Country: Thailand
Closing date: 25 Jul 2016
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) seeks to appoint a:
Title: Consultancy to strengthen Monitoring and Evaluation of the Regional Resilience Initiative
Reports to: Disaster Risk Reduction Manager
Working period: August 2016 to February 2017 (6 months), maximum of 80 working days
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Purpose of Project and Background
IFRC globally and in Asia Pacific
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world's largest humanitarian network, reaching 150 million people each year through its 190 member National Societies. The Organization acts before, during and after disasters, crises and health emergencies in order to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people.
Our work is guided by our Movement’s seven fundamental principles (humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality), policies and by Strategy 2020, which voices our collective vision and determination to move forward in tackling the major challenges that confront humanity in the present decade.
The IFRC Secretariat has a decentralized structure: five regional offices (each with several Country Cluster Support Team and country offices reporting to it) covering the globe and responsible for frontline delivery through National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, backed by the Secretariat based in Geneva.
The Regional Resilience Initiative (RRI)
Since April 2014, the IFRC launched the Regional Resilience Initiative (RRI), which is a 4-year endeavour funded by the Canadian Government and the Canadian Red Cross. This project is supporting the eleven National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Southeast Asia with the overarching goal of reducing the impact of natural disasters on vulnerable communities. Specifically, the initiative seeks to enhance skills and capacities within National Societies so that they can advocate more strongly at national and regional levels for the needs of communities in disaster risk reduction. This is complemented by the strengthening of regional partnerships, both within Red Cross Red Crescent networks and with key partners such as the ASEAN secretariat and other bodies.
The initiative was designed to maximize the valuable and unique role of the Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies. With their network of community-based volunteers, their presence in-country is unlike any other humanitarian organisation. Combined with their mandate as an auxiliary to public authorities, this presents a unique opportunity to influence decision makers (both national and regional) and raise concerns on issues of disaster risk reduction and gender, or disaster risk reduction and environment, or disaster risk reduction and disaster law.
Throughout its implementation, the initiative seeks complementarities within various technical teams in achieving the three following outcomes:
Outcome 1 brings together Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), Disaster Law, Communication and Humanitarian Diplomacy experts to build capacities of National Societies to promote DRR issues at national level.
Outcome 2 supports DRR and Organizational Development / Human Resources departments of National Societies in the inclusion of gender and diversity within DRR policies, programmes and tools
Outcome 3 combines DRR and Humanitarian Diplomacy in fostering an increased DRR cooperation between the RCRC Movement, ASEAN Secretariat and other regional partners.
After two years of implementation, recognizing the progress made towards these three outcomes, the steering committee for the initiative decided in April 2016 that there was a need to enhance the monitoring and evaluation functions of the team in order to build stronger evidence of change linked to the supported interventions. This is why the IFRC is seeking the services of an external consultant to support the team in tools development, data compilation as well as strategic reporting related to the initiative.
Alignment to the IFRC’s objectives and strategy
(IFRC’s Strategy 2020)
In 2009, the Southeast Asia National Societies agreed to employ the risk reduction framework, Reducing the Risks: A Framework for DRR in Southeast Asia, as their working document for advancing DRR, nationally and regionally. This Framework builds into the IFRC Framework for Community Resilience released in 2014 and aligns with IFRC’s Strategy 2020: Saving lives Changing Minds. In line with Strategy 2020, National Societies work on Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Management aligns with the IFRC Strategic Framework for Gender and diversity issues 2013-2020 and the IFRC Strategic Framework on Violence Prevention Mitigation and Response .
IFRC Asia Pacific region has developed the Operational plan for 2016 in line with the overall strategic direction of the IFRC’s eight Areas of Focus (AoF) and four Strategies for Implementation (SfI) of the plan and Budget 2016 – 2020. In addition, IFRC Asia Pacific regional office and the country cluster support team (CCST) office in Bangkok have been working together in enhancing the cooperation and coordination in Asia Pacific.
[1]http://www.redcross.or.th/old/english/extra/ReducingtherisksAframeworkforDRRinSEA.pdf
[1]http://www.ifrc.org/Global/Publications/general/strategy-2020.pdf
[1]http://www.ifrc.org/PageFiles/53475/IFRC%20SoV%20REPORT%202011%20EN.pdf
The “Asia Pacific (AP) Region - Disaster & Crises, Prevention, Response and Recovery – DCPRR Team” comprises of the Disaster Management, DRR and DRM Coordinators and delegates based in country offices and country cluster support teams, supported by the Asia Pacific DCPRR Unit in Kuala Lumpur. They work under the concept and technical guidance called “One DCPRRR Team approach”.
The RRI is fully embedded in the Operational Plan 2016 of the CCST office in Bangkok, under the AoF 1 (DRR) while also contributing to AoF 6 (Social Inclusion) as well as SfI 1 (Strengthen National Society capacities and ensure sustained and relevant Red Cross and Red Crescent presence in communities), SfI 2 (Ensure effective international disaster management) and SfI 3 (Influence others as leading strategic partners in humanitarian action and community resilience).
Desired outcomes
The consultancy aims to enhance the M&E role of the CCST Bangkok’s Regional Resilience Initiative, to demonstrate more accountability in the implementation of the programme to the stakeholders involved (National Societies in Southeast Asia, their respective governments, ASEAN Secretariat, , DRR partners, etc.) as well as the donors for RRI. The consultancy will mainly cover the period from the start of the programme in 2014-2016.
Specifically, the consultancy will contribute to the following outcomes:
- To access the efficiency and effectiveness of the programme’s monitoring and evaluation processes and provide recommendation to improve these processes
- To lead the formulation of innovative M&E approaches and tools with the wider RRI team in order to enhance the documentation of evidence of change related to the RRI outputs and outcomes.
- To lead data collection within the Bangkok team and in key countries to capture best practices and lessons learnt from the programme intervention
Such support will follow the Project Management Framework (PMF) of the initiative and the IFRC Project/Programme M&E guide .
By the end of the consultancy, it is expected that:
- the M&E system of RRI will be strengthened in order to track RRI indicators (both achievement of intended outcomes and progress towards achievement of these outcomes) and capture key success stories and challenges occurring during the implementation of the initiative so far and in the future.
- The consultant will have trained the RRI team to monitor outcomes and progress towards of this advocacy type of initiative.
Consultancy outputs
Produce an action plan based on in-depth interviews with team members in Bangkok and review of project documentation
Produce necessary M&E tools to capture the evidence of change towards outputs and outcomes of the RRI based on its Project Management Framework (PMF)
Produce a comprehensive report for each country visited, compiling the data collected and providing analyses as well as highlighting key stories of change.
Produce a detailed and evidence-based consolidated report providing an overall picture of the progress to date in terms of both intended outcomes, progress towards, and contribution of the project to these achievements. A concise executive summary should also be provided with emphasis on evidence gathered and impact achieved and also at least five (5) stories (stories of change) based on the initiative outcomes, with the format decided by the RRI team (i.e., case studies, infographic, or other).
Method of delivery and reasons for selecting that method
Hereunder is a proposed and indicative timeframe for the consultancy.
Step 1:
Initial meeting with key stakeholders within the CCST office in Bangkok to:
a) Agree on specific consultancy outputs, methodology and agenda
b) Review the RRI documentation
c) Conduct in-depth interviews and discussions with the RRI
Indicative timeframe: 10 days (based in the CCST office)
Step 2:
a) Develop the action plan and the data collection tools
b) Share such draft documents with the full RRI team during a one-day meeting in Bangkok.
c) Revise and finalize the documents as per the feedback from the team
Indicative timeframe: 5 days (based in the CCST office)
Step 3:
Visit 3 to 5 countries to collect data (including preparation work, travel time and actual data collection activities). IFRC will facilitate the access to key informants and key documents. For each country, produce a report compiling the data collected.
Indicative timeframe: 45 days
Step 4:
a) Produce a first draft of the report and at least 5 related stories (themes to be agreed with the team)
b) Facilitate a one-day session with the team to present the draft report and receive feedback
Indicative timeframe: 10 days (based in the CCST office)
Step 5:
Finalize all outputs of the consultancy after compiling all the feedback from the team.
Indicative timeframe: 10 days (based in the CCST office)
TOTAL timeframe: Maximum of 80 days within 6 months
Support to be provided to the consultant
- During steps 1, 2, 4 and 5, the consultant will be required to work in the IFRC office in Bangkok and necessary administration and logistic facility will be provided to him/her as per agreed needs.
- During step 3, the consultant will be required to travel within Southeast Asia and the travel regulations of the IFRC will apply (transportation, accommodation, per diem, etc.).
- IFRC will also facilitate the access to key documents and stakeholders (including National Societies) to ensure data collection is effective.
Management of consultancy
- This consultancy will be commissioned by the Head of CCST office in Bangkok.
- The consultant will be under the overall guidance of the DRR Manager
- In undertaking the consultancy, the consultant will work extensively with the RRI team based in Bangkok as well as other related IFRC offices covering Southeast Asia. He/She will also interact with selected National Societies, government counterparts and partners during the data collection process in the countries.
Qualifications, experience and skills required:
In order to fulfill the services as detailed above, the IFRC seeks the services of an individual (or a team of individuals or company(s) ) with the following qualifications:
- Demonstrated experiences of M&E work on advocacy initiative.
- University degrees at the post-graduate level in relevant field of study.
- Proven track record of conducting qualitative evaluation for advocacy initiative including the development of data collection tools, collect, analyse and report of the qualitative.
- Good knowledge in Monitoring and Evaluation for outcomes and advocacy (e.g., Most Significant Changes, outcome harvesting, etc.).
- Knowledge and experience in working with the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement preferred.
- Familiarity with trends and developments themes such as regional cooperation, capacity building, ASEAN, Disaster Risk Reduction, Gender and Diversity and Organizational Development support preferred.
- Excellent written and spoken English skills and excellent analytical, writing and presentation skills.
- Demonstrated capacity to work both independently and as part of a team.
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills. Knowledge and experience in the Southeast Asia Region preferred.
How to apply:
Application Procedures
Interested candidates should submit their application to anchalee.limpiponpaiboon@ifrc.org and include:
- Curricula Vitae (CV) for all members of the team applying for consideration.
- Cover letter clearly summarizing your experience as it pertains to this assignment, your daily rate (Swiss Franc – CHF), and three professional references.
- At least one example of an monitoring / evaluation report most similar to that described in this ToR.
Application material are non-returnable, and we thank you in advance for understanding that only short-listed candidates will be contacted for the next step in the application process.
More information about IFRC, please see www.ifrc.org and about Red Cross Red Crescent work in Southeast Asia, see the online library https://sites.google.com/site/drrtoolsinsoutheastasia/
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