SYRIA – CONSULTANCY : PROVIDING EMERGENCY LIFE-SAVING AND LIFE-SUSTAINING ASSISTANCE TO THE MOST VULNERABLE POPULATIONS

Providing emergency life-saving and life-sustaining assistance to the most vulnerable populations in a timely, effective and efficient manner in North East and North West Syria

CONTEXT

SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL (SI) is a humanitarian NGO which is committed to meeting the vital needs of populations faced with a major crisis of human or natural origin and to strengthening their resilience, particularly with regard to WASH, FSL and S-NFI. Since early 2019, SI has partnered with ACTION FOR HUMANITY (AFH, and formerly known as Syria Relief) under two consecutive DG ECHO Actions, working in two hospitals to provide humanitarian assistance in Health and Protection sectors in Raqqa and Deir ez Zor governorates.

PURPOSE OF EVALUATION

After one and a half years of partnership between SI and AFH, this evaluation includes:

1. a technical review of AFH’s health and protection activities, monitoring & accountability processes, and data collection methods; and
2. the analysis of the partnership tools and monitoring processes currently in use and recommendations for improvements,

with the aim overall for the

1. development of a package of monitoring standard operating procedures (SOPs) and related tools/resources to help SI’s partnerships with NGOs working outside of SI’s area of expertise

First, this evaluation will focus on the quality of services provided by Action for Humanity in the two hospitals of management and operation. A key priority for DG ECHO is the continued provision of medical services, so a technical (health/protection) review of the consistency and quality of services throughout the project period is required, as well as recommendations for AFH for future improvements and enhancements to services, including potential exit strategies.

Second, the evaluation intends on assessing the tools and monitoring processes currently used by SI to support and monitor AFH, in order to understand how these partnership resources can be developed and improved to ensure compliance, transparency and accountability between partners and to the donor, especially for remote management modalities and considering that SI is not a health or protection actor.

Finally, taking into account the results, recommendations and findings from these first two points, the evaluation will be used to develop a package of monitoring SOPs and tools to improve SI’s partnerships in Syria, especially for those NGOs working outside of SI’s areas of expertise. SI expects this evaluation to support shaping future programming for AFH’s health and protection projects, as well as SI’s partnership strategy in Syria.

ABOUT THE EVALUATION 1/2

EVALUATION TYPE:** ex-post performance evaluations

EVALUATION QUESTIONS:

• Technical review of AFH’s health and protection activities, monitoring & accountability processes, and data collection methods:

  1. Have all the medical services provided by AFH met the most urgent needs of beneficiaries in both hospitals? If not, how can this be addressed?
  2. Have the services provided met the relevant medical standards in terms of quality and timeliness?
  3. Has access to these services been possible and equitable to the most vulnerable members of the catchment area? Are constraints such as physical barriers or discrimination and risks faced by the population in the catchment area but not accessing the health facility regularly identified and analysed, and addressed accordingly?
  4. Is the monitoring plan (including indicators, methodology and tools) used by AFH pertinent and suitable for the context of the project? Are the results of monitoring used to adapt programmes?
  5. Does AFH meet a high standard of transparency and accountability in its data collection and archiving methods?
  6. Does AFH have a mechanism that enable all its beneficiaries to hold it accountable (FCRM)? Is the mechanism functional?
  7. What are the main recommendations for improving:
  8. Activities and implementation methods;
  9. Monitoring and accountability processes; and

• Data collection methods

• Assessment of the partnership tools and monitoring process currently in use by SI and recommendations for improvements:

  1. Is SI’s system to monitor the quality of AFH’s activities pertinent and effective?
  2. Is the support provided by SI to AFH’s monitoring team relevant and adequate?
  3. Is the current structure for communication and accountability (e.g. sub-award agreement, day-to-day communication, donor liaison, etc.) between SI and AFH efficient and effective?
  4. What improvements can be made on the current partnership tools and monitoring process?

3/ Development of a monitoring system and tools for SI to monitor partners that have other areas of expertise:

1. How could the communication system between the two partners be improved, keeping with financial and HR constraints? – Design of Standard Operating procedures
2. What monitoring tools can be designed to facilitate communication between partners? What tools could be used to ensure the good monitoring of the quality of health activities (SI as lead organisation not being specialised in the health sector)

ABOUT THE EVALUATION 2/2

EVALUATION METHODS:

Project documentation:

• Proposal of intervention,
• Project monitoring documents,
• Partnership SOPs,
• Partnership cycle management tools,
• Partner reports
• Monitoring reports,
• Technical framework and tools,
• Activity internal reports, including pictures.

DATA COLLECTION:

Quantitative data collected by SI monitoring unit through its planned activities THROUGHOUT the project and made available to the consultant. As such, the consultant will do a secondary review of the available quantitative data and only collect qualitative data through the following activities[1]:

• Key Informant interviews,
• Focus Group discussions with beneficiaries and other project’s contributors if relevant,
• Observation in the field, if possible

EVALUATION TIMELINE:

It is expected that the evaluation will be performed at the end of the project. Its overall duration will be of a maximum of 4 weeks, and the report delivered at least 3 weeks after the submission of the final evaluation report.

Proposed indicative schedule for the mission: the final detailed schedule will be proposed by the consultant.

DELIVERABLES:

Writing of a report in English including:

• 1 inception report (3-5 pages max) outlining planned methodology, key stakeholders to interview, plan of tools required, etc.
• 1 set of data collection tools to be reviewed and approved by SI and AFH
• 1 workshop to present the first draft of SOP and package of monitoring tools to AFH and SI teams and gather their feedback
• 1 presentation of main conclusions and recommendations for AFH and SI teams
• 1 executive summary (1-2 pages max)
• 1 narrative report (max 20 pages, not including annexes) with the main conclusions and recommendations
• 1 partnerships SOP and package of monitoring tools (new or development versions of SI tools) based on the findings and recommendations in the narrative report and the feedback given by SI and AFH
• Technical appendices: Containing the technical details of the evaluations as well as the terms of reference, the questionnaire models, check list and canvas interviews, potential tables or graphs, references and other sources, people and institutions contacted

[1] Modality of data collection can be adjusted depending on the context relating to COVID-19

YOUR PROFILES

The evaluation team is expected to demonstrate the following experience and qualifications:

• A solid and diversified experience in humanitarian assistance, ideally including evaluation of Health and Protection projects, with technical knowledge on those sectors
• Experience of partnership management or collaboration
• Knowledge of monitoring and accountability methodologies and best practices
• A solid field experience of humanitarian intervention with communities,
• Experience on remote project management
• Excellent spoken and written communication skills in English; working knowledge of Arabic is an advantage ,
• A proven record of experience in conducting similar evaluations.