Vacancy Announcement Details

Evaluation of UNHCR livelihoods interventions in urban Senegal

12 Mar 2019

UNHCR

Consultancy Vacancy announcement - livelihoods evaluation Senegal.pdf

UNHCR's Senegal operation has been implementing livelihood interventions since 2008 to promote self-reliance among the refugee population to which the Government of Senegal has granted asylum. Following recommendations from a 2016 audit, the UNHCR Office in Senegal has requested an evaluation of the urban livelihoods programme. The evaluation will gather evidence on resilience, well-being, and self-reliance of refugees targeted through UNHCR interventions from 2016-2018, and will seek to inform future UNHCR livelihood programming, as well as refugee outreach and targeting in urban settings. In the last 10 years or more, the livelihood interventions in the urban zone are usually axed towards individually managed income generating activities – small trade, craftsmanship, etc., some group activities, and trainings on business skills. The evaluation is timely, as it will feed into the Multi-Year Multi-Partner protection and solutions strategy (2018-2020), as well as UNHCR’s Global Strategy for Refugee Livelihoods and Economic Inclusion (2019-2023). The evaluation will provide strategic recommendations for the country operation on partnerships and private sector engagement, advocacy for economic inclusion and access to decent work.

UNHCR has experienced considerable advances in the development of new international frameworks such as the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) - which highlight the need for taking on a whole-of-society approach and engaging a wide-range of stakeholders to support refugees towards self-reliance. Based on the Grand Bargain, UNHCR has committed to the New Way of Working and is piloting the Multi-Year Multi partner protection and Solutions Strategy aimed at reducing dependency on aid through a durable solutions and resilience approach. The Terms of Reference (ToR) lays out the purpose and scope of the evaluation. It will serve to guide the evaluation team and inform key stakeholders about the process, objectives, and intended results.

The evaluation is scheduled to run from April to August 2019, and will be implemented by a team of two externally recruited individual consultants. The evaluation will be co-managed by a focal person in UNHCR’s Regional Office in Senegal and UNHCR’s Evaluation Service in Geneva. UNHCR’s Livelihoods and Economic Inclusion Unit (LEI) will provide technical support and feedback on deliverables. The evaluation will consist of an inception phase, a data collection phase, and a reporting phase. The inception phase is anticipated to take approximately one month, during which the methodology and Key Evaluation Questions (KEQs) are refined and finalised. Specific dates and timing of the field mission will be finalised during the inception phase, and in close consultation with the Senegal Regional Office.

Profile of the evaluation team

The functional requirements for individual consultants - who should be willing and able to travel to Senegal / Dakar and be able to work in French - are as follows:

Team Leader of the evaluation team

· University degree (in the fields of economics, social sciences, microfinance, agriculture and food security) plus 10 to 12 years of relevant professional experience or a graduate degree plus a minimum from 5 to 10 years of relevant professional experience in livelihood areas.

· Minimum of 5 years’ experience in program evaluation in the areas of economics, microfinance, socio-economic analysis and livelihoods interventions analysis in a humanitarian and development context.

· In-depth knowledge of livelihood literature, relevant analytical frameworks and programming approaches and standards.

· Evidence of previous experience at the lead (preferred) or participant as a senior member of the team in the evaluation.

· Institutional knowledge of UNHCR's mandate and functioning.

· Proven experience and in-depth knowledge of various methods of data collection and analysis and techniques used in evaluation and operational research (e.g. participatory assessments, FGDs, outcome mapping, problem ranking, vulnerability ranking, self-reliance index scoring, as well as an understanding of survey design)

· Technical expertise in relevant sectoral areas, including Entrepreneurship, Education and Technical and Vocational Training (ETVT), Monetary Interventions (CBI), job placement, microfinance.

· In-depth experience in conducting evaluation requiring a complex level of analysis in a clear and convincing way, including using graphs, schematic visualizations.

· Proficiency in French and English.

Member(s) of the evaluation team

· University degree (in the fields of economics, social sciences, microfinance, agriculture and food security) plus 5 to 7 years of relevant professional experience or a graduate degree plus a minimum 3 to 5 years of relevant professional experience in livelihood areas.

· Proven experience (minimum 5 years) to support the collection and analysis of data for evaluation purposes (preferable) or studies and operational research on issues of economy, social protection and livelihoods.

· Good knowledge of livelihood literature, relevant analytical frameworks and programming approaches and standards.

· In-depth knowledge of various methods of data collection and analysis and techniques used in evaluation and operational research.

· Proven expertise in facilitating participatory workshops involving different groups and participants.

· Technical expertise in relevant sectoral areas, including Entrepreneurship, Education and Technical and Vocational Training (ETVT), Monetary Interventions (CBI), job placement, microfinance.

· Proficiency in French and English.

Guidelines for Submitting Proposals

The full TOR can be found here.

  • Individuals can submit applications for either position or jointly as a team (the Team Leader and Team Member(s) together). Even in case of joint applications, the contracting modality will be individual contracting.
  • In the application, the candidates must specify if they are applying as the Team Leader or Team Member; and in case of joint applications the Team Leader and Team Member roles must be clearly specified.
  • Interested applicants are also required to submit a motivation letter (maximum 2 pages), which includes:

· Details of how they meet the ‘Essential Skills and Experience’ outlined in the TOR, including description of past professional experience and evidence of their capacity to lead this evaluation synthesis;

· A summary of the envisioned approach to the evaluation.

  • Interested applicants should submit two copies of their CVs: one in P11 format (additional pages here) , and one in a personalised format of their choice.
  • Please submit a recent sample of relevant work, publications, or research with regards to evaluations, assessments, preferably in the context of refugee response, asylum seekers, displaced populations, migration, and/or other related topics
  • Applications should include contact details for three references.
  • Applications should be sent electronically to hqevaser@unhcr.org with the following subject line: “[LAST NAME, first Name], UNHCR livelihoods evaluation SENEGAL”. The deadline for submissions is 1 April 2019, 8:00 a.m. CET.
  • Only complete applications and shortlisted candidates will be contacted.