CONSULTANCY CALL FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST: Mid-term evaluation – Syria project

1- Context

Working in France and 64 countries worldwide, Doctors of the World – Médecins du Monde (MdM) is an independent international movement of campaigning activists who provide care, bear witness, and support social change. Through our 355 innovative medical programmes and evidence-based advocacy initiatives to enable to access health and fight for universal access to healthcare.

As MdM is a network of sixteen (16) independent chapters working in various countries, including France, Turkey and Germany. It has over 15 years of experience running programmes in the Middle East region, with interventions implemented in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Brief presentation of the project

In Syria, MdM began implementing activities in 2008 with the provision of Primary Health Care (PHC) services in Aleppo governorate in partnership with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, until the beginning of the conflict in 2011. With the outbreak of hostilities, MdM adapted its response to better address the needs of the Syrian population, scaling up activities in October 2012. Today, MdM is providing PHC services to more than 500,000 people living in Idlib, Aleppo and governorates in South Syria under the control of the government.

More specifically: The general objective of this 36-month programme is to improve access to integrated quality primary health care services (including sexual and reproductive health (SRH) to the most vulnerable population in Syria.

This current programme aims to improve support access to quality health services (including sexual and reproductive health and mental health), to reduce morbidity, mortality and to enhance the well-being of the conflict-affected population by addressing the identified gaps and needs among the affected population through strategic coordination with partners and humanitarian actors present in the area of intervention.

The programme funds the following nine (9) PHC facilities in the Northwest and south the country (direct and through a partner, respectively), to provide community access to PHC and SRH services in Syria.

• South – Through external partner:
  • Primary Healthcare Centres and mobile clinics
• Northwest, direct:
  • Governate Idlib (in PHCC in Al Doaa, Al Salam and Qah)

Additionally, MdM provides/supports facilities and medical staff (including partner’s facilities and staff) through capacity-building and minor renovation works, in order to sustainably respond to health needs with quality PHC service provision.

2- Objectives of the consultancy

MdM, in the framework of this project, is looking for (a) consultant(s) to:

• Assess the relevance of the action regarding the beneficiaries needs and the context.
• Measure the achievement of the specific objectives and results and identify the reasons underlining these achievements/non-achievement (strengths and weaknesses)
• Assess the partnership/collaboration/coordination with other local actors and draw recommendations for the current project and future strategic partnership strategy.
• To assess the accountability towards community members who received services in the project centres.

The maximum total budget available for this consultancy is 20.000,00 EUR, VAT included.

3- Sought after profile

The Evaluation team must include:

• An experienced evaluator/organisation who should ideally have access to the field in Northwest Syria.
• An experienced evaluator, that have evaluated/assessed many large-scale humanitarian projects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Experience in project/programme evaluation in Syria would be considered a strength.
• An experienced evaluator that has qualification/experience in assessing Health and protection projects.
• An experienced evaluator that has done studies before to design a new programmatic intervention in Syria.
• The evaluation team must have strong analytical skills and a self-sufficient way of working
• All proposed team members of this study are able to present/visit and stay in Turkey, during the proposed time period of this evaluation – unless there are administrative or health restrictions. The field staff of the proposed team should ideally be present and/or able to travel inside Northwest Syria.
• The linguistic need for research (not including data collectors/surveyors):
  • The team leader must be fluent in English (Arabic is an asset)
  • At least one research team member must be fluent in Arabic
  • Turkish language is also an asset

4- Schedule

Application deadline: 26/08/2021 at 10:00 am (CET)

Deadline for a complete proposal: 13/09/2021 at 10:00 (CET)

Indicative start date for the assessment: 18/10/2021

‘Field’ phase of the consultancy: 1 working week, between 01/11/2021 and 15/11/2021

Required date for the hand-over of the definitive report: 17/12/2021

This schedule is indicative and can be submitted for modifications.

5- Documents to be submitted

The consultants and/or research consultancy firms who wish to apply to this call for expression of interest, must transmit:

• A CV (maximum 3 pages)
• A cover letter (maximum 3 pages) indicating: experience in similar conditions, references regarding the execution of analogue contracts, dates when available to consult, other, etc.

A maximum of six candidates will be short-listed and invited to submit a complete proposal replying to the terms of reference which will be sent to them.