Switzerland: Consultant to Review of Surge Leadership programs including the Head of Emergency Operations and Developing Heads of Emergency Operations Program and

Background

The IFRC Secretariat has long recognized the need for high level strategic leadership particularly for large response operations. The rationale for the creation of the HEOps pool and roster has been supported by the findings and recommendations of a number of recent operational reviews and evaluations, namely the increasing frequency and complexity of major disasters requiring more sophisticated strategic leadership and coordination roles and the need for greater predictability and continuity in providing quality operational leadership support to National Societies affected.

The HEOps project was developed by the Geneva IFRC Surge Senior Officers and British, Canadian and American Red Cross representatives. The project was presented to and supported by the Disaster Management Working Group, the Federation’s Region and Geneva Secretariat offices as well as National Societies, many of whom have contributed to the costs and roll out this initiative for almost six years now.

This initiative has been complemented by the “Developing HEOPS Program” in order to deepen the pool of HEOPS-Ready personnel available for deployments. The Developing Heads of Emergency Operations (DHEOps) is now in its third year. The first round of DHEOps was completed in 2016. Six out of seven candidates successfully completed the program and qualified as HEOPs-Ready, including one candidate who is now a full time HEOPs. The second and current round of DHEOps has 9 candidates, from various National Societies, IFRC regional office and ICRC.

Beyond the HEOPS/D-HEOPs model, the larger system needs to be reviewed from the angle of reviewing availability/ predictability of leadership and coordination surge personnel as availability continues to be an ongoing issue. This consultancy will review existing models of registers, rosters, retainers/professionalization models to inform how best to address the gap in availability of leaders in emergency operations.

This consultancy will be supported by the Canadian Red Cross. *

Purpose

This review is planned to assess the progress made since the mid-terms review (2014) vs. the recommendations made in the Global Tools review and the different Real Time Evaluation (RTE) of operations where HEOPS and DHEOPS were deployed.

It is pertinent to review the progress to date, either confirming assumptions or expectations of progress or providing recommendations to revise the approach if necessary, while also being able to feedback to the donor national societies (DMWG) on the future of the tools.

The review report will be used to provide the IFRC an opportunity to reflect on decisions made and approaches taken and to allow an informed decision on the future of this global tool created 6 years ago.

The scope of this review is two folds:

Objective 1:

To measure the effectiveness, efficiency, impact and connectedness of the HEOPs. The review report will be used to provide the IFRC an opportunity to reflect on decisions made and approaches taken, to consider the future methods to enhance preparedness and leadership. The reviewer would develop a measuring system that could ideally be replicated on a later date.

Objective 2:

To evaluate gaps in surge leadership beyond the high-level strategic focus of the HEOps, namely for the management of small and medium scale emergencies that require an Operations Manager or other form of surge leadership and make recommendations on options to fill any remaining gaps. The review will examine the HEOPs/ D-HEOPS management model as well as other leadership surge management models (such as the Operations Managers) to determine how to improve the ongoing gap in availability of surge leadership. Many National Societies have established different initiatives to improve availability and predictability of surge and these models should be reviewed as a part of this consultancy.

More specifically the review will look at:

· HEOPS-related progress made and results in providing strategic leadership to IFRC-led operations within the planned time-frame (currently three months) and beyond, as viewed by the Regional Office (requesting the support), the host national societies, the Geneva Secretariat as well as the back donors.

· The reality of the work undertaken vs. the objectives set out in ToR issued at the time of a deployment request (to which degree is the HEOPS’ work on strategic / operational level)

· The added value and strategic leadership brought in by the HEOPS in medium and large scale operations as well as in other “non-traditional” deployments (such as protracted crisis or contingency-planning missions)

· The added value of the use of the HEOPS incumbents in ‘peace time’ activities in between deployments

· The added value of D-HEOPS/HEOPS ready component. Analysis of its effectiveness and efficiency, its design and the management with a special view on availability

· A cost/benefit analysis of the HEOPS-project, including an analysis of original budget and verification of cost recovery component of the programme.

· A review of the HEOPS/D-HEOPs management model (also see Finance below) to inform how best this program should be managed moving forward.

· An evaluation of leadership gaps for operations that do not meet the requirement for strategic-level leaderships, typically small to medium scale DREF or Appeal-funded operations and management models to provide effective leadership surge capacities for these operations.

· Recommendations on models that could be used to fill any remaining gaps, including (but not limited to) 1) an expansion of the leadership surge pool of delegates, 2) exploring innovative ways to contract D-HEOPS, HEOPS-R, Operations Mangers, 3) revised register and roster models and/or retainer-type models and/or rotation models for National Society or IFRC staff,

Methodology

The review methodology will include, but not be limited to secondary literature review, key informant interviews with stakeholders including:

· HEOPS (current and former), HEOPS ready, DHEOPS, Operations Managers

· Regional Office management, Regional DM units/coordinators, possibly Head of Operations, the Secretariat’s Disaster and Crisis Department (DCD) in Geneva, the Security unit and technical and HR departments

· National Societies: host national societies; PNS working in emergencies, which were led by HEOps/DHEOPS/HEOPS ready / Operations Mangers; donor/supporting national societies (i.e. those contributing to FACT and ERU global disaster response tools and DMWG members)

· Country Offices and Countries Clusters office where HEOps/ DHEOPS/HEOPS ready have deployed.

Evaluator – Roles and Responsibilities

This review will be undertaken by an external consultant. The review is commissioned by IFRC Global Surge Desk who will provide key contacts for the review and function as focal point, providing support where necessary.

The evaluator will be responsible for managing the review process and outputs. During the 30 days consultancy, he/she will:

· Define the methodology and work plan of the review including his/her role

· Review secondary data/background material of the project and subsequent operational reports pertaining to deployments of the HEOps.

· Conduct key informant interviews

· Carry out interviews with selected IFRC Regional offices (Africa/Europe and America)

· Draft, edit and finalise a final report

· Prepare a summary of the findings & conclusions & recommendations in power point format

Timeframe

It is expected that the evaluator will take no more than six weeks to carry out the document review, conduct interviews and write up. This consultancy, inclusive of the final report, must be completed by 15 May 2017. All finalised deliverables are expected by 31th May 2017. The consultant may be home based, but must be available for travel if needed.

If you are interested, please apply before 27 April on our website: www.ifrc.org
To apply click here