UNDP Jobs - 63443- Provision of Individual Services to Carry Out Moni

Provision of Individual Services to Carry Out Monitoring and Evaluation Assignment

Location :

Beirut, LEBANON

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

29-Feb-16 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

Languages Required :

Arabic English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

This TOR falls under the UNDP project “Improving Living Conditions in Palestinian Gatherings Host Communities”, funded by KFW, the Government of Japan and the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). The project aims at providing more comprehensive and sustainable solutions to improve living conditions in the Palestinian Gatherings host communities in Lebanon, focusing on the living environment (Basic Urban Services, hygiene and shelter). In addition to the 12 official Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon, a total of 42 Palestinian Gatherings are distributed along the regions of Lebanon, housing Palestinian refugees in the South (Tyre and Saida), North, Beirut and Beqaa. Palestinian Gatherings are informal settlements ‘constituting relatively homogenous refugee communities, such as smaller villages or households living in the same multi-story residential buildings” (fafo, 2003).

Being informal areas, Palestinian gatherings remain excluded from national strategies or local development plans, increasing poverty and marginalization of the local refugee communities and the deterioration of the living environment. The forty-two gatherings fall under the municipal domain of twenty-five municipalities; however, municipalities in general do not intervene to provide basic urban services or improve the physical environment in these areas. The lack of municipal intervention is attributed to a number of reasons mainly: lack of financial resources; the security situation in the gatherings mainly adjacent to camps; and most importantly misconceptions that the gatherings are served by UNRWA. In fact, as per UNRWA’s mandate, the Agency’s services targeting refugees living in the gatherings are restricted to education and health coverage. UNRWA’s interventions in terms of basic urban services, including WASH, and shelter self-help programmes are restricted to the boundaries of the 12 official camps. Due to the lack of service providers, refugees living in the gatherings resort to a number of informal self-help initiatives to access and maintain basic urban services. While these informal practices that are affordable to dwellers ensure their access to some services, the services themselves are inadequate, insufficient and characterized by huge gaps and shortfalls. In addition, they are ultimately connected in an ad-hoc manner to the surrounding municipal networks or to the camps’ networks in the case of gatherings that are adjacent to camps; however no coordination mechanisms exist between the actors. Since 2012 and with the increased influx of Palestinian and Syrian refugees from Syria, the conditions of the living environment in the gatherings have been dramatically worsening.

The project has the following objectives:

Linking relief response to longer-term sustainable development of the living environment in Palestinian Gatherings;
Strengthening the resilience of original host refugee communities and improving living conditions for new refugees from Syria in the gatherings;
Reducing tensions through addressing both host and new refugees in the gatherings and engaging local actors and local authorities.

The project has the following outputs:

Output 1: Provide environmentally and economically sustainable systems of basic urban services (including WASH) in the gatherings.
Output 2: Improve hygiene conditions for host and new refugee communities in the gatherings.
Output 3: Develop a national coordination and information sharing platform for response and development in Palestinian Gatherings.

This assignment aims at carrying out assessment and evaluation of activities implemented in the context of this project, which started in January 2016 and will end in April 2016.

Duties and Responsibilities

and Evaluation of the project to assess the overall project contribution to improving living conditions in Palestinian Gatherings; responding to the needs escalated by the crisis; and to enhancing communication and coordination between local communities and the concerned municipalities and other actors. Of utmost importance is assessing the sustainability of interventions and the project attempt to bridge relief to longer-term development in the gatherings. The objectives of the exercise are as follows:

Determine the overall status of the project and the achievement of its intended objectives;
Review and evaluate the approaches and processes set in place by the project;
Identify lessons learned at the national and local levels;
Provide recommendations to consolidate and sustain results.

Findings of the project shall be mainly grouped along the following lines:

the findings were grouped in the following key areas:

Achievement of Project– The extent to which the overall Project objectives and outputs/results were achieved;
Project Design and Management – The management processes used in the implementation of the Project;
Stakeholder Participation and Ownership– Networks and partnerships in support of the implementation of the Project and the degree of national and/or local ownership developed;
Sustainability–Key actions that were put in place to ensure sustainability of project outcomes.
Lessons Learned– The main managerial and institutional lessons that were learned and which can be applied in other projects.

The evaluation will also include a set of recommendations to be taken into consideration in the project’s future interventions.

Tasks and Activities:

The individual consultant will achieve the following tasks/activities:

Conduct a desk review and meeting with project team in order to gain knowledge of the projects’ approach, activities, outputs and achievements;
Carry out interviews and/or workshops with project partners and stakeholders in order to document the process and approach put in place by the project to identify and implement activities and reach out and engage actors;
Assess the influence of this process on the project effectiveness and measure to what extend the process and various interventions have responded to the stakeholders’ needs and in which way they impacted the direct and indirect beneficiaries; Measure to what extent the project achievements are so far in line with its stated objectives, outcomes, and outputs; explain why/why not and what kind of corrective measures are needed to take place;
Develop lessons learned and good practices in order to maximize the experiences gained and provide recommendations on how to best utilize them for the next period;
Provide recommendations for more sustainable results and future interventions.

For additional information, please refer to ANNEX I – Terms of Reference.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge in quantitative and qualitative research and approaches;
Deep knowledge of Lebanon and the socio-political dynamics at the community level; previous experience in undertaking similar exercises in Palestinian Gatherings is a plus.

Kindly refer to the Individual Consultant Procurement Notice and all related Annexes by visiting the below link:

http://www.lb.undp.org/content/lebanon/en/home/operations/procurement/

Please make sure to submit all the requested documents/information; otherwise, your application will be considered incomplete.

Required Skills and Experience

Academic qualifications:

An advanced degree in Political sciences, International Relations, or any social sciences or relevant field.

Years of experience:

A minimum of 7 years of experience in similar evaluation assignments;

Langauges:

Fluency in Arabic and English.