Title of the Work:

Start Fund Bangladesh Midterm Evaluation

Duration:

Oct 01, 2019 to Nov 14, 2019¹

Background:

The Start Fund Bangladesh (2017-2020) is a £10 million rapid emergency response fund set up by the Start Network with support from UK aid and hosted by ACF Bangladesh. Modelled on the successful Start Fund that activates funding within 72 hours of a crisis alert, the fund has been setup to be accessible to both national and international member NGOs operating in Bangladesh to respond early and fast to under the radar emergencies in Bangladesh. These decisions are made by humanitarian actors within member agencies with all projects selected within the country or region of the crisis, while projects start within 7 days and finish within 45 days.
As such, the expected impact and outcome of Start Fund Bangladesh is that “Loss of lives, livelihoods and dignity are minimised”, given that the “Humanitarian responses are rapid, informed and adapted to the need of the affected communities” respectively. These are expected to be achieved as a result of the following outputs.

• Establish a national civil society owned fund that is i) open and inclusive; ii) governed by evidence based, transparent and neutral decision making iii) rapid and iv) anticipatory
• Expand the number of local members (actors and agencies) that can participate in strategic decision making and access funding more directly
• Demonstrate the value and complement existing humanitarian preparedness and response to promote greater collaboration

As of Aug 2019, Start Fund Bangladesh has been among the first responders to address 14 small/medium emergencies, reaching around 0.3 million people with cash, hygiene materials, hygiene promotion and other supports² through awarding more than £3.4 million to 14 of its member agencies  and their partners. To further localize the Fund currently all allocation and project selection decisions are made in-country. In addition, an intensive due diligence and capacity mapping has been completed, that resulted to the inclusion of 26 N/LNGOs as Start Fund Bangladesh members along with its existing 18 I/NNGO members that are eligible to access and make decisions regarding the funding mechanism.
The Start Fund Bangladesh is currently planning to conduct an independent evaluation serving both accountability and learning purpose through assessing the progress and evaluating strategies, identifying major achievements, niche/ value addition and lessons learnt from the national funding model within the evolving humanitarian context in Bangladesh and exploring strategies to adapt with it.

Objective of the work:

In particular, the evaluation shall assess and rate³ the success of the project’s implementation and draw lessons to provide strategic direction based on based on the following key questions⁴

• Relevance/ Appropriateness: Are the activities, strategies and outputs consistent with the intended impacts and effects, and the attainment of the overall goal and objectives? To what extent are the objectives still valid?
• Effectiveness: To what extent were the objectives achieved / are likely to be achieved? What were the major factors influencing the achievement or non-achievement of the objectives?
• Efficiency: Were inputs utilised as planned, activities cost-efficient and objectives achieved on time? Is there a potential for optimization (e.g. concerning planning) of the resources in the most efficient way?
• Impact: What real difference has the activities made to the target groups? What has happened as a result?
• Connectedness/ Sustainability: To what extent were local capacities developed or strengthened through the interventions?
• Coherence: How was coordination (coherence) achieved, and/or why was there a lack in coherence?
• Coverage: Were the supports aligned to regionally different needs? What were the main reasons for certain target groups having received support?

So, this includes the achievement (i.e. progress, performance and results) of outputs and activities in terms of situation /context, needs, planning and resource mobilization, coordination, quality (i.e. coverage, targeting, timeliness, soundness, transparency, collaboration, complementarity) of activities and responses as a result of

• ownership, stakeholder participation and accountability, governance and credibility of the strategic decision making and management options, coordination, influencing role, visibility, partnerships and networking, localization
• implementation approach (including capacity building/ institutional development approach), adaptability of project management
• application of project MEAL plan (i.e. theory of change, logframe, target, indicators, tools, disaggregated data collection and management, reporting, accountability, knowledge management etc.)
• risk management based on the assumptions in the project’s logframe, including unintended outcomes and external factors
• financial planning, management, control (e.g. forecasting, disbursement, reporting, compliance etc.) including fund raising initiatives
• feasibility (project management arrangements, capacities of hosting agency and counterparts, backstopping, partnership arrangements etc.) and cost effectiveness

Key Accountabilities:

• Review of project documents: Concept note, proposal, theory of change, logframe, learning framework, activity plan, budget, hosting arrangement, risk management plan, agreement, SHPR logframe, relevant DFID SDP indicators etc.
• Review of alert cycle documents: Start Fund Handbook, Alert notes, survey results, briefing notes, allocation notes, proposals, selection minutes, award letters, final report, learning exchange notes, crisis response summaries, case studies, PDM reports etc.
• Review of other reports and learning documents: Learning workshop notes, peer review reports, learning visit reports, design & build phase report, biannual reports, SHPR logframe/ SDP indicator reports, delivery chain and risk mapping, workshop/ training/ meeting notes, CSO mapping report, Start Fund Bangladesh Localisation Review, Process Documentation, SHPR midterm evaluation, Grand Bargain Localization Work stream Report, audit report, Independent Aid Commission Assessment (IACA) Report, National Audit Office report etc.
• Consultation with key stakeholders: Start Fund Bangladesh Allocation Rota and Project Selection Committee members, Start Fund team, cluster coordinators, host agency/ DFID Bangladesh/ UNOPS, IFRC representatives etc.
• Onsite appraisal: Gather data  through participatory approach from at least 4 sampled response project beneficiaries⁵ to attribute the impact⁶ , including case studies, consultation with local government representatives⁷ at the response sites, and project staffs⁸
• Validation of findings, lessons and recommendation: by the Start Fund Bangladesh members, host and secretariat

Deliverables:

• A brief inception report on
• Introduction of project context, objectives and theory of change, implementation structure, stakeholders and partners, design and financing
• Scope, objective and methodology to carry out the evaluation, sources of information, data collection tools (i.e. questionnaire, checklists, interview guides etc.), thematic analysis, limitations, timeline
• A brief yet easily understandable, evidence based evaluation report highlighting⁹
• Evaluation findings in terms of relevance/ appropriateness, effectiveness, efficiency, likely impact, connectedness/ sustainability, coherence, and coverage
• Conclusions, lessons learnt¹⁰ and recommendations¹¹
• Presentation of evaluation findings and lessons for validation, to be followed by management response
• A short (2-page) synthesis or summary of evaluation findings and lessons to support the dissemination of learning to a wide range of audiences

Expected Outputs of the Consultancy:

An independent review of progress and strategies, major achievements, niche/ value addition and lessons learnt from the national funding model within the evolving humanitarian context in Bangladesh and identification of strategies to adapt with it

 Work Location:

Dhaka and response sites¹² throughout Bangladesh

Responsible organization and Contact Information:

ACF Bangladesh, Orin Tower, House 23, Road 113A, Gulshan 2, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

Criteria

Total Points

Knowledge skill and professional experience:

• Experience in conducting monitoring, measurement, impact assessment, evaluations, after action review, outcome mapping, action research, knowledge management, accountability etc. especially for DFID funded and humanitarian projects
• Experience of humanitarian work¹⁴ and in depth understanding of emergency funding mechanisms, localization and humanitarian standards and commitments aspect especially in Bangladesh

30%

Technical approach:

• Overall understanding of the ToR, evaluation criteria and research questions
• Proposed methodology including proposed design, scheduling, tools, sampling¹⁵ , data management, analysis etc.
• Team composition and roles¹⁶ , management, time contributions (onsite/distant days) etc.

45%

Overall Technical Evaluation Points

75%

Financial Evaluation

25%

Total

100%