Development of M&E Operational Manual

Syria Resilience Consortium

Terms of Reference – Development of M&E Operational Manual

Introduction

The Syria Resilience Consortium (SRC) was established in 2016 by its six constituent INGO partners – CARE, DRC, Humanity and Inclusion, IRC, NRC, and Mercy Corps – in recognition of a joint responsibility to address needs in conflict-ridden Syria.

The Syrian Resilience Consortium is funded by Multiple donors. However, SRC secured multi years “Building Local Resilience in Syria (BLRS)” programme funded by FCDO. The program will help Syrian in need feed themselves and their families and be less reliant on harmful coping behaviours. It will make them less dependent on emergency aid, and more resilient to shocks and stresses.

The program focuses food production and incomes generation with interventions to empower women and marginalized groups by strengthening their knowledge, skills, and access to jobs. A program has a component of innovation pilots that will test interventions for preventing violence against women and enabling their safe economic participation beyond the life of the program.

The program impact will be measured through different outcome areas that includes but not limited to; strengthen local food production, improved regular income, reduction in harmful coping behaviours, increased resilience and reduce tolerance and acceptability of GBV and child labour.

Objective:

The SRC is looking to hire a consultant to lead in creating the Monitoring and Evaluation operational manual (OPM) for the SRC FCDO funded program (BLRS) and make sure that all indicators, their tools/Instruments, and methodology are in-line with the minimum/global/donor standards, TOC and the result framework.

Deliverables:

• Finalize OPM Document
• Hold workshops with consortium members to present and share the OPM, and the tools/instruments – Amman (remotely)

Scope of Work:

The selected consultant is expected to create a OPM document in consultation with selected consortium members, Programme Coordination Unit (PCU) and M&E Task Force, which contains any specific tool required for data collection throughout the program lifetime, e.g., KII, survey, FGD etc. that include all the various questions from consortium members and map them all to the logframe indicators.

The OPM document should be structured as follows:

• Introduction. This is where all the general definitions, cross-cutting themes, desegregations should be listed. This will be used throughout the life of the program, so all definitions must be reviewed, agreed on and signed off by partners
• Indicators sections. For each indicator, the consultant is expected to provide detailed information containing the indicators’ definition, frequency of measurement, means of verification (MoV), data source, RACI[1] chart, any standard calculations protocols or standards measurement approaches, assumptions/risks, and the questions to be asked to accurately capture data to measure the said indicator.
• The OPM should act as a guiding document providing the minimum standards questions for each indicator rather that providing partners with a fixed data collection tool. This to address the different data collection tools used by each partner and the variance between hubs.

The duration for this consultancy is 7 Weeks (35 Days) and it is expected to take place between 18 September 2022 and 3 November 2022 (the start date will depend on agreeing the final Logframe and Results Framework with FCDO (expected mid-end of August), and is subject to change)

Tentative Schedule

• Week 1: Desk review of the current OPM, BLRS Logframe and indicators
• Week 2: Conduct meetings with all BLRS partners to go through their current tools and identify areas of similarities and differences and gaps (remote or in-person)
• Week 3-4: Develop and submit the OPM document
• Week 5: PCU revision of the documents and consultant to adjust accordingly
• Week 6-7: Conduct workshop with consortium members to present the OPM and how to use it. And address any feedback or change request that they may have.

6. Key Contacts:

• Direct Contact/Reports to:

  • Program Performance and Quality Advisor
  • Data, Monitoring and Evaluation Manage

• Informed/consulted:

• Deputy Chief of Party

• Other involved stakeholders from all members:

• Monitoring, Evaluation and Accountability (MEAL) Task Force

• Members’ Representatives

• Program Managers

Required Experience & Skills

• A minimum of 8 years of MEAL related experience working with NGOs (a previous MEAL advisory role is required)
• Experience in qualitative research and questions required.
• Experience developing tools and indicator definitions
• Experience writing manuals for practitioners
• Experience conducting field data collection
• Previous experience working with FCDO funded programs is highly preferred.
• Previous experience working in Syria preferred.
• Fluency in spoken English and high proficiency in written English, particularly writing high-quality documents is required; Arabic is preferred.
• Effective verbal and written communication, organizational and prioritization skills.
• Ability to work effectively with an ethnically diverse team in a sensitive environment.
• MA/MSc in international relations, development, economics, anthropology, or related degrees preferred.