Terms of Reference for End of Project Review. Project:

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1 Terms of Reference for End of Project Review Project: Strengthening Resilience of the population living in the Arid Lands of Kenya through Emergency Preparedness and Early Response Grant Information Project area: Country Kenya- Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) Areas (Northern Kenya) Locations Mandera, Turkana, Marsabit, West-Pokot, Wajir, Samburu Grant Agreement ECHO/-HF/BUD/2015/91016 number: Grant amount 2,000,000 Euros Contract start date 1 st April, 2015 Contract End date 30 th April,

2 1. Background The Consortium was formed in February 2011 in consultation with ECHO in response to the 2010/11 food insecurity crisis that affected the Horn of Africa. The aim of the partnership in 2011 and 2012 was to support communities living in the ASALs of Northern Kenya to cope and recover from the crisis as well as help them prepare and plan for future crises. The partnership continues to work together to build on the emergency response activities by investing in strengthening the resilience of people with longerterm support, especially targeted to women and children. Throughout the consortium lifetime the set of partners have been evolving and the Consortium in this current action is composed of five (5) international non-governmental organizations who came together to synergize their different strengths and competencies to implement a multi-sectoral project in the Arid and Semi-Arid lands of Northern Kenya. The partners include: Oxfam (Consortium Lead), ACTED, VSF Germany, Concern Worldwide and TI-Kenya. Whilst the actions implemented from Feb 2011 to June 2012 focussed on the drought response, the actions from July 2012 to April 2016, were designed to move towards more longer term development and resilience programming implemented through a community-driven and system strengthening approach, while having an emergency envelope to respond to small scale emergency and undertake early response to identified needs. The action in implemented from March 2015 April 2016 sought to achieve the following results: 1. Strengthen structures/systems for timely, reliable and relevant Early Warning information to effectively trigger Early Action. 2. Strengthened stakeholder linkages at different levels (community, County, National, Regional) to support communities/county to plan, prepare and respond to shocks and stresses. 3. Influence the emergency and resilience agenda at national and regional levels. The action implemented in phases from from February 2011 to April 2016 was entirely funded by the European Commission-Directorate General for Humanitarian and Civil Protection - ECHO. 2. Project Overview The action to be evaluated started in April 2015 and will come to an end in April The principal objective of this action was to contribute to the resilience of the population living in the Arid lands of Kenya through Emergency Preparedness and Early response. The specific objective of the response aimed at enhancing the capacities of vulnerable communities and County structures to better plan prepare and respond to shocks and stresses. The consortium is working with communities who are neither the poorest nor the richest that were targetted from July 2012.The rationale being that the poorest in the community who are chronically vulnerable to shocks and stresses to some extent have been covered by other interventions such as Hunger Safety Net Programme and WFP programs while the rich are able to absorb shocks. A total of 91 CDMCs were targetted 59 of these were among those targetted since 2012 while 32 were additional CMDCs previosly supported by Concern Worldwide with a different source of funding and using a similar methodology. The intervention has also worked with key County departments such as the Department of Veterinary Services, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and as well as the National Drought Management Authority and other departments aligned to the community disaster management committees (CDMCs) funded in The project activities from March 2015 to April 2016 were a build up of activities funded from July 2012 to March 2015 and these include: coordination/system strengthening of NDMA and other county/national structures, strengthening of Early Warning Systems, 2

3 piloting of the Livestock Surge Capacity model, feedback mechanism to/from communities on Early Warning Information, Mapping of Community Disaster Management Plans and the actions funded, monitoring and support to CDMCs, systems strengthening through support to NDMA and County Government, support CDMCs to build links with a variety of stakeholders who can support implementation of CDMPs and their capacity building requirements, facilitate accountability at community level, influencing emergency and resilience agenda at county, national and regional levels, advocacy for improved animal health service provision for livestock and supporting CDMCs in the implementation of their prioritized advocacy issues. The project also has an emergency envelope of 440,000EUR to be used by partners to respond to small scale emergencies and support to County efforts to respond to emergency. There were 1,116,696 beneficiaries in 7 counties respectively that were directly assisted through this intervention. Below is a summary of the project details. Total duration 1st April 2015 to 30th April 2016 Objectives of the action Consortium Partners Local Partner(s) Final beneficiaries Estimated results Main activities Principle Objective: To contribute to the resilience of the population living in the Arid lands of Kenya through Emergency Preparedness and Early response. Specific Objective: To enhance the capacities of vulnerable communities and County Structures to better plan, prepare and respond to shocks and stresses. 1. Oxfam 2. VSF Germany 3. ACTED 4. Concern Worldwide 5. Transparency International - Kenya 1. WASDA 2. ALDEF 3. PISP 4. Catholic Diocese of Lodwar There were 1,116,696 people in 7 Counties that were directly assisted through this intervention. Result 1: Strengthened structures/systems for timely. Reliable and relevant Early Warning Information to effectively trigger Early Action Result 2: Strengthened stakeholder linkages at different levels(community, County, National, Regional) to support communities/county to plan, prepare and respond to shocks and stresses. Result 3. Consortium with a capacity to influence emergency and resilience agenda at County, National and Regional levels. Result 1: Coordination/system strengthening of NDMA and other County/National structure, Strengthening Early Warning systems, Livestock surge Capacity model implementation, feedback mechanism to/from communities on Early Warning Information, Emergency envelope. 3

4 Result 2: Mapping of CDMPs and the actions funded from CDMPs by other actors/county structures,monitoring and support to CDMCs, system strengthening through support to NDMA and County government, Support CDMCs to build links with a variety of stakeholders who can support implementation of CDMPs and their capacity building requirements,accountability at community level. Result 3: Consortium with a capacity to influence emergency and resilience agenda at County, National and Regional levels and Advocacy and Campaigns. 3. PURPOSE OF THE END OF PROJECT REVIEW The purpose of undertaking the end of project review is to identify key learning points on the project; what worked and what didnt work and why, review how the design of the project and implementation approaches impacted on the targeted population. In addition the review will assess the progress towards attainment of the project objectives. The review findings will serve as the evidence base for the follow up-on future projects and inform strategic and operational actions. The findings and lessons learned will be useful for other actors in ASAL Counties and especially those implementing resilience and emergency projects. The outputs of the project review will also help to orientate and provide information on the appropriateness and effectiveness of the different approaches used in the project. Potential stakeholders and users of the review findings are: - Implementing NGOs in country, partner NGOs, donor community especially ECHO, local communities and beneficiaries themselves, UN organisations and Governmental institutions. A management response to the findings and recommendations will be developed and will include an action plan for addressing the prioritised findings. The end of project review report will be written in English to facilitate stakeholder accessibilty and findings shared with communities, partners, key stakeholders (internal and external) and the donor in different existing forums in the appropriate format: 4. SCOPE OF PROJECT REVIEW The review is planned to be undertaken from the 1st week of May through the 4 th week of May thereafter a 2 day workshop with all project staffs scheduled for the 2 nd week of June and is expected to cover all the outputs and outcomes of the project. Field work is expected to be undertaken in all the 6 Counties of North Eastern Kenya namely Wajir, Mandera, Turkana, Marsabit, Samburu and West Pokot in Kenya with a focus on targeted communities, key Government officials, local leaders and other stakeholders. Key review areas of focus include: 1. To ascertain the degree of success from the project, in particular, the extent to which it met its objectives, delivered planned levels of benefit, and addressed the specific outputs as originally defined. 2. To examine the efficacy of all elements of the project to see if further improvements can be made to optimise the benefit delivered. 4

5 3. Generate and document lessons learnt from this project, lessons which can be used by the team members and by the organisation to improve future project work. 5. OBJECTIVES OF THE END OF PROJECT REVIEW Outline the objectives of the project and indicate if they were achieved or not and if not, why not? Outline the benefits that have been achieved both intended or unintended Assess if the project stayed within its original scope in relation to timescale and budget andexplain the effect that any approved changes had on the original Project Plan Document the lessons learnt during the project, what went well and what should be done differently in the future To what extent have the benefits of the action continued or are expected to continue? Why or why not and what characteristics make the outputs sustainable or unsustainable? Are there any good practices, successfull activities/strategies that can be replicated,scaled up and used to influence practice and policy development? 6. Monitoring and Reporting Was there adequate capacity for monitoring and reporting on the project? What measures had the management taken to ensure good quality of the data collection? Were the reporting timelines adhered to Did the project produce quality reports to inform on project activities and progress? Were the reports being used to inform and influence decision making on project implementation. Did the project provide briefings on its activities within the community of its beneficiaries? Did the project invest in its visibility? 7. METHODOLOGY The consultant is expected to develop a comprehensive participatory methodology for undertaking the review and identify key research questions that will be discussed and agreed with the consortium secretariat team and Consortium partners prior to undertaking the review. The proposed approaches should be participatory, culturally and gender sensitive and inclusive of all stakeholders including people with disability. The consultant should employ a combination of different methodologies to measure the effects the project on the beneficiaries which may include the review of existing monitoring and other programme data available through the consortium and qualitative data collection techniques among others. 8. TIMELINE AND DELIVERABLES The End of Project review will consist of 5 phases: 1. Preparatory work: after the recruitment of the review team, the consortium will facilitate a meeting to discuss the TOR, design and agree on methodology and to draw up a detailed work plan which must be approved prior to the commencement of any field work or other substantive work;initial briefing with consortium secretariat team to ensure that the consultant /or review team is clear on the principle proposition for this review exercise. 5

6 2. Desk review: drafting review matrix with review questions, indicators, data requirements and sources; secondary data and literature review 3. Main review phase: design of data collection tools, planning of field visits and discussions/interviews with consortium partners and implementing partners staff (local NGOs) and other stakeholders including Government line departments to get their feedback to reach conclusions against benchmarks; conduct field visits to collect data through a combination of data collection methods including PRA methodologies. This phase will be concluded with a 2 days workshop involving consortium partners staff to facilitate the sharing of learning and challenges experienced during the lifetime of the project. 4. Reporting: Analysis and triangulation of data (data should be collected and analyzed disegregated by gender and data sets where necessary), production of a draft report and discussion of this report with consortium partners to give opportunities for the team/s to agree on action points, learning and recommendations; submission of final report with at least 2 appropriate and quality success stories focusing on best practices and lesson learnt as evidence and presentation of findings and reccomendations. 5. Follow up: Consortiums follow up to review findings and dissemination of final report to donors and partners. The expected deliverables from the review exercise are are as follows: 1. Complete bibliography of documents/materials/data used during desk review of secondary sources; 2. A presentation of review plan, timelines and activities; 3. Final data collection tools, data bases and analysis plan; 4. First draft of end of project review report; 5. Final end of project review report (maximum 25 pages); 6. Powerpoint presentation of main findings and conclusions for debriefing purposes; and 7. All data collection tools. Confidentiality of issues discussed MUST be stressed during interviews and safeguarded by the consortium partners and the review consultant. The data should be disagregated by gender and age as it is extremely important when identifying key issues of the response and assessing community vulnerability. 9. END OF PROJECT REVIEW REPORT The production of the review report will be the liability of the review team covering all the aspects as outlined in the ToRs. Consortium partners staff and partners management will be responsible for coordinating the review exercise. The review report should be: Produced in English language and should be simple in expression and easy to understand. Maximum of 25 pages with short annexes. The report format and text, should be an A4 paper size and a legible font (e.g. Times New Roman 11 or 12, Arial 10 or 11. The review team will be liable to submit at least 02 hard copies and 01 electronic copy of the review report by the agreed deadline. a. Outline of the end of project review Report An end of project review report should contain the different elements mentioned below. All parts should be clearly distinguished from each other and of sufficient quality. 6

7 Cover page Table of contents An executive summary that can be used as a document in its own right. It should include the major findings of the review and summarise conclusions and recommendations. The objectives of the end of project review. The main questions and derived sub-questions. A justification of the methods and techniques used (including relevant underlying values and assumptions, theories) with a justification of the selections made (of persons interviewed, villages or activity sites visited). Eventual limitations of the project review A presentation of the findings and the analysis thereof (including unexpected, relevant findings). All research questions should be addressed, paying attention to gender issues Conclusions, which will analyse the various, review questions. Conclusions have to be derived from findings and analysis thereof. Lesson learned and recommendations should be clearly related to conclusions.. Recommendations should be practical and if necessary divided up for various actors or stakeholders and include guidelines of how they can be implemented. The reporting style should be clear and accessible. References to sources used, such as interviews, literature, reports, must be given. Confidentiality of information: all documents and data collected will be treated as confidential and used solely to facilitate analysis. Interviewees will not be quoted in the reports without their permission. 10. REVIEW TEAM The desired specification and qualities of the review team are as follows:- Masters or Post Graduate qualification in project management, social studies, monitoring and evaluation or any other relevant field of study. At least five years demonstrated experience in Social Research, evaluations, project reviews and Impact Assessments. Strong interpersonal analytical and facilitation skills. Familiarity with the different cultures in Kenya and ability to speak and understand Kenyan languages preferably Swahili language; Experience of effective interaction with local and national organizations, government departments, and international humanitarian actors. Conversant with application of cross cutting themes like gender mainstreaming, and gender competence, M&E, Advocacy and child protection to programming. Acquaintance with international quality standards and its execution down to field level in humanitarian response. Good spoken and written communication skills in English. Knowledge and expertise in participatory development methodologies. An understanding/knowledge and experience of the ASALS context. 7

8 11. TIME FRAME The whole project review process will take approx 36 days to be completed, this will include: time in the field with consortium partners and beneficiaries, and report writing. The expected date of the start of project review is 3rd May, 2016 and the final project report will be produced on 14th June, BID REQUIREMENTS Consultant who know that they meet the requirements should submit expression of interest, which should include the following: - A suitability statement, including commitment to availability for the entire assignment. - A brief statement on the proposed study methodology including a detailed work plan. - A detailed financial proposal, including daily cost per major activity. - Updated curriculum vitae for the consultant that clearly spell out qualifications and experience. - Contacts of 3 organizations that have recently contracted the consultant to carry out a project review preferably of similar nature and work done previously in soft copy. 13. REPORTING LINES The consultant shall work under the supervision of the Consortium MEAL Officer with strong liaison with Consortium Lead, and partner management at Nairobi and field level. The consultant will also work with various technical leads at field level during data collection and collation. 14. APPLICATION DETAILS Expression of interest should be sent in by 26th of April 2016,5pm. Applications should be sent to hecaconsultancy@oxfam.org.uk. The consultant should be ready to start immediately. The whole assigment is expected to take a maximum of 36 days from the time of contract signing. 8