Introduction

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) brings together fifteen of the UK’s leading aid charities to raise funds in response to major international humanitarian crises.  In order to support members’ activities, harness lessons learnt, and inform real-time revisions to ongoing humanitarian responses, the DEC Secretariat is commissioning a review of programmes funded by the Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal, scheduled to take place during the second quarter of 2023.

Background

On 6th February 2023, an earthquake with magnitude of 7.8 struck south-east Turkey and north-west Syria.  A second major earthquake, further north of the original epicentre, struck a few hours later, and recorded magnitude of 7.5. 

According to a situation report published by OCHA to mark one month since the earthquake occurred, 9.1 million people have been affected by the crisis and over 56,000 thousand have lost their lives, including 5,900 in Syria. The scale of destruction is highlighted by the fact that, according to the Turkish government, around 300,000 buildings have collapsed or have been heavily damaged by the disaster. There have also been a reported 13,000 aftershocks in the month since the initial earthquakes took place, causing further destress to an already traumatised affected population.  

Initial assessments found that priority needs among affected communities were shelter, food, non-food items, water, sanitation, hygiene items, and psycho-social support. Alongside this, the WHO has highlighted urgent health needs among the affected population, including trauma care, provision of essential medicines and prevention/control of disease outbreaks.3 In Syria, especially, the earthquake occurred in an area already experiencing high humanitarian needs, as a result of the country’s 12-year-long civil war.  

In response to rising humanitarian needs in both Turkey and Syria the DEC launched an appeal on 9 February. At the time of writing the appeal has raised £150 m. Fourteen Member Charities are responding as part of the DEC appeal, working with national and local partners across both countries. The member charities taking part in the appeal will spend DEC funds over a period of two years, split into Phase 1 (the first 6 months) and Phase 2 (the following 18 months) of the response. 

Purpose of Response Review and Affected Population Perception Survey

The primary purpose of the Response Review and Affected Population Perception Survey is to instigate collective real-time reflection and learning to inform adjustments across DEC members’ response. The review and survey draw on the initial phase of the response in order that lessons be applied in real-time and into the second phase of the members’ programmes. Both pieces of research also serve as an accountability function, both to the affected population, as well as to the UK public and other key stakeholders in the DEC appeal. 

 The Response Review will... 

• Contribute to the identification of key areas of enquiry in consultation with the DEC and members during the inception phase; 
• Draw out key lessons, at operational level, that can inform real-time adjustments and be utilised during implementation of DEC Phase 2 programmes;  
• Provide an overview and assessment of the response so far (against Core Humanitarian Standard commitments; Grand Bargain commitments and learnings from similar crises including previous earthquake responses); 
• Highlight good practice in the humanitarian operations funded by the DEC; 
• Gather feedback from local and national partners on relationship with members and support provided to locally led humanitarian activities;  
• Where relevant, identify gaps, areas of unmet needs, and challenges to the humanitarian operations funded by the DEC in both Turkey and Syria, from both a sectoral and cross-cutting perspective; this should include a consideration of the inclusiveness of the humanitarian response and whether (geographically, socially or politically) marginalised groups are sufficiently covered and what barriers (if any) there are to reaching them;  
• Draw out key learning from the response to date and engage members with the findings through a range of mediums, including workshops and written outputs. 

The Affected Population Perceptions Survey will...  

• Inform DEC and member agencies about the perceptions and priorities of the affected population; 
• Survey a sample of the affected population to help member agencies (and the wider response) tailor their work, their approaches and participation techniques to local priorities to ensure that community perceptions and priorities form a significant element in DEC Member Agencies’ learning efforts; 
• Shape understanding of how the humanitarian response, including priorities, coverage, distribution, and processes, are perceived and experienced by affected populations;  
• Highlight how perceptions vary among different community members with disaggregated findings by age, gender, disability, and other diversity markers, where possible, to ensure that a diverse range of perspectives are considered; 
• Enhance the ability of affected communities to shape the assistance they receive and contribute to better quality and more adaptive programming; 
• Draw out key learnings from the response to date and engage members with the findings through a range of mediums, including workshops and written outputs. 

Expressions of Interest are invited from consultants interested in leading the response review, to deliver a learning workshop in mid-June and draft report to the DEC by the end of June followed by a final report in July 2023. 

Essential requirements include: 

• Previous experience undertaking real-time evaluations/reviews and surveys of similar humanitarian programmes (supporting refugees, IDPs and host populations), including methodologies for engaging with crisis-affected people; 
• Previous experience of undertaking multi-stakeholder reviews and promoting learning across organisations; 
• A sound understanding of the context in Turkey and Syria;  
• A sound knowledge of Humanitarian Principles; the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief; the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability; and Sphere Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response, as well as an appreciation of key challenges and constraints to their application in this specific context; 
• Demonstrable ability to produce clear and concise written outputs in English; 
• A good understanding of the DEC and how it operates. 

Representatives from the DEC and its members will support and host the consulting team while field visits take place, but consultants should be confident that they are able to obtain the necessary visas and insurance, as required. 

To submit an expression of interest, please send an email to programmessupport@dec.org.uk by 26 April 2023 at 23:59 GMT with the following: 

1. A succinct rationale for the selection of team members with an outline of how the Lead Consultant and members of the proposed team meet the requirements above; 

2. An initial indication (maximum 2 pages) of the proposed approach to primary data collection (including proposed methods) succinctly highlighting how the team will address main challenges or shortcomings of proposed approach; 

3. Brief CVs for each team member (1-2 paragraphs); 

4. Previous published reports or other written outputs addressing similar topics that team members have worked on;  

5. Indicative daily rate in GBP for each team member; 

6. Confirmation of availability to undertake this work, including field visits to Turkey (and possibly Syria) in the second quarter of 2023, and to deliver the outputs on time. 

Shortlisted consultants will be contacted by 1 May 2023 and requested to submit full proposals against final Terms of Reference to include: 

1. conceptual framework and methodology for how the work will be undertaken; 

2. work plan and schedule; and 

3. indicative budget. 

4. contact details for two referees for similar type of work for the Lead Consultant. 

Questions can be raised by sending an email to: programmessupport@dec.org.uk 

If there are insufficient qualified expressions of interest submitted by the deadline, the DEC reserves the right to publicly advertise the complete Terms of Reference to ask for full proposals. All timescales and deadlines will be reviewed and confirmed at contracting stage.