Closing date: 08 Dec 2017
Purpose of Project and Background
Launched in 2013, the Floods Resilience Alliance (Alliance) is a cross sector collaboration of partners dedicated to improving the practice and expertise in flood resilience and risk reduction. The Alliance members are: Zurich Insurance (financial sponsor), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Practical Action, the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Process Centre, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).
For the past 5 years, the Alliance has focused on delivering community flood resilience programs at scale and contributing to shaping the floods 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 Red Cross National Societies, the IFRC, and Zurich have ensured successful collaboration and the best outcomes for communities. Overall, the objectives of the Alliance 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
As a partner of the Alliance, the IFRC in partnership with the local Red Cross implemented two programs, one in Indonesia and the other Mexico, with a focus on enhancing community flood resilience in vulnerable areas. The Mexican Red Cross and the Indonesia Red Cross (PMI) are implemented programs with the support of the IFRC and the Zurich Insurance local business.
In terms of reporting, for each implementing country, an annual and a mid-year report have been 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.
Objectives of the evaluation
The IFRC evaluation will focus on two main areas:
1) exploring the overall impact of the Alliance over the past 5 years in Mexico and Indonesia with a focus on: a) the community level impact; b) capacity building impact of the program (e.g. how has the Alliance contributed to new capacities within the national Red Cross); and c) broader direct and indirect national and regional impacts of the program; 2) exploring the relevance, effectiveness, sustainability and efficiency of the Alliance multi-sector model of operation at global, regional, and country level. Therefore, interviews with Alliance partners (e.g. Zurich staff involved in the Alliance) will also need to be conducted.
Lessons learned from this evaluation are also meant to inform the planning and inception of the Alliance second phase (2018-2023).
Audience: The findings of this evaluation will be internally used by the National Society staff in Mexico and Indonesia and the broader IFRC network as appropriate. Additionally, select components of the evaluation will be shared with the donor, broader Alliance partners, and appropriate external audiences.
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 other evaluation activities. The interviews will include national, regional and global Red Cross and IFRC staff as well as Zurich representatives. 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, partnership checklist and list of solutions will also be drawn from the collected information and target a broader audience but some of those documents will not be developed by the consultant. Therefore, it is expected that the consultant will coordinate closely with the other IFRC stakeholders delivering on the sew by-products. 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 multi-stakeholder, multi-year partnership evaluation practices. 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. . 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 community-level 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.
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
Method of delivery
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.
- 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. A detailed list of interviewees will be provided in coordination with the Geneva team. The Geneva and country teams will support the consultant when necessary to arrange the interviews.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 above 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. 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 partnership evaluation reports, bi-annual reports, end-line evaluations, Alliance final evaluation template, and other relevant documents for the consultancy. The consultant will benefit from the support of the FRP team in Geneva to facilitate meetings with internal and external partners. Furthermore, the Geneva team will arrange briefing on the Flood Resilience Programme and coordinate meetings during the process. Finally, the consultant will benefit from the use of the IFRC e-travel system to support travel planning.
The consultant will report directly to the Flood Resilience team based in Geneva. The Geneva team will consist of two people directly involved with the programme. The consultant is expected to hold bi-weekly consultations with the team in Geneva (through emails and via teleconference calls).
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, significative 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
- Demonstrated understanding of humanitarian intervention
- Experience working with volunteers and youth
- Demonstrated experience delivering well edited evaluation reports in English
Languages:
- Fluent in English (required)
- Fluent in Spanish (preferred)
- Fluent in Bahasa (preferred)
How to apply:
Interested candidates should submit their application material by 8 December 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.