Consultancy for The Review and Development of Country Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan

About ChildFund

ChildFund is a non-sectarian and non-profit development organization working in more than 30 countries worldwide to improve the well-being of about 15.2 million children and families, regardless of race, creed, religion, and gender. The organization has a three-fold mission to help deprived, excluded and vulnerable children improve their lives and become adults who bring positive changes to their communities: to promote societies that value, protect, and advance the worth and rights of children and to enrich supporters’ lives through their support of the organization’s cause. In Kenya, ChildFund works through 11 Implementing Partners (IPs) and two direct implementing units in 27 counties to implement programmes across various sectors including Emergency, DRR, Food Security and Livelihoods, Child Protection, Education, WASH, Health, shelter among others.

Emergency Response work by ChildFund Kenya

While governments must take primary responsibility for their citizens in disaster situations, the non-state actors like ChildFund are often called upon in humanitarian crises to aid those in need. ChildFund has years of experience in undertaking humanitarian interventions during emergencies. In line with the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), ChildFund is not only focused on how to prepare for and manage disasters, but also identify the underlying factors which cause the disasters and try to reduce them. It does not carry out disaster response in isolation but in coordination with other humanitarian actors and government while also undertaking development-oriented initiatives with focus at the child. The organization is represented through the INGO Country Directors’ forum at the Kenya Humanitarian Partnership Team (KHPT) coordination group, UNOCHA, cluster groups (Nutrition, Child Protection and Food Security), Cash Working Groups, the National Child Protection in Emergencies Working Group (CPiEWG) and Child Education in Emergencies cluster etc.

The numbers of children, families and communities affected by humanitarian crises are increasing steadily due to multiplying disasters. According to ChildFund Kenya’s 5-year Country Strategic Plan (CSP), humanitarian response and disaster risk reduction actions will contribute to reaching approximately 2,700,000 vulnerable children, youth, and their family members annually. Focus will be on humanitarian programming expansion to reach the most deprived, excluded, and vulnerable children affected by protracted humanitarian crises. Looking at our current emergency response programming, we have developed technical and operational capacities over the years to assist children and families affected by different types of disasters in the 27 counties where we operate. While implementing emergency response, ChildFund measures outcomes of its integrated humanitarian assistance packages using internationally recognized indicators from sources like SPHERE, Core Humanitarian Standards, and the Child Protection Minimum Standards. We use surveys, focus groups, and key informant interviews to get real time insights on participants’ satisfaction with our programs, and make any adjustments warranted. Robust accountability measures, including a complaints and feedback mechanism, ensure we are addressing crisis-affected people’s real needs and concerns.

To guide its emergency preparedness and response, ChildFund in xx developed an Emergency Preparedness Plan (EPP). Being a critical document in preparing and responding to disasters, the EPP is expected to be reviewed and updated every 2 years. The frequent reviews of the EPP are to ensure preparedness actions are up to date and are integrated into ChildFund processes, including strategy, budget development, project design, planning and implementation. Development of the EPP involved, among other steps, analyzes of the different disaster risks facing the country and particularly the 27 counties where we work. It as well looked at the response capacities of the ChildFund and its implementing partners. It also analyzes other actors, including Government, NGOs, UN agencies, private sector, capacity, and interventions. Issues of effective coordination and collaboration with relevant stakeholders, which are essential to effective responses, were also evaluated, with a view to seeing how they will enable ChildFund to contribute to the reduction of the impacts of disasters on children and their families.

Overall, the aims of the putting in place the EPP is to:

1. Provide a practical framework for ChildFund Kenya Country Office (CO) to continually improve its preparedness and response.
2. Increase understanding of potential risks affecting children, their families, and communities in its areas of operation.
3. Establish and mainstream a standard for minimum emergency preparedness at CO level.
4. Guide CO as an emergency risk becomes more imminent and help in raising its readiness level.
5. Enable CO to build and increase its emergency response capacities to adequately address humanitarian needs in coordination with other actors.
6. Guide Country Office in their initial emergency responses.
7. Increase ChildFund Kenya’s profile within the County and National governments, UN system, Donors, NGOs, and other key emergency actors.

Now that it is almost two years since the country EPP was developed, it and that organization in 2022 started implementing a new Country Strategic Plan, it is this an opportune moment to review and update the document. This TOR is therefore seeking to engage a consultant that will lead in the review and update of the EPP.

Purpose and Objectives of Consultancy

Overall Objective of the Consultancy

The objective is to support and coordinate the review and development of a ChildFund Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan (EPP), that will enable the realization of the CSP priorities. The Process is expected to assist ChildFund outline EPP sector wise focus in areas of Child Protection in Emergencies (CPiE), Education in Emergency (EiE), WASH, Food and Nutrition Security, Shelter, NFIs, Livestock among others. The EPP is thus envisaged to enable ChildFund and its IPs to mainstream disaster risk reduction in their programmes and projects.

Specific Objectives

• Update the Country and county specific disaster situation data over years to data for trend analysis.
• Coordinate and work with ChildFund team in the gathering of information on the hazards, risks, vulnerability, and capacity in ChildFund Kenya operational areas and update the EPP.
• Gather and information data from various ChildFund Kenya departments update the relevant sections of the Country EPP accordingly.
• Carry out the actual review, design, and delivery of final updated EPP to ChildFund Kenya by end of May 2023.

Scope of Work

The assignment involves review ChildFund EPP with the relevant up to date information and data from credible sources relating to the counties where ChildFund has operation and information from the National government and other actors regarding Emergency preparedness, plan, and response in the country. The plan will encompass hazards, disasters, capacities, and vulnerability and disaster preparedness. The plan is expected to be aligned to ChildFund’s CSP, Government plans and strategies both at the national and county level. This exercise will take a maximum of 3 weeks and may require where possible engagement with the various IP in different counties where possible for information gathering. The consultant will work with the DRR specialist in consultation with Program and Sponsorship Director for the review and input into the EPP before presentation of the draft for validation by the Management.

Methodology

• Review of Government, UN agencies and other NGOs emergency documents
• Discussion and information gathering from Participants, ChildFund Staff, Implementing Partners, and Government officials in target Counties.
• Engagement of key stakeholders in the humanitarian Sector in the review of the EPP.
• The consultant should lead a process of self-reflection/learning and results incorporated into the EPP.
• Review of existing documents within ChildFund including the CSP, project documents, policies, and reports.
• Review and input into the existing ChildFund EPP.

Expected Contents and Outputs

• ChildFund and its IP staff should be able to appreciate and understand the potential risks affecting children, their families, and communities and how to respond.
• An updated EPP that will enable ChildFund to prepare and respond to different emergencies within the next 2 years adequately and effectively.
• The EPP should be implementable and enable ChildFund and IPs better contribute to the timely and relevant emergency response.

Tentative Schedule

• The exercise will take approximately 3 weeks from the agreed start date of the assignment.
• There will be an inception meeting with the consultant on the first day with key ChildFund Kenya team.
• The consultant will take 5 working days to gather updated information from the relevant stakeholders as indicated in the scope and methodology above
• One day reflection and learning workshop
• Review and update of the ChildFund EPP will take 6 working days and followed presentation to ChildFund for validation.
• Upon validation the consultant will finalization the EPP final document and submit to ChildFund within two working days.

Deliverables

• Submission for an Inception Report at three days after taking up the assignment.
• Submission of the final reviewed and updated ChildFund Emergency Preparedness Plan
• A short presentation to ChildFund on the EPP

Consultant’s Qualifications

The consultant must have the following competencies:

• Must have an advanced degree in related to humanitarian response, disaster management, development studies or or any other related discipline.
• Must have similar experience on Emergency Response planning and Disaster Preparedness in the past 5 years
• Good understanding of Kenya disaster and climate change context
• Experience in developing organizational strategies, contingency plans, actions plans and policy documents etc. in areas of Emergency
• Excellent analytical and report writing skills
• Excellent written and spoken English

Payment mode

Payment will be done upon submission and acceptance of the final EPP by ChildFund.

NB:

• The Consultant’s compensation shall be paid NET, within 30 days from receipt of a proper invoice unless otherwise specified.
• Payment will be made by cheque unless otherwise specified.
• The payment shall be subjected to 5% withholding tax as required by the Law at the time of payment.

How to Apply