Consultant – Baseline Assessment for the COMPASS initiative

Position Title : Consultant – Baseline Assessment for the COMPASS initiative

Duty Station : Home based

Classification : Consultant, Grade Other

Type of Appointment : Consultant, three months

Estimated Start Date : As soon as possible

Closing Date : 21 September 2021

Established in 1951, IOM is a Related Organization of the United Nations, and as the leading UN agency in the field of migration, works closely with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental partners. IOM is dedicated to promoting humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all. It does so by providing services and advice to governments and migrants.

Context:

The Migrant Protection and Assistance Division (MPA) provides protection and assistance to migrants in need, including trafficked persons, smuggled migrants with protection needs, (rejected) asylum seekers, migrants in irregular situations, stranded migrants, unaccompanied and separated migrant children, and migrants subjected to violence, exploitation, or abuse. The Division oversees development of policy and technical guidance in these areas, provides programmatic support to IOM missions, and implements protection and assistance programmes of global relevance.

Beginning in 2021, MPA HQ will lead implementation of the Cooperation on Migration and Partnerships to Achieve Sustainable Solutions (COMPASS) programme. The COMPASS programme, funded by the Government of the Netherlands, will be implemented in 14 countries, and will address migrant protection, countering trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants, awareness raising on the risks of irregular migration, rights and legal alternatives, and voluntary return and reintegration.

Under the overall supervision of the COMPASS Senior Programme Manager and direct supervision of the COMPASS Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Officer; and, in coordination and collaboration with relevant units at Headquarters and relevant country level programme teams, the successful candidate will be responsible and accountable for the planning and delivering the COMPASS programme baseline assessment including the study protocol and tools and produce a comprehensive report that provide the baseline description of all relevant programme indicators.

The baseline survey will cover 14 countries where COMPASS is implemented namely Afghanistan, Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan and Tunisia and where applicable, IOM HQ in Geneva, Regional Offices in Dakar and Cairo, and IOM the Netherlands. In line with the finding from the programme evaluability assessment and programme scope in each of the countries, only priority indicators whose baseline values/status are still missing will be included in the baseline assessment. The baseline will be undertaken on critical and important indicators at three levels as follows:

Individual and community level: at the individual and community levels, the baseline will be undertaken among downstream stakeholders including direct and indirect beneficiaries as well as well as community level stakeholders to determine the departure situation on the following domains the programme intends to influence:

• Satisfaction with services

• Quality or usefulness of services

• Sense of belonging by Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) beneficiaries in countries of origin

• Usefulness/adequacy of information provided through programme awareness raising or outreach interventions

• Levels of stakeholder participation

• Level of knowledge among COMPASS stakeholders in critical areas of migrant protection, counter trafficking and other conditions relevant to vulnerable migrants

• Level of well-being of beneficiaries

• Level of self-sufficiency capabilities among primary beneficiaries and their families.

At national/regional level: the baseline assessment will be undertaken among upstream stakeholders including government officials and will include policy review to determine the extent to which national policy instruments create an enabling policy environment to facilitate the protection of vulnerable migrants throughout all phases of migration – including protection of those on the move; facilitating integration of those in host countries and facilitating sustainable reintegration of those returning home. Key domain of change the baseline will seek to determine the baseline conditions for include:

• Gaps in policies, strategies, plans and laws relevant to migrant protection, counter-trafficking as well as reintegration of returning migrants.

• Quality of partnership and coordination among relevant stakeholders. In order words, quality and adequacy of mechanisms for facilitating stakeholder participation, engagement and information, lessons and good practices sharing at the different levels.

• Levels of accessibility of policy relevant end-user information to support timely evidence-informed policymakers’ decisions.

• Capacities of government and development partners to address migration challenges

Overall, the assessment will apply a combination of centralized and decentralized approach. The coordination at all levels will ensure a harmonized approach while also allowing countries flexibilities to collect information relevant to their needs. The baseline process must uphold the IOM Data Protection Principles, UNEG norms and standards for evaluation, and relevant ethical guidelines.

Baseline assessment methodology

Given the diverse nature and complexity of programme indicators, the baseline is expected to use mixed methods which will include surveys, key informant interviews, systematic analysis of IOM secondary data primarily extracted from the IOM’s Migrant Management operational System Application (MiMOSA) and relevant accessible government and IOM strategic documents; Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) where appropriate. Specifically, the following data collection techniques are proposed but may be revised by the consultant in close consultation with IOM Country Office M&E Focal Points, HQ management and technical team during the inception process:

• Review of relevant project documents, national strategies, policies, laws, protocols and action plans

• Analysis of secondary data particularly extracted from MiMOSA to respond to the baseline data needs on selected indicators

• Individual surveys among programme beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries

• (Online) Focus group discussions with potential programme participants and staff, as appropriate

• Key Informant Interviews with relevant COMPASS programme upstream stakeholders (including the donor, relevant government officials and national partner organizations) and downstream stakeholders including IOM staff at HQ, Regional and country level as appropriate as well as community-level implementing partners and stakeholders such as grantee CBOs, service provider organizations etc.

• Collate and analyse key findings and determine the missing values for all indicators

While the baseline assessment process will be coordinated by COMPASS management and County Office teams, participation of key local stakeholders at country level will be key to ensure ownership and motivation to work together to improve baseline conditions.

Sampling

Different sampling methods are envisaged depending on the nature and scope of the indicator and depending on the availability of resources – not just budget but time:

1. For indicators requiring baseline survey (i.e Knowledge, Attitude and Practices), baseline survey participants are expected to be selected using a probability sampling from selected implementation sites identified in close consultation with participating country (this may be in the host country or in the country of origin depending on whether we are dealing with AVRR or humanitarian assistance in transit or host countries. The sampling should be done in such a way that ensures adequate representation of relevant populations of interest and must apply a gender perspective to ensure equitable gender representation both in design, data collection, implementation, and analysis.
2. For key informant interview and FGDs, a snowball and purposeful and link tracing will be used to ensure relevant stakeholders who have the much-needed baseline information on key qualitative indicators are able to participate.
3. For desk review, a rubric methodology is expected to be used. The aim is to ensure that rating used to determine, for example, the extent to which policies, guidelines and strategies create an enabling environment for migrant protection, integration and reintegration is clearly explained.
4. For indicators on training, baseline data will be collected as part of pre-training assessment which will provide the baseline scores/values before the interventions. Therefore, the consultant will be expected to review existing institutional tools to measure capacity building to ensure they are adequate for the purpose, preferably in line with the Kirk Patrick Model of evaluating training interventions.

The above are only suggested methods; the consultant is expected to work with programme management and M&E to develop/refine them further in line with information needs. The methodology used for baseline will be used for subsequent repeated measurement that seeks to determine how far has the programme gone in the efforts to contribute to the realization of its key outcomes and, ultimately, the overall project ‘overarching goals. The tools used for collecting baseline data should be designed in such a way that allow disaggregation to reveal the differences in baseline conditions especially for marginalized and disadvantaged groups such as women, the youth, the elderly and those living with disability.

Data analysis

The overall purpose of data analysis will be to determine baseline values (in form of percentage, numbers, rating) depending on the nature and structure of each critical/important indicator included. Different statistical and qualitative software should be used to analyse data (e.g. STATA or SPSS and/or Dedoose).

Reporting

The baseline assessment process will culminate in programme-wide baseline report with specific short chapters on each of participating countries. It should include, for each country, a table that provides the details of the baseline findings synthesized in form of scores and rating depending on the nature of each indicator. The report is expected to include the following sections:

• Title pages

• Acronyms

• Executive summary

• Table of content

• Background and context

• Domain of change or dimension measured and measurement criteria

• Methodology

• Analysis of the findings that includes a table of all relevant indicators analysed with their baseline scores/ratings, overall and for each participating country

• Conclusions

Dissemination and Use

The main findings will be shared with relevant stakeholders at global, regional, national, and local levels. Depending on availability of resources, the baseline findings will be disseminated using different communication strategies and should be tailored to the audience. The objective of disseminating/presenting the baseline report to stakeholders is threefold: i) validate the findings; ii) reinforce transparency and iii) foster agreement on priority intervention areas and ownership from the outset. More importantly, the baseline is expected to form basis of the design of the programme from year two onwards.

Core Functions / Responsibilities:

This baseline assessment will be led by a consultant with track record in undertaking similar studies working in coordination with COMPASS programme management and M&E at HQ, Regional and Country-level.

The consultant will be responsible for coordinating the assessment process in close consultation with HQ and Country-level COMPASS programme M&E and is expected to undertake the following specific activities:

1. Review key project documents to understand programme context, intent, design, desired short, medium- and long-term goal.
2. Design appropriate overall baseline study protocol that clearly articulate the overall approach to the assignment and methodology and timelines for key activities. The protocol should also include data collection instruments
3. If and where needed, remotely train field workers (interviewer and supervisors) on data collection tools and procedures to ensure standardized methodology and same level of understanding.
4. Manage and oversee the data collection, processing and cleaning.
5. Field test the data collection instruments before use.
6. Prepare data for analysis: coding, encoding, etc. to ensure data is disaggregated accordingly in line with key indicator features.
7. Analyse and synthesize data using appropriate statistical and qualitative analysis software package (SPSS, STATA, Dedoose) to determine baseline value/rating for every indicator as per program result framework.
8. Produce the draft study report according to appropriate structure indicated above.
9. Incorporate feedback/comments from project management team and prepare final report.
10. The final report must include an indicator matrix that reflect all relevant indicator baseline scores/rating as well as all data collection instruments as such will be used for repeated measurement when measuring programme achievement either at mid-term or towards the end of the programme or during impact assessment.

Tangible and Measurable Outputs of the Work Assignment

The assignment is expected to be completed within 3 months from the commencement date. It is provisionally scheduled to take place between from 24 September to December 20, 2021. Specific deliverables:

• Inception report: The inception report should include a detailed description of the approach to the assignment and must comprise the methodology, the baseline indicator matrix and sample instruments as well as timelines of key activities. The Baseline Indicator Matrix will

demonstrate the consultant’s understanding of the ToR and indicators and outline data collection and analysis plans.

• Study Protocol, to include all the data collection tools that will be used, the data collection schedule, and all areas that the consultant requires support.

• PowerPoint Presentation, summarizing the key findings in a systematic way, to be presented as preliminary findings to the programme steering committee, and solicit their feedback.

• Draft Baseline Assessment Report that follows the report structure provided above summarizing all the findings from the primary and secondary data.

• Final Baseline Assessment Report will be produced, incorporating feedback from the stakeholder workshop and comments from programme key stakeholders including the donor. The final report should include the following as annex:

• An indicator matrix with baseline scores/rating

• Final baseline study protocol with field-tested tools

• Electronic copies of raw qualitative and quantitative data files

• Data analysis audit trails as applicable

All deliverables are to be written in English and meet good language standards. The final report should meet the standards laid out in the UNEG Quality Checklist for Evaluation Reports and comply with IOM internal guidelines.

Realistic Delivery Dates and Details as to how the work must be delivered

• Inception Meeting – ½ day

• Compile and share relevant documentation – 3 days

• Review documents and prepare a detailed inception report, including the baseline assessment matrix and the data collection tools – 7 days

• Prepare a Baseline Assessment Protocol – 5 days

• Planning and facilitation of the data collection activities, logistical arrangements and schedule –

5 days

• Remote data collection – 17 days

• Draft Baseline Assessment Report and PPT – 7 days

• Review and comments on the draft report – 4 days

• Stakeholders Meeting – ½ day

• Final report and two-page brief – 3 days

Total: 52 days

Performance indicators for evaluation of results

• Deliverables carried out according to timelines outlined above.

• Final deliverables reflect inputs of all parties consulted.

• Satisfactory completion of tasks indicated in these ToR-s.

• Quality of the elaborated analysis.

• Adequate and prompt provision of the technical inputs.

• Timely delivery of drafts and deliverables as indicated these ToR-s.

• Periodic and regular updates on the progress of the Assessment provided to IOM.

• Level of adherence to the objectives.

• Compliance with the IOM Data Protection Principles; IOM Guidelines on Research Report

Writing; IOM House Style Manual; and IOM Spelling List.

• Delivery of any other tasks indicated above.

Required Qualifications and Experience:

Education

• A minimum of Master’s degree in evaluation, social research methods, development studies or

related disciplines.

Experience

• More than 7 years’ experience working in the field of research, M&E and conducting large scale multi-country evaluative studies including baseline assessment.

• Good and balanced understanding of qualitative, quantitative and mix methods.

• Proven technical skills (quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis using analytical software such as NVivo, Dedoose, STATA/SPSS).

• Experience working on migration policy, cooperation and partnerships issues in participating countries would be an added advantage.

• Ability to observe ethical standards as per UNEG guidelines throughout the process.

• Proven experience dealing with migration challenges including counter-trafficking, protection of vulnerable migrants, return and reintegration.

Languages

IOM’s official languages are English, French, and Spanish.

For this position, for this position, fluency in English is required (oral and written). Working knowledge of French and/or Arabic is an advantage.

Proficiency of language(s) required will be specifically evaluated during the selection process, which may include written and/or oral assessments.

Notes

All applicants should upload the following in their applications: Technical Proposal

• Letter of Interest from the interested consultant that explains why s/he is suitable for the assignment.

• A technical proposal that clearly outlines the approach to the assignment as well as the methodology in response to the ToR;

• Recent Personal CV highlighting qualifications and experience in similar projects.

• Work references – contact details (e-mail addresses) of referees (organizations for which similar assignments were produced)

• 2 most recent sample reports of any previous baseline/evaluations done for other clients.

Financial proposal

The submission from interested candidates should also include a detailed itemized budget indicating the consultancy fees and breakdown of expenses (including unit cost for each of the relevant budget item) aligned to the technical proposal.

The consultant must adhere to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Data

Protection Principles (IN/138) and maintain confidentiality.

The consultant will be responsible to follow IOM writing guidelines and latest glossaries in all given assignments for accurate translation.

1 Accredited Universities are the ones listed in the UNESCO World Higher Education Database

(https://whed.net/home.php).

Required Competencies:

Values – all IOM staff members must abide by and demonstrate these three values:

• Inclusion and respect for diversity: respects and promotes individual and cultural differences; encourages diversity and inclusion wherever possible.

• Integrity and transparency: maintains high ethical standards and acts in a manner consistent with organizational principles/rules and standards of conduct.

• Professionalism: demonstrates ability to work in a composed, competent and committed manner and exercises careful judgment in meeting day-to-day challenges.

Core Competencies – behavioural indicators

• Teamwork: develops and promotes effective collaboration within and across units to achieve shared goals and optimize results.

• Delivering results: produces and delivers quality results in a service-oriented and timely manner; is action oriented and committed to achieving agreed outcomes.

• Managing and sharing knowledge: continuously seeks to learn, share knowledge and innovate.

• Accountability: takes ownership for achieving the Organization’s priorities and assumes responsibility for own action and delegated work.

• Communication: encourages and contributes to clear and open communication; explains complex matters in an informative, inspiring and motivational way.

IOM’s competency framework can be found at this link. https://www.iom.int/sites/default/files/about-iom/iom_revised_competency_framework_external.p

df

Competencies will be assessed during a competency-based interview.

Other:

• Internationally recruited professional staff are required to be mobile.

• The appointment is subject to funding confirmation.

• Appointment will be subject to certification that the candidate is medically fit for appointment, accreditation, any residency or visa requirements and security clearances.

• Vacancies close at 23:59 local time Geneva, Switzerland on the respective closing date. No late applications will be accepted.