External Evaluator

1.1 General Background

Over 3.8 million refugees have fled Syria to neighboring countries Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Among these refugees are 1.9 million children (Source: UNHCR 2015-2016 Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan). Specifically, Jordan is hosting 633,600 registered Syrian refugees (UNHCR). In Lebanon, the number of people living in the country has increased by 30% compared to 2011. 1 million Syrian refugees are registered as refugees by UNHCR, and 42,000 Palestinian Refugees from Syria have joined 270,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon (UNRWA). Nearly half of the Syrian refugees are children. Structures and systems in Jordan and Lebanon supporting child protection and healthy child development are overloaded.

The work WCUK, WCH, WCC has been doing in Jordan and Lebanon to date is inextricably linked to the theme of the IKEA Good Cause Campaign. A core approach adopted by War Child in both countries is the adoption of a Safe Space approach to ensuring children’s wellbeing. Within this model, we provide recreation, play, arts and music activities to children, whilst in parallel equipping their parents, caregivers and community members with the skills and knowledge required for them to provide effective and protective support to children. At the national level, the project feeds in to the overall refugee and host community resilience plan (Jordan) and the Lebanon Country Response Plan (LCRP), as elaborated by the Government.

1.2 TTBAC objective and interventions

War Child is committed to protecting the future of these children to ensure that children affected by the Syrian conflict in Jordan and Lebanon grow up in safe communities. The project addresses the need to protect Syrian refugee and vulnerable Jordanian and Lebanese children from abuse, exploitation, violence and provide them with skills and resources to foster their resilience and healthy development. The project adopts a community-based approach (CBA) prioritizing participation of all community members, especially children, to ensure future recovery and social stability. To do so, War Child the intervention addresses coping at the individual level, investing in capacities and resources of children (Outcome 1), supporting parents and caregivers in their protective role (Outcome 2) and strengthening communities and institutions to ensure a nurturing environment (Outcome 3). (See Annex 1- TTBAC Logframe & Annex 2- TTBAC Theory of Change).

17,946 children in both Jordan and Lebanon will participate in project activities, which will focus – amongst others - on the provision of safe spaces where children can play, structured psychosocial support (PSS) activities, early childhood activities (ECCD), psychosocial support to parents, awareness raising and community events as well as capacity building of child protection structures and networks in the communities.

1.3 Target population

Several distinct target groups benefit from the program. In Jordan, the children who are benefiting stretch across three distinctive age categories; children aged 0-6, 7-14 and 15-18.  While in Lebanon they are grouped together from 6-9 or 6-14 depending on the type or programming and 10-18.  In both countries, female and male caregivers are targeted by the project. Participants include Syrian and Palestinian refugees, including Palestinian Refugees from Syria and Palestinian refugees from Lebanon, as well as vulnerable Jordanian and Lebanese communities.

1.4 Locations and Partners

The project is led by War Child Holland and sub-contracted to War Child UK and War Child Canada in Jordan. Based on vulnerability assessments at the time of implementation, locations in Lebanon are selected in the North, Beirut/Mount Lebanon, Baalback and the Palestinian camps. In Lebanon, War Child works with one main local partner organization: Nabaa, which has a programmatic focus on inclusive education, women’s empowerment, and community-based activities around adolescent and child development. In Jordan, the programme will target three host community locations (Mafraq, Zarqa, Amman) and one camp setting (Za'atari Camp). The predominant focus in terms of setting will be on the host communities, since 80% of registered Syrian refugees are living outside the camps. The target governorates were selected based on their high ratio of Syrian refugee to host community populations and represent the four governorates with the highest population of Syrians in the country. With regards to the camp settings, Za'atari refugee Camp hosts approximately 85,000 Syrian refugees, over half of whom are children and youth.

1.5 Project Duration and Budget

This project is funded by IKEA foundation for a duration of 36 Months. It officially started in July 2016 and will end in June 2019. The total budget is 7,749,843 euros.

1. Objective of the evaluation

The TTBAC final evaluation is a summative evaluation to be conducted at the end of the project, it will enable War Child to assess the program in terms of:

1. Relevance/appropriateness:

• To what extent was the programme relevant and appropriate to the needs of the children, their caregivers, and community members?

1. Impact:

• What has been the impact of the project on children and parents, including aspects of well-being, behaviour, and parenting skills?

1. Sustainability: to assess whether the benefits of an intervention are likely to continue after donor funding has been ceased (including activities, and structures, such as Community Based Child Protection Committees):

• To assess whether the benefits of an intervention are likely to continue after donor funding has been ceased (including activities, and structures such as the Community Based Child Protection Committees)

1. Effectiveness: to assess the extent to which the project ‘s goals were achieved or not:

• To what extent did the programme achieve its outcomes, specifically with regards to the community-based approach to PSS and ECCD activities?

1. Scope of the evaluation

The scope of the evaluation is limited to:

1. Programmatic scope: the evaluation concerns the programme, carried out by all partners. The evaluation will focus on the direct services for Children and caregivers, community structures (Community-Based Child Protection Committees), as well as the trainings that have been provided through the Action.
2. Geographical area: The evaluation will be carried out in a sample of supported locations:
   1. Lebanon: Tripoli (Muhammara), Beirut and Mount Lebanon (Chatilla Camp and Quobbeih
   2. Jordan: Zarqa, Zaatari Camp, Amman
3. Timeframe: January-May 2019
4. Population: The evaluation focuses on outcomes for the project participants directly involved in implementing the approach and on results for the broader communities in which the Action was implemented. At the start of the evaluation, the Partners and the Evaluator will agree on a feasible sample size.
5. Intended Users: users of the evaluation include project managers, project partners and selected community members. The recommendations and lessons learned will demonstrate the results achieved by this project and also generate evidence-based knowledge and identify the best practices for PSS, CP, education and community based approach.

1. Guiding principles

Evaluations should adhere to the following principles, and proposals should outline explicitly how the proposed evaluation approach would do so.

• Participation: The evaluation should involve appropriate, informed, consensual and meaningful participation from all key stakeholders, with a particular focus on the children and communities we work with.
• Utilisation-Focused: Evaluations should identify the intended users and how they will use the findings from the initial steps to ensure the evaluation is designed, implemented and disseminated to effectively meet the needs of the primary users.
• Capacity Building: Evaluations should seek to build the technical evaluation capacity of War Child UK, partner staff and other stakeholders, through, for example, the inclusion of staff members in the evaluation team and/or incorporation of staff training on evaluation into the in-country data collection period.
• Transparency: Evaluation outputs must clearly document the methodology used, including any limitations, and evaluation methodologies must consider how attribution to/contribution of War Child is ascertained.
• Value for Money: War Child is committed to ensuring that evaluations are conducted in a way that represents value for money.
• Independence: Evaluators, both external and internal, must undertake their work free of political influence, organisational pressure, and bias along gender/ethnic/religious/cultural lines and/or any other forms of intersectionality that may incur discrimination or stigma, with any potential conflicts of interest declared and documented.
• Rigour: Evaluations should be based on the project’s Theory of Change, make use of an evaluation matrix, and incorporate triangulation.

1. Evaluation approach and methodology

The evaluator is invited to suggest an appropriate evaluation methodology that is in line with the objective and scope of the evaluation and the guiding principles for this evaluation. During the design of the evaluation methodology, the evaluator will make sure that:

• Existing resources are used, such as Theory of Change, output and outcome monitoring data, annual reports, year plans and other secondary materials like evaluations of similar approaches of other (I)/NGOs in Lebanon);
• The views and opinions of various stakeholders of various age groups are taken into account (i.e. project participants directly involved in implementing the approach and on outcomes for the broader communities);
• A combination of quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods are used, such as surveys, interviews, focus group discussions or more participatory techniques, such as mapping, diagramming or self-assessments. Case studies may also provide more in-depth information;
• Evaluation findings are triangulated and validated;
• Sampling decisions are recorded in the evaluation report and justified.

At the start of the evaluation, the evaluator should develop an inception report, describing the way that the chosen evaluation methods, data sources, sampling and indicators will support the evaluation questions.

1. Roles and responsibilities

• The Evaluation Manager is responsible for following the progress of the evaluation during all phase of implementation, briefing evaluators on the purpose of the evaluation, and the work plan and any other information that is needed. The Evaluation Manager together with the project team ensures that documentation/materials are submitted in advance of the evaluation exercise and ensures the availability of funds to carry out the evaluation.
• The Evaluation Reference Group is responsible for the oversight of the evaluation and for decision making at key moments: approving Terms of Reference, providing feedback on inception and final reports and guiding action in response to findings. It includes members from War Child Holland, War Child UK and War Child Canada.
• All partners involved are responsible for coordination/guidance, logistical arrangements, provision of the needed project(s) documents for review, approval of inception report, review and discussion of the draft report, approval of the final report, payment for the consultancy and dissemination of the report to all stakeholders (including participants at community level).
• The evaluator is responsible for the design (inception report), implementation, analysis and reporting of the evaluation, in liaison with the partner project staff.  The evaluator will present and discuss preliminary findings during a debrief workshop with relevant staff members of War Child and local partners.

1. Evaluation Utilisation

War Child wants evaluations to be useful and well utilised. As such, we seek to commission high quality evaluations that generate evidenced findings, and actionable learning and recommendations. 

The users for this evaluation are likely to be as follows:

• WCUK, WCC, WCH Country Office: War Child country offices in Jordan and Lebanon will use the findings, learnings and recommendations in future programming
• WCUK, WCC, WCH HQ and other Country Offices: WC shares the report with other Country Offices who might be implementing/planning to implement similar projects in their countries
• Project Donor: The evaluation report will be shared with the donor -   they might use the findings, learnings and recommendations for the future programmes they might fund.
• Project stakeholders: Hard copies of the report will be externally shared with the project-related Government and non-government agencies through an internal learning workshop.

Proposals should include initial thoughts regarding how findings, learnings and recommendations will be explored, addressed and shared internally, externally, and with the children and communities participating in the project, to maximise use, to be elaborated during the inception stage.

1. Deliverables

The deliverables required from this final evaluation are as follows:

1. An inception report based on this Terms of Reference, initial briefings with WCUK, WCC, WCH, consultation with other stakeholders which should include:
   1. A desk review of programme documentation and existing data
   2. Any suggested additions/alterations to the proposed evaluation questions and overall Terms of Reference
   3. A detailed methodology, including planned timeframe, list of stakeholders to be consulted, proposed sampling approach, plan for data collection and analysis, ethical procedures to be followed
   4. Draft data collection tools
2. Presentation of preliminary findings (one in Jordan, one in Lebanon) to validate findings with relevant stakeholders and discuss conclusions.
3. Draft evaluation report (in English, max 20 pages)
4. Final evaluation report
5. Evaluation summary (in English and Arabic, max 4 pages)
6. A clean database / transcripts of all quantitative and qualitative data.

1. Profile of evaluator / evaluation team

Essential:

• Relevant academic qualifications and field experience
• Knowledge and experience in child protection and community-based approaches
• Extensive experience in the design and implementation of evaluations
• Excellent analytical and report writing skills
• Fluency in English and Arabic (spoken and written)
• Understanding of issues and sensitivities required when working with vulnerable groups
• Experience with participatory research methodologies, preferably with children aged 6-17
• Ability to operate independently with minimal supervision
• Willing to travel to Jordan and Lebanon

Desirable:

• Experience of evaluating or managing child protection, education and psychosocial programs
• Knowledge of and experience in Lebanon and Jordan

1. Time frame

The evaluation is expected to start in December 2018 and end in May 2019, including preparation, evaluation design, travel, field work, report writing and presentation of findings and recommendations to Partners. We estimate around 50 working days in total.

1. Child Safeguarding

The evaluator(s) must read, sign, and adhere to War Child’s Child Safeguarding Policy (shared with shortlisted candidates). 

War Child reserves the right to conduct background checks for all shortlisted applicants, in addition to collecting references from previous clients.

1. Budget

The maximum available budget for this evaluation is 30,000 USD (inclusive of all expenses, and 7.5% Ministry of Finance tax, etc.).

1. Submission of expressions of interest

To apply please send:

• CV of the evaluator (and team members, if relevant) outlining relevant skills and experience
• Cover letter, highlighting relevant experience and proposed budget (2 pages max)

Deadline: 30 November 2018 (COB), must use the following hyperlink to apply:http://warchild.onlinevacatures.nl/ 

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted in early December to provide further details on their proposal. Candidates will be interviewed in mid-December. The successful candidate must be available to begin the evaluation in January 2019.

1. Contact details

For more information about the evaluation, please contact Cynthia Rahy: [email protected]