Organization: Adeso
Country: Somalia
Closing date:
14 Aug 2015ORGANIZATIONAL BACKGROUND
Adeso is an expanding and vibrant African-based international organization, working with communities to create environments in which Africans can thrive. 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. Our belief that economic, social and environmental security is the bedrock of a healthy community drives the nature and intent of our programming. Adeso has been strengthening rural livelihood and delivering innovative humanitarian aid and development programs for the past 20 years. Currently, we have programs in Somalia, Kenya and South Sudan.
Adeso is an exciting, dynamic organization experiencing managed rapid growth. It offers sound employment conditions with opportunities for personal growth and development.
POSITION SUMMARY
Adeso is seeking a consultant competent enough and specialized in evaluating integrated Food Security and Livelihood projects, to evaluate the Social Safety Nets phase II project in Sanaag and Karkaar regions in North-Eastern Somalia. The consultancy is for a period of 45 days, beginning last week of July 2015 and will include desk review work, field data collection, data analysis, report writing and presentation of the findings to Sanag, Karkar and Nairobi programme teams. Adeso and Save the Children international encourages consultancy firms or groups who can assign one consultant specialized in Food Security and Livelihoods.
PROJECT SUMMARY
The project is implemented in consortium with Save the Children and Adeso as lead. The aim is to strengthen the livelihood opportunities of affected communities through provision of unconditional cash relief; support increase in household income levels through creating sustainable employment and vocational skills of women and youth. Specific interventions are also planned to reduce conflict, develop community peace building mechanisms and protect communities against potential shocks by adopting a conflict resolution and disaster risk management approach.
This social nets programme is geared towards building on the lessons learned, and the impacts gained during Phase I (2010-2012). As in Phase I, the overall objective of this intervention is to reduce community vulnerability to chronic food insecurity hence increasing the income of the targeted poor and vulnerable households within the project area and ensure that their livelihoods are more sustainable. The programme has been implemented in the operational areas of Adeso (Sanaag Region) and Save the Children (Karkaar Regions) in northern Somalia/ Somaliland.
The activities undertaken for this project have provide income opportunities to households within their local community to help them meet their basic needs and diversify their livelihoods base.
The expected results of the project are as follows:
- Community capacity and resilience to cyclical environmental hazards improved.
- Improved access to food to 1,750 vulnerable women, girls, men and boys (250 households) in Northern regions of Somalia through provision of monthly, unconditional cash transfers.
- Improved livelihoods and increased household income among 200 vulnerable households through the provision of livelihood grants for micro-business.
- Improved access to food during lean periods for up to 1,680 women, girls, men and boys (up to 240 households) through the implementation of Cash for Work activities.
The main direct beneficiaries of this project have been the most vulnerable households and other poor and marginalized groups within the community. In total, the project targeted 650 households (HH). This includes monthly unconditional cash relief payments for 250 HHs, skills training and livelihood cash grants for 240HHs for start-up businesses and 200 households supported through the implementation of cash for work activities.
The project is targeting 450 vulnerable households covering a population of 3,150 people, among them are 550 children aged five years and below. The project has provided regular (monthly) provision of unconditional cash grants to 250 vulnerable households and 5 cycles conditional cash grant (CfW) to 200 households in order to support chronically food insecure households who often face periods of acute food shortage. This project is being implemented in 6 villages under Sanaag and Karkaar regions of Northern Somalia/Somaliland.
The phase II of the project started in the third quarter of 2013, with community level processes including targeting and verification of beneficiaries and baseline assessment. The unconditional cash distribution started in early December 2013 while the CfW cash distribution started March 2014; the project had achieved the six cycle of cash distribution among all targeted beneficiaries.
Another component of the project is a disaster risk reduction approach which aims to support chronically food insecure households who often face periods of acute food shortage. Households were given the opportunity to participate in a number of different interventions to improve both household income and community resilience. Specific projects were determined through community consultation including livelihood support grants, cash for work, and others. This programme was designed to go beyond short-term crisis response and focus on community resilience and enhancing household capacity to address recurrent problems such as food security and drought response.
Adeso has developed a strategy that is primarily hinged on a social safety nets approach geared towards building reliance not only at the household level but at the community level as well.
OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The purpose of this evaluation is to assess the progress made towards achievement of the overall and specific objectives of the project, its impacts on the lives of beneficiaries who have been directly involved in the project activities, including their families, communities and on the responses of policy makers at local and national levels after the end of the implementation period. The assessment will also help determine some impact signs the project has produced on the main target communities, in terms of meeting their food security needs, improving access to clean water, increasing livelihood security and improving disaster preparedness. The final 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 practices and lessons learned as well as challenges arising from programme implementation. In addition, the evaluation will come up conclusions and recommendations on the way forward.
Specific Objectives
The final evaluation will specifically gauge the level of community, government and other stakeholder participation and ownership of the whole project process including the identification of the intended and unintended impacts, best practices and lessons learned as well as challenges arising from programme implementation. In addition, the evaluation will come up with conclusions and recommendations on the way forward. The assessment will be referenced against the project baseline to determine the extent at which the objectives, targeted outcomes and impacts have ben achieved.
SCOPE OF WORK
SSN II final evaluation will be done through visits to project sites in Sanag and Karkar regions of Northern Somalia. Indirect data collection will be done through extensive literature review; direct data collection done through extensive HH, traders, MTA and communities from different livelihood groups who have been involved either directly or indirectly in the project. The following factors can be used to identify a cross-section of focus areas and interviewees:
• Coordination and implementation of the project in the project areas.
• Urban / rural
• Pastoralist / agro-pastoralist / riverine / Urban communities.
• Levels of displacement, access to land.
• Gender, age, clan, etc.
• Beneficiaries / non-beneficiary perspectives.
Specific guided areas of focus for Adeso 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 objective appropriate to the context?
2.Connectedness
· Does this fit within international priorities such as the Millennium Development Goals?
· Does the project fit within wider organization, government and other stakeholder’s programmes?
· Did the work of Adeso compliment the activities of other stakeholders, such as INGOs, NGOs and UN agencies?
· Assess the processes and systems used by Adeso to ensure the involvement of all the stakeholders, particularly women, youth and minorities in design, planning, implementation and monitoring stage;
3.Coherence
· Is the project coherent?
· Do 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.
· Is the coverage too small to have an impact or is it too large that the benefits are spread too thin to have an 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?
· How good was the targeting methodology in identifying the most vulnerable/ pastoralist dropouts’ households/ beneficiaries as well as the targeted areas?
· 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 did the external assumptions in the proposal hold true and how well were the mitigating measures put into 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 and groups supported.
· Evaluate the gender balance in relation to beneficiary participation and benefits.
· Assessment of value of internal controls i.e. monitoring tools, information management, activity plan and implementation.
· Evaluate the efficiency of working with local stakeholders, including government bodies.
7.Impact signs
· Determine the impacts of the project activities to alleviate vulnerability to food insecurity in the target population.
· Assessment of the impacts of the project activities to increase number of empowered men, women and children representing their communities.
· Assess the impact signs of project activities on gender and other vulnerable groups and especially its impact in addressing the needs of women and children.
· Evaluate the impact signs on conflict mitigation as a result of the project design.
· Assess the potential sustainability of DRR interventions and potential for future impact.
· 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 (e.g. skills training).
9.Lessons Learnt
· Identify lessons learnt and give recommendations of general and specific nature which are useful to Adeso for the planning, preparation and implementation of integrated gender equalities and women’ empowerment programs/projects in future.
DELIVERABLES
- Initial work plan and proposal for study (including study methodology and process of data collection), to be presented.
- Final work plans and data collection tools for approval prior to fieldwork in Sanag and Karkar. A work plan for this assignment should be developed in relation to the methodology suggested by the consultant, and the number of days set for this assignment. This will include a one day briefing on the findings to get input from project and programme staff, as well as build consensus around the recommendations.
- Interim evaluation report with preliminary analysis and observations, submitted for feedback and comments.
- Presentation on the main findings of the draft evaluation report for final consensus building to the field team in Sanag/Karkar; and SCI – Adeso Programme development and quality team in Nairobi for comments;
- Final Evaluation Report in English (3 hard copies and a soft copy on CD ROM).
METHODOLOGY
The methodology will be further defined by the consultant (in the proposal) and revised at the outset of the consultancy. The elements in the methodology to include, direct and indirect data collection, analysis and cross referencing, formulating recommendations and lessons learnt. To the extent possible, field data should be collected using participatory appraisal techniques. District local authorities; such as elders, women units, youth groups, minorities and other community members, In addition to government partners from the respective line Ministries should be included. It is envisaged that the methodology used during this final evaluation will include, but not be limited to, the following:
· Literature review of existing documents and review of context e.g. monitoring reports, existing data, previous projects etc.
· Interviews with government agencies and other stakeholders;
· Field visits in the implementation areas for sampling, data collection and observations;
· Conduct structured household interviews with sampled project stakeholders;
· Focus group discussions and interviews with field staff and with sample beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries;
· Reflection and feedback sessions with Save the children and Adeso Nairobi office, field staff and other key informants;
· Field observations for triangulation of information;
· Data analysis and validation of findings;
· Report writing and debriefing with project and Nairobi management teams.
- Review of monitoring and training reports and all other existing data.
QUALIFICATION PROFILE
· A Post graduate degree in Food Security and Livelihoods and/or related field.
· At least five years of hands on experience in conducting assessments; end line and impact evaluations.
· Experience leading project evaluations/mid-term reviews is essential;
· Must have profound knowledge in economic analysis of social protection, resilience projects;
· Familiar with DDR issues & semi-arid and arid lands;
· He/she must be experienced in developing and implementing gender sensitive evaluation methodologies in agriculture, education and other food security frameworks;
· Experience in assessing DRR interventions and contingency planning;
· Ability to assess/review critically the project activities and results;
· Good knowledge and experience in survey design, implementation of surveys and statistical data analysis is required;
· Experience in the use of participatory appraisal techniques in data collection;
· We encourage teams with atleast one Somali speaker included for the field visits
· Previous work experience in Somalia and knowledge of Somali culture is essential.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS:
All documentation related to the assignment shall remain the sole and exclusive property of Adeso.
CODE OF CONDUCT
All evaluators and evaluation processes must abide by Adeso’s HR Code of Conduct and Adeso’s Child Protection Policy.
How to apply:Applications should be submitted by 14th August 2015. 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. The consortium (of save the children and Adeso) is an equal opportunity employer.
Each application package should include the following:
· An application letter addressing the selection criteria including how the firm’s/group’s previous experience matches the consultancy objectives as well as the interest for the position. It should also indicate the candidate’s availability.
· A comprehensive technical and financial proposal for the consultancy assignment with methodology. All expenses should be included in the assignment cost; Adeso will not cater for any other expenses.
- An updated CV including relevant work experience and qualifications;
- A sample of recently written report for a similar assignment;
· Contact details of 3 references.
Applications not including all of the above information will not be reviewed. All applications should be sent to Adeso at consultancy@adesoafrica.orgwith the subject line,**‘SSN II Final Evaluation’.**
