Consultancy for the review and improvement of key aspects of the BRCiS Community-Based Early Warning Early Action System

Concern is a member of the Building Resilient Communities in Somalia (BRCiS) consortium. BRCiS is a consortium of national and international organizations – Action Against Hunger (ACF), CESVI, Concern Worldwide (CWW), GREDO, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), KAALO, Save the Children, and Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) as lead agency. BRCiS’ objective is to work across the humanitarian-development divide, supporting marginalized communities in disaster-prone, rural Somalia to become more resilient to shocks and stressed, including as a result of climate change. BRCiS approach is contextually adaptive, focused on the specific shocks, needs, and priorities of individual communities. BRCiS was established in 2013 and is now implementing projects funded by multiple humanitarian and development donors in more than ten regions of Somalia.

The Early Warning Early Action system within BRCiS was developed and implemented in 2018-2022 and aims to enhance the resilience of communities and local systems to attain self-reliance and reduce the need for humanitarian response. The philosophy underlying the development of the system was that it should be embedded within the communities through a community-centred EWEA approach. 

As part of the EWEA system the Real-Time Risk Monitoring (RTRM) system was developed to monitor the risk levels within the communities through a set of indicators and thresholds. The RTRM system starts by considering communities’ risk perceptions and capacities to anticipate, prepare for and respond to shocks.  The communities along with project technical staff participated in the identification of risks, the identification of indicators and in setting the thresholds. Consortium technical specialists used community feedback to determine the most common shocks, stresses and coping strategies. This method resulted in the selection of a set of qualitative and quantitative indicators to warn of shocks (i.e., drought, flood, desert locusts, acute watery diarrhoea/cholera outbreaks and conflict) and another set to capture the impacts of these shocks (i.e., livelihood assets, market dynamics, migration and household coping strategies). BRCiS technical staff and community leaders collectively develop three indicator thresholds to measure the level of emergency when experiencing a shock: “normal”, “alert” and “alarm”. Each indicator falls under one of these thresholds, changing as the severity of the event grows or weakens. BRCiS uses the indicators and thresholds to adopt a harmonised triggering approach of early action called “red-flagging”. A target area receives a “red flag” either when a sudden, large shock such as flooding or a cyclone occurs or when too many of the indicators for that area pass the alert and alarm thresholds; either 1 alarm or 1 alert for the indicators of shock impact + 3 in alarm/ 2 alarm and 3 in alert for the indicators of shock impact

The implementation of this system aimed to harmonise members’ internal early warning systems, encourage joint periodic shock monitoring and analysis, increase information value through synergy and adopt a common approach to the triggering of early action and the Crisis Modifier. The strong level of community engagement and the flexible early action funding mechanisms that have until now been supported through a crisis modifier fund allocated to scale up early action responses when shocks occur.

The overall purpose of the assessment is to review and contribute to the development of the RTRM system across the communities BRCiS works in. 

Specific objectives

1. Identify key factors/risks and appropriate indicators within the shock occurrence indicators section of the RTRM. Review existing indicators to see how effective they have been in the past in identifying increased and triggering responses.  
2. Review key indicators within the shock impact indicators section of the RTRM to evaluate. how effective they have been in the past in identifying increased and triggering responses including examining statistical relationships between the indicators.  Identify potential gaps and the inclusion of new indicators whilst examining if all the existing indicators are still relevant.
3. Review thresholds with a focus on the livelihoods and markets sections including pricing of commodities within the market section in different areas to see if these thresholds are still valid.
4. Review the red-flagging approach and associated thresholds especially its ability to discriminate between chronic and acute stress.

Review the Data collection and Data quality assurance ensuring that existing procedures/ processes and the additional of a new modified RTRM is practical and can be implemented by communities. 

The duration of the assignment will be approximately 30-40 days’ work. Final allocation of days and activity details will be discussed with the successful applicant. The work should be undertaken in January and February 2024 and the final report submitted by the end of March 2024.

• The deadline for the application is: 12th January 2024 5pm Mogadishu Time (EAT).
• Applications should be sent by email to: som.vacancies@concern.net   and CC darren.evans@concern.net 
• The title of the email should be “Consultancy for the review and development of the BRCiS Community-Based Early Warning Early Action System”. 

Applications shall include the following:

• One technical offer detailing the proposed assessment framework, methods, and the assessment team (max. 3 pages)
• One financial offer (Excel) detailing the costs of the assignment (including transport costs, enumerators costs etc.) in USD.
• CV of the of team leader and team members if applicable demonstrating relevant experience / knowledge and alignment with the specification above (max 4 pages).
• Please include feasible start date and mention where you found this posting. Preference will be given to applicants who submit a sample of relevant original work. 
• Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.