CARE INTERNATIONAL IN SOMALIA/SOMALILAND
Statement of Work-SoW for End-line Evaluation of Somalia Multi-Sectoral Humanitarian Response Program - SOM-SHARP
Background
CARE has been providing emergency relief and lifesaving assistance to the Somali people since 1981. Its main program activities since then have included projects in water and sanitation, sustainable pastoralist activities, civil society and media development, small-scale enterprise development, primary school education, teacher training, adult literacy and vocational training. We work in partnership with Somali international aid agencies, civil society leaders and local authorities. Most recently, CARE has broadened its work to include economic empowerment, food and nutrition security, humanitarian response and sexual and reproductive health. CARE Somalia is currently operational in ten out of the eighteen original regions of Somalia.
Somalia experienced one of the worst droughts on record in 40 years in from 2021 to the first quarter of 2023 which is increasingly exacerbated by conflict and insecurity. Five consecutive failed rainfall seasons, active conflict, disease outbreaks, as well as commodity supply and price shocks have compounded chronic food, water and livelihood among the most vulnerable communities, further driving humanitarian needs and eroding absorptive coping capacity. This was followed by the most extensive floods in generations within the span of just a few months. Seasonal cycles of dry and wet conditions have become more extreme and frequent. The 2020-2023 drought, considered the most severe in four decades, brought the country to the brink of famine; while sustained humanitarian assistance and the Gu rainy season from March 2023 averted worse outcomes, an estimated 43,000 excess deaths are estimated to have occurred in 2022 alone, half of them children under the age of five.
As a result of these shocks, an estimated 6.9 million people – almost two in five Somalis – remain in need of humanitarian assistance in 2024. While this 17% decrease compared to 2023 is mainly due to a slight reduction in food insecurity and malnutrition levels, 4.3 million people remain acutely food insecure. In a context where 54% of households already lived below the national poverty line before the 2020- 2023 drought, more than half of all households have suffered further income reductions due to loss of employment, livestock and other assets. The more recent destruction of farmlands and standing crops caused by the late-2023 flooding, in combination with disrupted livelihoods and damage to shelter and homes, further aggravates the situation for many households. The poorest households therefore continue to struggle to access food, income and critical services such as water, health, education and protection.
About the Project
The Somalia Multi-Sectoral Humanitarian Response Program (SOM-SHARP) aimed at reducing the vulnerability of populations in Somalia affected by the multiple shocks of drought, conflict, COVID-19, and desert locust invasion, prioritizing IDPs and rural pastoralists and agro-pastoralists in the UNOCHA priority 1 and 2 disaster-affected regions of Bari, Galgadud, Lower Juba, Mudug, Sanaag, Sool, Togdheer, Gedo, Bay, Bakool and Hiraan.
During its 36-month duration (August 1, 2021, to July 31, 2024), the project sought to serve at least 2,965,037 vulnerable Somalis through integrated activities across seven sectors of Food Assistance, Multipurpose Cash Assistance, Health, Nutrition, Protection, Humanitarian Coordination, Information Management and assessment and WASH to address the underlying causes and barriers vulnerable groups face. To achieve these goals, CARE will undertake the following key activities:
· Food Assistance: Provide unconditional cash transfers (UCT) to affected IDP HHs and pastoral and agro-pastoral HHs to provide them with the means to improve their food access and dietary diversity.
· Multipurpose cash assistance (MPCA): Provide multipurpose cash transfers households (HHs) affected by new shocks during the project period to access emergency relief which contributes to meeting their basic food and other non-food needs during the drought or assists them in protecting or re-establishing their livelihoods.
· Health: Scale up community-centered health systems by strengthening health centers, primary health units (PHUs), and 40 mobile sites to enhance access to clinical support and primary health care services for common communicable and non-communicable diseases, disease surveillance and outbreak response, childhood vaccination, reproductive health, clinical management of rape, and community health education on health topics and gender and social norms that hinder women and girls’ access to services.
· Humanitarian Coordination, Information Management and Assessments: Support the leadership and coordination of Somalia NGO Consortium, bolstering its organizational capacity to support and serve its members.
· Nutrition: Scale up Maternal, Infant, and Young Child Nutrition in Emergencies (MIYCN-E) counseling and treatment for MAM and SAM in health centers, Stabilization centers, and mobile sites served by mobile teams providing nutrition assistance in drought and conflict affected areas.
· Protection: Facilitate survivor-centered case management and referral of GBV survivors, child protection and psychosocial support services (PSS), complemented by awareness-raising, youth engagement, and community mobilization around protection in vulnerable IDP and host populations. These activities will also be integrated into the Health, Food Assistance, and WASH programming.
· Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH): enhanced access to water for drought impacted IDP, pastoral, and agro-pastoral communities by rehabilitating boreholes and providing emergency water trucking services to affected households. The project also provides SPHERE-compliant hygiene kits and non-food items (NFIs) to vulnerable drought affected HHs and conducted Hygiene promotion through community engagement while rehabilitated/constructed gender-segregated latrines to meet rising sanitation gaps in IDP camps and health facilities.
SOM-SHARP aligned with Somalia's HRP 2021,2022 and 2023, the Somalia Essential Package for Health Services (EPHS) 2020, and cluster guidelines and UNOCHA Somalia Drought Response and Famine Prevention Plan 2022. CARE will utilize a conflict-sensitive approach to ensure services are accessible to IDPs and host communities.
Evaluation Purpose
The evaluation aimed to assess the extent of achievements of program performance indicators and objectives as well as measure the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the program as compared to the situation at baseline. The evaluation report will also identify best practices, key lessons in technical aspects, and the program management approach to facilitate continued learning and improvement of humanitarian emergency response. The findings of this final evaluation will be shared with USAID/BHA and with the humanitarian community working in Somalia/Somaliland, through the Somalia NGO Consortium, the UN Cluster system, the wider CARE international family, and local networks.
Evaluation Type
The project will aimed employ an end of project summative evaluation to assess whether project delivered its planned activity and to determine the extent to which anticipated outcomes were achieved. This evaluation is intended to provide information about the worth and the effect of the project. Therefore, CARE Somalia/Somaliland seeks to hire an external consultant to carry out this task.
Evaluation Questions
The key evaluation question for this project includes:
· Were interventions appropriate and effective for the target group based on their needs?
· To what extent did the activity consider gender equity, protection, age, physical and emotional challenges of the participants, and risks to participation in various interventions in activity design and implementation?
· To what extent do the activity’s interventions appear to have achieved their intended target groups, outputs, and outcomes?
· To what extent have the activity’s interventions adhered to planned implementation schedules?
· To what extent are the project stakeholders including beneficiaries satisfied with the project deliverables and results?
· What changes—expected and unexpected, positive, and negative—were experienced by the targeted beneficiaries and other stakeholders
Evaluation Methods
a. Methodology
This end-line study will adopt a non-experimental research design where the consultant is expected to use a comparative analysis approach from baseline to establish the change on key project performance indicators. The researcher will not control, manipulate or alter the predictor variables or project beneficiaries, but will instead rely on interpretation, observation and interactions to concluded, through correlations. The consultant will maintain baseline methodology and where feasible the study will use the same data sources in the baseline, additional methods and tools suggested for the sake of correcting additional relevant data or due to changes in data requirements during the project implementation will be discussed at the inception stage. A comparative analysis approach will be used to report on project achievements for selected indicator values.
To ensure consistency in comparison of the baseline and endline findings, the final evaluation will use the same sampling methodology, sample size, tools, instruments, and indicators as in the baseline. Evaluation findings will be compared with the endline findings to measure the change. achievements, effectiveness, and efficiency of the intervention as the intended/unintended consequences, challenges and lessons learned. Additionally, the final evaluation will investigate linkages, layering, and exit strategies for optimal achievements of the desired results and continuation of the project services and deliverables beyond the project life.
The final evaluation will collect data on the following outcome indicators:
Food Security and MPCA
1. Percent of households where women/men reported participating in decisions on the use of food assistance.
2. Percent of food assistance decision-making entity members who are women.
3. Percent of households with poor, borderline, and acceptable Food Consumption Score (FCS).
4. Mean and median Reduced Coping Strategies Index (rCSI).
5. Percent of households with moderate and severe Household Hunger Scale (HHS) scores.
6. Percent of households where women/men reported participating in decisions on the use of food assistance.
7. Percent of food assistance decision-making entity members who are women.
8. Percent of households with poor, borderline, and acceptable Food Consumption Score (FCS).
9. Mean and median Reduced Coping Strategies Index (rCSI).
10. Percent of households with moderate and severe Household Hunger Scale (HHS) scores.
Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance-MPCA
1. Percent of (beneficiary) households who report being able to meet the basic needs of their households (all/most/some/none), according to their priorities.
2. Percent of beneficiaries reporting that humanitarian assistance is delivered in a safe, accessible, accountable, and participatory manner.
3. Percent of (beneficiary) households that report having minimum household items that allow all the following: comfortable sleeping, water and food storage, food preparation, cooking, eating, lighting, and clothing.
4. Percent of (beneficiary) households reporting that all household members have access to an adequate quantity of safe water for drinking, cooking, personal and domestic hygiene.
5. Percent of households by Livelihoods Coping Strategies (LCS) phase (Neutral, Stress, Crisis, Emergency)
6. Percent of households with poor, borderline, and acceptable Food Consumption Score (FCS).
7. Percent of (beneficiary) households having access to a functioning handwashing facility with water and soap at home and essential hygiene items including menstrual hygiene products
Health
1. Percent of total weekly surveillance reports submitted on time by health facilities.
2. Number and percent of pregnant women who have attended at least two comprehensive antenatal clinics.
3. Number and percent of community members who can recall target health education messages.
4. Case fatality ratio
5. Percent of deliveries by caesarian section
6. Number of health facilities out of stock of any medical commodity tracer products, for longer than one week, 7 consecutive days,
Strengthened coordination and increased synergy among the humanitarian aid actors in Somalia
1. Proportion of humanitarian organizations who report that participation in the SNC has enhanced the effectiveness of their work.
Nutrition
1. Percent of infants 0-5 months of age who are fed exclusively with breast milk.
2. Percent of children 6–23 months of age who receive foods from 5 or more food groups (MDD).
3. Percent of women of reproductive age consuming a diet of minimum diversity (MDD-W).
Protection
1. Percentage of community members that demonstrate increased knowledge of GBV and harmful traditional practices.
2. Percentage of individuals reporting an improved feeling of safety of and dignity.
3. Percentage of people reporting improvements in their feelings of wellbeing and ability to cope at the end of the program.
4. % of interviewed beneficiaries who demonstrate a strong understanding of child protection issues.
5. % of training participants who demonstrate adequate knowledge and understanding of protection mainstreaming.
Water, Sanitation and Hygeine (WASH)
1. Percent of households with soap and water at a handwashing station on premises.
2. Percent of people targeted by the hygiene promotion program who know at least three (3) of the five (5) critical times to wash hands.
3. Proportion of people reached by hygiene promotion who report that they are able to implement at least two changes in behaviors to improve hygiene.
4. Proportion of people reached by hygiene promotion who report that they can identify at least two barriers to good hygiene in their households.
5. Percent of households reporting satisfaction with the contents of the WASH NFIs received through direct distribution (i.e., kits) or vouchers.
6. Percent of households reporting satisfaction with the quality of WASH NFIs received through direct distribution (i.e., kits), vouchers, or cash.
7. Proportion of beneficiaries who report that the NFI kits “helped them to overcome at least one barrier to improved hygiene in their household.”
8. Average liters/person/day collected from all sources for drinking, cooking, and hygiene.
9. Percent of households whose drinking water supplies have zero (0) fecal coliforms per 100 ml sample.
10. Percent of water user committees created and/or trained by the WASH program that are active at least three (3) months after training.
11. Percent of households in target areas practicing open defecation
12. Percent of water points developed, repaired, or rehabilitated that are clean and protected from contamination.
13. Proportion of water sources which meet quality standards in tests.
14. Average number of users per functioning toilet
15. Per cent of excreta disposal facilities built or rehabilitated in health facilities that is clean and functional
16. Number of individuals directly utilizing improved sanitation services provided with BHA funding
17. Percent of households in target areas practicing open defecation
Economic Recovery and Market System (ERMS)
1. Percent of financial service accounts/groups supported by BHA that are functioning properly.
DAC standard Evaluation question will also be considered for this evaluation as in follow;
Relevance:
• To what extent was the program suited to the particular needs, expectations and priorities of the stakeholders including the target communities and government?
• Did the program meet its stated objectives and achieve sectoral goals/targets?
Efficiency in use of resources:
• Was the process of achieving results efficient? Specifically did the actual or expected results (outputs and outcomes) justify the costs incurred? Were the resources effectively utilized?
• What factors contributed to implementation efficiency?
Effectiveness of program interventions:
• Did the activities achieve satisfactory results in relation to stated objectives/results? How did the program perform against the program indicators?
• To what extent did the activities contribute to enhancing local capacities and if not why?
• Assess whether the beneficiaries perceive that the planned benefits were delivered and received?
Outcome
• What real difference has the activity made to the beneficiaries? How many people have been impacted through program interventions?
• How the program contribute in supporting communities to cope and withstand in this disaster?
Sustainability:
• What benefits/ activities of the intervention are likely to continue without external assistance?
• What is the likelihood of continuation and sustainability of project outcomes and benefits after completion of the project?
• How effective were the exit strategies, and approaches to phase out assistance provided by the project including contributing factors and constraints?
Deliverables and Reporting Requirements
The evaluation deliverables are:
I. Inception Report: For review, the evaluation team should submit to CARE an inception report presenting findings from the desk review and/or examination of data to date. The inception report should include relevant data collection tools and a realistic work plan by which CARE will approve.
II. Draft Evaluation Report: The evaluation team should share a draft evaluation report that addresses all the indicators/questions identified in the TOR and any other issues the team considers to have a bearing on the objectives of the evaluation. Once the initial draft evaluation report is submitted, CARE will review, comment on the initial
Evaluator Profile
The evaluation exercise will be done by an external consultant(s). The consultant(s) will have to be a team or persons with vast experience in performing evaluations for similar projects funded by USAID as well as someone with a better understanding and vast experience in the context of Somalia/Somaliland. Key qualifications for the consultant(s) are listed below.
Evaluation Team Composition
This assignment is open for both individuals and companies who deem to have the required technical and professional capacity to apply, however, the consultant must provide information about evaluation team members, including their curricula vitae, the roles and responsibilities for each team member while also explaining how they meet the requirements in the evaluation TOR. They are also required to demonstrate an appropriate team structure that can enable timely and quality data collection and submission of required deliverables.
Application Requirements
The bellow requirements will be considered as part of the selection process and therefore, all interested applicants must send;
Duration of the Assignment
The duration of the assignment is 45 working days after the signing of the contract. Days are inclusive of travel, fieldwork and reporting. The field data collection is expected to take place in August 2024. The first draft of the evaluation report is to be submitted no later than 15 working days after data collection is completed.
Interested firms are expected to submit their applications (technical and financial proposal), the profile of the company and updated CVs of individual team members. For individual consultants please submit your application (technical and financial proposal) and CVs of core team to: som.consultants@care.org. Please indicate “Application for SOM-SHARP Final Evaluation” as the subject heading not later than July 15, 2024
CARE is a major international humanitarian agency delivering emergency relief and long-term international development projects. Founded in 1945, CARE is one of the largest and oldest humanitarian aid organizations focused on fighting global poverty.... Read More
