Background

Ethiopia is vulnerable to various natural hazards- drought, flood, human and livestock epidemics, urban and forest fires along with conflicts etc. While the southern and eastern parts of the country are often hit by severe and recurrent droughts, there are flooding in few parts of the country which adversely affects the lives and livelihoods of the affected communities due to recurrent natural disasters. The country’s vulnerability to natural disasters is due to number of inter-linked factors. These include dependence on rain-fed agriculture, under-development of water resources, land degradation and related factors. Ethiopia has mainly dry sub-humid, semi-arid and arid regions all of which are prone to desertification and drought. Ethiopia’s climate is highly variable and is projected to become more variable due to climate change, with the potential of increased frequency of extreme weather events including floods and droughts. Thus these recurrent natural disasters have resulted in persistent, high level of food insecurity and recurrent emergency situations and weakening the social fabrics.

UNDP, Ethiopia has been implementing a multi-donor and multi-year Disaster Risk Management and Livelihood Recovery Programme (DRR/LR) since 2010   in the most hazard prone regions of the country. This programme is being implemented in partnership with Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. It is being implemented by the Disaster Risk Management and Food Security Sector (DRMFSS) of Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Economic Development (MOFED) with technical and financial support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The overall goal of this programme is to enhance institutional capacities for a disaster risk reduction and ensure effective policy, program and planning from federal to community levels in the country. The programme aims at enhancinginstitutional capacity to lead cost-effective, systematic and sustainable actions towards the protection of lives, livelihoods and property of vulnerable population through risk reduction measures against various natural disasters affecting the country.              

The current DRM and livelihood recovery programme focuses on the following areas and level of interventions:

• Restoration of livelihood and improved food security through cash for work, community based livelihood support for the most disaster affected communities of the selected regions of the country;
• Access to food, water, basic veterinary services through enhancement of their physical, human and social assets addressing towards longer-term development;
• Development of Community Based Disaster Risk Management(CBDRM) planning at community/district levels to ensure effective and future disaster preparedness;
• Support institutional strengthening, policy initiatives, capacity development, awareness generation at federal level;
• Ensure effective programme, planning and policy for sustainable human development.

In view of this, UNDP Ethiopia seeks a national consultant to facilitate the process of the evaluation of its DRM and Livelihood Recovery Programme. The National consultant will work in close cooperation with the International consultant hired for this purpose to support in timely, qualitative mid-term programme evaluation.

Duties and Responsibilities

The proposed evaluation seeks assessing the impact of the project over a broad range of components covering restoration of livelihoods of the disaster prone communities, capacity building, institutional strengthening, partnership building, management effectiveness, support to policy formulation and implementation, inter-agency coordination and various other factors that constitute holistic and sustainable results towards disaster risk management. In this context, the National consultant would assess the contribution of the project in terms of its processes, strategies and impacts along with expected outcomes within the following proposed frameworks:

Strategic orientation:

• Assessment of the appropriateness and effectiveness of the programme strategy in achieving the desired objectives;
• Evaluation of the relevance of the DRM programme to the current national/regional priorities.

 Programme Performance/Impact:

• Assessment of physical progress in line with the planned programme workplan;
• Appraisal of the contribution of the programme in mitigating the impacts of droughts and floods in the programme areas;
• Identification of direct and indirect beneficiaries and assessment of their perception on the benefits derived from the programme;
• Analysis of the important factors that influenced the programme performance;
• Assessment of the monitoring strategy particularly by implementing partners and beneficiary communities;
• Assessment of the degree of ownership at federal, regional, zonal and Woreda levels;
• Analysis of the local level risk management initiatives supported under the programme and review the effectiveness of the methodology;

Sustainability:

• Assessment of sustainability of the programme results in light of the current policy and programmatic thrust of both UNDP and Government of Ethiopia
• Review the activities and their adequacy to sustain the achievements so far:

Partnership strategy:

• Assessment of the effectiveness of building and strengthening partnership in achieving the results and achieving the gains;
• Assessment of resource mobilization strategy;
• Assessment of partnership for vulnerability reduction among UN agencies, line ministries, academic/technical institutions, private sectors and other development partners.

Cross-cutting issues:

• Ownership of the programme by federal level partners and mainstreaming of initiatives in the governmental systems and its impact so far as to policy formulation and establishment of legal/techno-legal frameworks;
• Ensure gender involvement in the whole programme implementations;
• Inclusion of various cross cutting themes including disability, conflict sensitivity, social protection, volunteerism and other related local leaders in the programme.

Lessons learnt:

• Identification of innovating approaches/methodologies that could be documented, shared and replicated to upscale the same and mainstreaming it into over all programme implementations;
• Identification of approaches that failed in reaching their goals and documentation of the same for improvement of DRM impact in all programme areas;

 Strategic impact:

• Review of project strategy in terms of contribution towards resilience building and make recommendations on potential future effective strategic programme development;
• Assessment of effectiveness on contribution of the programme in the initiation of local development plans and policies;
• Recommendations on the strategies to enhance community resilience;
• Identification and recommendations on the innovative approaches and up scaling of success of the programme to contribute to the policy level institutional support;
• Evaluation of capacity development of various stakeholders at all levels for sustainability of the programme initiatives.

 Management effectiveness:

• Identification of implementation and/or management issues during the programme implementations phase;
• Effectiveness of arrangements for monitoring, evaluation, research;
• Assessment of value for money for each programmatic components.

Future programmatic opportunities for development cooperation:

• Identification and recommendations on the mid-course to realign the programme in line with the federal level policy changes;
• Recommendations on addressing the gaps in achieving the outcomes, impacts and strengthening of partnerships;
• Development of a multi-year programme on the basis of the lessons and impact of the current programme.
  

Competencies

Professionalism

• Knowledge and understanding of UN’s operational context in Ethiopia, particularly in the fields of common services, joint premises and common procurement.
• Ability to identify key procedures and issues, conduct data collection, operational analyses and discussions with decision-makers to propose solutions to these issues.
• Ability to apply sound judgment in the context of assignments given, and work under pressure.
• Shows persistence and remains calm in stressful situations.
• Shows pride in work and achievements, demonstrates professional competence and mastery of the subject matter.
• Responds positively to feedback and different points of view. Conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results.

Planning and Organizing

• Develops clear goals that are consistent with the terms defined here.
• Identifies priority activities and assignments, and adjusts them as required.
• Allocates appropriate time and resources for completing work by foreseeing risks and developing contingency plans accordingly.
• Monitors and adjusts plans as necessary, and uses time effectively.

Communications

• Speaks and writes clearly and effectively;
  
• Listens to others, correctly interprets messages from others and responds appropriately;
  
• Asks questions to clarify, and exhibits interest in having two-way communication; tailors language, tone, style and format to match audience;
• Keeps confidential information undisclosed;
• Capacity to communicate fluently with different stakeholders (civil society, government authorities, local communities, project staff).

Accountability

• Takes ownership of responsibilities and honors commitments;
• Delivers assigned tasks within prescribed time, cost and quality standards;
• Operates in compliance with organizational regulations and rules;
• Takes personal responsibility for his/her shortcomings.

• Learn, share and acquire new competencies and seek new challenges by exploring new approaches.

• Works against an agreed outcome and priorities.
• Seeks performance feedback from supervisors and support staff in the performance review in a constructive and objective manner.

• Excellent research, analytical and reporting skills;
• Ability to provide general leadership and direction to the study/research analysis and report writing;
• Excellent research and advocacy skills relating to governance, human rights and accountability, with a proven record for publishing widely particularly on human rights;
• Strong organizational skills;
• Strong communication skills.

Knowledge of the national policy and legislation

• Ability to undertake technical policy-focused research related to Disaster Risk Management.
• Ability to work under pressure, with a group of UN agencies, and to deliver in a timely manner without compromising quality standards.

Required Skills and Experience

Academic qualifications:

• Advanced degree (Masters or equivalent) in disaster management, environmental management,, management, development studies, urban and regional planning.

Work experience:

• At least five (5) years of work experience in disaster management, vulnerability reduction or a related field with at least three years in programme management function from national to community level;
• Proven experience in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Risk Reduction, resilience building including experience in programme evaluation; 
• Work experience in multi-hazard context and slow onset recurrent disasters will be a strong asset;
• Past experience in working with the UN, and UNDP in particular, would be an advantage;
• Proven experience in report writing and drafting;
• Interest and experience of working in multi-cultural environment.

 Computer skills:

• Full command of Microsoft applications (word, excel, PowerPoint) and common internet applications will be required.

Language: 

• Excellent knowledge of English, including the ability to set out a coherent argument in presentations and group interactions.

Please use the below link:

http://www.et.undp.org/content/ethiopia/en/home/operations/procurement/IndividualConsultantreviewCRGE1/.