Terms of Reference for End-Line Study
on
Scaling up Inclusive Resilience amongst Water Logged Communities in South Western Bangladesh (HIP) Project
1. Introduction to the implementing organizations:
National Alliance for Risk Reduction and Response Initiative (NARRI) is a consortium of INGOs working on Disaster Risk Reduction and Response in Bangladesh. It comprises ten INGOs namely ActionAid International, Care International, Concern Universal, Concern Worldwide, Islamic Relief Worldwide, Oxfam, Plan International, Solidarities’ International, Help Age International and Handicap International.
NARRI Consortium members have been working in Bangladesh for over 40 years. For this action, NARRI will be represented by three implementing partners: Islamic Relief Worldwide, Concern Worldwide, CARE International UK and one technical partner Handicap International. Since 2010, NARRI has implemented over €50 million worth of humanitarian and risk reduction related programming in Bangladesh including over €20 million for responding to waterlogging in south west of Bangladesh.
Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) has been working in Bangladesh since 1991 across disaster management and early recovery, climate change resilience and long term food security and livelihood programmes. IRW works in an integrated and inclusive manner directly at the household, community, sub-district, district and national levels targeting the most disaster affected and poverty-prone communities of Bangladesh. IRW has been implementing DIPECHO funded and related resilience projects consistently in Bangladesh since DIPECHO IV in 2006. IRW has been active in supporting waterlogged communities through humanitarian assistance, rehabilitation, early recovery and resilience programming since Cyclone Aila in 2009 to present.
CARE has been working in Bangladesh since 1949 and currently implementing numbers of projects to improve food and livelihood security, promote gender equality and women’s empowerment and improve child health and nutrition to reduce child mortality. CARE Bangladesh’s portfolio has included agriculture and natural resources, climate change adaptation, reduction of violence against women and civil society strengthening. CARE embeds resilience intervention across all programs to capacitate vulnerable population to absorb and adapt to increased shocks, address underlying causes of vulnerability and transform their lives in response to new hazard.
Concern Worldwide (CWW) has been working in Bangladesh since 1971 on response operations. CWW has engaged with all major emergencies in Bangladesh including cyclone SIDR, AILA, flash flood and water logging projects and reached more than 50,000 HHs with Shelter, livelihood support, WASH and DRR. Disaster preparedness and resilience building in the char hoar and coastal areas has been one of the focuses for many years. These projects on disaster preparedness have been implemented mainly with ECHO supported through DIPECHO interventions.
Handicap International (HI) has been operating in Bangladesh addressing poverty and exclusion, and disaster management since 1997. HI has strong experience in mainstreaming disability in the actions of both in the fields of DRR and livelihood; as well as direct implementation of inclusive DRR and livelihood. Handicap International has been engaged in promoting inclusion of at risk group in Bangladesh since 2006, through DIPECHO projects.
2. General background and understanding the concept:
Water logging is a global phenomenon, but the way of its prevention and mitigations to date have received little attention. Building a disaster resilient Bangladesh’ initiative is now moving towards. With aiming to enhance inclusive resilience of the most waterlogged affected communities in South Western Bangladesh by scaling-up and institutionalizing inclusive community, school and livelihood resilience amongst water logged communities and government service providers NARRI has been implementing a project named “Scaling up Inclusive Resilience amongst Water Logged Communities in South Western Bangladesh” in the two districts of Bangladesh named Jessore&Sathkira.
The action of the project is to strengthen and expand institutionalization of Disaster Management Committees (DMCs) by enforcing implementation of Disaster Management Act (DM Act) and Standing Orders on Disaster (SoD). Standardized approach emphasizes consolidation, and replication of the community led inclusive processes as per the CBDP institutionalization model, School Based Disaster Preparedness (SBDP) approach, resilient livelihood practices and advocating for policy implementation and accountability.
The End-line Study has been planned to measure the programme’s achievement against expected results and outcomes aligning with set indicators at results and outcome levels. The Study should also highlight the effectiveness and efficiency of implementation strategies including problems and challenges were faced during implementation of defined activities. These might be clubbed with strategies those were adopted to overcome problems and address the challenges.
The Evaluation Study also will identify important lessons learnt across the project period and suggest how those lessons can be used in designing the similar kind of the project. Finally it is expected from the study with some concrete suggestions and recommendations. The study also will focus the Consortium approach of supporting member organisations in effective and efficient implementation of the programme activities.
3. About the project
Principle objective:
To enhance inclusive resilience of the most waterlogged affected communities in South Western Bangladesh.
Specific objective:
To scale-up and institutionalise inclusive community, school and livelihood resilience amongst water logged communities and government service providers in the districts of Jessore&Sathkira.
Expected results:
Result-1:
CBDP model scaled up across water logged communities, unions and upazillas to support inclusive risk-informed planning and budgeting
Result-2:
School Safety Plans (SSPs) in line with SBDP model are promoted amongst education stakeholders at district and sub-district levels.
Result-3:
Resilient livelihood approach promoted and institutionalized amongst relevant union, sub-district and district service providers to support enhanced food security.
Result-4:
Policy makers and key stakeholders are more responsive to needs and demands of water-logged communities.
Result-5:
Rapid humanitarian assistance mobilized and delivered when needed by NARRI.
Project location:
For this action, NARRI will be represented by three implementing partners: Islamic Relief Worldwide, Concern Worldwide, CARE International UK and one technical partner Handicap International. NARRI members along with Uttaran, a local implementing of IRB in Ashashuni Upazila; and Shushilon, implementing partner of Concern Worldwide in Tala and Keshobpur upazila have been implementing the project in 75 Unions and 4 Municipalities under 6Upazilas (Monirumpur&Keshobpur of Jessore district and Tala &Sadarof Satkhira district).
Detail of the working areas are attached as Annex with Partners and Contact persons.
4. Objectives of the End Line Study
The End Line Study is to assess the HIP project’s performance identifying the achievements against set indicators for the results and outcomes as set in the Log frame. The Study needs to identify good practices, lessons learned, problems and challenges faced during implementation and how those were overcome and addressed. The specific objectives are:
· To provide updated status of the log frame indicators (all for Specific Objective Indicators and Result Indicators)
· To identify the achieved results aligning with the set indicators and how those were achieved;
· To assess level of changes of water logging community through initiatives of policy maker and key stokeholds
· To identify at what extent the project addressed the issues related with inclusion;
· To undertaken stick of institutionalising process into different government departments and agencies and its sustainability.
· To understand and define the values added by the consortium approach and how the NARRI Consortium Secretariat contributed to the project implementation process, networking, policy influencing and donor communication;
· To suggest and/or recommend for future strategic directions following lessons learnt, promising practices and impacts of the programme.
5. The End Line Study
The Evaluation Study will focus on the following project elements:
r Project Management and Administration
· Collect, document and assess relevant elements and processes including:
o Project related administrative procedures
o Key decisions and outputs
o Major project implementation documents prepared with an indication of how the documents and reports have been useful
o What coordination mechanism took place at local and national level (within the partners and outside stakeholders e.g. other NGOs, government agencies etc.)
r Project Substantive and Technical Implementation
The Study will assess to what extent the project has achieved its defined results. It will also identify what outputs have been produced and how they have enabled the project to achieve its objectives.This section will focus on following priority project delivery areas:
· Progress of the project as a whole in achieving anticipated results and outcomes:
· Efficiency of project activities- This will be covered through several parameters like relevance, impact, sustainability, timeliness of implementation etc.
· Achievement of immediate results (level of indicator achievements when available – with reference to the project’s Logical Framework for indicators)
· Quality of project activities and outcomes.
r Project Implementation
Project oversight:
· PNGO administration, strength and weakness;
· INGOs’ support to PNGO and implementation process;
Monitoring and evaluation:
· Has there been a monitoring and evaluation plan for the project, was it efficient?
· Was the reporting framework effective/appropriate?
· Is this framework suitable for replication/continuation for any future project support?
Risk Management:
· Identify problems/constraints which have impacted or might have any impact on the successful delivery of the project;
· Are they (problems and constraint) likely to repeat or occur in next phase?
Project Finances:
· Review the changes to fund allocations as a result of budget revisions and provide an opinion on the appropriateness and relevance of such revisions, taking into account the project activity timeframe
· Review the effectiveness of financial coordinating mechanisms
Human Resource Development:
· Development of capacity of the team members
· Development of National Level Capacities (government officials, civil society etc.)
Working in a Consortium:
· How the consortium approach contribute better & efficient implementation, coordination and networking;
· What is the current capacity of Consortium Secretariat (HR, Logistics etc.)
· What challenges faced by the approach and how the Consortium addressed those;
· What are the new values added through the approach.
Knowledge Management and Visibility:
· Utility and efficiency of the website (www.narri-bd.org)
· Sharing the information through other related websites
It is to be mentioned that, the consortium has already conducted a baseline study which can be used as starting reference for the proposed end line study.
6. Framework of Assessing the Project Activities
The End-line study will be undertaken following the Logical Framework of the project; i.e. the Logical Framework will be the key document of End-line Study. The project already developed a data plan and the End-line Team is suggested to review the data plan to identify the required data for the study. However, it would be highly appreciated if the study carried out following the criteria below in assessing the activities/strategies of the project:
r Relevance
The extent of the activities suited to the priorities and policies of the target group, recipient and donor. In evaluating the relevance of project activities and strategies, it is useful to consider the following questions:
· To what extent are the objectives of the programme still valid?
· Are the activities and outputs of the programme consistent with the overall goal and the attainment of its objectives?
· Are the activities and outputs of the programme consistent with the intended impacts and effects?
r Effectiveness
A measure of the extent to which activities attains its objectives.In evaluating the effectiveness of the project, it is useful to consider the following questions:
· To what extent were the objectives achieved / are likely to be achieved?
· What were the major factors influencing the achievement or non-achievement of the objectives?
r Efficiency
Efficiency measures the outputs -- qualitative and quantitative -- in relation to the inputs. It is an economic term which signifies that the aid uses the least costly resources possible in order to achieve the desired results. This generally requires comparing alternative approaches to achieving the same outputs, to see whether the most efficient process has been adopted. When evaluating the efficiency of the project, it is useful to consider the following questions:
· Were activities cost-efficient?
· Were objectives achieved on time?
· Was the programme or project implemented in the most efficient way compared to alternatives?
r Impact
The positive and negative changes produced by a development intervention, directly or indirectly, intended or unintended. This involves the main impacts and effects resulting from the activity on the local social, economic, environmental and other development indicators. The examination should be concerned with both intended and unintended results and must also include the positive and negative impact of external factors, such as changes in terms of trade and financial conditions. When evaluating the impact of the project, it is useful to consider the following questions:
· What has happened as a result of the project?
· What real difference has the activity made to the beneficiaries?
· How many people have been affected?
r Sustainability
Sustainability is concerned with measuring whether the benefits of an activity are likely to continue after donor funding has been withdrawn. Projects need to be environmentally as well as financially sustainable.
When evaluating the sustainability of the project, it is useful to consider the following questions:
· To what extent did the benefits of a programme or project continue after donor funding ceased?
· What were the major factors which influenced the achievement or non-achievement of sustainability of the project?
r Resilience
As a project aimed to ‘build a disaster resilient Bangladesh’, evaluate the strategic direction, operation modality and its sustainability to depict the leaning on resilience. What are the features and how far they are feasible each activities and strategies.
· What are the resilience features in the project?
· How resilience component mainstreamed and will sustain?
· How resilience features are institutionalised?
7. Scope of Work
Study will address the following questions for all the selected outcomes and their related outputs:
• Do outcomes/outputs complement and enhance one another, and if yes, to what extent?
• Do the Consortium Secretariat’s contribution was effective?
• Do the projects outputs significantly contribute to the achievement of the outcomes?
• DO the Secretariat played crucial role in national/regional level networking, policy influencing and government officials to support programme implementation and addressing the objective of the project?