Consultant for Beyond Barriers: Overcoming Funding and Workforce Obstacles to Achieve a Localized Humanitarian Response

Summary

Concern Worldwide, with funding from USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), will undertake a 24-month project in support of efforts to overcome two of the largest barriers to the localization of humanitarian action – humanitarian financing and human resources. This focused research project will be implemented across five different humanitarian contexts, with a view to develop transferable learning on sustainable funding and staffing issues, such as capacity and retention, within the lens of advancing locally led humanitarian response and recovery.

The Beyond Barriers project, led by Concern, will be conducting research on advancing the localization agenda in five countries – Malawi, NW Syria, Bangladesh, DRC, and Somalia. Concern is seeking an advanced French speaking program consultant to support implementation of the program in DRC.

In year two of the program (2023), the Beyond Barriers team will travel to DRC to host a stakeholder workshop the program’s Local Academic Partner (LARP) and engage in conversations with key humanitarian actors. The French-speaking consultant will assist with workshop delivery and preparation, data collection, and analysis.

The consultant will work with the Concern team and LARP to prepare for the research visit, travel to DRC for at least one week in February or March, and assist in the analysis and translation of the data.

About Beyond Barriers

Led by Concern Worldwide, Concern is an international humanitarian organization committed to the relief, assistance and advancement of poorest people in the least developed countries of the world, aiming towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries. Founded in Ireland in 1968, Concern has over 4,000 personnel working in 24 countries around the world, primarily in Africa and Asia.

Beyond Barriers is one of Concern’s primary initiatives aimed at improving local humanitarian response capacity; others include joint initiatives between Concern, International Medical Corps (IMC) and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) on the Building a Better Response Project (BBR), the National NGO Program on Humanitarian Leadership, and Local Capacity Strengthening for Response (LCS4R).

With the research conducted under this program, a series of practical solutions to overcome common challenges will be developed utilizing a variety of mechanisms, including case studies, teaching cases, and assessment frameworks. The tools will then be rolled out both in-country and globally via dissemination round tables, a newly developed program website, among other best practice mechanisms for dissemination and usability. Aimed at transferability and opportunities for scale-up, this program will be grounded in a focus on proactive, program-based solutions to funding and staffing challenges. By harnessing the broad spectrum of contexts in which Concern operates, while focusing on a finite set of routine operational issues and challenges that organizations in those contexts face, learning derived from the analysis will help strengthen replicability of best practice and accelerate the overall process of localization, while ensuring the highest standards of humanitarian response programming are maintained.

Scope of Work

With guidance and support from Concern Worldwide, the academic partner will be responsible for:

General

• Participate in planning calls with Beyond Barriers Team and Local Academic Research Partner
• Be available and flexible to travel to the DRC for one-two weeks in February/March (dates tbc
• Assist in the translation and analysis of interviews after the visit

Stakeholder Workshop

• Participate in a 1-day planning session prior to workshop
• Assist with translation of any existing workshop materials into French
• Assist with any administrative tasks occurring during the workshop (registration, distribution of resources for activities, post-workshop surveys, etc.)
• Co-facilitate 1-day stakeholder workshop with Beyond Barriers Team
• Participate in post-workshop debrief

Key Informant Interviews

• Assist with scheduling of interviews (in-person and on Zoom)
• Conduct key informant interviews in coordination with the Beyond Barriers team
• Take notes on key ideas from each interview
• Assist in the recording of interviews on program provided recording equipment
• Participate in post-interview debrief sessions

Data Analysis

• Work with Concern team on preliminary analysis of data collected and contribute to post-visit report

Partnership Purpose & Timeframe

The estimated timeframe for this partnership is approximately 4 months – between January 2023 – April 2023. This timeline is subject to change based on individual country timeline and needs.

Essential Requirements

• 5 + years of experience in humanitarian or relevant sector
• Education to Master’s level in relevant field of study
• Ability to work comfortably in English and French

Desirable Requirements

• Previous work on theme of localization and/or partnerships in humanitarian sector
• Previous experience working in DRC

Budget & Level of Effort

Candidates should provide a budget with a daily rate and other expenses based on the following schedule:

4 days pre-visit to DRC

10 days in DRC

14 days post-visit to DRC

Concern reserves the right to amend the number of days work required for this project.