INVITATION TO BID For Consultancy for Third-Party Monitoring and verification for Althani Project – Somalia

INVITATION TO BID FOR CONSULTANCY

Save the Children International (SCI) Somalia program hereby invites interested consultants to bid for the consultancy assignment detailed below

1 Title of Consultancy Consultancy for Third-Party Monitoring and verification for Althani Project
2 SCI Contracting Office Save the ChildrenSomaliland Office
3 Period of Consultancy The assignment will be 20 days inclusive of travels. The anticipated dates of the third-party monitoring are June 10-30th , 2020.
4 Consultant type required Firm or Individual
5 Responsibility for Logistics arrangements and Costs The consultant shall be responsible for their own logistics arrangements and costs. The consultant will not be entitled to per-diem
6 Taxation Provisions Consultant shall be responsible for all Taxes arising from the consultancy in line with the Somalia/Somaliland Tax regulations applicable at the SCI contracting office named above
7 Travel requirements The consultant is required to travel to different locations in Somalia/Somaliland during the consultancy activities. Specific locations will depend on the sampling and the Technical approach in the approved proposal  
8 Security requirements Consultant will comply with standard Save the Children Security procedures,
9 Qualification and Experience Qualification of the lead consultant:·         Post graduate qualifications (MA level) in social science, particularly economics, agriculture, food security, entrepreneurship or related fields

·         Minimum of 5 years of demonstrated professional experience delivering Monitoring and Evaluations services

·         Strong work experience in providing consultancy on monitoring, evaluation, data analysis, reporting and field-based research or survey services

·         Proven experience in conducting quality project Monitoring and Evaluation including third party monitoring particularly on Food security and livelihood projects in Somalia/Somaliland

·         Proven experience in food security, cash transfer programming

·         Experience in applying participatory tools especially when interviewing/collecting information from children

·         Knowledge of Save the Children and its internal processes will be beneficial but is not essential

·         Knowledge and understanding of the social and cultural context of Somali people will be an asset.

·         Solid analytical, result based planning, report writing, communication and diplomacy skills with ability to correlate different data sets to actionable conclusions.

·         English language skills (report should be written in English).

·         Ability to make clear presentations and disseminate findings to both technical and nontechnical audience

10 Evaluation Criteria Criteria for evaluation:

  • Relevant Education background
  • Similary past experience
  • Soundness of the Technical approach and proposed methodology
  • Budget
  • Proposed Timeline to deliver
  • Valid Licience/Registration
11 Application Procedure Interested consultants should submit their applications via email to [somalia.procurement@savethechildren.org].The applications should be submitted in PDF format as one document comprising Technical and Financial sections as detailed below.

a)     Technical proposal – including but not limited to :

·         Consultants understanding of the assignment and context

·         Approach to the assignment

·         Methodology

·         Tools

·         Deliverables

·         Workplan

·         Key staff biodata

b)     Financial proposal – providing a breakdown of all charges related to the assignment.

c)     ((Capacity to deliver (work experience, qualification of the involved consultants and firm’s Capacity to arrange all logistical and security arrangements independently for field work)

Applicants should also indicate the date they are available to start working on the consultancy

All applications MUST be submitted on or before the closing date below to be considered for the assignment.

12 Closing date for Applications Interested consultants shall submit their applications through the email address provided above on or before 10th  June, 2020Shortlisted candidates will be requested for an interview.
13 Terms of Reference (ToR) Complete ToR with details appended below attached herewith as    Annex 1.

  • Purpose of the consultancy,
  • Introduction of the project,
  • Background of the consultancy,
  • Objectives of the consultancy,
  • Proposed methodology and approach,
  • Scope of work,
  • Key deliverables / outputs
  • Activity timelines

ANNEX 1 : Consultancy Terms of Reference

TERMS OF REFERENCE

CONSULTANCY FOR THIRD-PARTY MONITORING AND VERIFICATION FOR CASH TRANSFER FOR AlTHANI PROJECT

  1. Background

For over 90 years, Save the Children has been making a difference in children’s lives in more than 120 countries. We are the world’s largest independent child rights organization, underpinned by a vision in a world in which every child attains the right to survival, protection, development and participation. Our mission to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives.

Save the Children (SC) has worked in Somalia since 1951 and has provided emergency assistance since 1970 whenever there has been need. In 2016, SCI directly reached 600,936 children. Each year about 650,000 people benefit from our longer-term development work in Health, Nutrition, Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH), Education, Food Security and Livelihoods (FSL), Child Protection and Child Rights Governance.

Through Althani Project – Integrated Humanitarian life-saving project- SC ensures that crisis affected population have access to timely and adequate health, nutrition, WASH, and livelihood interventions. The project provides immediate lifesaving child and maternal focused health, nutrition services, cash for consumption smoothening to the most vulnerable groups, and contributes to reducing morbidity and mortality related to acute malnutrition. Through this project, SC provides emergency health, nutrition, WASH, cash for food services to drought affected communities across 6 of the 18 regions of Somalia; Somaliland (Sool and Togedheer); Puntland (Mudug and Bari); and South-Central Somalia (Bakool and Mogadishu) with a focus on areas that have huge health/nutrition service gaps and particularly areas affected by the current drought with IDP populations. The project builds on the current SC health, nutrition, WASH and food security interventions and drought response programming as well as scale up to new locations to ensure maximization of services/coverage. SC responds to the humanitarian health needs by supporting health facilities through fixed, mobile, and integrated community case management (ICCM) based services. Primary health services provide general consultations and treatment for common diseases, and is complemented by a community health component, including scheduled outreach and community case management of childhood illness. SC provides nutrition services as part of the integrated package in all target locations.

As part of this project, SC provides cash transfer to 30,860 HHs in Somaliland (9600), Puntland (6500) and South Central (14760) through Mobile based cash transfer to support those households purchase food and other essential commodities and to respond to the food insecurity in the targeted areas.

  1. Overall objective
  • Crisis affected population have access to timely and adequate health, nutrition, WASH, and livelihood interventions
  1. Project target beneficiaries and geographic locations

Food security and livelihoods: SC provides Cash to 30860 Households in Somaliland (9600), Puntland (6500) and Southern States (14760) households. The cash was transferred to beneficiaries in Somaliland (Sool, Togdheer), Puntland (Mudug, Bari) and Southern States (Bakool, Mogadishu)

  1. Purpose of the third-party monitoring

The purpose of the Third Party Monitoring Consultancy Services is to conduct independent monitoring of quality and verification of services delivered to assess the achievement and progresses against the target plans, processes followed to implement activities, accountability to beneficiaries and government engagement,

  1. Specific Objectives will include:
  2. Proposed Methodology

The proposed methodology involves:

  1. Beneficiary interviews (Survey), observations and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), to assess the achievement and progresses in improving the food security of the target beneficiaries against project performance indicators, accountability to beneficiaries, selection and overall beneficiary engagement process and fairness and document any gaps, concern and/or lessons or best practices
  2. Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) with Local Authorities, and Implementing Partners, to assess the engagement with the government through line ministries, engagement and the management of the partners in delivering the life-saving assistance in this project.
  3. Document review for sites and beneficiary selection processes to assess the selection process especially beneficiary selection and re-verification process, appropriateness and fairness of the targeting criteria and to the extent it was applied.
  4. Monitoring and Verification focus areas

Beneficiary selection Process

  • Hold interviews with beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries and other stakeholders to document the beneficiary selection process specifically community participation including women and marginalized groups in the selection and verification of beneficiaries.
  • Document the process of selecting beneficiary’s committees and establish the role of the committee members and SCI staff in the selection and verification of project beneficiaries.
  • Assess the appropriateness of the targeting criteria, the extent to which it was followed and overall fairness of the process.
  • Identify if there were any shortcomings in the process of cash transfer.
  • Determine how the targeted communities have benefited from the cash transfer intervention in their respective communities.

Information Sharing

  • Assess the extent to which the beneficiaries are informed and aware of key project information such as project objectives, activities, timelines, entitlement, number of cash transfers, expected results, targeted beneficiaries, criteria for selecting beneficiaries and response during stagnation period.
  • Establish whether beneficiaries have been informed and are aware about opportunities/activities in which they can participate.
  • Establish whether there is information that beneficiaries would like to have about the project and its implementation but they are not getting.

Complaint and response mechanisms:

  • Establish beneficiaries’ awareness of mechanisms through which they can give feedback or make complaints to SC. (how to complain or raise concerns about activities, what they can complain about, who can complain to, how and where they can complain and issues of response effectiveness, appropriateness and confidentiality).
  • Assess the acceptance and level of confidence that beneficiaries have in the existing SC complaints response mechanisms
  • Generate ideas for improving the existing complaint handling mechanism

Participation

  • Generate Information about how beneficiaries including children would like to/ are participating in the project implementation.
  • Assess the overall participation with regard to all beneficiaries at all stages including mobilization, establishment of Village relief committees (VRCs), selection, verification, re-verification

Project Intervention Outcomes

  • Collect qualitative data on the impact of the program including case studies that demonstrate change in the lives of children
  • Assess the impact of the cash transfer interventions in contributing to reduce vulnerability of crisis-affected people in target locations, especially women and children through integrated measures
  • Document unintended impact of the project (Negative and Positive Impacts)
  • Find out the % of the target population with improved Food Consumption Score (FCS)
  • Assess the household reducing Coping Strategy Index (rCSI)
  • Assess the household Minimum Acceptable Diet and the children (6–23 months) in beneficiary households receiving a minimum acceptable diet (MAD)

Other Project Interventions

  • Collect data on the other project interventions including WASH, health and nutrition
  • Assess the progress made in these areas against target
  • Identify implementation gaps and bottlenecks and suggest recommendations
  1. Deliverables

The following outputs are expected of the consultant

  • Third party Monitoring and Verification report of not more than 30 pages capturing the findings on achievement against target, accountability to beneficiaries, engagement with the government and challenges and bottlenecks to implementations if any with actionable and evidence-based recommendations
  • Detailed methodology, sampling and data collection tools
  • Both row and cleaned data sets
  • A set of pictures with GPS coordinates taken during the monitoring exercise shall be appended separately.
  • Two to three case studies that demonstrate change in the lives of target beneficiaries including children
  1. Management and Logistics

The consultant will be supervised by the project MEAL manager. The consultant will be responsible for organizing logistical issues with limited facilitation from SCI and as per the consultancy agreement.

  1. Duration of the Assignment

The assignment will be 20 days inclusive of travels.

  1. Qualification
  • Post graduate qualifications (MA level) in social science, particularly economics, agriculture, food security, entrepreneurship or related fields
  • Minimum of 5 years of demonstrated professional experience delivering Monitoring and Evaluations services
  • Strong work experience in providing consultancy on monitoring, evaluation, data analysis, reporting and field-based research or survey services
  • Proven experience in conducting quality project Monitoring and Evaluation including third party monitoring particularly on Food security and livelihood projects in Somalia/land
  • Proven experience in food security, cash transfer programming
  • Experience in applying participatory tools especially when interviewing/collecting information from children
  • Knowledge of Save the Children and its internal processes will be beneficial but is not essential
  • Knowledge and understanding of the social and cultural context of Somali people will be an asset.
  • Solid analytical, result based planning, report writing, communication and diplomacy skills with ability to correlate different data sets to actionable conclusions.
  • English language skills (report should be written in English).
  • Ability to make clear presentations and disseminate findings to both technical and nontechnical audience
  1. Payment Details

Payment will be in accordance with a detailed budget breakdown as submitted through the proposal, and invoices will be expected from the consultant prior to payment

  1. Application Process

The consultant is expected to submit the following documents which will form part of the pre-selection recruitment process:

  1. Company Profile/ CVs of all involved consultant(s)
  2. Valid Company liscence/registration
  3. Technical proposal, outlining the methodologies including methods, sampling, quality assurance, analysis, management and tools to be used
  4. Work Plan
  5. Financial proposal
  6. Proven samples of the previous similar work with INGOs and/or UN agencies preferably

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