Capitalization on Capacity Building/ Short Term Consultancy

Terms of Reference for Short-Term Consultancy

Terre des hommes Lebanon - Lessons Learnt and Capitalization of three years of program experience on Capacity Building

Terre des hommes Lausanne in Lebanon, is seeking to contract a consultant that displays the human, ethical and technical capacities to conduct a Lessons Learnt and Capitalization exercise for a two-year child protection program.  

The capitalization exercise is expected to build on the findings from an evaluation process as well as other programming sources available to identify 1) innovative & best practices that can be replicated, and 2) learning’s to inform areas for improving program quality both in Lebanon and globally.   

Background information

The “Protection of the most vulnerable children affected by the Syrian crisis in South Lebanon.” project is funded by the Swiss Solidarity and has been implemented by Terre des hommes Foundation – Lausanne. This project is implemented in 20 localities of Tyre and Saida Governorates. The intervention intends to serve a total of 23,250 children and 6,344 adults, that is to say a total of 29,594 beneficiaries. The specific objective of the project is to ensure that children and their families have access to strengthened community-based child protection services and mechanisms, and tends to achieve this through the following outcomes:

• 14,250 of the most vulnerable children from Syrian refugees and host communities have access to PSS including referral services;
• 15,150 community members members – including 9’000 youth - are sensitized around CP concerns to mitigate risks faced by children within their communities;
• 194 individuals from community based organizations, service providers have an increased capacity to respond to CP needs.

As the project  is in its last stage of the current phase of implementation, Terre des hommes Lausanne (Tdh_L) has commissioned an evaluation to provide an independent external analysis of the project performance against its objectives to ensure accountability towards program partners, and to internalize learning’s and share best practices at the broader organizational level.

Objectives of the assignment

Tdh Lebanon office recognizes the value of learning and reflection as integral to improved program effectiveness by creating a working environment that promotes and rewards learning and knowledge sharing, through periodical team reflection meetings, participatory evaluations and capitalization exercises that involve project staff, partners and primary stakeholders.

This capitalization exercise for the “Protection of the most vulnerable children affected by the Syrian crisis in South Lebanon” program will specifically focus on its capacity building component.

Objective 1: Detailed mapping of the capacity building process for this program, should include but not limited to program needs assessment, program rational and other historic aspects, identification of partners, partner capacity assessment, process for prioritizing the topics for capacity building, Tdh Lebanon experience and competencies on partner capacity building, approaches used for capacity building, material/ resources/ facilitator used for capacity building, details of the training and other informal capacity building sessions, continues assessment results and progress measurements, tools used at each stage data collection & consolidation, Tdh organizational policies and processes adopted, current status of the program, and the plans towards sustainability.

Objective 2: Extract key findings from the evaluation on the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, and impact that the capacity building component has had on the targeted CBO’s and how it has translated into actions in improving the quality of service provision.

Objective 3: Articulate innovative initiatives, best practices and key learning’s from the capacity building component of the program. The findings to be broken down into 3 levels, which are 1) what organizational level (Tdh – Lebanon) 2) CBO / partner level, and 3) community level especially Youth mobilization.  

Objective 4: Validate key findings at a participatory workshop with program staff and CBO members, especially to understand why, what, how, who, where, when aspects. While the workshop will be a platform to bring about a greater collective awareness among all key stakeholders, it will also contributes to their individual and collective action learning approaches. It will also serve as the stage for clarifying information, collecting any missing data, prioritizing findings and developing an action plan to internalize lessons learned.    

Objectives 5: Documentation and disseminate of the capitalization study findings will consist of a presentation of the Tdh Lebanon management team, a detailed action plan, and a comprehensive report capturing all the objectives outlined for this study in a template approved by Tdh. The concise version of the report (2-3 pages) will be developed to be shared with external entities. A folder will also be created with all capacity building tools which have been applied, classified according to their effectiveness.

Main Learning Questions:

• What has been the approach towards partner capacity building? Has a differentiated approach been adopted between governmental and non-governmental  partners? What has or hasn’t worked, and gaps identified?
• Which tools and methodologies have been applied? Which have been most / least effective?
• What impact has this capacity building approach had on the communities and target groups whom the program has been working with since 2015?
• What were the factors for success and challenges? What innovative practices were applied?
• What lessons did we learn from our successes? What can we learn from our best failures?
• What conclusions can we make based on those lessons learned and best practices?
• What recommendations can we make to improve the program and organizational practice?

Timeline:

The capitalization report should be finalized by 29 December at the latest.

Methodology:

• Desk review of key documents (program reports and the evaluation report, and any other sources that will add value to the process)
• Interviews or meetings  with relevant stakeholders and beneficiaries (if required with key project staff)
• Learning and capitalization workshop with key staff members and CBO members.

Key deliverables:

• Presentation to the Tdh Lebanon  management on the key findings
• Lessons learned and Capitalization report 
• Folders with all capacity building/training tools adopted, classified between those which proved effective and those which did not
• Summary report for external audience

Requirements for the consultant:

The consultant should meet the following conditions, qualifications and experience:

• The consultant will be required to be in country to facilitate learning / capitalization processes.
• Sound knowledge in Child Protection programming & partner capacity building approaches.
• Previous experience conducting lessons learnt and a capitalization exercise.
• Familiarity with the Lebanon context and previous working experience with the Syria Crisis response and the MENA region would be an advantage.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Fluency in English and Arabic is required.

Requirements for the consultant:

The consultant should meet the following conditions, qualifications and experience:

• The consultant will be required to be in country to facilitate learning / capitalization processes.
• Sound knowledge in Child Protection programming & partner capacity building approaches.
• Previous experience conducting lessons learnt and a capitalization exercise.
• Familiarity with the Lebanese context and previous working experience with the Syria Crisis response and the MENA region would be an advantage.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Fluency in English and Arabic is required.

Application & Selection Process

• Application must be submitted via email addressed to sophie.coelho@tdh.ch  by 10th December.
•  The application should consist of the following documents :
  • CV of the consultant, or the profile of the consulting agency
  • Proposed methodology for the assignment
  • Work plan outlining the tasks to be carried in line with the assignment and the respective dates. The earliest available date
  • Financial proposal
  • Support expected from the Tdh Lebanon towards accomplishing the task.
• The applications received will be screened internally by Tdh technical staff for their completeness and for meeting the technical rigour, experience, required qualifications, budget and time line.
• The applications passing the screening process will be subjected to a detailed approval process commencing with an evaluation by Tdh selection committee.
• The applicants being recommended might be required to provide further information along with supporting documentation, as required by Tdh (reference, previous work samples, and an Skype call / phone interview).
• The selection committee reviews the information at hand and approves or rejects the applications. The designated staff member from Tdh will communicate the decision to the selected applicant.

Ethical considerations:

The consultant/consulting agency must sign the Terre des hommes Child Safeguarding Policy and Code of Conduct and be willing to adhere to its principles and expected practices. If a breach of the policy or code of conduct takes place the consultancy will be terminated immediately without any financial burden on Tdh.

disclaimer on copy right, data protection : All documents, project designs, drawings, data and information shall be treated as confidential and shall not without the written approval of Tdh be made available to any third party. In addition, the consultant(s) formally undertakes not to disclose any parts of the confidential information and shall not, without the written approval of Tdh be made available to any third party. The utilization of the report is solely at the decision and discretion of Tdh. All the documents containing both raw data/materials provided by Tdh and final report, both soft and hard copies are to be returned to Tdh upon completion of the assignment. All documentation and reports written as, and as a result of the research or otherwise related to it, shall remain the property of Tdh. No part of the report shall be reproduced except with the prior, expressed and specific written permission of Tdh.