Country: Afghanistan
Closing date: 17 May 2018
Terms of Reference: Strengthening reception and family re-unification of unaccompanied minors and separated children deported through the Islam Qala border.
(https://www.warchild.org.uk/who-we-are/jobs/uam-afghanistan-evaluation)
Background to War Child UK:
War Child UK is an international humanitarian agency working to protect children living in some of the worst conflict-affected places in the world. War Child programmes are focused on three thematic areas: Child Protection, Education-in-Emergencies, and Food Security/Livelihoods. The current programme portfolio includes operations in: Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Yemen, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda.
War Child UK works according to five principles:
1) We reach children early in the conflict cycle and we stay to support them through recovery;
2) We are a specialist organisation focused on high-impact and sustainable interventions;
3) We champion the voices of children and mobilise others to take action to support them;
4) Our values define our actions and drive us to continually improve our work and systems;
5) We are a part of an effective global family.
For more information, please see www.warchild.org.uk
Background to the project:
Sustained, widespread violence, insecurity, internal displacement and lack of economic opportunities throughout Afghanistan has triggered the significant influx of Afghan migrants to neighbouring countries, some even fleeing the country aiming to reach European countries in the hope for stability and a better future for themselves and their families. Every year, thousands of Afghans are deported by the Iranian government through the Islam Qala Border and a significant number of the deportees are unaccompanied minors who illegally entered Iran by paying smugglers or human traffickers. In addition to the unaccompanied minors, children of undocumented Afghans in Iran are also being deported, which leads to these children being separated from their families living in Iran. The Department of Refugee and Repatriation (DoRR) is the government department mandated to receive the deportees from Iran. Every day hundreds of deportees are dropped at an open space at the zero point.
Through this project, War Child UK (WCUK) aims to support the DoRR by putting in place a robust screening system and accompanying procedures that will help correctly identify more unaccompanied minors and separated children and ensure that they are provided with post-arrival services. Additional screeners are hired and provided with appropriate training to ensure that they are equipped with the required knowledge and skills for them to be able to perform their task as screeners.
A case management system that describes a step by step process of managing cases of UAMSC with clearly defined timelines for each of the steps to be carried out was developed by WCUK in collaboration with border stakeholders. The case management system is now in effect to familiarize border staff with the process. WCUK, in collaboration with DoRR, seeks to enforce the use of the case management system and monitor compliance of the border staff.
WCUK implemented this project for two years and within this period seek to improve the system of screening at the Islam Qala border by having 4 screeners, provision of case management of UAMSC in GTC, family tracing and re-unification of children to their families in their province of origin, advocate, mentor and support the implementation of the Standard Operating Procedures, advocate for government recruitment of criminal police to be detailed at the border to investigate and apprehend those who are engaged in human smuggling and trafficking, and to provide training to DoRR border staff in record keeping, documentation and management of information system. Further achieving this approach, since the deportation process through Islam Qala border has been halted by Iranian Government from 5th of February 2017 to August for unknown reason and redirected through Melak border in Nimrooz, War Child UK through an approval from UNICEF requested an emerged change in the program location to support DoRR and other stakeholder in Melak border with the same scope of work. And Since the resumption of deportation through Melak Border, War Child UK continued its support in both borders until the UNICEF partner in Melak Border obtained the required knowledge and officially took over the full responsibility in February 28, 2018.
Purpose of evaluation:
To design a high-quality evaluation that is both summative and formative to (1) generate findings to understand progress towards the intended outcomes and impact of the project, and (2) to generate actionable learning to inform the design, implementation, and adjustment of future projects responding to unaccompanied and separated children affected by conflict in Afghanistan.
The primary user of the evaluation will be War Child UK staff in Afghanistan and the UK who will use the learning to improve the quality of future programming. The evaluation may also be of use to the Afghanistan Government, and other agencies involved in reunifying unaccompanied and separated children in Afghanistan.
Total Number of Consultancy Days:
Maximum of 22 days
Location:
Herat, Nimrooz, and an additional TBC province in Aghanistan.
Evaluation Objectives & Key Evaluation Questions:
1)To what extent did the project achieve its outputs and outcomes?
To what extent did the project achieve its outputs and outcomes?
What were the challenges to the effective implementation of the project, and achieving outputs and outcomes?
To what extent did the project adhere to Child Protection Minimum Standard #13? How could WCUK more effectively achieve similar outcomes in future projects? **
2)What has been the impact of the project on UAMSC?
To what extent did the project contribute to the reintegration of unaccompanied minors to their families and communities?
Was there any unintended impact?
Did the project design meet the needs of the beneficiaries, and address them appropriately? How could WCUK increase the likely impact of similar projects?
3)To what extent will the project contribute to a continued case management and reunification system and process maintained for an extended period after the project ends?
How likely is it that the case management system will be maintained after the end of the project?
How likely is it that the reunification process will be maintained effectively after the end of the project?
To what extent has the project been connected to, coordinated with, and complimentary to government activities?
How could WCUK improve the prospect of sustainability of similar interventions?
4)To what extent did the project reduce risk to and safeguard unaccompanied and separated children?
To what extent did the project adhere to Principle 1 of the Child Protection Minimum Standards (Avoid exposing people to further harm because of your actions)
To what extent did the project follow satisfactory child safeguarding procedures and adhere to the WCUK Child Safeguarding Policy?
To what extent did the project adhere to the WCUK Organisational Security Policy to minimise risk to staff and beneficiaries participating in the project? How could WCUK reduce risk further in projects operating in insecure environments?
WCUK Evaluation Principles:
Evaluations should adhere to the following principles, and proposals should outline explicitly how the proposed evaluation approach would do so. **
Participation: The evaluation should involve appropriate, informed, consensual and meaningful participation from all key stakeholders, with a particular focus on the children and communities we work with.
Utilisation-Focused: Evaluations should identify the intended users and how they will use the findings from the initial steps to ensure the evaluation is designed, implemented and disseminated to effectively meet the needs of the primary users.
Capacity Building: Evaluations should seek to build the technical evaluation capacity of War Child UK, partner staff and other stakeholders, through, for example, the inclusion of staff members in the evaluation team and/or incorporation of staff training on evaluation into the in-country data collection period.
Transparency: Evaluation outputs must clearly document the methodology used, including any limitations, and evaluation methodologies must consider how attribution to/contribution of War Child UK is ascertained.
Value for Money: War Child is committed to ensuring that evaluations are conducted in a way that represents value for money (VfM).
Independence: Evaluators, both external and internal, must undertake their work free of political influence, organisational pressure, and bias along gender/ethnic/religious/cultural lines and/or any other forms of intersectionality that may incur discrimination or stigma, with any potential conflicts of interest declared and documented.
Rigour: Evaluations should be based on a Theory of Change, make use of an evaluation matrix, and incorporate triangulation. Data collection should be in accordance with the following aspects of data quality: validity, reliability, integrity, and timeliness.
Evaluation Approach & Methodology:
The approach and methodology specific to this project evaluation should reflect the respond to the objectives and key evaluation questions of the Terms of Reference, as well as reflect the Evaluation Principles detailed above. The proposed approach and methodology should be detailed in the Evaluation Proposal. **
The evaluation should employ a mixed methods approach, and triangulate findings across multiple sources. Where security or access to stakeholders or beneficiaries creates methodological limitations the approach and methodology may be adjusted accordingly. As far as possible, the evaluation should seek to include beneficiaries through participatory methods.
The approach and methodology may include, but are not limited to the following:
Desk review of project documentation, including available project data
Interviews with key informants, and structured/semi-structured interviews with other stakeholders
Focus group discussions with children, boys and girls, of different ages
Most Significant Change with reunified children **
Deliverables:
The deliverables required from this evaluation are as follows:
An inception report based on this TOR and initial briefings/desk review (in English), which includes:
- A detailed methodology, including planned timeframe, list of stakeholders to be consulted, proposed sampling approach, protocols for data collection and analysis, ethical procedures to be followed, and draft data collection tools;
- Initial findings based on review of programme documentation, existing data, prior evaluations/reviews, and secondary data;
- Outline of key knowledge gaps not covered by this ToR, and suggested additions/alterations to the proposed evaluation questions and overall ToR
Draft and final versions of the evaluation report in English
An evaluation summary (a concise summary of the main findings and actionable learning in English and Dari, maximum 4 pages, using the WCUK Evaluation Summary Template)
A presentation for dissemination of the findings and recommendations
One electronic file containing (a clean version of) qualitative and quantitative data collected
Child-/community-friendly outputs to support the sharing of findings, recommendations and lessons with children and communities
Evaluation Utilisation:
War Child UK wants evaluations to be useful and well utilised. As such, we seek to commission high quality evaluations that generate evidenced findings, and actionable learning and recommendations.
The users for this evaluation are likely to be as follows:
· WCUK Afghanistan Office: WCUK Afghanistan office will use the findings, learnings and recommendations in future programming
· WCUK HQ and other Country Offices: WCUK shares the report with other Country Offices who might be implementing/planning to implement similar projects in their countries
· Project Donor: The evaluation report will be shared with the donor - they might use the findings, learnings and recommendations for the future programmes they might fund.
· Project stakeholders: Hard copies of the report will be externally shared with the project-related Government and non-government agencies through an internal learning workshop.
Proposals should include initial thoughts regarding how findings, learnings and recommendations will be explored, addressed and shared internally, externally, and with the children and communities participating in the project, to maximise use, to be elaborated during the inception stage.
Budget: The maximum available budget for this evaluation is 6,700 GBP. (This sum is inclusive of all expenses, tax, etc.)
Timeframe:
The evaluation is expected to be initiated ideally by 25th May 2018. The final report is due on or before 22th June 2018. The consultant is required to update WCUK throughout the consultancy progress through the regular meetings.
Payments would be made as per the below instalments:
· 25% on approval of the inception report
· 25% on approval of the draft report
· 50% on successful completion of activities and the submission and acceptance of the expected outputs.
Experience, Qualifications, Skills, and Competencies of Evaluator/Evaluation Team:
The evaluation consultant/consultancy team should meet the following requirements:
§ Extensive experience of designing and implementing evaluations, reviews and/or learning initiatives in the humanitarian sector, specifically in the areas of child Protection, ideally to include projects working with unaccompanied and separation children
§ Experience of building capacity in evaluation
§ Experience of facilitating participatory evaluation and learning processes (ideally with children)
§ Demonstrable skills in producing high quality, accessible reports/outputs
§ Strong written and spoken English
§ Experience of working in conflict-affected contexts, including Afghanistan
§ Good working knowledge of English, Dari and Pashto
§ Adherence to the War Child UK Child Safeguarding Policy
How to apply:
To apply, please complete and submit the following:
· The WCUK Proposal Template, including the budget annex
· CVs of all proposed team members
· One sample of a similar piece of work previously conducted
See for more info: https://www.warchild.org.uk/who-we-are/jobs/uam-afghanistan-evaluation
Applications should be submitted to Hosain Hashemi (hosainh@warchild.org.uk) and Henry Gathercole (henryg@warchild.org.uk) by Thursday 17th May, 23:00 Afghanistan time.
Please contact Rafiullah Danish, HR Manager Afghanistan at 0093 (0) 794481646 if you require any further information.
We aim to hold interviews between 23rd– 24th May and for the successful individual/team to start work shortly thereafter.