RFQ FY22-104 Humanitarian Learning Review At Plan International

1. Background Information on Plan International

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.

We believe in the power and potential of every child. But this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. And it’s girls who are most affected. Working together with children, young people, our supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children.

We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood. And we enable children to prepare for – and respond to – crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge.

We have been building powerful partnerships for children for over 75 years, and are now active in more than 70 countries.

Read more about Plan International’s Global Strategy: 100 Million Reasons at https://plan-international.org/strategy

2. Background/Context

· Current levels of humanitarian need are at unprecedented levels*.*

· 45 million people are on the brink of famine. 247 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, with the humanitarian sector targeting 183 million through the appeals mechanism, requiring 41 billion USD

· Against this backdrop of a deteriorating global humanitarian situation, Plan International has recently updated its Global Strategy and highlighted the need for increased focus on humanitarian work and addressing the impact of these crises on children and in particular girls.

· It is critical to undertake this Learning Review Exercise now within this context and to contribute to taking this new Global Strategy forward. It should also be noted that this is a unique learning initiative and not a regular Real-Time Review exercise.

Ethiopia

Conflict broke out in November 2020 in Tigray region, one year later, the humanitarian situation is extremely dire and continues to deteriorate. Fighting across Tigray, Afar and Amhara have resulted in large-scale displacements of over 1.8 million (Afar and Amhara and 2-1 in Tigray.). The destruction of schools and IDPs sheltering in schools have affected an estimated 2.7 million children in northern Ethiopia. 1.6 million children under five years and pregnant and lactating women in Tigray and an estimated 1.4 million children and pregnant and lactating women in Amhara need malnutrition preventative and treatment interventions. The delivery of urgent humanitarian assistance has been hampered by access constraints due to insecurity as well as the limited presence of humanitarian partners on the ground. Electricity, banking and telecommunications have been cut in several locations and commercial flights suspended. No humanitarian supplies have arrived into Tigray Region through the Semera-Abala-Mekelle route since 18 October.

Plan has so far secured 11.2 million Euros out of a funding targeted of Euro 10m (target being revised in new response plan) and reached 62,456 out of the targeted 86,556 direct beneficiaries with Potable water, sanitation and hygiene promotion including WASH NFI, Nutrition and health, Protection of girls, adolescent girls and young women from violence and abuse, Inclusive Education and Livelihood/food security.

Mozambique

Conflict broke out in Cabo Delgado in 2017 and has led to over 854,264 people displaced across the province and neighbouring provinces, 48.2% of these are children. The conflict has disrupted school activities, affecting more than 123,000 pupils, 4,000 of whom were forced to continue their studies in other districts far from their places of residence. In addition, the period between October 2017 and July 2021, 46 schools have been destroyed including 104 classrooms, 20 administrative blocks and 5 District services of education Youth and technology offices. 1,736 teachers are currently displaced in Ancuabe, Balama, Chiure, Mecufi, Metuge, Montepuez, Mueda, Namuno, Meluco and Pemba. Furthermore, 8 teachers have lost their lives due to terrorism in Cabo Delgado.

Plan has been responding to the crisis and has reached 41,480 people (16,199 girls, 12,323 boys; 6,355 women; and 6,603 men). PIMz has revised its IDPs crisis response plan targeting a total of €5,019,491.00, out of this €2,438,789.5 has been secured, representing approximately 49% of the target €5,019,491.00.

Myanmar

Conflict and political violence have further constrained the humanitarian situation in the country. Between February 1 and August 1, 2021, approximately 206,000 people were internally displaced in Myanmar, and another 22,000 sought asylum in neighbouring countries, according to the UN^[i]. The gravity of the situation can be assessed from the UN report of August 2021, which indicates that 3 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, 2 million of whom have been newly identified since February 1, 2021^[ii]. Approximately 1 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar remain in Bangladesh, although there are some indications of increased support for their rights from the majority Burmese population, driven by a newly shared resentment towards the military. The Covid-19 pandemic and the escalating civil unrest have hindered children’s access to education in Myanmar throughout 2020 and 2021. School closures due to Covid-19 containment measures affected 12 million school-aged children from March 2020^[iii] through May 2021^[iv]. Unfortunately, only a quarter of school-aged children reportedly returned to school in June 2021, due to continuing insecurity, attacks on schools, and the dismissal of teachers. In Myanmar millions of people have been pushed into poverty by the interplay of multiple factors in the last year: Covid-19, military coup, civil unrest, heightened conflict and failing economy resulting in economic downturn. According to the UN, about 50% of the country’s population could fall into poverty by the start of 2022, doubling the rate of 2017.

Plan currently has an emergency programming portfolio of EUR 18,124,146 with around 140 staff implementing the projects in Rakhine, Kachin, and Kayin states. Plan has been a main provider of Education in Emergencies (EIE), Child Protection in Emergencies (CPIE), peace building, and food security assistance in IDP camps, host communities, and surrounding communities since 2015. Most recently this work has been supported by DFAT, BMZ, UNICEF and WFP. Plan’s current programming, staff, partnerships, and infrastructure in Rakhine and Kachin States enable immediate reach, participation and operationality – all essentials for timely response to local needs. Plan participates in various coordination mechanisms, and is an active member of the Child Protection, EIE sector, and Food Security clusters at both state and union levels, as well as the Mine Action Working Group, which enables learning and sharing from best practice. Plan co-leads the Myanmar Accountability to Affected Populations Working Group with WFP.

3. Description & Objectives

The purpose of the review is to learn from the current phases of Plan’s emergency responses in Ethiopia, Myanmar and Mozambique and use the lessons to improve Plan’s response programming in the three countries and beyond. **

· To consider how Plan International can work in contexts when broad systems are not functioning.

· Assess the ability of the organisation’s technical know-how, remote programming, engaging non-state actors and general readiness to work in high-risk environments

· Reflection on Plan International’s risk appetite and the ability to be bold in challenging contexts and understand how to balance this with staff safety and security.

· Recognising the highly competitive fundraising context, assess how effectively Plan international has been in securing funds to meet its programming ambition and identifying key steps that need to be considered to further strengthen this area of work. How effective is Plan International’s engagement with the government, donors and non-state actors in these contexts

· The organisation’s agility dealing with complex security situations, by being conflict sensitive

· Share key learnings from this exercise into Plan International’s position paper on the Humanitarian, Development, Peace (HDP) Nexus

At the country level, the observation findings and learnings will be used to make corrections and improvements necessary on the current response, to improve mid and long-term plans considering the nature of response including inputs to the update and review of Country Strategy as needed. The Country office is best positioned to identify how best to address any findings in a way that is appropriate and relevant for the operational context.

Finally, the objective of this review is NOT to measure the impact of the response – it is to accumulate lessons learnt and celebrate successes.

Users

This learning review exercise will be shared for cross regional learning to strengthen global emergency response.

Output

A short concise report will be developed to provide management with an independent review of the current operations and areas where further consideration is required by the review team.

The Humanitarian Director, together with the three Country Directors, is responsible for coordinating and finalising the management response to the review and where appropriate and possible real time changes will be implemented This will be in conjunction with support from the Regional Teams. Where findings relate to global, regional or NO issues, the Global Hub, APAC and MEESA and NOs will be requested to provide input to the management response. All respective offices are not under any obligation to act on the findings, but are responsible for providing management feedback on each finding and whether it is accepted or not. If accepted, details on what steps will be taken should be provided. If the finding is partially accepted, and the reasons for this. If not accepted, the reasons as to why should be provided.

The report and management response will be sent by the Humanitarian Director to the Regional Director and Deputy Regional Director for management accountability and further will be shared widely with the Humanitarian network to contribute to the new Global Strategy.

Time and Locations

The Review is scheduled to be conducted during March and April 2022 with data and information collection at Country level. We propose undertaking country visits and data collection in the following order:

1. Myanmar
2. Ethiopia
3. Mozambique

Aside from Plan International staff, it is recommended that youth and female stakeholders of the response be interviewed where/when possible. If required, the country office will support facilitating interpreting depending on the languages of selected review team members.

The use of independent interpreters should be planned and budgeted for when the team members do not speak the country language.

**

Stakeholders

The primary stakeholders for this review are:

• Plan International Country Management Teams (for decision making and program strategy), Country Operation and Program teams in the four countries.
• NOs, Global Hub and the two regional teams (APAC and MEESA) who were involved since the initial phase of the response (as key stakeholders for interviews), because the review is also aimed to looks at how the organisation as a whole responded to these crises.

In addition, the review should listen to affected population groups including their representatives; local government stakeholders, implementing partners and any national/regional level cluster mechanism/working groups that have been activated for this response.

The Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS) should be used as a reference for the review process.

Review Team Members

The learning and reflection team should be able to provide an independent, objective perspective as well as technical experience on review process and will be the primary author of the report, The review exercise will comprise of the following team members:

• A representative of Plan International Global Assurance, TBD
• Internal representative, Maria Sommardahl, SNO
• TBD external to Plan representative (external consultant)

The team should take all reasonable steps to ensure that the review process is designed and conducted to respect and protect the rights and welfare of children and communities involved and to ensure that the review is technically accurate and reliable, is conducted in a transparent and impartial manner, and contributes to organizational learning and accountability.

It is expected that there will be a minimum of x1 external representative and engagement of the Global Assurance team at Global Hub.

Where possible, there will in country travel by the review team members. If the CO can support the review process then there will be a possibility to conduct interview/FGDs at the program areas level supported by Plan’s staff.

There will be an internal reference group to support the review team which will comprise of Global Hub, Regional and Country representatives, including the respective Regional Director per sub region.

Review Framework and Methodology

Gender is a central element of all Plan International emergency response programmes. It is critical to note whether this response is contributing to Plan International’s new Global Strategy, and also reflects the Feminist Leadership principles.

The review should consider the questions from the above objectives. In addition the review should question to what extent the response approach is gender aware or gender transformative. This will be done by considering the following guiding questions, and also the Feminist Leadership Principle of Diversity;

· Are the different needs of girls, boys, women and men identified? In particular, is the girl child at the core our programme planning?

· Does the response address these identified needs?

· Is the programme carried out in ways which promote gender equality in the communities where Plan International works?

In addition, the review should consider the level of ambition of a response compared to the level of need as well as the level of funding available and show whether proposals are aligned with the gender focus and those submitted have been graded against the IASC GAM.

The review should reflect on whether we have managed the risk appropriately in the three countries context.

It is expected that a short report will be developed that reflect on the above questions and provides findings against these areas. These key themes/areas are:

· Gender and Feminist Leadership principles

· Risk appetite and Management

· Systems and Readiness

· Remote programming (in light of Covid-19 and security situation in many contexts)

· Working in complex environments, including security

· Learnings from HDP

4. Timeline

Beginning of March 2022: Finalise review team, evaluation of proposals

Week of 7th March 2022: Supplier/Consultant interviews

Week of 14^th : Contract finalisation

Week of 14^th March to 1^st April 2022: Undertake review

Week of 18^th April 2022: Share findings with the three country teams

End of April 2022: Disseminate report and sharing learnings within each region as well as sharing the report globally through the Alert Group

5. Expected qualifications of Consultant

• Proven experience in carrying out the work.
• Proficiency in qualitative methods of data collection
• Proven experience with data analysis
• Experiences on Plan’s cross-cutting issues such as gender, inclusion as well as awareness on child protection and child rights issues.

· Significant experience in managing humanitarian responses and/or experience conducting similar learning exercises for multi country emergencies.

· Experience of humanitarian donor priorities and funding streams.

[i] “Myanmar Update as of 01 August 2021,” UNHCR Regional Bureau for Asia and Pacific, August 1, 2021, https://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/Myanmar%20Emergency%20Update-1August2021.pdf (accessed August 16, 2021), p. 1.

[ii] “Addendum to the 2021 Humanitarian Response Plan” OCHA, August 17, 2021, https://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/myanmar-humanitarian-snapshot-august-2021 (accessed August 18, 2021).

[iii] “UNICEF Education COVID-19 Response Update – October,” UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office, 2020, https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/sites/www.humanitarianresponse.info/files/documents/files/201028_eapro_education_response_update_updated.pdf.

[iv] “MYANMAR: MORE THAN 100 ATTACKS ON SCHOOLS IN MAY,” Save the Children news release, June 11, 2021, https://www.savethechildren.net/news/myanmar-more-100-attacks-schools-may (accessed July 28, 2021).