Founded in 1933, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) is one of the most prominent international organizations working in relief, rehabilitation, protection, post-conflict development, resettlement services, and advocacy for those uprooted or affected by violent conflict and oppression.

In coordination with the humanitarian community, the IRC currently addresses the needs of conflict-affected populations from several operational bases in the region. It is part of a broader humanitarian response in the MENA region (Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Yemen, and Libya) that seeks to assist refugees, returnees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and host communities in surviving conflict and displacement.

Throughout its experience in Iraq since 2003, the IRC has developed solid expertise in protection programming, including the prevention of and response to violence against women and girls, protection and rule of law, child protection, governance, early childhood development, and economic recovery and development. The organization primarily serves displaced populations in both camp and non-camp settings, as well as refugees and host communities.

Seven years after the end of the conflict with ISIS in Iraq, 1,123,663 internally displaced Iraqis continue to face multifaceted barriers to durable solutions. These displaced communities struggle to find pathways to return to their Areas of Origin (AoO), achieve effective local integration, resettle in a third location, or successfully reintegrate.

The project Strengthening resilience and supporting livelihoods and peaceful coexistence of vulnerable groups from the IS-exempted areas of Mosul, Telkaif and Ramadi, led by the International Rescue Committee    Institution for Development (IID) in Bashiqa and Telkaif October 2021- March 2024, SSORD October 2021 - Jan 2023, Al-Mesalla (March 2023- now in Ramadi, Al-Mesalla (Apr 2024- now) in Telkaif and Bashiqa aims to achieve economic resilience and peaceful coexistence in targeted areas by empowering marginalized individuals, especially young women and people with disabilities (PWDs), with skills, knowledge, and opportunities. The intervention focuses on two main outcomes:

Social Cohesion

1. Capacity Building: The project will enhance the skills and knowledge of community members to identify and address conflict drivers. This will be done through a localized, bottom-up participatory approach led by two local NGO partners. They will reactivate or strengthen existing community peace structures, ensuring at least 40% of participants are women from diverse backgrounds.
2. Community Peace Structures: Six community peace structures will be established or strengthened, with a focus on including women to ensure their voices and needs are represented. These structures will play a crucial role in peacebuilding by involving women as witnesses, negotiators, or participants, which has been shown to increase the likelihood of lasting peace agreements.
3. Community Dialogues: Joint community dialogues will be facilitated to identify specific conflict drivers and develop response strategies. These dialogues will be inclusive, ensuring that all relevant community members, including women, elderly citizens, and PWDs, feel safe to voice their opinions. The goal is for at least 80% of participants to report feeling safe during these dialogues.
4. Social Cohesion Events: The project will implement 24 social cohesion and peace-building events over four years, addressing common local conflict drivers. These events aim to the  implementation of gender and conflict sensitive action plans to prevent and address local conflict

Economic Self-Reliance

1. Agribusiness Training and Livelihood Services: The project will provide tailored agribusiness technical training and entrepreneurship support to 900 young clients. Additionally, 800 clients will receive value chain services, including apprenticeship, vocational training, and job counseling.
2. Networking and Linkages: To sustain direct services and expand productivity, the project will establish networks among agriculture value chain actors. This includes training 300 farmers and linking 300 business owners with market/value chain actors, potentially forming agricultural cooperatives or clusters.
3. Access to Financial Services: Recognizing the importance of access to capital, the project will work with formal and non-formal financial service providers to reduce barriers and expand financial services. This includes incentivizing banks and microfinance institutions to engage with vulnerable clients and building client understanding of formal services.

Systems Strengthening:  Throughout the project, IRC will provide tailored systems strengthening support and technical capacity training on issues like climate-smart agriculture and community natural resource management. This will involve setting improvement plans with institutions and supporting them to complete 75% of the actions by the end of the project. ​Strengthening the engagement between the official stakeholders and communities through the establishment of natural resource management committees.

1.       Strengthen the capacity of Iraqi local CSOs to implement conflict sensitive integrated social cohesion & livelihood projects (there is a big capacity strengthening component that was done during the first phase of the project)

2.       Strengthen the local system capacities of local institutions (such as the municipalities, the directorates, ect...)

3.       Establish and strengthen local level multi-stakeholder committees focused managing natural resources

4.       Strengthen stakeholder engagement and dialogues (upward accountability, community-local CSO engagement, CSOs/Community-local gov stakeholder engagement, and with the private sectors (Need to check with Muqatil on this)

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I-       Scope of work

The evaluation will aim to respond to the following question: To what extent an integrated livelihood and social cohesion intervention contributes to improving food security and prevents conflicts in the targeted areas? The following OECD-DAC criteria will be taken into account:

Evaluation Framework: The evaluation will be conducted in alignment with the IRC for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee (OECD DAC) Criteria for Evaluating Development Assistance to ensure a thorough and internationally recognized assessment. The consultant will evaluate the project using the following criteria:

·         Relevance: the evaluation will look into the correctness of identification of problems and needs of the clients in relevance and relation to the proposed mode and theory of action. Furthermore, Relevance will investigate evaluation of capacities of partners in executing activities, stakeholders’ analysis and strengths and weaknesses of the project design

·         Effectiveness: Measure the extent to which the project has achieved its intended outcomes, such as improved social cohesion and access to justice. Measurement of Un-intended outcomes also remains a priority to understand the magnitude of the project’s impact.

·         Efficiency: the evaluation will assess the project management quality (budget, personnel, data management and risk management, relationship with clients, peace structures and community leaders); cost effectiveness, timeliness and quality of financial and technical reporting from the partners;

·         Impact: Evaluate the broader, long-term effects of the project on communities, including any unintended consequences.

·         Sustainability: The evaluation shall study the broad term sustainability of the project ensuring a comprehensive oversight on its continuation beyond implementation through the economic, social, institutional and environmental context.

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On Specific Impact Indicator levels, the IRC aims to study the impact of its programmatic approach through key performance indicators including employment or starting businesses, Increase in income levels post-training, Market integration success rate for business owner, Financial service uptake by target beneficiaries, Institutional capacity improvements based on pre/post assessments.

Project Outcomes and Study Questions:

The main objective of the evaluation is to validated and verify the main theory of change and programmatic action of the project pertaining to the impact of integrated livelihood and social cohesions interventions on Food Security and Conflict

.The IRC is also committed on unpacking a learning element from this project through a thorough review of the OECD DAC Criteria as well as the below guiding questions:

·         What are the main lessons learned that can be taken from project, partner, and stakeholder experiences that can enhance the operation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and impact of the project. Lessons learned will also include, what interventions worked and what interventions didnt work and what are the success and risk factors for the successes and challenges of project outcomes and activities. How has community trust and cooperation improved, measure the increase in community groups interactions, conflict resolution cases, and perceptions of safety

·         What are programmable actions from project lessons learnt, can be taken to emphasize project implementation along the OECD criteria

 What are the added values of Integration in Programmatic Sectors and their Impact on the Outcomes?

·         How effective were local systems strengthen approaches in yielding towards the project impact?

II-       Timeframe

The consultant is expected to submit the final report of the midterm evaluation study by the table below outlines the proposed timeline for data collection.

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Locations

Ninewa Governorate, Talkief and Mosul districts (Bashiqa); Anbar Governorate, Ramadi district.

Methods

The recommended methodology for this study is a mixed-method approach, incorporating surveys,(KIIs), and focus group discussions (FGDs). Applicants are encouraged to propose innovative methodologies within this framework, such as leveraging social media trends and sentiment analysis to complement the quantitative data collected through surveys. These insights can be compared with the findings from FGDs and KIIs to provide a more comprehensive understanding.

Consultants are expected to propose an initial sample size for each data collection method, ensuring that the sample is logical and feasible within the available budget for each targeted location of the project.

Consultants are also expected to conduct and document a lessons learned exercise and matrix through either in engaging with IRC and Partner staff  and stakeholders through mixed qualitative and innovative methodologies to retrieve findings or through the setting up of a lessons learned workshop for the program. Lessons Learned should encompass a Learning on Process of Implementation, Risks, and Mitigation Measures.

Sampling Strategy: The consultant will propose a detailed sampling plan to ensure representation of all demographic and geographic groups, including:

·         At least 30% representation of women and girls in surveys and FGDs.

·         Inclusion of marginalized groups, meaning Internally Displaced People and persons with disabilities.

·         Stratified sampling to reflect diverse regions .The sampling plan must demonstrate how it ensures inclusivity, particularly for underserved populations, and will include a justification for sample sizes across methods.

·         The sampling plan must also include a clear justification for the chosen sample sizes across different methods and populations, detailing how these are sufficient to achieve statistical relevance and representativeness.

·         The consultant should provide a methodology for assessing and enhancing representativeness within the sampling framework, especially for smaller or more challenging to access populations. This includes identifying potential biases in sample selection and mitigating strategies to address them.

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Creativity in the proposed approach is highly valued, especially in demonstrating a clear connection between the sequence of household survey data collection and how it might inform or modify the questionnaires for KIIs and FGDs.

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III-    Data Sources:

The consultant is required to collect primary data for this study in the targeted project implementation locations. For Qualitative Discussions, IRC insists that in-person and field engagment are present.The targeted population should include those who meet the criteria of the various project sectors, as well as local authorities and stakeholders who can directly impact the project's implementation. A wealth of secondary data is available for the consultant to review and utilize, including previous survey reports, KIIs, FGDs, and various protection and market assessment reports. Secondary data can also include a de-identified dataset from IRC featuring Baseline/Endline reports and information.

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IV-    Analysis Plan

The consultant is expected to work in close partnership with the IRC's acting MEAL Coordinator to analyse the gathered data and develop a distinct method of comparison for the final evaluation. This collaboration will allow IRC to precisely track progress against the outcome indicators. Additionally, the analysis should comply with BHA's statistical standards for standard indicators.

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V-       People Responsible

The consultant will be primarily responsible for ensuring that the evaluation is conducted according to the agreed protocol and contract. On the IRC side, the acting MEAL Coordinator will be the main point of contact, overseeing the consultant's progress throughout the process. The acting MEAL Coordinator will be responsible for ensuring the accuracy and quality of the data. Partners and field staff will participate in data interpretation workshops to ensure findings are contextually relevant and actionable. Weekly check-ins with the IRC team during the evaluation period will ensure alignment with project goals and timelines.

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VI-    Data Collection Ethics

Safeguarding the personal data of the IRC's clients is a crucial component of the IRC's mission to help people survive, recover and rebuild their lives. It

Protecting the personal data of our clients is part of our commitment to protecting their life, integrity and dignity. No matter what the data is being used for, we need to ensure that it is being managed to avoid putting our beneficiaries at risk. Any data that can be used to identify an individual including names, contact information, and government or other identification numbers - needs to be treated with extreme care. As does information that might put individuals at risk of stigma, discrimination or government sanction, including but not limited to medical status, financial data, criminal records, or ethnic and religious opinions or practices. In short, all client data needs to be protected, with the general principles that the data belongs to the individual and should not be used without their knowledge and consent. Only necessary data should be collected, and it should only be shared with those who need

The consultant is required to include a section on research ethical considerations in the inception report, specifically addressing protection issues and other ethical concerns. As part of this assignment, IRC staff will provide a child safeguarding briefing.

The consultant(s) must take all reasonable steps to ensure that the Evaluation Study is designed and conducted in a manner that respects and protects the rights and welfare of all participants. The study should be technically accurate, reliable, and legitimate, conducted transparently and impartially, and contribute to organizational learning and accountability.

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The Consultant should also adhere to the safeguarding policy to ensure that the entire Evaluation Study process, as well as its team members, follows the principle of "do no harm" to the community and the individuals involved in the exercise.

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VII-  Treatment of information:

All data and information received for the purpose of this assignment are to be treated confidentially and are only to be used in connection with the execution of these terms of reference. All intellectual property rights arising from the execution of these terms of reference are assigned to the IRC. The contents of written material obtained and used in this assignment may not be disclosed to any third parties. No data should stay with the consultant following the approved end of the assignment.

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VIII-                    Deliverables:

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a.       The inception report will outline the key scope of work and the intended work plan for the analysis, it should detail the consultant’s understanding of what is being evaluated and why, demonstrating how each evaluation question will be addressed through desk review, proposed methods, proposed data sources, and data collection tools and procedures. This report should also annex the above mentioned as Key-Evaluative Questions Matrix. Additionally, it should include the timeline and deliverables for the Evaluation.

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b.       Training of Enumerators: The consultant is responsible for providing comprehensive and detailed training to all enumerators who will be involved in data collection through house-to-house surveys, KIIs, and FGDs. This training should ensure that all enumerators fully understand the questionnaire tool and adhere to data protection and ethical standards. It is crucial that the enumerators are fluent in the local dialects and accents of the targeted locations.

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c.       Lessons Learned Document: A document featuring findings from the Lessons Learned Workshop or from Qualitative Collection on the subject of lessons learned from project implementation.

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d.       A Draft Evaluation Report: The consultant is required to submit a draft report in English, which will be shared with the relevant IRC and partner technical staff for their review and feedback. The timeline for the submission of the report and the review process by IRC and partners will follow the timeline outlined above. The structure of the draft report should align with the final report structure provided below.

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e.       Submission of Final Report: The consultant is responsible for delivering the finalized, clean version of the report, incorporating all comments and feedback received during the review of the draft version. The final report should adhere to the structure provided below and must not exceed 40 pages (excluding annexes).

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·         Title page and Cover photo.

·         Table of contents.

·         Acknowledgement Statement (optional)

·         Executive summary

·         List of acronyms and abbreviations

·         Introduction

·         Methodology

·         Detailed Findings

·         Programmatic Implications

·         Conclusion

Required Annexes

o   Survey instruments or data collection tools

o   Enumerator Protocol, including Informed Consent

o   KII interviews.

o   FGD data

o   Lessons Learned Matrix

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f.        Presentation in English: Presenting to key IRC stakeholders, partners, and donors, including the methodology, main findings, and recommendations.

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g.       Summary for the Community: Prepare a brief summary using non-confidential information and findings from the report. This summary will be shared with the communities and clients who participated in interviews or surveys. The summary should be provided in both Arabic and Kurdish (Kurmanji).

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IX-              Logistics Support

The consultant will be responsible for arranging its own accommodation while in Iraq. The IRC can assist with providing data collector contacts if needed. The consultancy will be responsible for any data collection costs incurred by quantitative and qualitative methods. IRC can support transportation within the country.

Please note that visits to areas outside of the KRI might be restricted due to the need for governmental access letters to enter certain governorates. Therefore, the consultant should propose an alternative solution for conducting interviews with key informants in these areas within the methodology section of the technical proposal.

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X-                Budget

The proposed budget for this consultancy should align with a realistic estimation of costs for this type of service.

The proposed budget should clearly outline the following:

§  Daily rate for individuals and the number of days

§  Daily rate and the number of days with number of enumerators

§  Travel costs (international and/or domestic)

§  Accommodation costs

§  Transportation costs within the country

§  Any additional costs

The consultancy firm or consultant should meet the following criteria in their individual CVs and Technical Proposal:

• The lead consultant should hold a master's degree in one of the following fields: social sciences, development studies, public health, development economics, sociology, anthropology, political science, statistics, or a related discipline.

§  A minimum of 7 years of experience (either by the firm or the lead consultant) in the evaluation and/or research of humanitarian programs is required, preferably in areas related to, Economic Recovery and Development, and Governance. General Protection Experience and Mainstreaming in Women Empowerment is also a major plus.

• Proven expertise in qualitative, quantitative, or mixed research methods, including conducting surveys, focus group discussions, and interviews, is essential. The lead consultant firm should also possess a strong background in data analysis and interpretation.

§  Experience with International donor requirements, including evaluation policies, procedures, and program management, is required.

§  Fluency in English is a must for the lead consultant, while native or fluent proficiency in Arabic and Kurdish is a must for the field research coordinator and enumerators.

• Experience in understanding, selecting, and applying methods for gender-sensitive and conflict-sensitive evaluations.
• The lead consultant or a member of the study team must have excellent data analysis skills, with the ability to clearly articulate the connections between findings, analysis, and program recommendations.
• Strong organizational and time management skills, with the ability to quickly adapt, learn, and deliver high-quality work under tight deadlines
• A flexible attitude towards receiving feedback and accommodating minor adjustments throughout the process.

§  The lead consultant must have no travel restrictions to Iraq, and the field research coordinators and enumerators must have access to the targeted locations.

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I-                   How to apply:

Applicants should submit the following documents:

§  A Technical Proposal, including a preliminary methodology and a provisional timeframe

§  A Financial Proposal  (indicating the daily rate in USD)

§  Curriculum Vitae (for the lead consultant )

§  A Cover Letter expressing interest in the assignment

§  A sample of evaluation reports (or links to publicly shared reports) they have completed

When submitting, applicants should include "IRC Iraq Final Evaluation" in the subject line.

The applications will be scored by an IRC committee from different perspectives and only shortlisted 

• How to apply:

  Applicants should submit the following documents:

  A Technical Proposal, including a preliminary methodology and a provisional timeframe
  A Financial Proposal (indicating the daily rate in USD)
  Curriculum Vitae (for the lead consultant)
  A Cover Letter expressing interest in the assignment
  A sample of evaluation reports (or links to publicly shared reports) they have completed

  When submitting, applicants should include "IRC Iraq Final Evaluation" in the subject line.

  The applications will be scored by an IRC committee from different perspectives and only shortliste

  Share your Resumes through the link below:

  
  https://rescue.csod.com/ux/ats/careersite/1/home/requisition/57798?c=rescue