Consultant, Midterm Review-Sri Lanka Operation On Complex Emergency

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, with a network of 192 member National Societies. Aim of the IFRC is “to inspire, encourage, facilitate, and promote at all times all forms of humanitarian activities by National Societies with a view to prevent and alleviat human suffering and thereby contributie to the maintenance and promotion of human dignity and peace in the world.” The IFRC works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises. The IFRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (Movement), together with its member National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The work of the IFRC is guided by the fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality. The IFRC is led by its Secretary General, and has its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The Headquarters are organized into three main Divisions: (i) National Society Development and Operations Coordination; (ii) Global Relations, Humanitarian Diplomacy and Digitalization; and (iii) Management Policy, Strategy and Corporate Services. The IFRC has 5 regional offices in Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The IFRC also has country cluster delegation and country delegations throughout the world. Together, the Geneva Headquarters and the field structure (regional, cluster and country) comprise the IFRC Secretariat. Since early 2022, Sri Lanka has greatly reduced availability and affordability of food, fuels, fertilizers, and medicines have disrupted livelihoods across the country. Sir Lanka’s public debt burden has reached unsustainable levels due to large fiscal, persistent deficits, low revenue collection and the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a steep decline in international tourism and disrupted other sources of foreign income flows into the country. In the 1st quarter of 2022, the Government of Sri Lanka was unable to import petroleum products such as diesel, petrol, coal, and other hydrocarbons used in thermal power plants. This resulted in long power cuts (even up to 13 hours a day), long queues at fuel and cooking gas stations for days, and disturbed schedules of public transport services. The shortages of food, fuel, and medicine turned months of protests into violence, Sri Lanka’s president declared a state of emergency on 6 May 2022, the second time in five weeks. The IFRC launched an emergency appeal in June 2022 to extend support to mitigate the current food insecurity and help people affected by the civil unrest through integrated food security, nutrition, livelihoods, health, and education interventions targeting 500,000 affected people of Sri Lanka. The operation supports the government’s efforts to provide relief to people and support to the cultivation of 2 million home gardens by assisting low-income farmer communities to cultivate small plots of land through conditional cash grants. It contributed to SLRCS’ strategic vision to build communities' resilience and enhance its capacity to maintain organizational readiness to respond to future disasters and crises. The operation ensures that the most vulnerable and marginalized groups can meet their immediate basic needs by providing them with multi-purpose cash assistance for 3 months. This response also focuses on nutritional food packages for pregnant and lactating mothers, school stationery packages for students in schools in rural and urban areas, menstrual hygiene packages for female students,drinking water distribution,provision of medicines and consumables, patient transportation, first aid services, and addressing mental health and psychosocial support needs.

The purpose of this review is as follows: 1. Assess and review what has been done under the operation and the efficiency, effectiveness, and relevance of the humanitarian intervention. 2. Assess the operating environment and humanitarian landscape in Sri Lanka after almost one year of the crisis and implementation of the Emergency Appeal. 3. Review and inform the strategic direction of the country plan based on the operating environment and humanitarian needs. This review will further focus on the support and role of the IFRC in supporting the SLRCS during this crisis situation to be relevant and effective in coordinating the delivery of emergency services. To improve quality assurance and accountability, the review should provide clear recommendations to support formulating medium and longer-term vision and strategies, including transition and sustainability strategies after June 2023. The review should also document the lessons learned so that they can be used to replicate the good practices in other similar kinds of humanitarian emergency operations in the future. In-country Movement partners and external stakeholders will use the evaluation to inform future design and operation of similar projects and interventions.

The following will be provided by the consultancy team: * Inception report to include details of methodology, tools, and timeline/ work plan for the review, after incorporating feedback from stakeholders, on data collection tools and the review methodology among others. This will be approved by the EMT. * Draft and final review report(s). The page limit is approximately 15-20 pages (Excluding annexes). The report includes the below outline. 1. Executive summary: Summarizes the overall findings of the review with key conclusions and not more than 10 key recommendations. The summary must be specific to the review and clearly based on the specific context of the interventions. 2. Background and context analysis Outlines: the response’s overall objectives, aims, intervention strategy, policy frameworks, targets, main stakeholders, financial frameworks, institutional arrangements, and a brief context analysis that highlights the challenges and issues on the ground. 3 Methodology Outlines the overall approach used and the rationale for the approach used the tools applied, and the key assumptions. It will focus on consideration for appropriateness, effectiveness, and sustainability in consideration of internal and external issues. 4. Findings Outlines and describes the findings of the evaluation. 5. Conclusions Outlines the main conclusions that have emerged from the findings. 6. Lessons learned and recommendations Provides general overall recommendations, including on cross-cutting issues. * A presentation to the IFRC country delegation and SLRCS management in Colombo of the main findings collected during the work in the field. * Lessons learned workshop will include IFRC, SLRCS, and other partners to collect data and discuss recommendations. * Final data set upon which the review analysis was based, for both quantitative and qualitative components to be submitted to the IFRC country delegation team.Maximum of two pages of review summary report. * A final report workshop that includes a summary of the review report (including process, findings, and recommendations) that will be presented to various stakeholders including the IFRC secretariat, participating national societies, and donors. Discussions on responding to the findings will also take place to initiate the management’s responsibility for the evaluation. The deliverables will be submitted through the EMT, which will ensure the quality and provide input if necessary. The EMT will submit the draft final review report to relevant stakeholders for review and clarification including the interviewed stakeholders.

* Should possess University degree in any discipline (Post Graduation will be preferred) or equivalent experience.

* Significant experience in conducting a review related to complex emergency humanitarian programming. * Field experience in conducting reviews of humanitarian or development programmes, with prior experience in evaluating Red Cross Red Crescent programmes.

* The review team should have strong analytical skills and the ability to clearly synthesize and present findings, draw practical conclusions, make recommendations, and to prepare well * Written in a timely manner as well as it is desirable that team members have proven experience of the priority and cross-cutting areas of the operations. * Technically sound on food security or livelihoods or health. * Excellent English communication skills and knowledge of local languages is favourable.

Values: -Respect for diversity; Integrity; Professionalism; Accountability. Core competencies: -Communication; Collaboration and teamwork; Judgement and decision making; National society and customer relations; Creativity and innovation; Building trust.