Job Description

Organizational Background -------------------------

Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people affected by war or disaster to survive and rebuild their lives. We commit to stay as long as we are needed, helping survivors to heal, recover and rebuild their communities to be stronger, more stable and more democratic. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. Building local capacity and self-sufficiency—and promoting human rights, participation and accountability—are at the core of all of our innovative programs. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

Project Background ------------------

Ahlan Simsim: Children and their families living in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria have been exposed to levels of adversity that threaten their development and jeopardize the future prosperity and stability of the societies in which they live. Research shows that the development of basic skills can help promote resiliency and, for the most vulnerable children, help mitigate the negative effects of conflict and crisis. But such care and education are unavailable to many children. Ahlan Simsim’s theory of change is based on the idea that Sesame Workshop’s signature culturally relevant, localized production approach, with its engaging Muppets and other elements, coupled with the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC’s) expertise in delivering services to people affected by conflict and crisis, will enable the creation of a scalable, replicable intervention for early childhood programming to help a generation of conflict-affected children achieve their developmental potential.

Beyond the important goal of meeting immediate urgent needs of young children, Ahlan Simsim aims to change the systems that govern provision of ECD services ensuring what services they provide and how they provide them reach children with high quality programming, include refugees and the most vulnerable. This is achieved through a focus on creating strong local partnerships for quality, reach and sustainability, grounding the work in a system strengthening approach to local ownership. Joint advocacy institutionalizes the scaling outcomes in government policies ensuring we are serving communities beyond the lifetime of the project. All are vital to the core Ahlan Simsim outcome of sustained improvements in children’s lives, towards addressing the denominator of the problem to meet the need at scale.

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The specific objectives of the Ahlan Simsim programme in Jordan are: (i) to expand access of teachers to quality early childhood education (ECE) by integrating social and emotional learning (SEL) and learning through play (LtP) approaches into the Ministry of Education (MoE)’s School Readiness program and digitizing teacher and student ECE materials.; (ii) co-develop and integrate ECD tools and materials into Ministry of Health (MoH)'s Primary Health Clinics (PHCs) to promote ECD amongst healthcare providers and the surrounding communities; (iii) ensure the quality of Ministry of Social Development (MoSD)-governed day-care services by co-developing with the National Council for Family Affairs (NCFA) and rolling out a Quality Management System (QMS) for certification and licensing, and an in-service training program; and (iv) to expand access to quality ECD in partnership with CBOs in the most vulnerable communities by tailoring AS services to existing resources and structures.

Guided by the output (iv), the Jordan Ahlan Simsim ECD program is looking for the service of an expert researcher to carry out a desk review on income generation projects and efforts targeting community-based organizations by the Government, its development partners and INGOs in Jordan.

This desk review of income generation projects and efforts targeting community-based organizations aims to compile the relevant information on income generation programmes and produce learning to inform decision-making and design of the economic empowerment activities of community-based organizations in underserved and vulnerable communities across Jordan.

The specific objectives are:

· To compile data on major income generation programs which have been or were implemented by the Government of Jordan, public sector institutions and/or development partners for last 10 years.

· To summarize the overall results of the support provided by the income generation programmes based on a desk review of the secondary information and reference materials (e.g., policy documents, programme documents, project reports, evaluation reports, analytical research, etc.) on the major income generation programmes; and

· To assess the impact of the major income generation programmes on CBOs’ economic empowerment. The impact assessment shall be made with reference to efficiency, effectiveness, relevance and sustainability of respective support programmes and their overall impact on CBOs’ economic empowerment, taking into account that the projects should be assessed in relation to the local market situation changing factors.

· To assist some of the CBOs partnering IRC-Jordan in designing and starting up some income generating businesses to sustain the Early Education services.

Duties and Responsibilities:

The Consultant will work under the overall supervision and guidance by the Jordan Ahlan Simsim ECD Coordinator and the Scaling and Learning Manager.

Compilation of the basic information

Develop a stocktaking matrix with the basic information of all CBOs income generation programmes implemented by the Government and/or development partners for last 10 years. The format of a matrix will be proposed by the Consultant after the commencement of this assignment in close consultation with the AS team. A stocktaking matrix includes but not limited to review of the nature and scope of programmes, targeted population, the number of benefited populations, periods of support programmes (programme/project periods), total budget, basic information of training courses (duration of each course, subjects, training providers, etc.), achievement of the programme, strength, and weakness of the programmes.

Desk review of the overall results of income generation support for the last 10 years:

· Conduct a desk review of the secondary information and reference materials available on the major income generation programmes.

· Summarize the overall results of the support for the last 10 years. A special focus will be given to how well those support programme addresses CBOs economic empowerment both in designing and implementation.

· Summarize challenges and lessons learned from the major income generation skills development programmes.

· Summarize results of evaluations if there are any evaluation reports available for the major income generation activities development support programmes;

· Based on the results of the stocktaking and desk review, assess, and analyse the impact of the major income generation development programmes on CBOs’ economic empowerment. The Consultant will review the support programmes and identify any specific provisions/considerations which aimed at gender equality and social inclusion in designing and implementation of the support. The impact assessment shall be made with reference to efficiency, effectiveness, relevance and sustainability of respective support programmes and their overall impact on CBOs’ economic empowerment.

· Based on results of the stocktaking and desk review, assess and analyse the impact of the income generation development programmes for the last 10 years on the achievement of the Government’s development priorities and policies on enhancing civil society. The Consultant will briefly summarize the related Government policy and strategy on income generation and then assess the contributions of the support programmes reviewed under this assignment to the implementation of those policies and strategies. The impact assessment shall be made with reference to efficiency, effectiveness, relevance and sustainability of respective support programmes and their overall impact.

· Verify and/or supplement the paper-based secondary information by other data and information collection methods, such as key informant interview (KII) and questionnaire surveys to support the impact assessment. The Consultant is expected to contact relevant key informants to collect the supplementary information. Contact details of key informants will be provided by AS program if it is necessary.

· Identify gaps of the existing major income generation and civil society economic development programmes especially on their impact on CBOs’ economic empowerment and compile a set of recommendations. Specifically, highlight key challenges and opportunities faced by CBOs in Jordan in three key areas: i) enabling environment, ii) participation, role, iii) capacity and iv) sustainability. This includes discussing the key and emerging obstacles facing civil society in Jordan, specifically legislative and bureaucratic obstacles, networking and coordination obstacles, and internal capacity and governance obstacles.

· Conduct feasibility studies for some ideas suggested by the IRC CBOs partners and discuss the results with the CBOs leads to make final decision about the funding allocations, and consider covering the costs of the Early childhood education sustainability through out the process.

· Train and guide the CBOs staff throughout the start-up of the microbusinesses through the mentoring visits.

Methodology

The Consultant is expected to conduct this assignment based on the secondary data and information which are available in reports, literatures, and other reference materials. Other methodologies such as key informant interviews and questionnaire surveys may be applied to verify and/or supplement the secondary data and information. Possible key informants include relevant government officials of line ministries, INGOs and other donors, and staff/stakeholders of major income generation development support programmes.

To assess the effectiveness, relevance, sustainability of respective interventions, and their overall impact, the supplementary data and information will be collected to support the results of the analyses with the secondary data and information.

Expected Deliverables:

· Inception report with a clear work plan and methodologies (precise actions, timeline and specific tool and techniques in line with scope of work and specific tasks).

First draft report including, at least but not limited to, the following contents:

· Executive summary;

· Introduction;

· Methodology;

· Overview of relevant policy and strategy –income generation development;

· Desk review of major CBOs’ income generation programmes – Results and lessons learned;

· Gaps and recommendations; and

· Annexes.

· Power point presentation of the key findings; and

· Final report, reflecting comments on the draft report.

· Reflection session with CBOs in Tafilah and Ma’an.

Based on the above report results and recommendations, there will be a go/no go decision for the following tasks: -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Development of feasibility studies for two CBOs income generation concepts.

Conduct training for two CBOs on income generation business model to develop operational plan and build their capacities on the different aspects of income generation business model implementation

Guide CBOs as they pilot the income generation business model developed and provide close mentoring and coaching

Adjust CBOs income generation business model and provide report on the two pilot experiences.

Qualifications

· Demonstrated research skills and experiences in relevant fields;

· Comprehensive knowledge about income generation programmes and economic empowerment of CBOs and CSOs conducted in Jordan;

· Proven ability to write reports, briefs and concept notes;

· Proven ability to coordinate with Jordan government ministries;

· Excellent communication skills and intercultural sensitivity; and

· Ability to multitask, work on many concepts at once, and work in a team.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

· Master’s degree in Economics, Public Policy, Gender and Development, Social Science, Business Management, or any other related fields;

Experience:

· Minimum 5 years of work experience on livelihood, vocational education and enterprise development and of which 2 years of work experience on research and analysis in the same areas; and

· Work experience on gender and social inclusion will be an advantage.

Language:

· Excellent command of written and oral English and Arabic.

Level of Effort

It is estimated that the consultant will need up to 120 working days to deliver the tasks.

Length of Work

6 months starting from December 1st 2021 to June 1st, 2022, and to be completed no later than end of July 2022.