Request for proposals: Impact Evaluation of the Humanitarian Leadership Academy’s Learning Portfolio

1. Background

The IKEA Foundation and Save the Children have fostered a successful partnership to develop global humanitarian capacity over the last four years that has resulted in the development and implementation of a range of activities designed to span the Humanitarian Career Continuum, with the aim to provide humanitarians the opportunity to undergo career-long learning and professional development, helping to meet the critical level of capacity strengthening needed in the humanitarian system.

Our commitment to IKEA Foundation was to strengthen local, national, and regional capacities to prevent, manage and respond to crises. By working with individuals across the Humanitarian Career Continuum, the aim was to strengthen their own capability, their organisations and, in result, improving the quality of humanitarian action and ultimately to serve communities affected by crisis better.

Save the Children’s Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA) is a dedicated unit centred on enabling people to prepare for and respond to crisis acting quickly and effectively together to save lives. The work of the HLA is focused on strengthening the capacity of national and local humanitarian actors who are critical to the success of humanitarian action. The HLA is managing the portfolio of programmes funded by the IKEA Foundation.

2. Purpose of the consultancy services

The main purpose of this impact evaluation is to independently measure changes that can be attributed to the current portfolio supported primarily by funding from the IKEA Foundation. The purpose of this evaluation can be summarised in terms of accountability and learning; (i) to collate and analyse available data about the impacts of the portfolio of learning programmes on individual learners’ professional performance and prospects, and/or impact on work and organisational practice and, where possible, any attributable impact on affected communities. in line with the stated objectives, and (ii) to inform the strategic direction of the Humanitarian Leadership Academy, their donors, partners and stakeholders by identifying priority areas of interventions and drawing lessons from the past achievements and challenges to inform future capacity strengthening solutions. While there was limited funding available for integration of gender equality across this portfolio, the evaluation should nonetheless examine how well gender equality was integrated and propose suggestions for improvement in future learning solutions.

For the purposes of this evaluation, impact will be understood as 1) impact on individual professional performance and career prospects, and/or 2) impact on work and organisational practice improvements) and c) where possible, any attributable impact on affected communities All data must be disaggregated by: gender, age, and type of organisation (I.e. LNGO vs. INGO), ). The impact can be direct or indirect, intended or unintended, positive or negative, macro (within the sector) and micro (individual). The evaluation results will generate evidence of key achievements and challenges to inform decision making process for the Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA), Save the Children and donors including an evaluation of how the HLA programme delivery mechanism works best, under which circumstances, and how this can be improved in the future.

This impact evaluation will examine the HLA portfolio of programmes over the last 4 years. Findings and conclusions from this evaluation will be shared with our networks, partners and stakeholders.

3. Scope of work and methodology

The impact evaluation should review all aspects of the current HLA capacity strengthening portfolio which may include.

· Humanitarian Operations Programme (HOP)

· FIELD Programme

· Education in Emergencies Professional Development Programme

· Child Protection in Emergencies Professional Development Programme

· Transformation of Training Programme

· Public Health in Emergencies Professional Development Programme

· Leader as Coach Programme

· Across Organisational Mentoring Programme

Evaluation methodology will include:

· Desk review of project documents, project data, evaluation reports, case studies, proposal, donor, terminal and midterm reports, HLA strategy documents, internal policies, guides and training documents and any other relevant documents. The main purpose of this desk review is to build a good understanding of the available information on our portfolio programmes within the wider context of the humanitarian sector before conducting an in-depth study. More specifically, this review will aid in understanding the long-term trends in terms of programme implementation and outputs since its inception, design of the sampling frame, defining the original scope of the programmes, geographical coverage, and target populations; determining sampling methodology; and analysing the risks posed by various contextual realities.

· Data analysis disaggregated data collected by each individual project, support with tagging of data (for example themes, impact, location, characteristics) that includes analysing data to extract insights that support HLA decision-making.

· Key Informant Interviews with national and international staff participating in the programme, IKEA foundation, partners, subject matter experts and staff directly involved in the design and implementation of the programmes and other key stakeholders.

4. Proposed schedule and deliverables

An Inception report:

• Should contain intervention logic of the programme (based on desk study), an evaluation plan, and a list of reviewed documents.
• Should contain proposed data collection methods and data sources to be used for addressing each evaluation question/dimension. It highly recommended to use an evaluation matrix (which connects questions to data collection methods/sources)
• Timeframe: 7-8 working days from the start of the contract

A draft Evaluation Report:

At the end of the data collection and analysis, the assessment team will hold a workshop with the relevant HLA staff to discuss preliminary findings and conclusions of the assessment exercise. To be submitted to the Evaluation Steering Group. The Committee will review and provide comments to the evaluator in 7 days. Timeframe: Mid November (Date to be agreed).

Final Evaluation report:

The consultant will submit the final report, with the evaluator having addressed HLA’s comments as appropriate. The final report should systematically assess the programme’s impact, offering factual support, analysis of activities and related results observed, and synthesis if all information received for purposes of conclusions and recommendations. Timeframe: The final evaluation report will be submitted no later than 31 January 2022.

Presentation of findings:

PowerPoint of the final findings to be shared with key stakeholders and presented to the HLA team. Timeframe: January 2022.

5. Essential Criteria

The assessment should be led by an individual with competence in project/programme evaluation and adult education, and who has worked in humanitarian or development context. In particular, the main consultant should demonstrate the following:

Essential Skills:

• Must hold a postgraduate degree in education, research, or any other relevant field.
• Must have at least 7 years professional work experience in the areas of international development or/and humanitarian sector
• Extensive conceptual and methodological skills and experience in applying qualitative and quantitative research evaluation methods.
• Prior impact assessment experience is required, desirably for an international non-governmental organisation, or at national scale
• Experience in organisational management, structures and systems, operations, capacity strengthening, reporting, and monitoring is desired but not essential
• In country or regional similar work experience will be an added advantage
• Excellent communication skills necessary for building rapport with stakeholders, facilitating participation and effective presentation of result to diverse audience.

Desirable Skills:

• Understanding of/track record in learning interventions
• Language skills, particularly French
• Experience in working in a low or/and middle-income country desirable
• Demonstrable knowledge of gender equality integration into programming.