United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: TENDER FOR THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT CONSULTANCY OF ‘CLIMATE RESILIENT LIVELIHOOD PROJECT FOR THE PASTORALIST COMMUNITIES IN KENYA’

Islamic relief

BACKGROUND

Islamic Relief is an international aid and development charity, which aims to alleviate the suffering of the world's poorest people. It is an independent Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) founded in the UK in 1984.

As well as responding to disasters and emergencies, Islamic Relief promotes sustainable economic and social development by working with local communities - regardless of race, religion or gender.

Our vision:

Inspired by our Islamic faith and guided by our values, we envisage a caring world where communities are empowered, social obligations are fulfilled and people respond as one to the suffering of others.

Our mission:

Exemplifying our Islamic values, we will mobilise resources, build partnerships, and develop local capacity, as we work to:

Enable communities to mitigate the effect of disasters, prepare for their occurrence and respond by providing relief, protection and recovery.

Promote integrated development and environmental custodianship with a focus on sustainable livelihoods.

Support the marginalised and vulnerable to voice their needs and address root causes of poverty.

We allocate these resources regardless of race, political affiliation, gender or belief, and without expecting anything in return.

At the international level, Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) has consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council, and is a signatory to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Code of Conduct. IRW is committed to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through raising awareness of the issues that affect poor communities and through its work on the ground. Islamic Relief are one of only 13 charities that have fulfilled the criteria and have become members of the Disasters Emergency Committee (www.dec.org.uk)

IRW endeavours to work closely with local communities, focussing on capacity-building and empowerment to help them achieve development without dependency.

Please see our website for more information http://www.islamic-relief.org/

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) is an international relief and development agency that enjoys a consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council and is a signatory to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Code of Conduct. IRW is dedicated to alleviating the suffering of the world’s poorest people through promoting social and economic development in over 30 countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe as well as responding to natural and man-made disasters.

North Eastern Kenya has been suffering from recurring drought-related crises since 2005. The drought of 2005/06 affected four million people with an estimated loss of 50-60% of the livestock resources. The post-election violence, high food and fuel prices and El Niño related flooding in 2008/09 adversely impacted on the dwindling resource base and livelihood recovery process. In 2011/2012, North Kenya experienced the worst drought in over 60 years. According to the 2011-2012 short rain assessment, most parts of Mandera and Wajir counties of North Eastern Kenya were classified in the stressed phase.

Most of the people in North Eastern Kenya are pastoralists. Their ability to respond to drought is limited not only due to the increasing frequency, but also due to an increasing population, dwindling resource base, conflict, changes in access to land and water as well as the impact of other shocks such as flooding and disease outbreaks. The situation is further exacerbated by gradual erosion of community resilience and traditional coping strategies by successive shocks, as well as lack of collective initiatives to address the root causes of chronic poverty or vulnerability. To address these issues, Islamic Relief Kenya (IRK) initiated a three year climate resilient livelihood project for the pastoralist communities of Wajir and Mandera in 2013 (map shown in Appendix 1) from holistic perspectives. The project is jointly funded by DfID and Islamic Relief UK. The project started in April 2013 and will complete March 2016.

The project aimed at improving the quality of life of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists households of North Eastern Kenya by improving their capacities to adapt to climate induced hazards and providing climate resilient livelihood options. The overall objective was to improve food security and resilience of 9,085 vulnerable agro pastoralists and pastoralist households by using sustainable interventions to counter the effects of climate change in Wajir and Mandera.

The specific objectives of the project were to:

a) promote irrigated agriculture and greenhouse farming to improve livelihoods through increased food and fodder production;

b) diversify income through entrepreneurial skill development (capacity building training) and provision of micro-credits;

c) improve household incomes through cash for work;

d) improve animal health through disease surveillance, awareness raising, deworming and mass vaccination; and,

e) increase community resilience through capacity building, DRR plan, early warning systems and mainstreaming DRR strategy at a country level.

PROJECT INTERVENTIONS

The project interventions are aimed at improving food production (food security) increasing disaster preparedness, creating additional employment, generating income and preserving essential livelihood assets. The project has two components: Livelihoods and Disaster Risk Reduction.

A.Livelihoods

i)Irrigated agriculture farming

The pastoralist communities in the project locations have been traditionally relying on livestock for their livelihood means. However, pure pastoralism was no longer sustainable due to excessive drought and flood – a consequence of the climate change phenomenon. To create disaster resilience in these communities, the project promoted irrigated agricultural farming in Mandera as an alternative means of livelihood. 2,000 farmers were mobilised into groups and provided training. Individual farmers were then provided with improved farm inputs (drought resistant seeds, cereal, vegetables, fodder, farm equipment and fuel for water pumps) to produce their own food and fodder for the livestock.

ii)Construction of cereal storage facilities

The project has constructed seven cereal storage facilities for the irrigated agriculture farming beneficiaries in Mandera. The objective was to provide a secure and suitable environment to store surplus cereals for a longer period so that they can be consumed during lean periods and sold when prices increase.

iii)Greenhouse agriculture

The purpose of this component was to promote and pilot vegetable production using controlled micro-climate in greenhouses, in areas with no rivers, but had water points like boreholes and shallow wells for drip irrigation. This was one of the climate change adaptive ways of food production. Seven greenhouses were built in two locations (three in Mandera and four in Wajir) to benefit 72 farmers.

iv)Alternative livelihoods

To strengthen adaptive capacity and diversify alternative livelihood options, 195 women and youth beneficiaries were trained and supported with sharia compliant micro-credit to rehabilitate their small businesses or start a new one (120 from Wajir and 75 from Mandera). All the beneficiaries received generic training on business management (e.g., business venture identification, loan application and repayments, customer services, profit and loss determination, record keeping and savings). After the training, each beneficiary received a loan of KES 35,000 (£350) to start a business.

v)Livestock resources development

Livestock is an important livelihood means for the pastoralist communities. The provision of veterinary services in a disaster prone area is an important strategy for assisting pastoralists to protect their livestock from an outbreak of fatal diseases (ie anthrax) caused by drought or flash floods. This project provided equipment (e.g., refrigerators and sample collection tools) and logistical support to six Districts Veterinary Offices (DVOs) to conduct 18 disease surveillances (nine in Wajir and nine in Mandera). The project organised mass vaccinations and the treatment and deworming of 360,000 livestock through the DVOs consequently benefiting 3,600 households (1,800 in Wajir and 1,800 in Mandera). The project coordinated a mass awareness campaign to provide people an opportunity to understand the importance of vaccinations and de-worming, ultimately reflecting better productivity of animals for the beneficiaries it targets. The total targeted beneficiaries were 3,000 in both locations.

vi)Cash for Work

This intervention targeted poor households in both locations who did not directly benefit from other activities. The main objective was to create short-term employment opportunities for 3,000 poor households in both locations (1,800 in Wajir and 1,200 in Mandera) who rehabilitated community infrastructures (e.g de-silting water pan, clearing access road, fencing water pan and water piping to greenhouses) as a means of improving disaster resilience in the community.

B.Disaster Risk Reduction

vii)Community managed disaster risk reduction

The objective of this component was to ensure that communities had the required skills and knowledge needed to plan for and cope with future livelihood shocks caused by disasters. This component mainly focused on developing community capacity to prepare disaster risk reduction plans and early warning systems. 180 community resource persons (90 in Wajir and 90 in Mandera) were trained on community managed disaster risk reduction and the early warning System. The activities were facilitated by Disaster Risk Reduction specialists from the National Drought Management Authority.

viii)Country level DRR mainstream strategy

This intervention provided training to build the capacity of 30 regional staff on DRR and resilience to enable them to mainstream DRR in the future programmes and be able to develop programmes that are more resilient. It’s also aimed at developing a platform for the DRR and resilience mainstreaming strategy for IR Kenya. The component also established linkages and contributions to the national and regional DRR/CCA platforms such as the Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG).

IMPACT ASSESSMENT

A.Background

IRW’s commitment to moving climate vulnerable people out of poverty requires rigorous impact assessment of the ‘climate resilience livelihood project’ that was implemented by IRK in North Eastern Kenya. IRW defines the term ‘impact’ as ‘long-term and sustainable changes introduced by a given intervention in the lives of the beneficiaries’. Through the impact assessment, IRW is searching for evidence of impact in terms of both the positive and the negative, intended and unintended, primary and secondary effects of the programme, directly or indirectly contributing to such systemic change.

B.Progress to-date

i) Impact assessment has been built into the project design from the outset.

ii) A theory of change framework has been developed to illustrate how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context (Appendix 2).

iii) A logframe has been developed to show the indicators, baseline and milestones at different levels of objective hierarchies (Appendix 3).

iv) A result framework has been developed to show the linkages from activities, outputs, outcomes to impact (Appendix 4).

v) A baseline survey was conducted at the beginning of the project and the report is available with donor (IRUK).

vi) The villages and sample beneficiaries have been selected using a stratified simple random sampling technique. A list of the sample beneficiaries is available for the final study.

vii) The project team has prepared two annual progress reports for the donors highlighting the achievements against logframe. These reports are available with IRUK. The project team will also prepare a project completion report in June 2016.

viii) IRW commissioned an impact evaluation after two years. The impact evaluation was mostly focused on outcome level qualitative changes using the result framework as a reference. The report is available with IRUK and shared with DfID.

Objectives of the impact assessment

Working closely with the project support teams in Wajir and Mandera, an external consultant will conduct an impact assessment of the project activities implemented under UKAM.

The specific objectives of this assignment are:

1. Assess the extent to which the project as a whole has delivered the anticipated objectives indicated in the log frame with specific attention to outputs, outcomes and impact.

2. Assess the effectiveness of aid in contribution to improve food security and enhance resilience in the face of climate variability (please see appendix 5 for suggested line of enquiries).

3. Determine the magnitude and distribution of changes (intended and unintended) in outcome and impact indicators among different segments of the target population and to differentiate the changes that are attributable to the project interventions from other external factors contributing to change (please see appendix 6 for suggested line of enquiries).

4. Assess the key innovations used in the project that improved or worsened delivery of project impacts and how the learning was used in improving project performance.

5. Analyse and comment on the sustainability of the project outcomes/impacts and suggest measures to maintain long term sustainability.

6. Document lessons learned, develop clear and actionable recommendations for IRK and IRW for adoption and integration into any similar future development related projects in the region.

Methodology

The consultant will design methodologies following the indicators of logframe and result framework. The methodologies will include (but not be limited to):

i) A desk review of programme information including project proposals and reports.

ii) Meetings with the M&E team at IRW, UKAM team in London and the regional desk co--ordinator in Kenya.

iii) Interviews with selected IRK project focal points and staff whose work contribute towards the objectives.

iv) Project site visits, Interviews (1 to 1) and FGDs with the sample beneficiaries.

v) Interviews/surveys with local implementing partners and development actors.

vi) Organisation of initial workshops to train evaluation teams in evaluation methodology as well as a final post-fieldwork workshop to assess and discuss the initial findings with IRK and partner staff.

vii) Submission of the draft evaluation report to IRW prior to the finalisation of the report.

Expected outputs of the consultant

The consultant is expected to produce:

i) A detailed work plan, developed with and approved by IRW, setting out the detailed methodology and deliverables prior to commencing the field visits.

ii) A report (no more than 40 pages excluding appendices) with the following sections:

a) Project title and country

b) Organisation and partner names

c) Name of person who compiled the evaluation report including summary of role/contribution of others in the team

d) Period during which the evaluation was undertaken

e) Acknowledgements

f) Abbreviations

g) Table of contents

h) Executive summary (no more than two-three sides of A4) setting out five top level impacts (objective 3); one top level achievement for objective 1, 2, 4 and 5; key lessons and recommendations

i) Introduction/background

j) Methodology

k) Context analysis

l) For each key intervention, a section in the form of:

· Findings (including any under-achievement issues with reasons)

· Conclusions

· Assessment

m) A two to three page summary of best practices, lessons and recommendations

n) Annexes

· Terms of reference for the evaluation

· Profile of the evaluation team

· Evaluation schedule

· Documents consulted during the evaluation

· Persons participating in the evaluation

· Field data used during the evaluation including baselines

· Bibliography

The final report must be submitted in English and within a 30-day window of completing the field work.

Required inputs

The following are the key inputs to the evaluation:

i) Stakeholders to be involved include:

· IRW, IRUK and IRK staff

· Partner staff

· Governmental officials and community leaders

· Project beneficiaries

· Other NGOs/INGOs working in the area

ii) Relevant IRK/IRW and partner reports and documentation

iii) External secondary information and data as appropriate to the evaluation

Responsibilities of IRW/IRK

i) Develop and manage activity budgets (both itemised and summary) for the project evaluation.

ii) Provide in-country accommodation, transportation including travel between the project sites and Nairobi for the period of stay in Kenya.

iii) Provide copies of proposals, baselines, progress reports and other relevant documents.

iv) Provide the consultant, with office space, an internet connection and a mobile phone for the duration of the stay in Kenya.

v) Give final approval to the consultant at relevant stages of the surveys and assessments, particularly when developing tools, work plans and final reports.

vi) Team members drawn from IRK staff and counterparts in all project locations will support the consultant during the assessment. Team members will be specifically responsible for:

· Participating in the field study, case studies, focus group discussions, one-to-one interviews and sharing results with other team members

· Providing any other assistance required by the consultant

Timetable and reporting duration

Total duration of the consultancy = 30 man-days

Consultancy contract

This will be a consultancy contract for a certain term and may be extended further, the consultant is advised to include timescales for this project in their proposal. The consultant is expected to work from a location that is yet to be confirmed. The consultant will report directly into IPD division.

The terms upon which the consultant will be engaged are as per the consultancy agreement. The invoice is to be submitted at the end of the month and will be paid on net payment terms 28 days.

The applicant will need to provide all equipment required to undertake the necessary tasks and this must include suitable IT and communication equipment.

All potential applicants must fill in the table beneath in appendix 1 to help collate key data pertaining to this tender. The applicant must be clear about other expenses being claimed in relation to this consultancy and these must be specified clearly.

A copy of the terms of reference is available upon request though all the data contained within the TOR has been included in this tender document, a copy of the consultancy contract is also available on request. The successful applicant will be required to sign two copies of the consultancy contract and retain a copy for his/her perusal and the second copy to be submitted (must be signed) to Islamic Relief Worldwide within 48 hours of receipt.

For this consultancy all applicants are required to submit a covering letter with a company profile(s) of all stakeholders and the CV of the lead consultant(s).

A proposal including, planned activities, methodology, deliverables, timeline, and cost proposal (including expenses) are expected.

Other relevant supporting documents should be included as the consultants sees fit.

All applicants must have a valid visa or a permit to work in the UK (if travel is required to the UK). A valid visa/work permit is also required for those areas required to be visited as part of this consultancy.

A.Additional information and conditions of contract

IRW will cover:

· The costs associated with in-country, work-related transportation for the consultant and the assessment team

· International and local travel for the consultant and the local team

· Accommodation while in the field

· Training venues

· Consultancy fees

IRW will not cover:

· Tax obligations as required by the country in which he/she will file income tax

· Any pre/post assignment medical costs. These should be covered by the consultant

· Medical and travel insurance arrangements and costs. These should be covered by the consultant

Payment schedule

Payment will be made in accordance with the deliverables and deadlines as follows;

· 25% of the total amount – finalisation of tools and the signing of the contract

· 25% of the total amount – submission of the first draft of the evaluation report

· 50% of the total amount – submission of the final report including all attachments mentioned above

TENDER DATES AND CONTACT DETAILS

All tenders are required to be submitted before Monday 21^st March 201611.00am (UK time) and be returned to tendering@irworldwide.org

For any issues relating to the tender or its contents please email directly to tendering@irworldwide.org

Quotations must include the following information for assessment purposes;

1. Payment terms (28 days preferred)

2. Full break down of costs including expenses and VAT

3. References (two are preferred)

4. Technical competency

5. Demonstrable experience of working in similar environment

Note: The criteria are subject to change.