Research Consultancy: How can humanitarian and development organisations learn, grow and evolve in fastchanging, fragile and complex environments

1. Background and Rationale of research project International development and humanitarian organisations often work in highly unstable, fastchanging and complex political, social and economic environments. For the latter, this condition has been referred to as ‘the fog of humanitarianism’.1 At operational and strategic level, although these organisations collect, process and analyse large amounts of data and information on a regular basis from a variety of sources, they frequently experience substantial difficulties and challenges to change and reorient their programming in line with changes in their operational environment. Due to a variety of reasons, the institutional capacities of international development and humanitarian organisations for regular, if not near-continuous, monitoring and evaluation have increased enormously in the past twenty years. The number and size of MEAL departments have mushroomed across the thematic landscape of organizational cultures. At the same time there has also been a substantial increase, if not overflow, of relevant and suitably packaged data and information that can inform development and humanitarian programming and operations. Despite this near-continuous flow of information into, and through, organizations, along with the structures and systems established to support this, organizations continue to struggle to adapt more effectively or efficiently in line with changing trends in their environment. Instead, programming often fails to be appropriately adjusted and consequently, interventions fail to adequately respond to the needs of affected communities and other partners and stakeholders. As recently identified in the paper What Have We Learned About Learning? (2021), focusing on the German development environment, there is insufficient evidence to support the causal claim that knowledge leads to learning and thereby to organisational change in development agencies. Often, the same programmes, despite being inappropriate under the given circumstances, are frequently repeated. Meanwhile, organisations often suffer from what could be called information- or data-burnout, which is to say a state of exhaustion and an inability to process or interpret new flows of information adequately to inform programming effectively. One of the normal responses to this is to increase the amount of staff involved in data-collection and analysis but this does not necessarily solve the issue or identify the bottlenecks towards necessary strategic, programmatic or operational programming. Development and humanitarian across are under pressure to demonstrate impact and ensure that taxpayer and donor funds are not wasted or worse in non-performing interventions.

2. Problem statement and research gap In this context, evidence-based reassessment of the function and value-for-money of research and MEAL in development and humanitarian practice, and a more critical examination of external advocacy efforts around pre-programmed aid approaches, need to be examined. As argued by King & McGrath (2003)2 , a conceptual distinction is made between explicit knowledge that is codified into organizational processes, and tacit knowledge that is possessed and monopolized by individuals through experience and interaction with one another. In other words, development and humanitarian practitioners learn, but it is hard to say whether the organisations where they work also learn. World Vision (WV) Germany and, by extension, World Vision International as a movement is confronted with a fast-changing development and humanitarian landscape. Complex partners’ structures, challenging local structures and multiple data and management flows put operational, strategic and management challenge into the codification of explicit knowledge. Modern development 1 Weiss, T., Hoffman, P. (2007) ‘The Fog of Humanitarianism: Collective action problems and learningchallenged organizations’, Thinking about Global Governance: Why people and ideas matter, in (Weiss, T. ed), Routledge, pp.246-263 2 King, K., & McGrath, S. (2003). Knowledge sharing in development agencies: Lessons from four cases. Washington, DC: World Bank. 3 and humanitarian concepts like thinking and working politically, adaptive management, or resultsbased management are frequently underachieved aspirations. Drawing on key inputs from external partners and internal stakeholders across World Vision, this research aims at identifying what “what good data management looks like” and which key action items enable one “to get there” in both tactical and strategic terms. The tactical track focuses on immediate opportunities to use Knowledge Management3 methods and approaches to facilitate knowledge flows, whereas the strategic track takes on longer-term issues that require more in-depth work and adaptation of processes. Overall, this research shall support a goal of giving WV stakeholders and partners useful knowledge, when they need it, in order to support their work tackling the most difficult development and humanitarian challenges, and to enable them to maximize impact.

3. Assessment Methodology & Research Questions: The theoretical framework for this research is provided by the ‘learning hypothesis’, which rests on the idea that increased knowledge by development organisations must logically lead to increased effectiveness in the performance of their development activities. The research will focus on approaches to learning and evidence gathering by German development and humanitarian, governmental and non-governmental organisations with a particular focus on their work in fragile contexts. The research focus should include two to three cases of fragile contexts in terms of primary data collection and evidence gathering. The research will also consist of a rigorous literature review, secondary data gathering focusing on external and internal information on how learning and evidence is collected, assessed and at the individual, organizational and institutional level. Primary data collection through key informant interviews, focus groups and other will focus on WV Germany and the selected WV national offices for the case studies, German development actors and partner stakeholders in countries, where these projects are implemented. Research Questions Based on this premise, it is possible to formulate several questions that could benefit from a fuller investigation. • How can organizational monitoring & programming interact in an efficient and effective manner that safeguards the organization’s ability to adjust and adapt quickly and effectively in the light of changing circumstances AND mitigate the transaction costs of such changes. • Which particular organizational and institutional bottlenecks can be identified that hinder the connection between information-processing and analysis on one hand and operational implementation and programming on the other. 3 Knowledge Management (KM) is in this context understood as a process that works to build a cohesive knowledge management program to bring value to operational staff and positively impact the broader knowledge agenda. KM draws upon and promotes best practices for partners and clients and helps to gather together and promote the sharing of knowledge. See e.g. WBDG (2017) The World Bank and Knowledge Management: Knowledge for Development Global Partnership Conference 2017, retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/brief/knowledge-management-at-the-world-bank 4 More specifically: • How can World Vision Germany develop flexible and agile learning cultures that are able to maintain strategic and programmatic focus with evidence- and data-driven programming in fragile and humanitarian context.

4. Outputs & Deliverables

The expected deliverables and milestones will include:

1. Review of the TORs and (if required) proposal of changes to improve research design;

2. Inception Report (including a detailed methodology and literature review, primary and secondary data collection plan as well as outlines of the research plan AND 10-page internal working plan) ten days after the start of the consultancy;

3. Research plan (including data collection, stakeholders’ engagement and analysis timeline)

4. 1 st draft of the research paper

5. Final research paper of approximately 30-40 pages (excluding additional annexes) with provisional title, ‘How can humanitarian and development organisations learn, grow and evolve in fastchanging, fragile and complex environments’.

6. 10-page internal working paper for World Vision Germany with concrete and actionable recommendations (World Vision Germany can support data-collection with internal capacities)

7. Notes and transcription of primary data collection;

8. 5-page executive summary (in English);

9. Presentation workshop to WV GER staff.

The focus of the research will be centred on World Vision Germany and the German humanitarian and development NGO sector. It is envisaged that two to three case studies focusing on national implementation contexts should be included. These will be agreed at the project inception stage. WV Germany legally owns all collected data, and the consultant is expected to hand over all data sets and notes of the interviews to the organization. The Consultant shall maintain confidentiality and protect all information provided to him/her by WV GER, its employees, and beneficiaries. The consultant may only disclose the extent necessary to perform the assessment.

6. Tentative Timeframe

The consultant or consultancy is expected to provide the detailed timeline of all the end-line activities till the end of the contract. Tasks Tentative timetable:

Start of Consultancy 01.10.2022

Inception Report 10.10.2022

Submission of all deliverables 31.01.2023

7. Child protection & data confidentiality

The consultant, along with all enumerators and sub-contractors, will be required to sign and follow World Vision International´s child protection standards and protocols of behaviour, which will be provided to the research team selected. 5 The consultant must obtain consent from respondents ahead of any data collection exercise that involves surveys, FGD and KII. All primary data collected by this evaluation process is to remain confidential and not be shared with third parties.

8. Conflict of Interest

The service provider must be impartial and independent from all aspects of management or financial interests in the entity being monitored. During the tenancy period, the evaluator should not be employed by or have any financial or close business relationships with any of the entities being assessed. The service provider should declare any potential conflicts of interest which may affect or compromise their ability to conduct neutral and independent service. Such conflicts of interest may include, but are not limited to: • Business interests in a community included in the study. • Financial, family, political and business affiliation with local authorities included in the study In such a scenario or similar, the service provider is expected to declare the conflict of interest to the contractor who will present to WV GER. Declaration of conflict of interest will not be viewed negatively but will be considered in the programming of activities. Failure to declare a conflict of interest may be considered and may lead to a review of the expected deliverables from the service provider, thus with a possible negative impact on the contract of the service provider.

9. Qualifications & Expertise of the Consultant/ Consultancy

• Registered legally in the European Union;

• A minimum of 5 years of demonstrated professional experience as a researcher and/or development cooperation consultant;

• Previous experience in conducting similar research assignments, including literature reviews, primary data collection and networking experience within the scope of the assignment;

• Have proven experience in conducting qualitative and quantitative multi-sectoral needs assessment studies and have access to technical expertise related to sectors under study;

• Hold a minimum educational qualification equivalent to a PhD in a relevant field.

• Have a profound knowledge of the development and/or humanitarian sector and its networks within the scope of the assignment