Türkiye Earthquake Response -Team Leader

Background of the Crisis
An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 occurred in Türkiye at 4:17 am on 6 February 2023, followed by eighty-three aftershocks at a maximum level of 6.7. An additional separate earthquake of 7.6 occurred at 1:24 pm the following day in the same region. Adiyaman, Hatay, Kahramanmaras, Gaziantep, and Malatya are reportedly the hardest hit. Almost two weeks after the initial earthquake, a separate earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 hit Defne district, close to the Syrian border in Hatay province, on 20 February 2023. This was followed by an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8 on the same evening in Samandag district, Hatay, causing further destruction to the already heavily damaged area.

Evaluation Purpose and Scope
The IFRC is conducting this OR because of its commitment to the people being assisted and in improving the relevancy, efficiency and effectiveness of the evolving response. The International Federation is committed to ensuring quality assurance, standards, and a strong culture of learning in its disaster response and, as such is committed to carrying out evaluations/reviews in the wake of all major disasters requiring an international response and as a mandatory exercise when the scale and scope of the operation meets certain triggers.
The focus of this evaluation is to assess the IFRC Network’s response in Turkiye with the following purposes:
1. Evaluate the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of the support provided by IFRC to the Turkish Red Crescent relief operation.
2. Evaluate how the IFRC network performed against its Grand Bargain localization commitments.
3. Explore challenges and opportunities related to the Turkish Red Crescent auxiliary role to draw lessons learned for future operations.

Methodology
The team will carry out the OR through a series of approaches, including:
• Secondary data analysis (Emergency Appeal, Operation Updates, in-country documents, mission reports, debriefs, assessments). No primary data collection from assisted people is planned for this OR, this evaluation should utilize results of existing primary data sets collected by TRC or jointly by TRC and IFRC (existing datasets and surveys, studies and analysis completed by TRC and/or IFRC, also including existing reviews and evaluations completed by Kizilay Academy).
• Key Informant Interviews (KII) with key Red Cross Red Crescent (RCRC) and external stakeholders (i.e. UN Agencies and international organizations) in country and for those who have recently left the operation; and at the Regional and Geneva levels, including interviews with key delegates involved in the earlier stages of the response.
• Meetings and focus group discussions with RCRC and external actors, including TRC, PNS in-country, etc.
• The list of external actors and stakeholders from which the OR will have interviewees will be agreed upon by the IFRC and TRC beforehand.

The Review/Evaluation team will present its preliminary findings to the Turkish Red Crescent, the IFRC in-country team in Türkiye, the ROE and Geneva Headquarters before departure, through a participatory meeting and/or virtual workshop.

An EMT will also be set up to manage and support the OR. The Evaluation Management Team (EMT) will oversee and support the implementation of the OR process, including the finalization and approval of the ToR, quality assurance and approval of deliverables by the commissioners and recruitment of the evaluator(s).

Evaluation Team Competencies and Qualifications

The RMT will select the members of the evaluation team, which will comprise of 3-4 persons, including a team leader. Efforts will be made to ensure gender diversity amongst the team, as well as to respect other diversity/skills criteria.

The team leader will have the following skills and experience:

• Proven extensive experience in being the lead in conducting emergency response evaluation (7 to 10 years).
• Master’s degree in international development, social sciences, humanitarian assistance or other related fields.
• Familiarity with the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement and its disaster management system.
• Good knowledge of strategic and operational management of humanitarian operations and an ability to provide strategic recommendations to key stakeholders.
• Excellent writing and communication skills in English (reference and production of sample work required). Knowledge of written and verbal skills in Turkish is advantageous.
• Knowledge of cross-cutting issues, including protection, gender and inclusion (PGI) and community engagement and accountability (CEA) would be of interest
• Strong analytical skills and ability to clearly synthesize and present findings, draw practical conclusions and to prepare well‐written reports in a timely manner
• Good team player and familiarity with working with people from different cultures/contexts.
• Experience in managing teams remotely and comfortable working with online platforms.
• Should not have been involved or have a vested interest in the operation being reviewed.

The consultant will provide an independent, objective, and critical perspective, and will be the primary author of the evaluation report. They will be hired through a transparent recruitment process, based on professional experience, competence, ethics and integrity for this evaluation.

The consultant should take all reasonable steps to ensure that the piece of work is designed and conducted to respect and protect the rights and welfare of the people involved and to ensure that the evaluation is technically accurate and reliable, is conducted in a transparent and impartial manner, and contributes to better programming, organizational learning and accountability.