Call for consultancy – External Evaluation of ACT Appeal SYR231

Call for Consultancy

Location: Syria and Türkiye

Type of contract: Consultancy

Languages required: English and Arabic

Experience required: 10 years in external evaluation of humanitarian/emergency programs

Consultancy start target date: 01/10/2024

Duration of Contract: 4 months, estimation of 25 working days.

Application deadline: 20/08/2024 (23h59 CET)

About ACT Alliance

ACT Alliance is one of the world’s largest coalition of churches and church-related organizations engaged in humanitarian, development and advocacy work. It consists of 150 members working together in over 120 countries, with headquarters in 73 countries, whose aim is to create a positive and sustainable change in the lives of poor and marginalized people regardless of their religion, politics, gender, sexual orientation, race or nationality in keeping with the highest international codes and standards. 64% of our members are headquartered in the Global South, 30% in the Global North, and 6% are Global members. For more details about the general work of ACT, please refer to http://www.actalliance.org/.

Terms of reference

Currently, ACT Alliance is seeking an external evaluator or a team of external evaluators, supported by secretariat staff to lead the final external evaluation of the Syria Appeal launched as a response to the Earthquake in Türkiye and Syria. The period of the work is expected to take 4 months estimated 25 working days) for completion. The Terms of Reference document sets out the evaluation criteria and expected outputs. The appeal is being implemented within Syria and Türkiye and the consultancy is expected to be an “on the ground” external evaluation.

Background

On 6 February 2023, two earthquakes with magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 heavily affected provinces in Southern and Southeastern Türkiye and Northern Syria. The earthquakes which hit communities in Syria and Türkiye at the peak of winter, left hundreds of thousands of people, including small children and older people, without access to shelter, food, water, heat and medical care in freezing cold temperatures.

The SYR 231 appeal started on January 1st, 2023, and later included revision #1 to add to the response the earthquakes. The updated version of the appeal was launched in March 2022 after integrating elements related to post-earthquake needs assessments. The standing appeal document can be accessed here: https://actalliance.org/appeals-rapid-response-funds/syria-and-turkiye-syria-protracted-crisis-developing-the-resilience-of-affected-people-and-emergency-response-for-affected-communities-of-syria-turkiye-earthquake-syr231-revision-4/

The Requesting Members (RM’s) of the appeal are: Christian Aid (CA), Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), Swiss Church Aid (HEKS/EPER), Department of Ecumenical Relations and Development of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East (GOPA-DERD), The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and Hungarian Church Aid (HIA). The appeal covers areas of Syria under Government control (MECC, LWF, GOPA-DERD, HEKS/EPER) as well as Türkiye (HIA). The SYR 231 appeal has a budget of USD 17,175,390$. ACT Alliance members are operating to respond to both the earthquake needs in Türkiye and Syria as well as the protracted crises of Syria. The appeal timeline is from January 1st, 2023, till December 31st 2024.

The ACT Secretariat is commissioning an external evaluation in line with our policy and the requirements of back donors. The “ACT Evaluation Policy and Guidelines1” provides broad directions and implementation arrangements for evaluations and should be used as reference throughout the evaluation process.

The field work for this evaluation should be carried out in Syria and Türkiye. However, limited access to project areas and security considerations may present constraints. Detailed planning for data collection and analysis should be formulated and approved by the ACT secretariat.

Objectives

The evaluation purpose and objectives

The purpose of this evaluation is to assess SYR231 appeal overall program performance and delivery, against OECD criteria and adherence to the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) throughout the response. The evaluation should have a strong learning objective, reflecting what has worked and what has not worked and identify lessons and ways to enhance the project relevance, effectiveness, and impact. The evaluation will help ACT improve its future programming and identify the impact of the SYR231 appeal performance, based on lessons learned and best practices generated through its implementation.

Key objectives of the evaluation are to:

1. Assess the programme’s relevance, coherence, effectiveness, impact, efficiency, and sustainability against the OECD evaluation criteria and CHS Commitments that have specific interest for accountability to affected populations.
2. Assess to what extent the expected results, as outlined in the SYR231 appeal results framework were achieved, considering the gender performance and the localization dimensions of the project.
3. Assess the effectiveness of the SYR231 appeal model and the added value of the ACT secretariat and ACT Syrian forum.
4. Identify lessons learned and best practices for ACT Alliance’s future humanitarian interventions.

Indicative key evaluation questions that are expected to be addressed are listed in (annex 1); the consultant is expected to provide a detailed methodology and work plan, at proposal and inception stages.

Profile of evaluation team leader

The evaluator/team of evaluators of this multi-sector ACT response should have a good balance of sectoral, local and evaluation experience. Requirements for the evaluator lead include the following:

• At least 10 years of experience in evaluating humanitarian programmes against DAC OECD evaluation criteria and Core Humanitarian Standards, experience of designing evaluation methodology/tools, data analysis etc.
• Ability to lead a diverse team in Syria, Türkiye. It is the responsibility of the consultants to organize visas if needed.
• Strong facilitation and diplomatic skills
• The team leader should have a minimum of a master’s degree in a relevant field
• Broad understanding of the issues concerning the humanitarian response with a sound knowledge of Humanitarian Principles, Sphere Standards, and Core Humanitarian Standard on quality and accountability.
• Strong ability to stimulate and guide participatory processes
• Excellent report writing skills
• Be political, religious and culturally sensitive
• Proficiency in English and Arabic, with ability to produce Means of Verification in both languages.
• Familiarity with Syria, Türkiye and their context
• Have proven knowledge of gender issues in emergencies
• Female candidates are particularly encouraged to apply
• (Demonstrably) independent, with no conflict of interest with the design, management or implementation of the programme or partner organizations of any of the ACT Alliance organizations in Syria or the countries in the regions from which a Syria program is being implemented by ACT Alliance member organizations

To access the full ToR of the consultancy, use this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fdzJalktYUsFimbq3CvcAXOw_S4bF0vx/view?usp=drive_link