Consultancy Terms of Reference
Preparations for CARE International’s next Emergency Strategy: how can CARE add most value
during emergency responses in the years leading up to 2020?
Draft ver. January 3, 2011 (rev. 1)
Rationale for the Consultancy
As CARE International (CARE) embarks on its next Strategic Planning process, CARE wishes to engage
a consultant to analyze and synthesize lessons-learned and capture perspectives from internal and
external stakeholders to help guide CARE decision-makers when developing the humanitarian
component of the next CARE Strategic Plan.
Background
CARE International’s 2007-2012 Strategic Plan & Vision for 2020
CARE International’s 2007-2012 Strategic Plan reaffirmed commitment to CARE’s vision and mission to
guide the work of the entire CARE confederation while focusing on six strategic directions. An important
preparatory step for CI’s next Strategic Plan has been federation-wide consultations around draft concept
paper describing CARE International’s “Vision” for the year 2020, when “…CARE will be a global force
and partner of choice within a worldwide movement dedicated to ending poverty… known everywhere for
our unshakeable commitment to the dignity of people.”
In the coming years, it is likely that we will see continuing trends of decreasing absolute poverty in some
regions, but progress will be stalled in other areas and even reversed as a result of climate change and
other factors. Local civil society, national governments and private sector actors will probably continue to
play increasingly stronger and more assertive roles while the numbers of international actors who try and
engage in relief and development will continue to proliferate.
Whatever scenario eventuates in 2020, CARE aims to be known for quality work in relief, recovery, and
development with a particular focus on empowering poor women and girls as a means to overcome
poverty.
CARE International’s Emergency Preparedness & Response Strategy – now and in future
The objective of the humanitarian strategic direction (SD1) in CARE’s 2007-2012 strategic plan is ’for
CARE to respond more effectively and comprehensively to humanitarian emergencies worldwide and
thereby to increase the scope and impact of CARE’s emergency programmes, as well as to strengthen
donor funding and CARE’s profile.’ A key conclusion of an independent evaluation of SD1 carried out
during the latter half of 2011 was that the concept of SD1 has become widely accepted across CARE, but
not yet completely put into practice. The SD1 evaluation makes a number of recommendations that are
relevant to the next emergency strategy. Evaluation findings suggest that the extent to which agencies
like CARE will be able to add value will depend to a large extent on their standing in the country, their
emergency preparedness capacities, ability to effectively link relief and longer-term programming, their
relationships with the host government and other national partners.
“To be a leading humanitarian agency, CARE must have the capacity to respond, meet
quality criteria, and be a leader within policy and some technical areas within the humanitarian
community. To achieve this, CARE must truly put emergency work within the center of our
organizational mandate, we should prioritize attention to developing our emergency capability,
and we should ensure that it has sufficient resources.”1
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Excerpt from the 2nd draft of CARE International’s 2020 concept paper
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The overall conclusion of the SD1 evaluation was that in future CARE will likely need to retain both an
operational capacity to respond to ever more complex emergencies and an ability to work with others in a
wide variety of ways to reach the scale of program required. Mega-emergencies like the 2010 Haiti
earthquake and 2010 Pakistan floods, disasters in urban settings or conflict areas will continue to present
particular challenges.
CARE and Emergency Response
Given the challenges around coordination and inconsistency of response during the 1990’s, CARE
International decided to include a strategic direction in the 2001-2006 CI strategic plan to establish “a
strengthened emergency response capacity” in order to achieve “an integrated, emergency response
capacity that is rapid, coordinated, adequately funded and takes into account members’ humanitarian
concerns”. To support the implementation of this strategic direction, a CARE International Working
Group (ERWG) was established in 2002 and the CARE Emergency Group (CEG) established in 2004
and mandated to coordinate and oversee organization-wide preparedness and response during the acute
phases of an emergency. Evaluations of emergencies during 2004-5 (Darfur, the Asian Tsunami and the
Pakistan earthquake) highlighted some of CARE’s growing strengths, but also continued shortcomings in
CARE’s emergency work. An external review by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in the UK
was commissioned and its findings were presented to the CI Board in November 2005. In summary, ODI
found that:
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CARE has the potential to play a leading global role in humanitarian work, but has not been able to
consistently fulfil that potential;
There is evidence of increased need and available funding;
CARE has a long history of high quality and effective response and is trusted by donors;
There is a significant gap between members’ impact objectives and CARE’s capacity to deliver –
particularly in the early phase of response;
CARE has fallen behind in investment and rates poorly against key benchmarks, compared to peers;
CARE’s share of market is static at 5%. Risks of current under-investment by CARE are significant
in-terms of market share, quality and reputation.
As per the CI Board’s request, ERWG reviewed the ODI findings and developed a strategy to address
issues of concerns. The review highlighted:
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There was consistency between the findings of ERWG and those from the ODI review;
While there was some progress made in strengthening our emergency capacity in recent years, there
remained significant gaps in our strategy, capacity and capability that must be filled if we want to fulfill
our intent. .
The detailed strategy developed by ERWG and endorsed by the Board in 2006 focused on the following
areas:
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Overall humanitarian policy and strategy
Organization-wide capacities
Organizational capability
A goal was established for CARE to respond more effectively and comprehensively to humanitarian
emergencies worldwide and thereby increase the scope and impact of CARE’s emergency programs, as
well as strengthen donor funding and CARE’s profile. The CARE International Board approved this
strategy, and the accompanying three-year budget, in its May 2006 meeting. During their meeting in
September 2006, CARE’s National Directors reconfirmed broad support to the strategy, while highlighting
two key challenges that lay ahead. One was the “dual” role that the CEG staff must play in strengthening
internal capacities while at the same time coordinating the response. The other challenge raised was how
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CARE’s membership at large could best work together, improving systems and improving the timeliness
and quality of emergency response.
A revised SD1 strategy was produced in 2009 based on the key recommendations emerging from the
mid-term evaluation, notably:
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Build upon successful elements of the strategy to date
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Expectations of scale & focus should reflect the level of investment
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Strengthen programmatic links between our rapid response with recovery, disaster risk reduction, and
long-term development
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Further improve CARE’s surge capacity
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Invest more in capacity building of CARE’s offices and staff around the world to improve the
organization’s humanitarian capabilities
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Accelerate and deepen a focus on gender in our humanitarian work
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Reinforce media & fundraising for humanitarian work
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Strengthen CARE’s engagement in humanitarian policy and advocacy
Implementation of the revised SD1 strategy was the focus of an external evaluation during the last half of
2011. A key conclusion of the evaluation was that CI’s Emergency Strategy objectives and approaches
have become widely accepted across CARE, but not yet completely put into practice. The evaluators
also emphasized that when planning CARE’s next Emergency Strategy it will be important to understand
how the humanitarian context is changing and, with it, increased demand on agencies to meet new
challenges due to climate change population growth, etc. The extent to which agencies like CARE will
be able to participate is likely to depend their standing in the country, the quality of their emergency
response/preparedness, and relationships with government and local partners. .
Methodology
Focus and Objective – the output from this process will be a key reference document for CARE
International’s 2020 Emergency Strategy which, like the current SD1, will be a collective organizationwide effort led by CARE International’s emergency group (CEG). The Strategy will not only support
CARE’s own efforts to strengthen its emergency response, but also analyzes compares with the work and
plans of CARE’s peers, taking account of significant trends in the external environment.
Data Collection
This study should be equally balanced in effort between capturing evidence-based organizational learning
and perceptions about CARE’s future direction(s) of internal and external stakeholders. Analysis would
be carried out using an appropriate combination of qualitative and quantitative information, including:
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A review of documentation, with the SD#1 Final Evaluation and associated Management Response
being a principle reference, and systems including strategy, planning and budget documents,
progress reports, the emergency toolkit, after action reviews (AARs) and evaluations of emergency
responses, along with the evolution of relevant governance/organizational structures;
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Consultations, using an appropriate combination of interviews, focus groups, and web-based surveys,
with an appropriate sample of internal CARE stakeholders, including Board members, national
directors, and staff of country offices, CI members, the CI secretariat, and emergency units;
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Key informant interviews with a selection of external actors familiar with CARE’s capacity and
performance in humanitarian operations, such as SCHR and IWG Principals, UN agencies, cluster or
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equivalent leads (shelter, WASH, logistics, food security), other peer agencies (including field-based),
and representatives of major donors and host governments.
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Appropriate use of country case studies to support key conclusions.
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A cost-benefit analysis for different “business models”. Suitable reference should be made to peer
agencies.
Management
The process will be guided by a small advisory committee of up to 8 selected senior staff representing the
CARE membership, field staff, and the CI secretariat, who have substantial involvement with
implementation of SD#1. Technical support will be provided by CARE International’s Program Quality &
Accountability Coordinator. The consultant will report to CARE International Humanitarian Director, who
will chair the Advisory Committee. The specific tasks of the Advisory Committee will be to:
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Provide inputs to help in finalizing the TOR;
Provide appropriate support to facilitate the process (data mining, identification of key informants,
etc.);
Review and comment on the inception report;
Participate in the debrief;
Review the draft report prior to finalization; and
Review the final report and determine appropriate follow up).
Planned Use of Results
The resulting findings and recommendations in the report will guide CARE International’s senior
leadership and ERWG when reviewing/revising CARE’s emergency strategy and determining priorities
and allocating resources. Specific milestones in the process include:
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Circulation and consultations around the inception report;
Circulating a draft version of the report to the steering committee and other selected interviewees for
validation;
Presentation of the final report to CARE International senior leadership and ERWG;
Development of draft emergency Strategic Plan to cover the period between 2013 and 2020; and
Incorporation of recommendations aimed at short term course corrections that would facilitate
CARE’s transition to the 2020 Strategic Plan.
Independent Consultant Profile
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Specialist in the humanitarian sector with experience in analytical work at a strategic level;
Extensive experience of organizational humanitarian response capacities of different agencies (i.e.
emergency operations, capacity building initiatives, humanitarian policy);
Preference will be given to those candidates with a broad first-hand knowledge and field exposure to
the work of large INGO confederations involved in humanitarian work. Prior experience with CARE
would be an advantage;
Proven analytic and written English writing skills in producing reports that are user-friendly and
appropriately targeted.
Deliverables
1. Inception report of 10 pages or less produced within a week of starting the consultancy following an
initial scoping study based on a sample of key informant interviews and review of relevant
documents. The Inception Report would typically aim to describe the following:
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a. The consultant’s understanding of the objectives as per the TOR and a brief description of how
they expect the outputs to be used by CARE;
b. A summary desk review of key documents (e.g. reviews, evaluations, studies) which directly
relate to this research, along with a brief description of how this study might draw on these and a
list of other documents which are expected to be critical;
c.
A stakeholder analysis delineating what groups (and potentially individuals) will be targeted in the
next phase two and which methods will be used for each group (if different);
d. Methodology including data collection plan, approach to qualitative and quantitative data analysis,
and how the consultant aims to use perceptions as a validation tool;
e. A matrix showing, for each line of questioning, the criteria proposed on which judgment will be
based, and the anticipated sources of information;
f.
A suggested dissemination strategy of the findings and recommendations;
g. Draft outline for the report;
h. A proposed timeline;
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Any recommended revisions to the ToR along with a brief justification;
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Specific areas where the consultant expects support from CARE (e.g. initial communications with
key informants, locating and forwarding documents, other logistic support).
2. Conduct a debriefing for the Steering Committee on the main findings and recommendations.
3. A draft report of no more than 30 pages plus annexes, that must include a concise executive
summary and summary of recommendations and as many annexes as are available.
4. The final report itself should be no more than 30 pages in length, excluding annexes, and include the
following:
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Executive Summary (max 2 pages)
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Summary of recommendations (with recommendations also being embedded at appropriate
places within the main body of the report so that their basis and supporting evidence is clear).
Recommendations should be phrased so as to promote utilization by specific targeted
stakeholders and/or stakeholder groups in CARE.
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Main body of the report structured to correspond to the objectives outlined above.
Planned Timeframe
Date
Activity
late Jan
Consultant orientation
early Feb
Initial document review, prelim interviews, inception report
Feb 2012
Interviews & Research
early March, 2012
Interviews/research completed, report drafted, debrief with
the Steering Committee
Draft report
mid-March 2012
Report finalized after feedback considered
Final report
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Deliverables
Inception report
Application Procedure
Applicants should submit a proposal to cegrecruitment@careinternational.org by January 19th using the
following format:
1. Proposed methodology, including key assumptions and approaches to collect
qualitative/quantitative data collection;
2. Work plan showing tasks, timelines;
3. CV/resume highlighting relevant experience along with statements regarding the availability of
the consultant for the proposed period;
4. Sample report from a prior consultancy with content relevant to this current study;
5. Contact details of at least two references from recent employers or clients; and
6. Pricing proposal.
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