Consultancy Final Evaluation for Syria and turkey emergency appeal

TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR:

Final Evaluation for Syria and turkey emergency appeal

Country(ies) covered: Northwest Syria, GOS, Turkey

Dates :1 September – 31 October

Overall objective of evaluation:

This evaluation aims to comprehensively assess ActionAid’s overall contribution and performance in supporting of the response of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria. It will also assess the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, sustainability, and impact of the interventions. It will provide an overview of the response, draw lessons and recommendations for the DEC and ActionAid, gather partner feedback, identify gaps, and engage members through various mediums. Special consideration will also be given to the CHS and the DEC Accountability Framework.

1. BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE :

   On 6th February 2023, an earthquake with magnitude of 7.8 struck south-east Turkey and north-west Syria. A second major earthquake, further north of the original epi centre, struck a few hours later, and recorded magnitude of 7.5.According to a situation report published by OCHA to mark one month since the earthquake occurred, 9.1 million people have been affected by the crisis and 46,000 thousand have lost their lives, including 4,267 in Syria. The scale of destruction is highlighted by the fact that, according to the Turkish government, 214,000 buildings have collapsed or have been heavily damaged by the disaster. There have also been a reported 13,000 aftershocks in the month since the initial earthquakes took place, causing further destress to an already traumatised affected population. Initial assessments found that priority needs among affected communities were shelter, food, non-food items, water, sanitation, hygiene items, and psycho-social support. Alongside this, the WHO has highlighted urgent health needs among the affected population, including trauma care, provision of essential medicines and prevention/control of disease outbreaks. In Syria, especially, the earthquake occurred in an area already experiencing high humanitarian needs, because of the country’s 12- year-long civil war.

   In response to rising humanitarian needs in both Turkey and Syria the DEC launched an appeal on 9 February 2023. To date, the appeal has raised £159.5 m. Fourteen Member Charities are responding as part of the DEC appeal, working with national and local partners across both countries and as for Phase 2, the project is focusing on 4 main areas as the followings:

• Priority Area 1: Affected women and families’ immediate needs are met (urgent and maternity medical care, psychological first aid, cash, shelter, food, medical kits, NFIs and WASH).

• Priority Area 2: Gender-based violence (GBV) risk mitigation, response and prevention measures are in place to enhance the crisis affected women and girls’ safety and dignity.

• Priority Area 3: Affected populations know their rights and entitlements and are leading the response through strengthening women and youth leadership “to build back better.”

• Priority Area 4: Promoting longer-term social, economic, and environmental recovery and resilience in a protracted crisis, as well as supporting the recovery and resettlement of Syrian refugees in Türkiye and Syria.

  From September 2023 to the end of May 2024, 84,422 people were reached under the DEC funded project working with ActionAid partners on the following sectors:

1. Protection.

2. Livelihood.

3. Health; and

4. Capacity building.

5. 2. OBJECTIVES AND FOCUS OF THE EVALUATION:

   The purpose of the final evaluation of the Syria and Turkey earthquake program is to comprehensively assess the overall effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, impact and sustainability of the implemented interventions, as well as generating actionable learning and recommendations to inform similar interventions in other locations and in the future. The evaluation aims to provide a thorough assessment of the program’s outcomes and the extent to which it has achieved its intended objectives against the Theory of Change, and also in relation to the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) and the DEC Accountability Framework (DECAF).

   The key deliverables of the final evaluation will be to:

• Provide an overview and assessment of the response so far against appropriate DAC criteria; Core Humanitarian Standard commitments; Grand Bargain commitments; DEC Accountability Framework; intended objectives of the intervention, and learnings from similar humanitarian crises and earthquakes.
• Gather feedback from local and national partners on the relationship with members and support provided to locally led humanitarian activities.
• Where relevant, identify gaps, areas of unmet needs, and challenges to the humanitarian operations funded by the DEC in both Turkey and Syria, from both a sectoral and cross-cutting perspective; this should include a consideration of the inclusiveness of the humanitarian response and whether (geographically, socially or politically) marginalised groups are sufficiently covered and what barriers (if any) there are to reaching them.
• Draw out key learning from the response to date and engage members with the findings through a range of mediums, including workshops and written outputs.
• Draw out key lessons and actionable recommendations for DEC and ActionAid members, at the operational level, that can inform real-time adjustments and be utilised during implementation of ongoing, and other future DEC programmes; highlight good practice in the humanitarian operations funded by the DEC.

Key evaluation criteria and guiding evaluation questions are proposed based on the five (5) OECD/DAC evaluation criteria on relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability with an additional lens on coordination and collaboration, Accountability to Affected Population (AAP). Special consideration should also be given to the CHS and the DEC Accountability Framework.

RELEVANCE AND APPROPRIATENESS:

• The extent to which the intervention objectives and design responded to beneficiaries, global, country, and partner/institution needs, policies, and priorities.

• To what extent the program adhered to the CHS in its intervention.

• The extent to which the programme ensured context, cultural and conflict sensitivity in its interventions.

  EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY:

• To what extent were the intervention results defined, monitored, and achieved (or not).

• In which areas does the project have the greatest achievements? Why and what have been the supporting/contributing factors?In which areas does the project have the fewest achievements? What have been the constraining factors and why? How can or could they be overcome?

IMPACT :

• To what extent the project was impactful in the affected communities in Syria and turkey and its objectives.
• What change (positive or negative) did the project intervention contribute to in the lives of the communities affected by the earthquake?
• Were there any unintended effects to the affected communities, especially to the vulnerable group of populations (incl. people with disabilities, refugees, asylum seekers, etc.), women, girls, above all others?
• What transformational change (policy, practice, norms) did the intervention contribute to from national to global levels with regards the conduct or governments, INGOs and other similar actors.

CONNECTEDNESS AND SUSTAINABILITY:

• To which extent are the results of the intervention likely to have a long term, sustainable positive contribution to CHS and relevant targets? (explicitly or implicitly)
• To what extent are DEC members considering Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in their programming, to reduce the impact of future events?
• To what extent has the intervention contributed to building resilience and preparedness of any future shocks by the affected communities.
• How can the achievements of this project inform the design and implementation of future similar interventions to ensure their sustainability and long-term impact?

COORDINATION AND COLLABORATION:

• To what extent the program assessed the effectiveness of coordination and collaboration among different stakeholders, including government agencies, local partners, and other humanitarian actors.

• To what extent the program Identify opportunities for improving coordination mechanisms for future emergency responses.

• Assess the effectiveness of coordination and collaboration among different stakeholders, including government agencies, local partners, and other humanitarian actors.

• Identify opportunities for improving coordination mechanisms for future emergency responses.

  ACCOUNTABILITY TO AFFECTED POPULATIONS (AAP):

• To what extent have the views of crisis affected people been considered in programme design and implementation and brought to the attention of decision makers?

• To what extent has the complaint and feedback mechanisms been useful for the affected populations?

• How easily accessible are the complaint and feedback mechanisms for the beneficiaries and stakeholders? Are complaint and feedback mechanisms accessible to marginalized groups, including women, children, young people, the elderly, persons with disabilities, and minority groups?

• Are there any barriers preventing marginalized groups from using the mechanisms effectively?

• What has partners experience been working with DEC agencies and/or managing relationships with multiple agencies? What worked, and what could be improved?

• How have partners been supported, what capacity strengthening or sharing approaches are in place? To what extent are partnerships between DEC members and partners “transformational”?

• How did the DEC intervention effectively account to the crisis affected people?

• How did the programme support the affected people to hold other humanitarian actors to account?

  CROSS-CUTTING THEMES: Gender Equality and Women Empowerment and Inclusion:

• Does the intervention identify enablers that facilitate the participation of vulnerable groups of population, refugees, women and children, people with disabilities, above all others?

• To what extent has the intervention contributed to addressing the gender specific needs?

  All areas of enquiry should incorporate questions that will draw out what is working well and what is not working well, as well as identifying gaps, priority areas and unmet needs (from a location and sector perspective). Appropriate use of protection, safeguarding and ‘do no harm’ approaches should also be incorporated throughout the areas of enquiry.

  3. EVALUATION PROCESS AND METHODOLOGY:

  The consultant(s) will have the opportunity to outline an appropriate methodology in their proposal, at the inception stage, to be developed further in the inception report. DEC and its members has the following expectations regarding the methodology:

• During the inception phase, a thorough review of secondary data and scoping among members for parallel evaluations and/or assessments will be conducted, to avoid unnecessary duplication. Alongside this, an inception workshop will take place with the members to help determine the direction the review will take.

• For primary data collection, a mixed-methods approach should be used to triangulate data. Where possible, in-country data collection will involve visiting project locations and affected population. Where not possible, applications should provide a detailed plan for remote data collection.

• The methodology and plan will adhere to strict data protection/collection ethics and safeguarding procedures to ensure that no harm is caused through the exercise.

• An inception meeting will be held with DEC members at the start of the in-country data collection, and a reflection meeting held at the end of the visit at an appropriate location.

• Stakeholder interviews and Focus Group Discussions

  • Key Informant Interviews (KIIs): Conduct semi-structured interviews with relevant program’s staff, partners, and other stakeholders involved in the response.
  • Focus Group Discussions (FGDs): Organize FGDs with different rightsholders groups (men, women, young people, people with disabilities, displaced populations etc.) to gather opinions on the aid received and on other parameters of the evaluation.

• Surveys and questionnaires: a structured surveys or questionnaires with a representative sample of the rights holders can be used to triangulate the results on their satisfaction and perceptions of accountability measures. Similarly, surveys can also be distributed to the government authorities and other local stakeholders.

  Project’s locations:

  The consultant is expected to conduct field visits to the following project locations:

• Gaziantep and Hatay, Türkiye.

• Idled and Aleppo, Syrian Arab Republic.

  The interviews with relevant partners in Lattakia, Government of Syria, including with ActionAid staff in Jordan and Lebanon can be done virtually. The consultant is expected to plan for methodologies and tools which also suit the remote data collection plan.

  Project locations Mode of visit and transport Estimated days of travel

  Gaziantep, Türkiye In-person, travel by car 3

  Hatay, Türkiye In-person, travel by car 3

  Idled, Syrian Arab Republic In-person, travel by car 3

  Aleppo, Syrian Arab Republic Virtual/ online method Not applicable

  Lebanon (AA staff) Virtual/ online method Not applicable

  Lattakia, Government of Syria To be confirm (virtual or in-person) 3

• Please detail the process for data collection and analysis, and what methodology will be followed. Items that could be covered include details of secondary data sources, primary data respondent groups, data collection tools, the locations of data collection and a plan for data analysis.

4. TIMEFRAME AND DELIVERABLES:

4.1 Key Deliverables

Deliverables 1: Inception report containing the final methodology and instruments for the evaluation

Details The The external evaluation team will submit the inception report no later than 1 week after the consultancy starts. The team will then conduct a field visit based on the proposed plan in the inception report including virtual interviews. The estimated day of travel is 12 days. Due DateWeek commencing 9 September 2024.

Deliverables 2: Presentation of preliminary findings and recommendations to AA teams Details The evaluation team will conduct a presentation of preliminary findings to AAAR and relevant parties before submitting the draft evaluation report. Due Date Week commencing 1 October 2024 .

Deliverables 3: Draft final evaluation report Details The evaluation team submits the draft report for review. AAAR circulates the draft for reviews and feedback Due Date Week commencing 7 October 2024

Deliverables 4: Final evaluation report Details The evaluation team submits the final report, which should incorporate all the comments and feedbacks from AA teams. Audit trail detailing how the comments have been addressed is to be submitted along with the final report Due Date Week commencing 21 October 2024 .

Deliverables 5: Final evaluation report presentation for AAAR team Details After the submission of the final evaluation report, the evaluation team is required to conduct a final presentation to AAAR team Due date By 31 October 2024.

• SAFEGUARDING AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS :

  Please detail any relevant safeguarding and/or ethical considerations, and – where relevant – connected policies.

  All evaluations to be carried out in line with ActionAid’s Evaluation Standards and the Feminist Research Approach and the DEC’s approach to assurance on safeguarding.

  More information of these Standards can be found in the annex of this TOR , but in practical terms require the evaluation and evaluator to consider the following:

  Community voice and representation: it is essential that the evaluation reflects the voices of women and men involved in the project. People should be consulted as part of the evaluation, and their voices included in the evaluation report as direct quotes and case studies. In line with ActionAid’s mandate, the evaluation should prioritise people living in poverty and exclusion, especially women.

  Feedback: as a minimum the evaluators should commit to feeding key findings and recommendations back to the communities engaged in the evaluation.

  Transparency and ethical standards: the evaluators should explain clearly to communities engaged in the evaluation what the purpose of the exercise is, and how their information will be used. ActionAid’s ethical standards for research and data collection should be followed, including a risk assessment covering security risks to communities. As a minimum the evaluation should ‘do no harm’.

  Women’s rights: Women’s rights must be respected in all evaluations. All evaluations should seek to explore how women have been affected by an intervention and the effect on gender relations. It is essential that women’s voices are heard clearly in the evaluation. The timing and location of evaluation activities and the composition of the evaluation team should be designed to maximise women’s ability to participate in the evaluation.

  Transparency about methodology: The evaluation should include a detailed and transparent discussion of the methodology used and key decisions taken in designing and implementing the evaluation. This should include information about the sampling (approach to sampling, numbers of people/communities covered, how representative), what tools were used and why, methodological limitations and gaps.

  Disaggregated data: data must be disaggregated in as much detail as possible. As a minimum this means disaggregation by age and sex. Where possible data should also be disaggregated by other relevant factors such as disability

  CONSULTANT PROFILE

  Please provide the desired specifications and qualities for the consultant(s)

  Technical score: 70% Financial proposal: 30%.

Education qualification Scoring (total10%)

• A master’s degree in Social Sciences, Political Science, Economics, Development Economics or related fields with at least 5 progressive years working in a similar field; or.

• A first-level university degree in combination with 7 additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree. Scoring 10

  Work experience and skills Scoring (total 60%)

• At least 5 years of relevant experience in conducting research with the application of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies; experience in applying other relevant research and/or evaluation methodologies to conduct project design, implementation, and evaluation/impact analysis. Scoring 20

• At least 5 years of experiences conducting research and or project evaluations in Türkiye and/or Syria or Arab Region context or in other similar crisis context Scoring 15

• Prior experience working with ActionAid Scoring 10

• Knowledge of humanitarian standards and frameworks (e.g. Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS), Grand Bargain commitments, DEC Accountability Framework)Scoring 10

• Proficiency in both English and Arabic is required Scoring 3

• Prior experience working with the DEC is desirable Scoring 2

APPLICATION DETAILS :

Application must to adhere to the following details.

1. Personal Information:

• Full Name:
• Contact Information (Phone Number, Email Address):
• Current Location:

2. Education Qualification: as indicated in section 13 (Consultant Profile)

3.Work Experience, skills and expertise: as indicated in section 13 (Consultant Profile)

4.Mandatory documentation

• Technical proposal
• Financial proposal
• CV
• References**:** Provide contact information for at least two professional references
• 2 writing samples, preferably an evaluation report or similar products
• Additional Information: any additional information or qualifications relevant to the consultancy position
• APPENDIX
• Appendix 1: DEC Accountability Framework: https://www.dec.org.uk/article/accountability-framework
• Appendix 2: ActionAid Feminist Research Guideline: https://actionaid.org/sites/default/files/publications/ActionAid%20Feminist%20Research%20Guidelines_2021.pdf
• Appendix 3: The DEC’s approach to assurance on safeguarding: https://www.dec.org.uk/sites/default/files/PDFS/the_dec_assurance_approach_to_safeguarding.pdf