Consultant for the evaluation of Muslim Hands bread factory in Yemen

Organization

Muslim Hands (MH)

Title of the Project

Evaluation of MH bread factories in Yemen

Primary Sector of Intervention

Food Security and Livelihood

Project Area/s

Aden, Ma’rib and Seiyun

Beneficiaries

25,000 individuals

Application Deadline

30th Nov 2022

Muslim Hands(MH) is an international organization working in over sixty countries worldwide to help those affected by natural disasters, conflict, and poverty. It focuses mainly on three different areas of work: development work, which tries to lift communities out of poverty with long-term sustainable solutions based on their needs; humanitarian work, assisting those immediately affected by conflict and natural disaster; and community welfare & development facilitating/ developing local community-based projects both in the UK and across the globe.

Project Background and Context

The war in Yemen has turned a poor country into a humanitarian catastrophe. Currently, 22 million Yemeni families lack access to food, health care, and safe water and can only rely on food aid alone. This number is still set to rise. Muslim Hands has been working in Yemen since 2018 implementing emergency and development projects in the fields of education, health, water, food, and shelter to help address the dire needs of the people caused due to the humanitarian situation facing the country for several years. To solve the food crisis facing Yemen, Muslim Hands has established 5 bread factories – in north Aden, south Aden, north Ma’rib, south Ma’rib and Seiyun. These bread factories are feeding more than 25,000 people every day. The bread factories in Aden covers three districts “Al Mualla, At Tawahi, and Kritar – Sirah”, factories in Ma’rib covers two IDPs camps (Al- soudidh and Jaw alnaseem) and the factory in Seiyun covers Hadramoot area. As, the food security situation in Yemen is getting worse, Muslim Hands is seeking to expand the coverage of those projects and intervene in the most needed governorates to target more beneficiaries.

These bread factories are targeted towards the IDPs, orphans, widows, disabled and other vulnerable people in the community. The beneficiaries for these projects are selected in coordination with the stakeholders and the relevant authorities and a strict criterion is followed for the selection of the beneficiaries followed by the rigorous verification of the selected individuals against the criteria. Project beneficiaries for these bread factories entail:

• Orphans
• Widows
• Families with disabled members
• Female Headed Households
• Poor/Economically disadvantaged households.
• Members of the IDPs Camps

PURPOSE OF THE EVALUATION AND INTENDED USE

The main purpose of this impact assessment is to measure through an independent evaluation the changes that can be attributed to the current Muslim Hands (MH) bread factory project. The purpose of this study can be summarized in terms of accountability and learning; to gather data about the effectiveness and impacts of the project to make sure that the intervention is still on track and is likely to meet its objectives.

For this assessment, the impact will be understood as the wider effects of the program – physical, social, economic, technical, and the environment – on individuals (disaggregated by gender and age groups), communities, and institutions. The impact can be direct or indirect, intended or unintended, positive or negative, macro (within the sector) and micro (household, individuals).

The assessment results will generate evidence of key achievements and challenges to inform the decision-making process for partners, donors, MH’s senior management, and key stakeholders, as well as provide an opportunity for understanding how the program delivery mechanism works best, under which circumstances, and how this can be improved in the future. In addition, these assessment results are expected to inform the next phase of MH and its programming work inside and outside the targeted countries. The evaluation study will focus on the impact of MH’s bread factories in Yemen since their establishment. It will also focus on their performance and evaluate their impact on individuals’ lives and household food security. Findings and conclusions from this study will be shared with MH’s Board of Directors, partners, donors, and any other potential donor or key stakeholder and to be published for wider and general use.

Evaluation Objectives

• To investigate achievements and impacts of MH bread factories project based on which conclusions will be identified, and recommendations for improvements will be provided by generating evidence and recording lessons learned, develop recommendations and action plans
• To assess the value for money (VfM) of the project
• To demonstrate accountability and transparency to the stakeholders; and
• To develop learning for improvement – particularly with the concrete, evidence-based approach in the future to improve the overall theory of change for the integrated response
• To assess/evaluate the relevancy, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and coherence of the implemented project in the targeted areas and highlight strengths and weaknesses of the interventions and opportunities for further improvements
• To analyze the most recent information available for the relevant country context and utilize it for the equity-based program design
• To evaluate the design of the bread distribution project for the households receiving the goods and improve the overall approach

SCOPE OF WORK AND METHODOLOGY

MH anticipates (but is not limited to) for this evaluation to use mixed methods, including quantitative, qualitative, and participatory approaches. The consultants shall propose conventional and innovative methods to develop a literature review, Key Informant Interviews (KII), Focus Group Discussions (FGD), surveys, and Direct Observation. Secondary qualitative and quantitative data such as monitoring data and reports will be used to corroborate the information collected. The methodology must ensure a participatory and consultative process with key stakeholders to have a wider understanding.

The consultant firm will primarily collect data related to verifying and vetting the quality of performance of project output and outcome indicators, activities, and interventions. The consultancy company would ensure technical (sectoral specialist) enumerators are identified for the assessment purpose. The consultant will primarily lead the design rollout of the data collection tools, training the technical enumerators, and the overall field data collection and analysis of data. The team will support in the activities of the consultants’ activities and highlight if their activities are against the core humanitarian standards (CHS)

EXPECTED OUTPUTS AND DELIVERABLES FROM THE CONSULTANT

The evaluation exercise should result in the following outputs and deliverables:

1. Inception meetings to finalize the scope of work, expectations, process/work plan, and brief on logistics and technical aspects
2. Final analytical framework, methodological approach including required secondary sources from the project, approach, and review of sampling at every phase, primary data collection tools
3. Training of skilled enumerators, relevant authorities’ permissions to implement primary data collection
4. An overall work plan for the contracted period with a short inception report with details of types of monitoring, methodology, coordination, tools, data protection protocols etc.
5. Weekly updates on the status/progress of the evaluation activities and reports with due dates
6. Final data collection tools (in Arabic & English), raw data and field photos organized by the consultant firm
7. An overall comprehensive evaluation report segregated by outcome, output, and activity with consolidation of key findings and concrete, practical recommendations
8. Final debriefs and presentation of overall findings and recommendations post the evaluation exercises
9. Raw data (all data sets in excel and SPSS, notes from KIIs and FGDs)
10. Draft & final reports and summary fact sheet. The consultancy company will produce a draft report to be submitted to MH on the agreed date for review. A final report (MS Word, Excel files, PDF), including feedback from MH reflected in, will then be submitted to MH

All deliverables (except for the raw data) must be provided in English and Arabic (raw text data) as appropriate and applicable. The evaluation report needs to be provided only in English

APPLICATION AND PROFILE OF THE CONSULTANT

The consultant firm (team) must have proven expertise and experience in conducting evaluation and social research, food security, humanitarian response and assistance, protection in humanitarian emergency responses, and implementing the evaluation exercises following the required procedures and in the required languages.

• Proof of these is to be provided by submitting, together with the application:
• An overview of relevant works
• Working samples
• Contact details for references
• The proposed evaluation team’s CVs.

Requirements in detail:

• Have excellent team-leading skills, with the ability to work with a varied team
• Have expertise and experience in conducting similar activities, including mixed methods and notably quantitative and qualitative primary data collection methods
• Have expertise and experience in evaluation, research, monitoring and evaluation in food security, and humanitarian emergency response contexts, preferably related to the Yemen crisis, as well as related technical sector standards
• Have a good understanding of the Yemen crisis and vast experience of conducting similar exercises in Yemen
• Good exposure and experience with fragile context program monitoring
• Have permission to work, travel, and undertake primary data collection in the project target locations and be able to do so in the language of the primary target groups
• Have proven experience in conducting participatory qualitative and quantitative monitoring studies with superior analytical skills
• Have a good knowledge of data collection software (such as Kobo, SMAP) and statistical packages (such as SPSS)
• Have excellent report-writing skills
• Have excellent written and spoken English and Arabic
• Hold a minimum educational qualification equivalent to a master‘s degree in a relevant field

Ethical Consideration, Child Protection, and Data Confidentiality

The security situation and challenges of accessibility should not hinder the full consideration of the ethical principles of such an exercise. It is the responsibility of the contracted consulting firm to ensure all respondents and stakeholders participating in the evaluation activities do so voluntarily through obtaining written or verbal informed consent from participants at the commencement and conclusion of interviews.

The security of the respondents and field enumerators should be always considered, particularly during data collection. Names or details of respondents must be confidential and protected. Do No Harm principles should be respected during and after monitoring implementation. Permission to use any visuals or personal details must be obtained, and the contractor is responsible for anonymizing data collected to protect the individuals interviewed. All staff and volunteers involved in third-party monitoring activities have the responsibility to report concerns of or incidents of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse during field monitoring to the MH focal point immediately. All primary data collected by this evaluation process must remain confidential and not be shared with third parties.