Terms of Reference for Consultant/ Researcher
Purpose of the Position:
Tearfund is looking for a local Consultant/ Researcher (preferably female) to assist a lead evaluator from UK in conducting an evaluation to examine Tearfund program intervention in Rohingya Response Program.
Purpose of the Evaluation:
Tearfund has been selected as one of three DEC Member Agencies to commission and publish an independent evaluation of the DEC funded response to the sudden influx of refugees arriving in Bangladesh from Myanmar. The evaluation is a means of accountability to the British Public who generously gave through the DEC Appeal, and aims to examine the impact, relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of Tearfund’s Phase 2 response. It will therefore only focus on the activities of the DEC funded partner, which for phase 2 is COAST Trust only.
Duration of Work: 1st February to 17 February (17 Days)
Evaluation Goal & Objectives:
Goals:
The aim of this assignment is to assess Tearfund’s DEC funded, partner-led intervention since 1 April 2018 in FDMN camps and host communities. This exercise will evaluate implementation against project plans to determine whether the project is delivering on time, meeting objectives, what challenges the project encountered and what adjustments are needed.
In addition, the aim would be to produce recommendations for improving the effectiveness of future operations in Bangladesh’s Rohingya Response and provide recommendations and lessons learnt which can be applied to current and future interventions in camps and host communities.
Objectives:
- To assess the quality of emergency project delivery against the key evaluation criteria (relevance, impact, efficiency, effectiveness) considering how the response is aligning with the Core Humanitarian Standard
- To assess the project effectiveness, including intended and unintended impact, and the level of adaptation to the changing context in the target communities.
- To identify key good practices and lessons learnt, including how these have been used throughout the project to improve delivery and to make recommendations for future programming.
OECD-DAC and Core Humanitarian Standard
The evaluation will use the OECD-DAC criteria as a framework and will consider Tearfund’s Quality Standards (QS) and Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS) within this framework. The selected consultant will focus on specific DAC criteria for this evaluation and incorporate the related CHS and QS within the chosen criteria. For this evaluation the chosen criteria are impact, relevance, efficiency and effectiveness.
- Impact: The positive changes that Tearfund’s response has had to date, which can be replicated. The negative impacts that our response activities have had to date, which should be amended to ensure positive impact.
Areas for consideration include:
- the intended and unintended effects (social, physical, environmental, economic), both positive and negative, of the project on beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. The views of beneficiaries about the impact should be sought.
- the major factors influencing the impact of the project on beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries.
- the extent to which the most vulnerable have been targeted.
- Relevance: The extent to which the activities of Tearfund’s response are suited to the priority needs of affected communities.
Areas for consideration include:
- the validity of the project objectives;
- the relevance of the project with the needs and vulnerabilities of the target group;
- the extent to which target beneficiaries felt involved in the process of design, implementation and monitoring of the project;
- the ways in which the project design reflected lessons learned from previous experience;
- the use and enhancement by the project of the existing skills, knowledge and coping strategies of the target group;
- the consistency of the project with the vision, values, strategy and resources of Tearfund;
- the major factors influencing the relevance of the project to the priorities and policies of the target group, the partner and Tearfund.
- flexibility of the response taking into account the changing context and how relevant the current intervention is in terms of geographical targeting
- Efficiency: The extent to which Tearfund’s response is cost effective, delivering good value for money. Efficiency measures the outputs -- qualitative and quantitative -- in relation to the inputs. It is an economic term which signifies that the aid uses the least costly resources possible in order to achieve the desired results. This generally requires comparing alternative approaches to achieving the same outputs, to see whether the most efficient process has been adopted.
Areas for consideration include:
- the cost-efficiency of project activities;
- the achievement of objectives to time and to budget;
- comparison of the implementation of the project with alternatives;
- the major factors influencing the efficiency of the project.
- extent to which Tearfund coordinated with other local and national actors to ensure complementary assistance to improve resilience
- Effectiveness: A measure of the extent to which an aid activity attains its objectives. This will include the extent to which different actors’ interventions are coordinated, promote synergy, and avoid gaps, duplication, and resource conflicts.
Areas for consideration include:
- the achievement of the project outputs;
- the achievement of the project purpose;
- the contribution towards the project goal;
- the major factors influencing the achievement / non-achievement of the project objectives and outputs.
- legal requirements (FD-6. FD-7 and external audit) and the impact on effectiveness
- the challenge of how to be most effective with limited resources when faced with a very large scale of need
- the project conformity to agreed Tearfund Quality Standards, including communities fully participating in its design and implementation, transparency of information provided by Tearfund/partners, complaints handling, learning and continual improvement.
Roles and Responsibilities
The selected local evaluator will assist the lead evaluator from UK in conducting an evaluation to examine Tearfund program intervention in Rohingya Response Program.
Activities are expected to include:
- Co-facilitate FGDs discussion and support in translation and interpretation.
- Liaise with the 2 local data gatherers and ensure they provide timely daily reports with notes.
- Provide inputs during daily debriefings.
- Produce a table displaying the main stated achievements of the program following Tearfund/ COAST’s program logical framework.
- Support in the desk review of the reports produced by the financial, M&E and Information Management systems.
- Collect information related to budget and main expenditures of the program and synthetize the information. (This work will be useful to measure later on the value for money of the program)
- Participate to the review of the draft debriefing Power Point and draft report
- Ensure all administration and logistical aspects of the evaluation mission before, during and after the mission. (Including hotel booking, transportation and purchase of stationary if needed)
- Facilitate the liaison and organize the meetings with all respondents.
- Maintain the petty cash of the evaluation team and produce at the end of the field visit a short financial excel report annexed with all financial justification documents.
Consultant/ Researcher Suitability
All applicants should demonstrate experience and competence in the following areas:
- Degree or Masters qualification, or equivalent, in Social Science/Disaster Risk Reduction/WASH Engineering/Psychosocial Studies or similar relevant subject.
- Proven experience of conducting crisis response evaluations, including in refugee or displacement contexts.
- Provision of a strong proposed methodology, work plan and schedule of activities for the evaluation.
- Knowledge and understanding of the humanitarian system in an emergency response in particular some or all of the following sectors: psychosocial, WASH, DRR, NFI, livelihoods programming
- Familiarity with the international quality standards applied in emergency contexts, including the Core Humanitarian Standard
- Experience in the use of participatory methodologies including strong facilitation and coordination skills
- Excellent communication, and report writing skills in English, Bengali, and Chittagonian (preferred)
Budget scope and daily compensation:
Competitive daily rate will be offered for deserving candidate
(Accommodation will be provided in official guest house during the evaluation) |
