Consultancy to conduct Mixed-Method Resilience Measurement for the Building Resilient Communities in Somalia (BRCiS) III Project, September 2024 – NGO Jobs

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental humanitarian organization with 60 years of experience in creating a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. The NRC defends the rights of displaced populations and provides assistance in the following areas: shelter, education, food security and livelihoods, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Somalia as lead agency consortium of Building Resilient Communities in Somalia (BRCiS) wishes to invite qualified firms to submit bids (Administrative, Technical and Financial proposals) – Consultancy to conduct Mixed-Method Resilience Measurement for the Building Resilient Communities in Somalia (BRCiS) III Project.

1. Background of assignment

Building Resilient Communities in Somalia (BRCiS) is a consortium of national and international organizations – Action Against Hunger (ACF), CESVI, Concern Worldwide (CWW), GREDO, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), KAALO, Save the Children, and Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) as lead agency. BRCiS’ objective is to work across the humanitarian-development divide, supporting marginalized communities in disaster-prone, rural Somalia to become more resilient to shocks and stressed, including as a result of climate change. BRCiS approach is contextually adaptive, focused on the specific shocks, needs, and priorities of individual communities. BRCiS was established in 2013 and is now implementing projects funded by multiple humanitarian and development donors in more than ten regions of Somalia.

BRCiS Consortium is implementing BRCiS III, a five-year resilience project funded by FCDO, in more than twenty districts in South and Central Somalia. The long-term objective of BRCiS III project is to contribute to reduced severity of humanitarian needs and displacement in Somalia by supporting marginalized communities in disaster-prone, rural Somalia to have sufficient social, financial, and environmental assets to better cope with shocks and stresses and adapt to the effects of climate change. To achieve this outcome, BRCiS will implement a series of layered and sequenced, mutually reinforcing outputs designed to strengthen the systems most likely to support rural communities in Somalia to cope with high impact shocks and stresses in the short term and adapt to climate change in the medium to longer term. BRCiS III is designed and delivered at area-level with a focus on those that are most vulnerable and marginalized. This means that investments are made from a multi-sectoral perspective to generate systemic change and transformational resilience gains. These systems are local leadership systems that dictate how communities plan for shocks and distribute assistance; the natural ecosystem, capable of providing life- and livelihood-sustaining ecosystem services like water, healthy soil and productive land and market systems that provide equal, inclusive economic opportunities, financial assets, and inclusion.

This ToR outlines the objectives, methods, and deliverables required for this study.

2. Objectives, Scope of Work and BRCiS III Resilience Measurement Methodology

Resilience is the ability of a household, community, and systems to cope with, adapt to, and recover from adverse shocks and stresses, such as natural disasters, economic or social crises, or other emergencies. Measuring community resilience is important for understanding the strengths and weaknesses (resilience capacities) of a community in the face of shocks and stresses, and for identifying areas for improvement (resilience pathways).

BRCiS has already designed the basis of its resilience measurement methodology for the BRCiS III project. BRCiS will adopt an aggregated, mixed-method measurement methodology for assessing the extent to which individual HHs, communities, and the systems on which they rely become more resilient to shocks and stresses. The planned approach includes a three-part assessment approach (household, community, and environment) that is then aggregated into a composite “Resilience Spectrum” score. This will include the following data collection approaches:

1. Household resilience measurement (baseline, midline, endline): BRCiS III will use household quantitative surveys to assess resilience capacities at the individual household level. BRCiS has an existing household survey tool from past programs that draws on the TANGO resilience measurement framework. The consultants will review the existing household resilience measurement tools/questionnaires, support roll out the baseline, midline, and endline surveys and lead the household baseline, midline, and endline data analysis and reporting.
2. Community resilience measurement (baseline, midline, endline): BRCiS III will use the Assessment of Resilience of Communities to Disaster (ARC-D) tool to assess the collective resilience capacities of communities where the project works. This process is closely integrated with BRCiS III’s community engagement protocols. GOAL, the agency developed the ARC-D tool, will provide the necessary technical support and guidance. The consultants will familiarize themselves with the ARC-D tool, review and contextualize the ARC-D questionnaire into the other resilience measurement surveys including household resilience measurement, lead the ARC-D baseline, midline, and endline data analysis and reporting.
3. Ecosystem Resilience measurement (baseline, midline, endline): BRCiS III will assess each ecosystems’ natural characteristics and dynamics of human access and use such as status of degradation, prevalence of resource-based conflict, and other dynamics pertaining to use of these resources, including social and gender-based inclusion/exclusion through BRCiS’ partnership with the World Agroforestry Centre/ICRAF. The resilience measurement consultants will contribute to analysis as required.

While the findings of each of the three levels of BRCiS’ resilience measurement will be individually compelling, BRCiS wishes to further aggregate these three analyses into a composite system-level resilience measurement methodology that we have termed the “Resilience Spectrum.” BRCiS envisions that this methodology will include individual scores on a scale of 1 to 5 (one being least resilient/stable – five being most resilient/stable) for each of the three main systems BRCiS III intends to influence: Inclusive, Shock Responsive Leadership, the Ecosystem, and Economic Inclusion and Diversification (as a subset of the market system) and that data from the three data collection approaches detailed above will be mapped across these systems to inform the scoring. BRCiS would like to then weight these systems by anticipated impact and aggregate them for a final score per target area between one and five. The major work of the consultant(s) will be to develop this Resilience Spectrum methodology and operationalize it as baseline.

The analysis of all three components of the assessment and the aggregated Resilience Spectrum Scoring will be presented in one single report at baseline, midline, and endline. The project learning and research questions to answer using the baseline, midline and endline surveys include:

• What is the profile of BRCiS III project target areas, including demographic characteristics, socio-economic status, cultural norms, and other relevant contextual factors, and how does this profile impact the design and implementation of the project?
• What types of shocks and stress do target communities experience the most? What is the frequency, duration, and severity (only for recurrent and shocks of greatest impact) of these shocks and stresses?
• How do specific shocks and stresses differentially affect vulnerable groups and households within communities (particularly marginalized groups, women, elderly, and disabled persons) within households? In what ways should resilience-building interventions be tailored to them?
• How do households in target communities typically prepare to respond to and recover from various shocks? What are the primary coping strategies used, how do they vary over time (seasonality), are they positive or negative?
• What are existing levels of resilience capacities in target communities? What are the factors that contribute to or detract from community resilience?
• What are the resilience pathways for improving target communities’ resilience level? Which resilience capacities are critical to mitigate the negative effect of shocks on wellbeing?
• How do BRCiS activities contribute to increased resilience in the communities it serves?
• Which activities have the most positive and lasting impact on resilience?
• Which resilience capacities matter in BRCiS target areas to improve the design of future resilience-building interventions?

The BRCiS Consortium is looking to engage with a team of consultants for the below objectives:

1. Lead on the household resilience measurement survey using TANGO resilience measurement framework (Household Baseline, Midline, and Endline surveys): The consultants are required to do the following tasks:

• Review existing household resilience measurement tools, suggesting any necessary changes in collaboration with BRCiS Consortium.
• Ensure that TANGO household baseline survey included the required information for UK international climate finance (ICF) result especially key performance indicator 4 (KPI 4), “Number of people whose resilience has been improved as a result of ICF” as per 3As model.
• Support the roll out of the household baseline, midline, and endline surveys including training the BRCiS Consortium Members on the baseline, midline, and endline data collection tools.
• Provide necessary technical guidance and support during the baseline, midline, and endline surveys data collection.
• Clean the collected household baseline, midline, and endline surveys data, analyze it, and prepare the household resilience report disaggregated by target area (district level).

1. Support the community resilience measurement using ARC-D tool (Community Baseline, Midline, and Endline Surveys): GOAL, (the agency which developed the ARC-D tool), will provide the necessary technical support and guidance required for the ARC-D assessment. The data collection will be conducted by the BRCiS field teams. The consultants are required to do the following tasks:

• Review and contextualize the ARC-D tool questionaires and do the necessary changes in collaboration with GOAL and BRCiS Consortium.
• Support the roll out of the community baseline, midline, and endline surveys.
• Clean collected community baseline, midline, and endline surveys data (ARC-D), analyze it and prepare the community resilience report disaggregated by target area as per ARC-D resilience spectrum.

1. Engage with the World Agroforestry Centre/ICRAF to understand the ecosystem resilience measurement framework and ecosystem baseline, midline, and endline reports.
2. Review and improve the final Resilience Spectrum scoring qualitative methodology for holistic system resilience measurement based on aggregation of household (TANGO), community (ARC-D), and environmental (Ecosystem) analysis and operationalize it in the baseline, midline, and endline surveys. BRCiS is seeking a compiled baseline/midline/endline survey report that will include all household, community, and environmental baseline components within one narrative rather than separate reports from the consultant.
3. Develop user friendly interactive dashboard to visualize the baseline survey findings for all BRCiS target areas including target areas resilience spectrum, existing resilience capacities, and recommended resilience pathways for each community for future reference and update this dashboard in midline and endline.

4. Deliverables

The expected outcomes of the BRCiS III baseline, midline, and endline resilience measurement study are:

• Inception report that outlines the developed resilience spectrum, research questions, detailed sampling and data analysis methods, deliverables and detailed workplan.
• Revised data collection tools for both household (TANGO) and community (ARC-D) surveys.
• Composite system-level resilience measurement methodology termed “Resilience Spectrum”.
• Baseline, Midline, and Endline surveys training materials.
• Final baseline, midline, and endline 5 pager reports per project target area (approximately a total of 30 target areas), resulting from the joint analysis of the HH survey, the ARC-D and the ecosystem information (doc and ppt).
• Executive summary of the final baseline, midline, and endline reports (15 pagers each survey) in both English and Somali for local actors’ consumption.
• User friendly dashboard to track target areas’ resilience and baseline, midline, endline surveys’ findings.
• Baseline, midline, and endline Survey Data sets

Baseline Survey Deliverables and Tentative Timeline – 95 days All activities to be completed before end of April 2024

Midline Survey Deliverables and Tentative Timeline – 80 days All activities to be completed before end of April 2026

Endline Survey Deliverables and Tentative Timeline – 80 days All activities to be completed before end of May 2028

5. Supervisor

The supervisor of the consultant is the BRCiS M&E Manager. More generally, the Consultants will collaborate with the Consortium’s management unit, FCDO programme team, FCDO MEL provider, and with relevant Consortium Members M&E and Project management Groups to produce and publish the commissioned deliverables.

6. Estimated duration of the contract

It is estimated that the contract will take approximately 255 working days between October 2023 and May 2028.

7. Official travel involved

This is primarily a home-based assignment, but the selected consultant is required to travel to the Somalia to present the final baseline, midline, and endline reports and interactive dashboard. The Consultants will cover all travel costs until they reach Mogadishu, including visa, tax, and flight costs, and NRC will support in country costs including transportation, security, accommodation, and meals.

Qualifications or specialized knowledge and/or experience required

• An advanced university degree (Master’s) in Quantitative & Qualitative Social Sciences, Economics, Econometric and cost analysis, Statistics, or a related technical field(s) is required. Ph.D. is preferred.
• At least 8-10 years of experience in Resilience Measurement for climate resilience programmes or related projects.
• 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 demonstrated through publications in resilience research or a related field.
• Extensive knowledge in TANGO resilience measurement framework and GOAL ARC-D toolkit is required.
• Experience in 3As resilience measurement framework, and UK International Climate Finance results is an asset.
• Intense methodological experience in both experimental and quasi-experimental evaluation methods, including specific expertise in statistical matching demonstrated through publications (ideally peer-reviewed).
• Previous experience in similar assignments in Somalia is an asset.
• Previous experience designing and implementing panel studies is required.

Application and Required documents.:

The proposal should include the following at minimum:

1. Fully Completed tender bid documents (Section 5 – 9)
2. A cover letter introducing the consultant. The cover letter should introduce the team composition and specify the role to be played by each team member.
3. A technical proposal of no more than 10 pages outlining how to execute the task with a clear framework, methodology and timelines. Proposed methodology should demonstrate a clear understanding of the ToR (Terms of Reference) (resilience measurement, sampling, data collection and analysis strategy/methods)
4. Resume of each team member
5. Evidence of experience conducting similar assignments (Samples of similar work) is required.
6. Proposed budget indicating consultancy fee, logistics cost and all other auxiliary costs in USD.
7. The consultant’s availability.
8. Reference letters and the contact of at least three referees (email and telephone).
9. Proof of registration from the country of origin as a limited liability company or as a sole trader/self-employed and tax compliance certificate.
10. Submission of BID documents and deadline for submission

• Documents must be submitted by the deadline set on the bid advertisement.

This tender is valid from 24th August to 25th September 2023 at 23:59 EAT.

Bidders/firms interested in submitting a proposal must express their interest by filling out the form in the link provided below, including the Bidder’s full contact information. The tender documents will be automatically sent to the email address they provided in the form, where they can be downloaded.

Deadline: All bids should be addressed to [email protected] no later than 25th September 2023 at 23:59 p.m. (East African time) referencing ‘Mixed-Method Resilience Measurement for the Building Resilient Communities in Somalia (BRCiS) III project’ in the subject line of the email.

Late bids will be automatically rejected.

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