FWA for Research Consultancy:Real Time Nutrition and Mortality data collection to support BRCiS drought and post drought response in Somalia At Norwegian Refugee Council

Framework Agreement for Research Consultancy: Real Time Nutrition and Mortality data collection to support BRCiS drought and post drought response in Somalia

Tender reference no: 26/3/NRC/2023

Terms of Reference

Context and purpose of assignment

The Building Resilient Communities in Somalia (BRCiS) Consortium was established in October 2013 with the overall objective to improving the resilience of vulnerable communities and households. Cutting across the ‘Humanitarian – Development’ spectrum, the BRCiS programme balances its response to short-term humanitarian needs with the longer-term aim of building community and household capacities to deal with the shocks and stresses. This way, the project provides a continuum of humanitarian and rehabilitation/development assistance that seeks to improve the absorptive (short-term) and adaptive (medium- and long-term) capacities of communities and households.

Since early 2022, BRCiS has been scaling up its response to Somalia’s drought, witnessing increasing levels of distress migration as the drought and underlying levels of local environmental degradation negatively impact the resilience of households. Considering the scarcity of funds available in Somalia relative to the increasing scale of need and the inability of larger datasets from FSNAU and FEWSNET to provide rapid, community-specific information, BRCiS has adopted a increasing focus on collecting and analysing local-level demographic, health, nutrition and mortality data to support real-time resource allocations and decision-making in areas of displacement. This dataset should be integrated and complement the BRCiS’ Early Warning, Early Action (EWEA) system (which is primarily in rural communities where BRCiS has worked for several years) to provide a holistic picture of rural crisis dynamics and severity of needs in areas of displacement which are primarily urban. Overall BRCiS seeks to monitor the impact of the drought and the effectiveness of the overall response effort. BRCiS is now seeking additional support from a consultant or firm for a framework agreement to lead the real time nutrition and mortality data collection and analysis to build on and extend it’s the current monitoring system that has been set up to monitor the trajectory of the drought in key IDP camps.

Objectives

The primary objectives of this real-time data collection are to inform BRCiS ongoing operational response to drought affected communities, to improve and inform operational decision making and provide learning for the wider humanitarian community.

To achieve this BRCiS member agencies will collect regular, monthly, data from populations in sentinel sites that are considered to be particularly vulnerable to the impact of the drought, including both IDP and non-IDP areas.

The main objective of the assignment is to provide technical assistance to the Consortium’s Program and M&E Team with the design, study implementation, analysis, and dissemination of this monitoring data. The Consultants should also ensure that this data is embedded into the BRCiS EWEA system to give more information on nutrition, health and WASH information at a granular level.

Supervision

The supervisor of the consultant/s will be the BRCiS Emergency Response Manager. More generally, the selected candidate/s will work in close collaboration with the Consortium’s M&E Team and with relevant Project Management Groups, particularly the Consortium’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEAL) Team and Health and the Nutrition Working Stream

Externally the consultant will disseminate findings to relevant stakeholder like-Donors, National and State level Cluster meetings, UNICEF, WHO, FAO, MoH, SODMA, ICCG, HCT

Major activities and tasks to be accomplished

To build on the current BRCiS health, nutrition, and mortality surveillance system to provide, collated, and quality-assured information on the status of vulnerable populations, including newly displaced populations migrating to the major urban IDP settlement sites (Mogadishu, Baidoa, and Kismayo, Dollow) or communities living in other, particularly vulnerable, hard to reach areas, such as Dinsoor. This will help provide near real-time data on the evolution of the emerging drought and health crisis.

Key indicators will include:

• Camp and household population by age and sex
• Number of new arrivals and departures
• Region of origin and ethnic group of those arriving and departing
• Prevalence and incidence of acute malnutrition by MUAC
• Under-5 death rate (U5DR)
• Crude death rate (CDR)
• Causes of death by Verification
• Measles vaccination coverage
• Incidence rate for suspected measles infection
• Incidence rate for suspected AWD/cholera

Train BRCiS Staff on how to integrate critical health and nutrition data from key sentinel sites into the Real Time monitoring system to increase its utility and effectiveness in identifying hotspots in the long-term.

Build capacities of CMU and Field teams on quality longitudinal data collection.

The consultants/research firm will establish and maintain monthly digital data gathering in each selected area and utilise information from the NMS to inform the humanitarian response to the crisis. They will help disseminate results to interested stakeholders including, but not limited to, the Health Cluster and Nutrition Cluster, Ministries of Health, donors (FCDO, ECHO, etc.) and other stakeholders

Estimated duration of contract

This is advertised as a framework agreement, where the consultants will be engaged long-term on a needs-based approach.

Official travel involved: This will be catered for by BRCiS, however the workplan should have indicative travel plans

APPLICATION PROCEDURES AND REQUIREMENTS

The consultant/consulting firm interested are expected to provide following documentation:

1. A cover letter introducing the consultant. In the case of a firm, the cover letter should introduce the team composition and specifying the role to be played by each team member.
2. A technical proposal of not more than 10 pages outlining how to execute the task with a clear framework and methodology. Proposed methodology should demonstrate a clear understanding of the ToR (proposed methods and tools)- for indicative purposes, share a one-year plan with a minimum of 6 data collection cycles.
3. Company profile and resume of the consultant, or each team member from the firms
4. Proven track record of developing similar reports and dashboards from INGOs and UN.
5. Track record of similar assignment with evidence.
6. Proposed budget indicating consultancy fee per day in USD.
7. Reference letters and the contact of at least three referees (email and telephone).
8. Proof of registration from the country of origin as a limited liability company or as a sole trader/self-employed.

Qualifications or specialized knowledge and/or experience required

Essential:

• PhD or MSc in Public Health, Nutrition, Health Economics, or a related field
• 15 years of experience in research in humanitarian context
• Previous experience in H&N in the context of Somalia is a must
• Extensive experience in health and nutrition information systems
• Excellent writing skills demonstrated through peer-reviewed publications