Consultancy: Mixed-Method Impact Evaluation for the Building Resilient Communities in Somalia (BRCiS) Consortium

Consultancy to conduct Mixed-Method Impact Evaluation for the Building Resilient Communities in Somalia (BRCiS) Consortium

Terms of Reference

1. Background of assignment

The Building Resilient Communities in Somalia Consortium was established in October 2013 with the overall objective of improving the resilience of vulnerable communities and households in Somalia. Cutting across the ‘Humanitarian – Development’ spectrum, the BRCiS programme balances its response to short-term humanitarian needs with the longer-term aim of building community and household capacities to deal with the shocks and stresses. This way, the project provides a continuum of humanitarian and rehabilitation/development assistance that seeks to improve absorptive (short-term) and adaptive (medium- and long-term) and transformative resilience capacities at different levels from households to market and governance systems. The Consortium employs a quasi-randomized methodology to measure project impact whereby we collect detailed household surveys and community-level data from direct and indirect project beneficiaries, though the assignment to participate in resilience-building activities was not randomized.

2. Objectives and Scope of Work

The BRCiS Consortium seeks to engage a Consultant or a Team of Consultants to produce several rigorous impact assessments to understand how project activities contributed to resilience-building among beneficiary households and unpack the main mechanisms at play, using quantitative and qualitative approaches. Moreover, the reports commissioned should test the specific hypotheses and underlying assumptions defined by the programme’s Theory of Change and should make actionable recommendations to improve the design of future resilience-building interventions.

Thus far, the Consortium has already implemented a baseline and a midline survey covering a representative sample of Participant (high intensity) and Area Communities (low-intensity intervention sites) to assess the shock exposure, resilience capacities and effectiveness of humanitarian services, tracking more than 7,000 Somali households in total. Finally, an endline survey is planned to occur early next year alongside qualitative follow-up interviews with local stakeholders to unpack quantitative findings.

In broad terms, the evaluation is supposed to provide reliable causal estimates on programmatic impacts, quantifying the extent to which the programme activities contribute to enhanced resilience capacities and well-being during shocks. Also, the commissioned report should assess the assumptions and core approaches laid down in the programme’s Theory of Change, analyzing the following aspects:

• Community Engagement: assessing the links between resilience capacities and community cohesion variables by comparing communities in which BRCiS made significant investments in strengthening community governance structures versus areas where no such resources were allocated.
• Shock-responsiveness Programming: analyzing coping strategies in high and low-intensity intervention areas and how early action and early response activities affected absorptive, adaptive and transformative resilience capacities (comparison of communities with and without early action investments)
• Livelihoods Programming: estimating the impact of participation in NGO-supported livelihoods activities by comparing beneficiary and non-beneficiary profiles
• Provision of Area-level Services: evaluating the link between investments in WASH and H&N services beneficiary households’ capacity to recover from future shocks
• Resilience capacities and well-being: Assessing the links between recovery profiles, resilience capacities and project interventions in high versus low intensity areas

The selected Consultant(s) are expected to use various advanced econometric methods to generate reliable causal estimates on overall programme impacts. Besides, the report will also focus on the effects of one selected activity (the Consortium’s safety net cash transfer pilot) to provide a deep-dive into activity-level impacts.

3. Supervisor

The supervisor of the consultant is the BRCiS M&E Coordinator. More generally, the M&E Expert will collaborate with the Consortium’s M&E Team and with relevant Technical Working Groups to produce and publish the commissioned report.

4. Major activities and tasks to be accomplished

Please click here to see deliverables table: here

5. Estimated duration of the contract It is estimated that the contract will take approximately 150 working days between August 2021 and February 2022.

6. Official travel involved This is primarily a home-based assignment, but the selected consultant may be required to travel to the region to present report findings. In this case, the Consortium will cover traveling costs, which are calculated based on economy class travel, regardless of the length of the trip. For context, NRC will do the booking for the flights, but applicants should consider all other potential travel costs, including meals, accommodation and in-country transport in their proposal.

7. Qualifications or specialized knowledge and/or experience required Essential:

• An advanced university degree (Master’s) in Quantitative Social Sciences, Economics, Statistics or a directly-related technical field(s) is required — Ph.D. preferred
• At least 8-10 years of experience in M&E/ impact evaluation for resilience programming or a related field
• Substantial research work in resilience or a related field with a geographical focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, preferably on the drylands of the Horn of Africa
• Extensive experience both in qualitative and quantitative methods, including statistical matching, Difference in Difference and Regression Discontinuity Design, demonstrated through publications in resilience research or a related field
• Previous experience in similar assignments in Somalia
• Intense methodological training in both experimental and quasi-experimental evaluation methods, including specific expertise in statistical matching demonstrated through publications (ideally peer-reviewed)
• Previous experience designing and implementing panel studies
• Familiarity with the resilience measurement literature and practice