Inter-Agency Refugee Vulnerability Assessment Expert 74 views0 applications

Background Information:

As of December 2018, Sudan hosts over 1 million refugees and asylum-seekers from South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Chad, Central African Republic, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Democratic Republic of Congo. Additionally, two million IDPs and returnees of concern to UNHCR reside in Darfur, Blue Nile and Kordofan States.

South Sudanese refugees are the largest refugee population in Sudan, with over 852,000 refugees living across all States; more than half have fled to Sudan since the outbreak of conflict in South Sudan in December 2013. They are hosted in camps, settlements, and urban areas among host populations across all states in Sudan. Sudan shares a 2,000 km border with South Sudan, and refugees from South Sudan cross into White Nile, South Kordofan, West Kordofan, East Darfur and South Darfur States through at least 14 different entry points. North Darfur, North Kordofan and Khartoum states also receive onward movements of refugees seeking livelihood opportunities. The majority of refugees are women and children (82%), who arrive in poor health after traveling many days to reach Sudan, often by foot, and who are in urgent need of protection, nutrition, shelter and health support. Many new arrivals are also coming from parts of South Sudan experiencing high rates of food insecurity and malnutrition.

Sudan continues to receive a steady flow of South Sudanese refugee arrivals each month. The number of new arrivals peaked at nearly 200,000 people in 2017, and the rate has slowed in 2018, with over 31,000 arriving between January and November. Inter-agency partners estimate up to 50,000 new arrivals to Sudan by the end of 2019, for a total refugee population of approximately 926,756 refugees moving into 2020.

Approximately 79 per cent of the current South Sudanese refugee population are living outside of official camps, alongside host communities in more than 100 out-of-camp settlements in South Kordofan, West Kordofan, East Darfur, South Darfur and North Darfur. These include large collective self-settlements where thousands of refugees live in “camp-like” communities adjacent to reception centres, as well as smaller dispersed self-settlements where refugees live in a more integrated manner with the host community. The assistance provided in the camps is modest and in some cases does not even meet emergency levels. Many out-of-camp settlements are in remote and underdeveloped areas, where resources, infrastructure and basic services are extremely limited. Refugees in both these contexts are in dire need of additional support to meet their protection and socio-economic needs.

There are also over 180,000 refugees living across nine camps in White Nile, and two camps in East Darfur. Over-crowding and congestion remain a serious concern, with all camps currently hosting populations beyond initial capacity. It remains difficult to ensure that adequate space and basic services are available to absorb new arrivals while sustaining service provision to the existing caseloads in the camps.

While the primary responsibility to protect refugees rests with the Government of Sudan, UNHCR provides support to the Government’s Commission for Refugees (COR) to coordinate the refugee response in Sudan. Sudan’s Refugee Coordination Model provides a framework for the coordination of inter-agency refugee operations, which includes the contributions of over 40 operational partners participating in three primary levels of coordination across the refugee response.

To ensure a dignified and sustainable life of refugee and host communities, UNHCR and partners must bolster humanitarian action with development, peace and security approaches. This requires robust partnerships with other stakeholders including the government, NGOs and the host community that is strongly grounded in evidence.

Given the geographical scope and scale of the South Sudanese refugee response within the parameters of limited funding for Sudan, strong response prioritization methodology is essential. Inter-agency partners require sufficient vulnerability data and analysis to inform the development of the severity ranking approach for refugee locations and a response prioritization methodology based on needs. This will strengthen UNHCR and partner capacity to target individual assistance more effectively and strengthen community-based assistance where it is needed most. This will also enable UNHCR to advocate for refugee needs and response prioritization alongside the needs of internally displaced persons and other populations in need in Sudan. Moreover, the availability of complete and updated data on refugee-hosting areas will allow UNHCR and partners to undertake targeted development projects and advocate for the inclusion of refugees into national development strategies. However, there is limited availability of high quality vulnerability data in Sudan, and available data is often inconsistent across operational partners with low comparability both within states and across states. In particular, household-level vulnerability survey data for South Sudanese refugee locations is required but a survey of this kind has not been implemented in Sudan.

UNHCR is seeking a consultant to lead the development of a vulnerability assessment for South Sudanese refugee locations. This will include a comprehensive desk review of existing data across inter-agency partners and the development of refugee vulnerability analysis framework and related technical recommendations.

The consultant will be based in Khartoum, and will report to UNHCR Sudan Deputy Representative. UNHCR may consider the recruitment of additional national resources to support the work of the consultant, as appropriate. .

Deliverables

1. Desk Review report
2. Collect, review and analyse existing UNHCR specific and inter-agency secondary data and provide detailed report on the viability of the available data for vulnerability assessment with a specific focus on South Sudanese refugee and hosting communities in Sudan.
3. The report shall include analyses of the available agency-specific assessment mechanisms, current data quality and outstanding gaps. The report should contain recommendations on data comparability and addressing any gaps. (Estimated time: 30 working days)
4. Review and update the detailed Severity Ranking and Persons in Need (PIN) tables (overall, and by sector) of the refugee hosting localities for the RCF sector, in line with the concepts adopted for the HNO and HRP processes in Sudan. The calculation methodology, the indicators used and the rationale for choosing them in the ranking should be clearly documented together with the limitation and assumption in the case of data gap. Ensure that partner inputs are taken into consideration as appropriate and that the results are verified with partners. (Estimated time: 30 working days)
5. Data collection plan for the data gap identified/Vulnerability Assessment Plan
6. The consultancy should present a Data collection plan to fill the data gap identified during the desk review and severity ranking process so that UNHCR and partners have concrete data for the refugee vulnerability at the household-level, including context-specific approaches and methodologies in each state, timeline and resources required (Estimated time: 30 working days);
7. An Analysis Plan, including relevant indicators for each sector (and alignment to CRRF or out-of-camp approaches as appropriate) should be presented for the suggested data collection methodology. This should be accompanied by detailed advice on the approach to be followed (interagency, bilateral, etc.), detailed design of the data collection exercise (including sampling) and associated tools, such as quantitative questionnaire and qualitative data verification mechanism (in-depth interviews, focus group discussion guidelines, etc.)

All the tools and data collection plans suggested must include appropriate time frame, estimate costs, and relevant monitoring/verification mechanisms to ensure quality control of collected data, and a dissemination plan (Estimated time: 30 working days)

• Responsibilities
• In close coordination with UNHCR’s Information Management and Inter-agency Coordination Units, Executive Office, Protection Unit, Programme Unit, field offices and operational partners, lead a desk review of existing inter-agency partners’ data and assessments;
• Keep operational partners informed and engaged on the desk review process, and ensure partners’ ownership of the results, through regular bilateral meetings as well as briefings via the various coordination forums in Khartoum and the States – RCF, ISCG, TAGs and RWGs.
• During the development of the data collection plan and tools, the consultant must liaise closely with UNHCR Technical Focal Points, field offices and operational partners to solicit their inputs, promote the joint assessment and analysis approach and ensure ownership.

Essential minimum qualifications and professional experience required:

• Relevant university degrees in management, social sciences, international development or related fields.
• Minimum 10 years of experience in humanitarian emergencies with increasing levels of management responsibility and extensive field experience, including experience leading multi-disciplinary, multinational teams in complex environments.
• Experience in undertaking and managing complex, large-scale humanitarian needs assessments. Experience leading multi-sectoral, multi-agency assessments is an advantage.
• Extensive knowledge and experience with statistics, socio-economic surveys methodologies, quantitative and qualitative data analysis techniques and tools.
• Proven skills and experience in industry standard software for data analysis (such as Excel, SPSS, R, etc.)
• Strong knowledge of the workings of the humanitarian processes and systems (UN system, Red Cross movement and NGOs) and humanitarian operations across a variety of geographic areas. In-depth knowledge and understanding of the institutional mandates of IASC agencies. Experience in Sudan or MENA region is an advantage.
• High level of familiarity with assessment tools and coordination mechanisms.
• Proven interpersonal, communication and negotiating skills. Demonstrated ability to effectively work in emergency and/or complex operations within a multi-cultural environment.

Desirable qualifications:

• Understanding of UNHCR’s mandate and international refugee protection principles.
• Experience in representational roles, including engagement with IASC Country Teams, Humanitarian Country Teams, government officials, civil society, donors, etc.
• Working knowledge of spoken and written Arabic is an advantage