Final evaluation « Supporting Community Resilience and Non-Violent Conflict Management in Conflict and Flood Affected Areas of Upper Nile, South Sudan At Solidarités International

CONSULTANCY- Final evaluation « Supporting Community Resilience and Non-Violent Conflict Management in Conflict and Flood Affected Areas of Upper Nile States, South Sudan CSO/2022/433-375 – Malakal

Date : 14-Jun-2024

Deadline date for reply : 25-Jun-2024

Start Date: 5-Jul-2024

End Date: 5-Aug-2024

Location: Malakal, South Sudan

Reference of the CFT/Consultancy : CT/EU 2688/01/2024

ABOUT SOLIDARITES INTERNATIONAL

SOLIDARITES INTERNATIONAL (SI) is a French NGO, independent of any political, economic, ethnic or religious group. For more than 40 years, it has been providing humanitarian aid to populations affected by armed conflicts and natural disasters by meeting their vital needs (water, food, shelter) and strengthening their resilience. Particularly committed to the fight against water-borne diseases, the leading cause of death in the world, SI provides expertise in the areas of access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene promotion, as well as in the essential area of food, livelihood security and shelter. SI’s teams are present in more than 23 countries – a total of 2,400 people, including expatriates, national staff, permanent headquarters staff, and some volunteers.

Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) is a global civilian protection agency that utilizes the methodology of Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP), an innovative, evidence-based approach with a demonstrated track record of reducing violence against civilians across the world. UCP is based on relationship building, acceptance and trust by the community that utilizes a mix of strategies to prevent violence, enhance the safety and security of civilians, build and strengthen local peace infrastructures, and create an enabling environment for communities to devise and implement locally led peace and protection strategies. UCP provides a framework for NP to work uniquely on the spectrum of protection and peacebuilding, especially with the most vulnerable such as women, youth and children. NP’s activities include direct protection activities such a protective presence and patrolling, inter-communal peace dialogues, early warning and early response, rumor control, strengthening of local conflict mitigation capacities, and community security meetings, focusing on hard-to- reach hot spot areas where there is inadequate humanitarian presence or significant need for protection programming, including areas of return and where displacement occurs because of violence.

ABOUT THE MISSION

Since 2006, SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL provides an immediate, integrated, multi-sector and front-line response to the acute needs of the most vulnerable populations affected by severe crises in South Sudan. This is done while restoring access to basic services to increase resilience through medium-term projects.

In partnership with other humanitarian actors such as Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP), SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL implements emergency response activities in different areas of the country. Key WASH activities include water trucking, Surface Water Treatment (SWAT) systems operation, borehole rehabilitation, latrine construction, mobile sanitation, distribution of kits. To fight the severe food security crisis the country is facing, Food Security & Livelihoods activities are implemented to reinforce food production (fishing kits, vegetable gardening) and ensure access to markets. To respond to the Sudan crisis, shelter activities are implemented for people on the move. These activities are delivered through both cash and in-kind modalities. These activities are developed through the main office of SI in Juba and the 2 offices based in Unity state (Bentiu) and Upper Nile (Malakal with sub-bases in Kodok and Renk).

Under its double nexus strategy, SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL, together with NP, implements a multisectoral project with WASH and FSL activities for IDPs and host communities looking at reducing tension around access to natural resources. This entails to implement WASH and FSL activities with a conflict sensitivity lens and to include communities and Local NGOs in the development of plans to ensure this outcome. This is the project targeted by this evaluation

NP has had extensive experience and presence across South Sudan since 2010. Currently, NP’s program in South Sudan is comprised of 11 static field teams in six states and one administrative area: Upper Nile, Jonglei, Greater Pibor Administrative Area, Central Equatoria, Western Equatoria, Unity and Warrap. NP also operates a mobile response team in Upper Nile and Unity States in response to the April 2023 Sudan crisis. These complement NP’s broader protection programming with mobile response teams that cover areas where there is either a lack of static protection partners or that require immediate protection response.

NP’s programming in South Sudan includes peacebuilding, social cohesion, protection, gender-based violence prevention and response, child protection, youth engagement, and reconciliation with a particular emphasis on the prevention of violence. NP works closely with different partners through protection mainstreaming and other interventions to ensure the centrality of protection so that material aid and services are safely provided to communities. NP utilizes its constant and in-depth community engagement to support effective and coordinated multi-sectoral response that is relevant, holistic, conflict sensitive, and ensures the centrality of protection. NP has continued to maintain a deep field presence and serves as a co-lead for the Protection Cluster in several parts of the country, serving as an important partner with reliable information on the local context which helps partners improve program implementation and demonstrates NP’s ability to coordinate response in a variety of context.

PURPOSE OF THE CONSULTATION – ABOUT THE MARKET

The purpose of this final evaluation is to indicate to key stakeholders: the donors, implementing partners, local authorities, as well as humanitarian sector in general regarding the extent to which the project has achieved its aims and objectives. It will further determine the relevance and fulfilment of objectives, developmental efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability. The knowledge generated by the evaluation will subsequently feeds in the design of relevant future intervention and contribute to documenting management and delivery approaches.

In general, this final evaluation serves the following main purposes:

1. To analyse the performance of the project in relation to the objectives set, the delivery of results; strategies and implementation modalities chosen; partnership arrangements, constraints, and opportunities; and
2. To provide recommendations for follow-up on what worked, what did not and how performance could be improved and notably on how the 2 partners worked together. Those recommendations should be taken into account by key stakeholders in terms of strategies, institutional arrangements, and specifically on mainstreaming the learning into country level operations and any other area

TIMETABLE FOR THE CONSULTATION

30 days

REQUIRED PROFILE

This evaluation could be a conducted by a consultant or by a team of consultants.

The required qualifications and experience are:

• University Degree in International Relations, Social Sciences, Humanitarian Studies, Development Studies; Information Management, or a related field
• At least 5-7 years professional experience working on evaluation in the humanitarian sector or for development projects.
• Knowledge of peacebuilding and protection (preferably), WASH & Livelihood Projects/programming with relevant experience for multi-sectorial and integrated approaches
• Previous evaluation/research experience in the region more specifically in South Sudan is preferred.
• Experience in using participatory methodologies and developing equality and gender-sensitive evaluation methodologies.
• Strong data collection tools development capacity and capacity in conducting Focus Group Discussion
• Experience providing result-oriented conclusions and recommendations to local, national and international stakeholders.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English (particularly report writing)
• Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

APPLICATION

Each proposal must include the following documents:

• A – A cover letter – one-page maximum
• B – A technical bid including but not limited to:
  • Understanding of the study issues and the ToR.
  • The Methodology: This section should include the methodological framework, references to the data collection methods, and the sampling approach.
  • A timeline showing the details for the completion of each evaluation phase. (Refer to 6: Evaluation Schedule)
  • Approach to data collection, cleaning, analysis, iterations.
  • Composition of the evaluation team, their CVs, and roles/responsibilities during the evaluation
• C – Profile/CV of the consultant(s), including but not limited to:
  • Training and qualifications
  • Professional experience (specific skills or relevant contexts of intervention)
  • Experience in evaluation or research in similar contexts: A complete list of all evaluations conducted with the details of donors, type of evaluation, the theme of the projects (WASH, FSL, etc), and region is a must.
  • Knowledge of the country/area of intervention
  • Languages

Solidarités International will consider both individual and team applications.

• D – One example of an evaluation report in English for a similar work (max 20 pages)
• E – Two References: Provide references for the last two Evaluations conducted (Name, position, organization, email, and phone number). Proposals that do not include at least two references for consulting or research work will not be considered.
• F – The financial proposal should outline:

1. Total Cost (all costs should be in EUR)
2. Cost per day of each contributor.
3. Additional costs (additional services and documents);
4. Transport costs (international and local), logistics costs;
5. Proposed schedule of payments:
6. Agreement of payment by cheque or transfer.

The evaluation criteria for the proposal are:

• Price / Financial proposal: 40%.
• Quality of the methodology / Technical proposal: 30%.
• Skills/references: 30%.