Closing date: 12 Nov 2017
Purpose of Project and Background
The Zurich IFRC Flood Resilience Alliance (FRA) seeks to develop a model for delivering effective community flood resilience programmes at scale and contribute to shaping the flood resilience agenda for policy-makers and donors. IFRC’s collaboration with Zurich goes beyond funding to include shared expertise, skills, and collaboration. Strong partnerships between the National Societies, IFRC, and Zurich ensure successful collaboration and the best outcomes for communities. The objectives of the partnership are to:
- • Enhance community flood resilience at scale
- • Enhance effectiveness of disaster risk reduction solutions
- • Develop and promote knowledge and expertise
- • Influence policy makers and donors on disaster risk reduction policies
The partnership has committed to supporting two country-level programs in Indonesia and Mexico, with a focus on enhancing community flood resilience in vulnerable areas. The Mexican Red Cross and the Indonesia Red Cross (PMI) are implementing programs with the support of IFRC and Zurich Insurance local business. Strong relations forged in-country ensure successful collaboration and are responsible for realizing the achievements described in this report and the individual country reports. The Zurich IFRC flood resilience partnership is situated within Zurich’s Global Flood Resilience Alliance, a cross sector collaboration of partners dedicated to improving the practice and expertise in flood resilience and risk reduction.
Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance members are: Zurich Insurance, IFRC, Practical Action, the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Process Centre, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).
In term of reporting, for each implementing country, an annual and a mid-year report are being produced including a results framework and an action plan which was agreed with Zurich at the onset. The global reporting system follows the same logic – mid-year report and annual report – encompassing the IFRC activities in both countries and at the global level. Additionally, reporting on the operational progress and the various Alliance working groups (knowledge, resilience measurement, and advocacy) is carried out in compliance with general IFRC existing reporting systems.
Alignment to the IFRC’s objectives and strategy
The FRP contributes actively to the strategic aim 1 of the IFRC Strategy 2020; ‘save lives, protect livelihoods, and strengthen recovery from disasters and crises’ by enhancing capacities to recover from flood crises. While aiming flood resilience of communities it also directly relates to the aim 2 to enable healthy and safe living, and the enabling action 1 to build strong National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’. Finally, the FRP innovative partnership model contribute to a more effective way of working with partners and relates to the enabling action 2‘function effectively as the IFRC’. Project objectives
The IFRC evaluation will focus on two main areas:
1) exploring the overall impact of Alliance over the past 5 years in targeted countries overall as well as in NS and communities involved;
2) exploring the relevance, effectiveness, sustainability and efficiency of the Alliance multi-sector model of operation at global, regional, and country level.
Lessons learned from this evaluation are also meant to inform the planning and inception of the Alliance second phase (2018-2023).
Audience: This evaluation will be internally used by the National Society staff in Mexico, the IFRC’s Regional Office in Panama and the IFRC’s headquarters in Geneva, and the National Societies participating in the programme. Externally, the evaluation will be used by the donors and the programme partners. Some public content will also be developed.
The specific objectives and possible key questions to be addressed in this evaluation are listed below. The questions below provide an initial guidance and are expected to be further elaborated by the evaluation team in Mexico and Indonesia in coordination with the Geneva team in order to shape the evaluation under a common framework with the Alliance partners evaluation.
- On the Alliance model
a. What are the major factors enabling or disabling the success of the Alliance’s approach in terms of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability? - On the impact of the programme at the NS, national and global level
a. Has the programme achieved its objectives on community programming, research collaboration, knowledge sharing, and advocacy?
b. What has happened/changed as a result of the programme? Was capacity-building impacted?
c. What major factors influence the achievement or non-achievement of the objectives?
d. Was the programme implemented in the most efficient and effective way?
e. Are the impacts of the programme sustainable and relevant to the communities’ priorities?
Additional questions: It is recognized that emerging questions related to those framed above may arise in the course of the evaluation methodology design phase.
Desired outcomes
To meet the evaluation objectives and produce the desired outputs, the consultant will capture information about the programme design, implementation and results through interviews and evaluation activities. The interviews will include key informants in communities, national, regional and global staff as well as partners. The information gathered will allow the completion of an internal report –intending national, regional and global staff– as well as an external report targeting the donor. By-products such as executive summary, community narrative, checklist and list of solutions will also be drawn from the collected information and target a broader audience. In this sense, the evaluation will be modular.
The external evaluator will provide an independent, objective perspective as well as technical experience on evaluations, and will be the primary author of the evaluation report. S/he should have regional knowledge or experience and ideally will have experience with evaluation practices in the IFRC. S/he will not have been involved or have a vested interest in the Flood Resilience Programme being evaluated, and will be hired through a transparent recruitment process, based on professional experience, competence, ethics and integrity for this evaluation. An external evaluator will be hired in Indonesia as well. The external evaluator will report on progress or challenges to the Geneva team and will be the primary author of the evaluation report.
The National Society staff and volunteers will work with the external evaluator in the evaluation process, and will be able to provide perspectives on the RCRC actors and interactions in the programme. It is expected that the team will be able to conduct a reliable and informed evaluation of the programme that has legitimacy and credibility with stakeholders.
An IFRC Geneva team will manage and oversee the final evaluation with the presence of the external evaluators in Mexico and Indonesia, ensure that the evaluation is coherent across countries. It upholds
the IFRC Evaluation standards as well as donor requirements. The Geneva team will consist of two people directly involved with the programme.
The specific evaluation methodology will be detailed in close consultation between the evaluation consultants and Geneva team, involving Regional and National offices. It will draw upon the following primary methods:
Consultancy outputs
The consultancy aims to provide the following evaluation and knowledge outputs:
Inception report
This 2 to 4 pages report will present the interview plan and other evaluation activities that will be conduct during the evaluation including when, where and whom will be involved for each activity. The inception report will also present the methodology that will be used.
Final evaluation report (internal)
Final evaluation narrative report (between 20 and 30 pages) for internal IFRC and NS audiences following the template provided. Additionally, the report will include study cases (2 to 4 pages) and an executive summary of 2 pages.
Final evaluation report (external)
The external evaluation narrative report (between 15 and 20 pages) will be drawn from the internal report. It will response to Zurich donor requirements and other external stakeholders. It will follow the template provided.
National Society checklist focused on partnering with the private sector
In collaboration with our Resource Mobilization team and based on Alliance 1.0 experiences, develop a set of high-level points to help give NS in future partnerships with the private sector following the template provided.
Community narrative
The intention is for either a set of photos, or a coffee table book to provide a visual narrative of the Alliance 1.0 work that has taken place over the past 5 years in each country.
Inception report
This 2 to 4 pages report will present the interview plan and other evaluation activities that will be conduct during the evaluation including when, where and whom will be involved for each activity. The inception report will also present the methodology that will be used.
Final evaluation report (internal)
Final evaluation narrative report (between 20 and 30 pages) for internal IFRC and NS audiences following the template provided. Additionally, the report will include study cases (2 to 4 pages) and an executive summary of 2 pages.
Method of delivery and reasons for selecting that method
The methodology will adhere to the IFRC Framework for Evaluations, with particular attention to the processes upholding the standards of how evaluations should be planned, managed, conducted, and utilized.
1. Semi-structured interviewed with key informants
Individual interviews will be conducted with key informants at the community, national and global level involving community stakeholders, National Society, the IFRC and Zurich local and global offices relevant representatives including current and former staff as well as volunteers and community members. The interviews will be conducted face-to-face as much as possible or, alternatively, by telecommunication requiring travel in remote locations. A detailed list of interviewees will be provided in coordination with the Geneva team. The Geneva team will support the consultant when necessary to arrange the interviews.
2. Participatory evaluation activities (lead by the National Society)
The National Society will lead a participatory evaluation to assess the local impact of the programme. It involves beneficiaries of the programmes, community stakeholders and possibly NS; IFRC and Zurich representatives. The consultant is expected to coordinate with the National Society to integrate the results of the evaluation in the external and internal reports.
3. Illustrative methods
To visually illustrate the impacts on communities of the programme, different materials will be developed to build a community narrative. The content will be gathered during the evaluation process. It could include photos or coffee table report for instance. The preferred media will be decided before the data collection.
4. Desk Review
A desk review will complement the other methods to assess the impact of the programme and the partnership. The evaluation final products are expected to be two reports for internal and external use based on the outcomes of the methods mentioned higher and a literature review. Templates will be provided by the Geneva team.
Overall, the methodologies focus on assessing how the dimensions of change developed by the Alliance – community programming, knowledge generation and sharing, influencing and advocacy, research programme, Post Event Review Capabilities, public policy and shared value for the business – have reached their objectives. Furthermore, the questions evaluate the programme relevance, effectiveness, sustainability and efficiency. Finally, a degree of adaptability is necessary to adapt to specific added value of each context.
Support to be provided to the consultant
The consultant will access previous evaluation report and other relevant documents for the consultancy. The consultant will beneficiate from the support of the FRP team in Geneva to facilitate meetings. Furthermore, the Geneva team will arrange briefing on the Flood Resilience Programme and coordinate meetings during the process. Finally, the consultant beneficiates from the use of the IFRC e-travel system to support travel planning.
Schedule
Inception report: 2 days
Field visits: 8 days
Interviews: 4 days
Coordinate with NS participatory evaluation: 3 days
Literature review: 2 days
Final internal report writing: 4 days
Final external report writing: 2 days
Partnership checklist for NS: 1 day
Presentation of the results: 1 day
Final review: 2 days
Coordination with Geneva and briefing: 3 days
Total: 32 days
Management of consultancy
The consultant will report directly to the Flood Resilience team based in Geneva insuring the coordination between the two in-country consultants. The consultants are expected to hold bi-weekly consultations with the team in Geneva (through emails and via teleconference calls).
Evaluation Quality & Ethical Standards
The evaluators should take all reasonable steps to ensure that the evaluation is designed and conducted to respect and protect the rights and welfare of people and the communities of which they are members, and to ensure that the evaluation is technically accurate, reliable, and legitimate, conducted in a transparent and impartial manner, and contributes to organizational learning and accountability. Therefore, the evaluation consultant should adhere to the evaluation standards and specific, applicable process outlined in the IFRC Framework for Evaluation. The IFRC Evaluation Standards are:
Utility: Evaluations must be useful and used.
Feasibility: Evaluations must be realistic, diplomatic, and managed in a sensible, cost effective manner.
Ethics & Legality: Evaluations must be conducted in an ethical and legal manner, with particular regard for the welfare of those involved in and affected by the evaluation.
Impartiality & Independence; Evaluations should be impartial, providing a comprehensive and unbiased assessment that takes into account the views of all stakeholders.
Transparency: Evaluation activities should reflect an attitude of openness and transparency.
Accuracy: Evaluations should be technical accurate, providing sufficient information about the data collection, analysis, and interpretation methods so that its worth or merit can be determined.
Participation: Stakeholders should be consulted and meaningfully involved in the evaluation process when feasible and appropriate.
Collaboration: Collaboration between key operating partners in the evaluation process improves the legitimacy and utility of the evaluation.
It is also expected that the evaluation will respect the seven Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent: 1) humanity, 2) impartiality, 3) neutrality, 4) independence, 5) voluntary service, 6) unity, and 7) universality. Further information can be obtained about these principles at: www.ifrc.org/what/values/principles/index.asp"
**Requirements
Education: **
Master’s degree or equivalent in social sciences, economics, statistics, development, international studies, politics, humanitarian action, or related field
Experience:
Proven experience in evaluations design and implementation, including 7 years of working experience in carrying out evaluations.
Substantial experience in coordinating and planning interviews, focus groups and other evaluation method to a variety of audiences of all ages.
Experience working with volunteers and youth.
Demonstrated experience delivering well edited evaluation reports in English.
Languages:
Fluent in spoken and written English
Fluent in spoken and writing Spanish
How to apply:
Interested candidates should submit their application material by November 12, 2017 to: manon.ebel@ifrc.org. Application materials should include:
Curriculum Vitae (CV)
Cover letter clearly summarizing your experience as it pertains to this assignment, your daily rate, and three professional references.
At least one example of an evaluation report most similar to that described in this TOR.
We thank you in advance for understanding that only short-listed candidates will be contacted for the next step in the application process.
Notes
• The consultant will be contracted by the IFRC and the standard contractual terms will apply.
• Agreed travel expenses will be reimbursed at cost in accordance with in the IFRC’s relevant regulations.