Job Description: Baseline Survey Consultancy

Assignment Type: Consultancy

Assignment Name: Aldhalee Livelihood Project Baseline Survey

Duration of the assignment: 1 month

Location of the assignment: Aldhalee Governorate in Yemen, Alazariq District, Aldarb and Oubab villages.

Objectives and Deliverables:

What is the context and rationale of the assignment?    

Background.

End of 2021 Dorcas Aid International was successfully registered as an NGO in the South of Yemen, with an office located in Aden. Currently Dorcas is implementing projects   in the FSL/Cash, Wash and Health & MHPSS through partner organisations. Dorcas Yemen is exploring options of implementing a track record building project focusing on WASH, FSL & Health using approaches such as Enterprising people and communities and Entrepreneuships in Aldhalee Governorate in Yemen, Alazariq District, Aldarb and Oubab villages.
Yemen is facing the largest humanitarian crisis worldwide with ongoing armed conflict, displacement, depleted health delivery systems, a fuel and economic crisis and a shortage of humanitarian funding.
Aldhalee is one of the governorates that has been severely affected by the conflict since March 2015.
The conflict, in addition to the displacement, has led to the destruction of facilities and has negatively impacted the food security of the community.
This has worsened the humanitarian situation and escalated humanitarian needs. Additionally, the strain is increasing on local communities and host families’ safety nets, which were already stretched from years of instability and localized conflict.
According to the Humanitarian Needs Overview of 2017, 53% of the
750,000 population of Aldhalee needs humanitarian assistance and 46% of the population in acute need.
As part of the strategic objectives, Dorcas wants to develop coherent and community-based programmes.
Dorcas sees the need of supporting communities focusing on the nexus approach which entails Inclusive Entrepreneuships (IE) and Humanitarian Assistance and Recovery (HAR). 
To get better insight into the needs of the communities, Dorcas Yemen will hire a consultant to conduct the assessment. 

What are the objectives of the assignment?    

TOR: The main objective of this consultancy is to: conduct a baseline needs assessment in the WASH, FSL & Health sectors for the Dorcas Yemen country office to make informed decisions on programming at community level; focusing on Aldhalee Governorate in Yemen, Alazariq District, Aldarb and Oubab villages.

Objectives of the needs assessment:

The main objective of this survey is to deeply understand the living condition of the targeted communities and assess the humanitarian crisis resulting from the ongoing conflict and identify the needs of host communities in food security & livelihoods, Health, and WASH. The objectives of the survey include but not limited to the following:

• Identify the needs and priorities of host communities and IDPs.
• Evaluate the water sources’ status and identify needs.
• Assess the impact of the crisis on the local market prices and functionality of the markets.
• Identify different adaptation mechanisms used by local communities.
• Identify different stakeholders and their current interventions.
• To recommend an appropriate response to address the challenges in WASH, Health and FSL.
• To identify and recommend key livelihood activities that can be implemented by the community to address the challenges including entrepreneurship, agriculture etc. 
•  To identify Agricultural challenges facing farmers in the target area and current agricultural activities and recommend for solutions.
• To explore the functioning of the market.
• Identify the capability and capacity of local traders to supply goods and services.
• To identify health challenges and recommend for solutions.
• To identify the existing health facilities and challenges they are facing in provision of good quality health care services.

The data collection approach should include the use of several tools to attain the assessment objectives, including desk review of background documents, field visits to the different activities of local organisations/stakeholders and community centres, focus group discussions, key informant interviews and interviews with community members in Aldhalee.

Proposed time frame is:

Desk research and background documents 2 days, field visits to local organisations and community centres, KII’s 3 days, visit partners working in Aldhalee 1 day, focus group discussions and interviews with community members 15 days: compiling data into report & inception meetings 10 days. This schedule can be revised by the consultant based on the context. 
The focus of the research is on examining qualitative data, to gain insight in broader community needs and for Dorcas Country Office to gain an understanding on the needs of community members that will shape Dorcas’s interventions.

What are the key deliverables, including reports, presentations, communication materials, etc.?

• Plan and conduct an assessment for proposed project location
• Deliverable; report    

Expected Output

A report with recommendations for future structure and programming

• Executive Summary in bullets (max. 1 pages) 
• Introduction 
• Methodology, including sampling and limitations (no quantitative requirements set) 
• Analysis and findings of the assessment; reporting back on above objectives.
• Conclusions for all the assessment questions 
• Recommendations for implementation for future programming identifying the key areas to focus on and partners that Dorcas can work with, including foreseen capacity building needs of staff (and/or local partners/communities) and training content.
• A power presentation of the report.
• Annexes if any

Qualifications, expertise & skills of the consultant    

• Bachelors or master’s degree in Developmental studies, Economics, Public Health, Evaluation, and Research Methodology, social work, or related field preferred with at least significant coursework in quantitative or qualitative research methods.
• 3-5 years’ experience in Humanitarian work.
• Fluent in Arabic & English.
• Demonstrated capacity & experience in conducting field level assessments including MEAL.
• Experience in communicating and working with a wide range of people, including people of culturally diverse backgrounds.