Consultant at Action Against Hunger

Action Against Hunger works to save lives by combating hunger and diseases that threaten the lives of vulnerable communities, through nutrition, food security, water and sanitation, health and advocacy.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Position: Consultant - Do No Harm Analysis and Multi Scenario Planning
Job Location: Borno
Project Name: EU Support to Response, Recovery and Resilience in Borno State
Sector: Nutrition; Food security and Livelihoods; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene; FSL; WASH

Project Description
The proposed action responds to the need of building resilience and sustainability in Borno and enhancing the capacity of public institutions and affected communities to anticipate and react to the challenges of poverty, social cohesion, climate change, and crisis/security.

Responding to the needs of the conflict affected populations in Borno requires a comprehensive and integrated intervention across multiple platforms of service delivery and system strengthening. The project will therefore cover multiple sectors at once in the targeted area, with support to the health and nutrition sector, to the WASH and renewable energy systems, and finally to the social protection, livelihood and income generating sector.

The project will build on the humanitarian assistance provided to gradually contribute to efforts by the Nigerian authorities and other major actors to initiate sustainable reconstruction and recovery work. Focus will be on ensuring a transition between emergency and development in a sustained manner. Since this transition is rarely a linear chronological process, the project will follow a flexible and phased approach where immediate needs will be supported at the same time as recovery and longer term interventions are implemented. The need for applying such an approach is accentuated by the fluidity in the security situation in the locations selected. The flexibility and adaptability of the project will be ensured by a multi-scenario planning considering possible evolutions of the security, return or displacement situations.

In order to build resilience, the proposed action will seek to ensure sustainability is built in all of its components. The project will be linked to existing systems and protocols at both state and local level, and work alongside authorities to ensure they are strengthened to be able to deliver the basic services to their population. The participation of LGA officials and public institutions (such as LGA, RUWASA, BOSEPA, RRR or SMOH) will be ensured in the planning, design, implementation and assessment of the services or infrastructure to be strengthened through this intervention as well as their management upon the intervention’s conclusion. While the ultimate expected level of sustainability will be dependent on factors such as resources and security, the project plans to work closely with national and community structures to ensure that they have the technical capacity to deliver an effective response without external support.

This will not resolve the shortfall of resources or security; however, the intervention will ensure key stakeholders do consolidate their service capacity delivery alongside the intervention. Beyond authorities, the project will seek to empower conflict affected populations, in particular women, to make them more resilient. This will be done through empowerment of affected populations on their health, nutrition and sanitation practices, the support to sustainable livelihood and income generation, and the support to community cohesion and gender equity.

Rationale

• The Multi scenario planning and Do not harm analysis will enable the project to have a better view of the changing social, political and economic context as well as drivers and connectors of the conflict as the project anticipates several scenarios with the changing circumstances which are characterized by increased displacements and or return of displaced populations. This information will help the project to identify, planning and monitor and come up with measures to reduce the risk of negative impact.

Objectives

• To conduct a conflict sensitive analysis in Action Against Hunger operating environment using the Do No Harm approach.
• Conduct a mapping exercise of different programming scenarios and develop operational framework to guide the implementation process
• To strengthen the knowledge base of AAH staff in adaptation and integration of the Do No Harm approach and Multi scenario planning.

Users of the Analysis

• Direct users: Action Against Hunger field teams, Technical and Senior Management Teams, Action Against Hunger Technical Advisors/ Director in the HQ (NY),
• Indirect users:** ELA team Action Against Hunger -UK, Action Against Hunger International Network, EU and other donors, federal, regional and local governments, ministries, UN agencies and Global Clusters, NGOs and NGO Consortiums as well as humanitarian learning platforms (such as ALNAP).

Use of the Analysis

• The analysis will be used for Learning, improvement and accountability. Lessons learnt (From all sectors of the project), identified good practices and recommendations are expected to be taken on board in designing any other similar intervention.
• The scenario planning and analysis findings and results will inform project implementation after the inception phase of the project on the conflict dynamics and potential tensions that could exist and be exacerbated by the program
• The information will also be used to update the conflict analysis framework to suite the changing context and ensure the assistance provided doesn’t increase divisions or tensions along ethnic or social lines nor increase vulnerabilities of some categories of the population
• The information will also be used to update the monitoring and evaluation framework and align it to the changing scenarios.

Scope Covered by the Analysis

• The Do no harm/context sensitive analysis will focus on the entire project funded by EU, including all its technical areas (WASH,FSL,Nutrition)
• The analysis will adopt a risk management approach and establish linkages and interconnectedness within the sectors, building back better and principle of conflict mitigation. Understanding the beneficiaries and how the programme will affect them is an integral component to the design of this intervention especially with the recent cases of returnees and decreasing number of IDPs in some areas
• The geographical scope of the multi scenario planning and Do No Harm analysis will cover stakeholders in the project sites in Borno state( Kukawa, Nganzai, Monguno)

Cross-cutting Issues:

• Throughout the planning and analysis process, gender concerns should be addressed in line with the Action Against Hunger Gender Policy
• All data should be disaggregated by sex and age and different needs of women, men, boys and girls should be considered throughout the analysis process.

Design Methodology
Secondary Data Collection:

• Review of security reports and general security updates
• Review project log frame and proposal
• Humanitarian response plan 2017 and 2018

Primary Data Collection:

• Multi scenario approach: In the dynamic and complex context of Borno State, the consultant will conduct a Multi scenario planning for evolving security, situations
• The planning exercise will be undertaken, using the best practices in multi-scenario planning, to map the different possible scenarios and to develop an action plan allowing for agility and adaptability
• The scenarios will guide the decision making process on how, where and when to allocate which resources, underlying the different parameters to take into account in the multi-scenario analysis and the possible technical choices to be made depending on the scenario
• The process will involve us of:
  • Participatory development methods
  • Mapping
  • Matrix scoring and simple ranking
  • Flow diagram
  • Seasonal calendar etc

Do no harm/context sensitive, building back better and principle of conflict mitigation, The consultant will conduct a do no harm analysis to understand the beneficiaries and how the programme will affect them as this is an integral component to the design of this intervention. The Consultant will also collect information from staff and other stakeholders i.e. community and traditional leaders

The following tools will be used:

• Field survey and discussions with targeted beneficiaries
• Conduct staff interviews using the mission DO NO HARM checklist
• Conduct FGD with traditional and community leaders

Validation Workshop:

• The consultant will facilitate a validation workshop in Borno state and Abuja to present preliminary findings of both Do No Harm analysis and Multi-scenario planning.

Report and Operational Framework/Action Plan
Report:

• The report shall follow the following format and be written in English:
• Cover Page;
• Summary Table** to follow template provided
• Table of Contents**
• List of acronyms
• Executive Summary: must be a standalone summary, describing the main findings of the analysis , and conclusions and recommendations. This will be no more than 2 pages in length
• Background Information
• Methodology:** describe the methodology used, provide evidence of triangulation of data and presents limitations to the methodology
• Findings :Detailed report showing all scenarios and analysis of the DNH data
• Conclusions** are formulated by synthesizing the main findings into statements of merit and worth, judgments are fair, impartial, and consistent with the findings
• Recommendations: should be as realistic, operational and pragmatic as possible; that is, they should take careful account of the circumstances currently prevailing in the context of the action, and of the resources available to implement it locally. They should follow logically from conclusions, lessons learned, Monitoring and accountability framework and good practices. The report must specify who needs to take what action and when. Recommendations need to be presented by order of priority
• Annexes: should be listed and numbered and must include the following: list of documents for the desk review), data collection instrument, TORs

The whole report shall not be longer than 30 pages, 50 pages including annexes. The draft report should be submitted no later than 10 calendar days after departure from the field. The final report will be submitted no later than the end date of the consultancy contract. The reports and annexes will be accepted in the English Language only.

Action plan /Operational framework:

• The consultant will develop an action plan detailing findings of the multi scenario analysis which will guide development of operational framework

Key Deliverables
The following are the key outputs

• Outputs
• Inception Report
• Field work
• Presentation of preliminary findings(Borno)
• Presentation of preliminary findings(Abuja)
• Draft Report and Action plan/Operational framework
• Final Report and action plan/ Operational framework

All outputs must be submitted in English and in Word Document format
The quality of the inception report and the analysis report will be assessed by the Evaluation manager in Action Against Hunger -UK. The evaluator is expected to follow the format, structure and length as defined under section 5.4 and 5.6 above.

Management Arrangements

• The Consultant will directly report to the M&E Head of Department in Action Against Hunger -Nigeria
• The Consultant will submit all the outputs directly the to the M&E Head of Department wo will do a quality check (ensure required elements are there) and decide whether the report is ready for sharing
• He will forward a copy to key stakeholders for comments on factual issues and for clarifications
• He will consolidate the comments and send these to the consultant by the date agreed between both parties or as soon as the comments are received from stakeholders
• The Consultant will consider all comments to finalize report and will submit it to the M&E Head of Department who will then officially forward to relevant stakeholders.

Profile of the Consultant
Essential:

• A Program Management Specialist with Technical skills in Peace and Conflict Studies, Political Science, International Relations, Health, Water and Sanitation, Nutrition, Food, Security and Livelihoods
• Over 10 years field experience in evaluation of humanitarian / development projects in conflict and post conflict environment.
• Degree in Health, Engineering, Food security, Public health or Nutrition, with experience in participatory development methods
• Good communications skills and experience in workshop facilitation and presentations.
• Ability to write clear and useful reports (may be required to produce examples of previous work);
• Fluent in English;

Desirable:

• Previous experience in EU programs
• Ability to manage the available time and resources and to work to tight deadlines;
• Prior experience in Nigeria or knowledge of the NE Nigerian context preferred
• Knowledge in Do No Harm approach and multi scenario planning including conflict analysis
• Experience in working in emergency set ups with minimal resources.

Legal and Ethical Matters:

• The ownership of the draft and final documentation belongs to the agency and the funding donor exclusively. The document, or publication related to it, will not be shared with anybody except AAH before the delivery by AAH of the final document to the donor.
• AAH is to be the main addressee of the evaluation and its results might impact on both operational and technical strategies.

This being said, Action Against Hunger is likely to share the results of the analysis with the following groups:

• Donors
• Government partner
• Various coordination bodies

For independent consultancies, it is important that the consultant does not have any links to project management, or any other conflict of interest that would interfere with the independence of the activity

Intellectual Property Rights

• All documentation related to the assignment (whether or not in the course of duties) shall remain the sole and exclusive property of Action Against Hunger.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should send their submission package, which should include:

• CV detailing qualifications
• Demonstrated experience in similar assignments undertaken
• Workplan based on the ToR and deliverables
• Proposed budget and fees.

Proposals should be sent to the email: tender@actionagainsthunger.org The subject of the email should read "EU Consultancy for Do No Harm Analysis and Multi Scenario Planning,