Job ID: #648198
Career categories: Monitoring and Evaluation
Country: Kenya
City: Lodwar
Theme: Disaster Management
Job years of experience: 3-5 years
Job type: Consultancy
Application Closing date: 07 Apr 2014
The Catholic Diocese of Lodwar (DoL) is a faith based organization in Turkana that has an established network of parishes all over Turkana County and first began its humanitarian work in this region over 50 years ago. The DoL has played a critical role in filling gaps in state service provision by bringing humanitarian interventions to vulnerable groups. The DoL is a strong partner of the government and in addition to livelihoods; its interventions span the sectors of water, health and education as well as justice and peace, the empowerment of women and human rights.
Trócaire, an Irish NGO with an office in Nairobi since 1994, has worked in partnership with the DoL for over 15 years and have together implemented a number of humanitarian, emergency and recovery programmes, as well as justice and peace initiatives, in Turkana. In Kenya, Trócaire has supported a wide range of partners implementing programmes in livelihood security, disaster risk reduction, humanitarian response, human rights, policy research and advocacy, gender equality and HIV and AIDS. Work has focused on different levels from grassroots service delivery to policy engagement and advocacy.
The DoL has vast experience in working with communities, holds a position of considerable authority at the grass roots level and is well respected by the local administration while Trócaire promotes a development agenda, provides technical assistance to supplement local capacity and draws on its global engagement issues such as climate change and humanitarian good practice to strengthen programming.
THE PROJECT OVERVIEW
The Arid and Semi-Arid Lands Resilience Project (ARP) is a DFID funded project managed by Trócaire Kenya and implemented through the Catholic Diocese of Lodwar in Loima district, Turkana County.
The ARP project is implemented by the Diocese of Lodwar in five locations of the Loima District, namely: Kalemunyang, Lokiriama, Lorengippi, Namoruputh and Turkwell. The project is working towards strengthening the resilience of pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities in Kenya to cope with, and respond to, climate change and to recover from crisis while protecting their livelihoods and assets. This project is part of the larger Trócaire’s ASALs Resilience Programme (ARP) that has a 5 year development plan aimed at improving livelihood security and resilience to droughts in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands of Kenya. This project is therefore, a three year partnership with DFID in Turkana County starting from April 2013 to March 2016.
The project has four main objectives:
Objective 1: Increase income and improve food security for 2,109 vulnerable households in Turkwel riverine agro-pastoral zone and also Border pastoral livelihood zone
Objective 2: Increase livelihoods diversification among 5 kraals (75 households) and 500 vulnerable agro-pastoral households in Turkwell riverine agro-pastoral zone & Border pastoral livelihood zone
Objective 3:Greater capacity in Turkwell, Kalemunyang, Namoruputh, Lorengippi and Lokiriama communities in disaster mitigation, preparedness and response.
Objective 4:Improve collective use of contested land areas and greater government accountability in the use of public funds and linkage with the county government in Turkwell, Kalemunyang, Namoruputh, Lorengippi and Lokiriama communities.
INTRODUCTION TO THE ASSIGNMENT
Turkana as a county has been highly dependent on pastoralism, which is the dominant livelihood strategy and socio-economic backbone of the county. The county is characterized by recurrent droughts, low fertility soils, historical marginalization, low population density but high population growth, poor quality and limited/or no access to basic services, poor infrastructure and food shortages resulting in high food prices. One key consequence of the interaction of these factors is dependency on relief and weakened capacity of households and communities to sustain themselves.
In recognition of this, the Diocese of Lodwar, through this evaluation assignment, intends to evaluate community resilience-focused initiatives that were introduced in previous Trócaire ARP projects and assess beneficiary experiences and levels of effectiveness of these initiatives in order to inform project planned activities and maximize output results.
This assignment consists of two evaluations which touch upon Objectives 1 and 2 of the ARP project. Objective 1 focuses on improving the productivity of ongoing practices, specifically through improving livestock health and production. Objective 2 is working towards livelihoods diversification through incorporating ideas of livestock, income, crop and asset diversification.
Assignment 1:
During the 2008-2010 Trócaire Livelihoods Programme, a goat restocking project with the women department in Turkana was piloted. This projected distributed 1820 Toggenberg, Gala and local East African goat breeds to 288 households in 8 locations in Loima and Turkana central. Following the distribution exercise, there have been substantial requests for the new breeds and through this DFID funded project, Trócaire is seeking to supply more stock. However, prior to this activity, experiences with the distributed breeds will be evaluated through this assignment and documented as a case study. In Year 2 of the currently running DFID project, Trócaire through the Diocese of Lodwar plans to expand the distribution of goats to other intervention areas and this assessment will determine the performance levels and the adaptive abilities of these different breeds of goats.
Additionally Irish Aid Emergency Humanitarian Fund financed a recovery project in Turkana in 2011 during which 3 shoat dips aiming to support livestock dipping and treatment for 909 HH, were constructed. This assignment will also assess the utilization and effectiveness of these shoat dips constructed along River Turkwel in order to inform best practices for the planned construction of additional shoat dips in Lokiriama and Namoruputh, Loima district.
Assignment 2:
Objective 2 of the ARP project aims at increasing livelihoods diversification among agro-pastoral and pastoral households in order to achieve resilience. DFID has adopted a working definition of resilience; Disaster resilience is the ability of communities and households to manage change, by maintaining or transforming living standards in the face of shocks or stresses - such as earthquakes, drought or violent conflict - without compromising their long-term prospects.
This objective incorporates ideas of income, livestock, crop and asset diversification as a means to developing resilience, based on emerging patterns and evidence generated by the mapping study, Food security Master plan for Turkana County. One of the approaches to realizing livestock resilience is through employing resilience strategies and measures that will improve on the ability of livestock to effectively manage, respond and cope with possible shocks e.g. drought and diseases/pest outbreaks.
This assignment will evaluate existing livestock resilience strategies and approaches that the targeted agro-pastoral and pastoral households are presently using to improve on coping mechanisms as well as recommend alternative strategies that can be introduced to the project. The diocese intends to integrate the knowledge attained from this assignment into developing practices that will be utilized at the household level.
PURPOSE OF THE EVALUATION ASSIGNMENT
The overall objective of the evaluation assignment is to evaluate the performance of distributed goat breeds and experiences encountered by the targeted beneficiaries, to assess the effectiveness of shoat dips and dipping among the agro-pastoral communities along the River Turkwel and to carry out an assessment of the existing livestock resilience strategies with introduction of alternative livestock-based strategies.
The specific objectives of the evaluation assignments include;
To determine performance levels and specific adaptive abilities of the new goat breeds,
To determine the environmental factors that cause variability in breed performance,
To compare the performances of different pure or crossbred breeds in the same environment,
To assess the effectiveness and utilization of constructed shoat dips,
To assess existing livestock resilience strategies and their effectiveness,
To introduce feasible livestock strategies to be employed by pastoralist communities,
The evaluation should include the identification of any relevant and current findings and recommendations derived from studies carried out by other organisations working in the ASALs, all of which should be accurately referenced.
KEY DELIVERABLES
The required outputs of this consultancy will be as follows:
An inception report (maximum three pages) outlining the approach/ methodology and execution programme/ timetable. This report shall be submitted for review and approval by Diocese of Lodwar three (3) days after signing of the contract, but before commencement of the work.
Data collection tools which shall be submitted within two days after acceptance of the methodology for review and approval by Diocese of Lodwar.
A draft summary of findings and recommendations shall be compiled and presented to the Diocese of Lodwar within five days after completion of the field work.
The final report, which comprehensively addresses the six objectives shall be submitted within five days after completion of the study and shall incorporate feedback from Diocese of Lodwar and stakeholders.
JOB REQUIREMENTS
The Consultancy team must be multidisciplinary as the analysis is an opportunity to improve the direction of our current intervention. At the minimum, the consultant(s) must possess the following:
i. At least a Masters Degree in Animal science, related disciplines, Livestock production, production systems, Livestock health and production, animal husbandry with a minimum of five (5) years demonstrated experience in carrying out evaluations in such environments.
ii. Demonstrate a good understanding of the Arid and Semi Arid Areas (ASALs) with practical working experience or research/surveys in such environments.
iii. Be Conversant with the Livestock sector in the region.
iv. Practical application of cross cutting themes like gender mainstreaming, and gender competence, M&E, Advocacy.
v. Good spoken and written communication skills in English and Swahili. Turkana (Ng’aturkana) language is an added advantage.
vi. Proven experience of using participatory tools and methodology.
vii. Excellent analytic and report writing skills.
THE TIME FRAME
Time Frame for the consultancy is 28 days.
The whole evaluation process will take approximately 28 days to be completed, this will include:
Interaction with Diocese of Lodwar Project Management team, field teams, beneficiaries, key stakeholders and report writing. The expected start date of the work is 14th April 2014 and the final research report will be produced by 14th May 2014.
How to apply for the job :
Interested candidates are invited to submit an application letter, including a brief outline of a proposed research methodology, and an updated CV including names and contact details of 3 referees to florencewanjohi@dioceseoflodwar.com and asalresilienceproject@dioceseoflodwar.com by 7th April 2014.
Application Closing date: 07 Apr 2014
Please note: In no circumstance should you pay any one to secure a job trough www.nobelpages.com, In case this happens to you please email us on onlinejobsc@gmail.com and we shall take it from there.
You Can Find Simillar Jobs Updates And Career Tips at: www.nobelpages.com We wish you a happy stay and safe browsing
