current livelihood situation of livelihood groups including livelihood changes

· Livelihood opportunities for the livelihood groups

· Existing HH livelihood strategies and copying capacities

· Market analysis – absorbability

5.METHODOLOGY

The HEA and baseline assessment will be coordinated by an external consulting firm bringing together several set of expertise by different skilled consultants who will further review the methodology and selection of parties to be interviewed. In this regard the firm shall provide SSNP consortium with an inception report, containing an overview of their understanding of the assignment, time schedule, planned activities, suggested methods and potential interviewees as well as any other parties they wish to engage so as to be approved by the consortium managers.

In order to provide a comprehensive analysis, it is expected that the firm will use a balanced range of qualitative and quantitative methods which includes but not limited to the below list.

• Desk Review: Review of existing secondary information and reports relevant to the project and to the context of Lower Juba will be done. This will provide an analysis and discussion of facts and data within the assignment context. The literature will include among others Project proposal; contextual information or other projects’ information on food security, livelihood, security and socio-economic context of Lower Juba as will be found necessary by the selected firm.

• Quantitative data collection: This will include: Interviews with key informants and other stakeholders using informants guides; Field visits in the implementation areas for sampling, data collection and observations; Conduct structured household interviews with sampled project stakeholders; using PRA tools, thematic area specialized tools etc.

• Qualitative data collection: Focus group discussions and interviews with field staff and with sampled potential beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries;

• Field observations and reflections for triangulation of information; Reflection and feedback sessions with consortium team members in the field, Nairobi based and other key informants;

• Household Economy Approach (HEA) Analysis; to be undertaken by analyzing unique livelihoods in the project areas and helping develop a clear and accurate representation of community household economies at different levels of a wealth continuum in the project areas[2]. The main aim of the HEA analysis will be to help the SSNP Consortium members predict the ability of different households copying with changes in economic conditions (e.g. MTA closures, crop failure, inflation etc.) and identify vulnerable groups.

5.1.Survey Design

With the facilitation of SSNP Consortium coordinator, the consultant should develop a participatory design where the main project stakeholders will be involved to give their inputs and views in the assessment process which is key in project intervention design. The data collection tools to be used should capture crosscutting issues particularly gender and accountability, to the extent possible. The tools developed will be pre-tested to ensure that enumerators and the study population alike have the same understanding of the assessment topics, and revised based on identified shortcomings. This also includes translation of the study tools into Somali language where necessary.

5.2.Sampling Plan

The project target areas have been clustered geographically into districts (Dhobley, Afmadow and Kismayo) which the survey is expected to observe. As highlighted previously, the qualitative study should use participatory assessment tools such as focus group discussions (FGD’s), key informant interview guides (KII’s) to both stakeholders and non-stakeholders.

5.3.Data Collection and Analysis

The data collection team must have required technical and localized knowledge, experience and integrity and show how they will mitigate data collection abuses and make it reliable. This will give the exercise the credibility it requires for wider acceptance of the survey findings by the community. Enumerators will be contracted and trained by the consultant on how to collect and analyze data in the field to build capacity at that level. A combined analysis will be done for the collected data to allow program level conclusions to be drawn. Analysis of the collected data needs to be done in comparison by region, district and village where necessary. Further necessary statistical tests/analysis should be performed in order to determine relationships between various factors.

The consultant will decide which management of information system to use, what statistical software to use for data analysis and provide human resource to undertake the data analysis. A data mask will be developed for entering the completed questionnaires after finalization following pre-testing.

5.4.Presentation of survey findings

The consultant will be responsible for writing and presenting the survey report to both field and Nairobi based teams working closely with SSNP consortium team.

6.DELIVERABLES

1. Inception Report to be reviewed and validated by SSNP consortium team: includes initial work plan and detailed methodology, analysis plan, report outlines of final products, each assessment sector survey tools, process of data collection, analysis as well as final set of data-collection tools and the revised budget if needed.

2. Draft report of the HEA survey following the HEA analytical framework-for the feedback and comments from SSNP Consortium staff.

3. Draft report of baseline assessment.

4. Setting up SSNP consortium, livelihoods-based monitoring and evaluation framework;

5. Presentation on the main findings at Nairobi and field level involving project teams, community representatives and local authorities.

6. Specified final reports (frameworks) for the consortium use.

7. Implementation and data collection tools as informed by the HEA and baseline assessment.

8. Final HEA reports including wealth breakdowns, livelihood zone map, wealth breakdowns, livelihood profiles, seasonal calendars, poverty analysis and monitoring framework.

9. Final Baseline assessment report (three hard copies and a soft copy on CD ROM) in English not exceeding a length of specified pages:

10. Summary version of the final reports to be shared with project communities.

11. Raw data summaries and data sets used.

7.CONSULTANCY PERIOD

The consultancy will be for 40 days including travel days.

8.QUALIFICATION PROFILE

Qualifications of the Team Leader

· Graduate degree in planning, food security and livelihoods, monitoring and assessment, economics or social sciences and other areas relevant for the assignment.

· At least 10 years of relevant professional work in undertaking HEA with specific reference to utilization of Household Economy Analytical framework in undertaking community profiling in an insecure environment context.

· Experience working and collaborating with diverse sets of stakeholders, such as local NGOs, government officials, donor representatives, local and international staff.

· Thorough knowledge and understanding of social protection programming approaches and its linkages.

· Extensive experience in working with INGOs and local NGOs, local authorities and beneficiaries.

· Demonstrated analytical and writing skills.

· Previous work experience in Somalia.

· Excellent knowledge of English with supportive Somali speaking capabilities.

9. IN**T**ELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

All documentation related to the assignment shall remain the sole and exclusive property of the SSNP Consortium.

[1] HEA Analytical Framework – FEG website

[2] Save the children and FEG website: http://www.heawebsite.org/about-household-economy-approach

Applications should be submitted to consultancy@adesoafrica.org with the subject line**: SSNP Consortium HEA, Baseline Assessment** not later than 9^th May 2016. The selection committee consisting of Project staff will review all applications as they arrive. All applicants must meet the minimum requirements described. The application must have one page cover letter; Technical proposal and proposed comprehensive budget for the whole assignment. The application package should include the following:

• A one page application letter addressing:

• The lead consultant’s previous experience and how it’s relevant to the proposed assignment.

• The names, expertise, years of experience and relevance of team members in undertaking this assignment.

• A comprehensive proposal. Showing the firms understanding of the Terms of reference. Broken down into assessment areas showing how each assessment sector is going to be undertaken.

• Updated CVs for all consultants of the bidding firm including relevant work, number of days required, specific roles, experience and qualifications.

• Detailed comprehensive budget. Covering all assessment costs i.e. total number of days verses individual man-days, per diem, flight tickets, assessment training costs, transportation & accommodation costs; visa fees etc.

• Samples of recently written reports on similar assignments. Individual sector assignment reports can also be submitted in lieu of the above.

• Contact details for three references the consortium can contact.