Learning Consultant

1. About Plan International

Plan International is an independent child rights and humanitarian organization committed to children living a life free of poverty, violence and injustice. Plan actively unite children, communities and other people who share our mission to make positive lasting changes in children’s and young people’s lives. Plan support children to gain the skills, knowledge and confidence they need to claim their rights to a fulfilling life, today and in the future. Plan place a specific focus on girls and women, who are most often left behind. Plan have been building powerful partnerships for children for more than 80 years, and are now active in more than 70 countries. Plan International Jordan is established in 2016 and has programmes in Azraq refugee camp and host communities.

2. Project Background

Mubaderoon 2 aims to contribute to the economic integration and social inclusion of youth, women and refugees in the poorest communities of the project regions. The target group for Mubaderoon 2 is Syrian refugees and host communities. The project will be implemented through integrated components:

– Strengthening the expansion of existing social enterprises and the creation of new Social Enterprises and Social Enterprise Initiatives through capacity building, mentoring and financial support.

– Ecosystem actors work to improve the framework conditions for SEs in Jordan by influencing policy and lobbying initiatives.

The project will be implemented through project consortium-based: Plan International Jordan (consortium lead), The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN), JoWomenomics (JoWo) and Durrat AlManal (DMDT). PIJO and its partners will be distributing up to 24 grants. Through the granting and capacity building component, the project aims to support and grow 24 SEs, homebased businesses, start-ups and ideas, ensuring that along with receiving financial support, they have technical training and support to build their knowledge and capacities.

3. Purpose and learning objectives – why do we want to learn?

The purpose of this learning activity is to contribute to the quality of Mubaderoon II project implementation and enable identification of opportunities for the scalability of project interventions. Beyond enabling partners involved in the project to learn, knowledge and insights can also be a valuable contribution to the broader field of economic empowerment.

For this purpose, Plan and its partners will work towards achieving following learning objectives:

· Adaptive project planning: Informed decisions are made by utilising available data and creating additional insights through reflections.

· Body of knowledge and recommendations to support scale-up is generated.

The action aims to identify and disseminate evidence of youth-led SEs that achieve socio-economic results in a financially sustainable manner that can be shared/ replicated across and beyond Jordan’s governorates. Best practices will be shared in a lessons-learned catalogue and online/offline distributed at different levels. Furthermore, a study to be conducted on what evidence we can collect to emphasize the success of this concept and how can this be used to scale up/ expand this concept further in and outside Jordan. It will create more evidence for this concept which can lead to further scaling, in and outside Jordan. The evidence will be channelled to various potential funders and Plan allies, as Youth@heart platform, the ILO Decent Work, the Dutch Embassy, the EUO, Plan National Offices, as well as private givers.

4. Scope of work

Recognising that a lot of data will be gathered through project monitoring and components, the intention is to build on it and make the most out of the existing data and processes. The key elements of the learning agenda are therefore to a) propose the way for reflecting on and learning from data and, b) structure the approach so that different processes are interconnected and support each other.

Integration of M&E data and processes

This consultant should utilise the data collected through ongoing monitoring tools, for which KOBO will be used. Specific monitoring data to be used for learning purposes.

Reflections

Proper documentation and learning from project implementation in different project locations should be accomplished and should include a developed set of questions such as:

v Focus area 1: Learning about interventions

Learning question 1: What elements of the intervention have been successful (in terms of leading to decent work for the social entrepreneurs). And why?

Learning question 2: How can the interventions be improved? To be specified per key component of the intervention.

Learning questions 3: What unforeseen effects (negative/positive) are noticed, and why?

v Focus area 2: Learning about institutionalisation

Learning Question 4: What are the preconditions for of a successful scale-up?

Learning Question 5: What general barriers need to be addressed in a contextualised design to build sustainable social enterprises for marginalised youth and young women.

Learning Question 6: How can the effectiveness of advocacy be improved?

Learning Question 7: What are the enablers that can help accelerate initiatives at the start-up phase and at scale-up?

This should capture successful practices, challenges, and areas for improvement. Reflection meetings should be held to discuss, analyse, and agree on next steps and generate decisions to solve obstacles and build on successes and inform upcoming interventions.

5. Deliverables

· The consultant shall submit an inception report after the signing of agreements, that includes the detailed methodology, tools, and work plan.

· Lead the articulation of the learning questions that will assess the situation and capture the learnings.

· Submit comprehensive work plan along with exact dates.

· Conduct after action reviews sessions with the project staff, partner organizations, key stakeholders and project participants.

· Document and capture the learnings, reflections, best practices, and lessons learned for Mubaderoon 2.

· Identify and define the evidence of youth social enterprises (SEs) that achieve socio-economic results in a financially sustainable manner that can be shared/ replicated across and beyond Jordan’s governorates.

· Lead and facilitate after action review sessions with involved parties.

· Conducting desk reviews for the available resources such as project proposal, MERL plan, learning documents and any other relevant document.

· Design and prepare the tools that will be utilized for this assignment.

· Draft and present the final report that will include key recommendations, lessons learned, best practices and reflections that will enhance the scalability and sustainability for SEs concepts in Jordan and outside Jordan.

6. Timeline

The proposed timeline of this consultancy is starting from January/2023 until August/2024. The initial plan is to conduct 8 after-action review sessions divided into 4 sessions with the project staff, partner organizations and key stakeholders and the other 4 sessions with the project participants. The sessions will be conducted every 6 months in order to have the reflections properly.

7. Minimum Qualifications

· Proven experience in relevant assignments, at least two related reports.

· Strong knowledge in the field of social entrepreneurship and the Jordanian context.

· Experience in youth economic empowerment, livelihoods development in humanitarian or refugee settings, community-based and social enterprise and community participation is an asset.

· Excellent facilitation skills and ability to lead and carry out the learning sessions.

· Ability to communicate and maintain appropriate and productive relations with a range of actors, including children, parents, local and national authorities.

P.S. Plan International will handle all logistics, including transportation, venue, hospitality, and refreshments. Therefore, please make sure to submit your budget without the aforementioned costs.