National Consultant Midline Study CoRTA Project 2025

Purpose: The purpose of the assessments is to enable identification and understanding of the level of preparedness of communities and schools to natural hazards, specifically in terms of their self-organization, ability to take action, knowledge and awareness, and connectivity. The findings will be used to assess the progress and provide recommendations for future program implementation.

Background and Goals of the Project/Program: Since January 2022, PMI in collaboration with American Red Cross, implements the Community Ready to Act (CoRTA) Project in South Buru, Maluku Province since July 2023. The project aims to build the capacities of targeted communities in preparing for and responding to disasters, as well as to strengthen PMI’s institutional capacities in delivering essential disaster risk management services to communities. The project leverages the progressive and enabling environment to develop disaster-ready communities while adhering to the national standards and indicators for resilient villages and safer schools. The purpose of the project is to enhance the preparedness capacities of up to 8 communities living in high-disaster risk areas in South Buru, Maluku Province, with inclusive and sustainable approaches to be disaster ready. Specifically, the project outcomes are:

Outcome 1: Individuals and communities build their knowledge of disasters and vulnerabilities, self-organize and take individual and collective actions to establish a culture of preparedness and reinforce their networks and connectedness.

Outcome 2: PMI has mechanisms in place to provide efficient, effective, and timely assistance to affected and at-risk populations.

It adopts a sustainable and inclusive approach in its focus on enhancing disaster preparedness in proposed areas and among intended populations. This will ensure that project activities will address some of the most relevant vulnerabilities and underlying disaster risk factors – particularly regional disparities, inequality, exclusion, and chronic environmental degradation. This assessment is considered as Midline Study as the continuation of the previous assessment of the Baseline Study last November 2023.

Project/Program Areas: The CoRTA project currently works with 8 communities and 8 schools in the South Buru district (Maluku Province). The estimated sample size uses the parameter of z = 1.96, confidence level = 95%, margin of error = 5%

Project/Program Stakeholders: Both projects are a collaboration between American Red Cross and PMI, with PMI being the lead implementing agency of the projects. American Red Cross provides overall oversight, technical and financial support towards the projects.

Previous Assessments: CoRTA project applied Baseline Study in South Buru District, Maluku Province in November 2023 using similar tools in the previous project cycle in Tanggamus and Manggarai District. The tools included disaster ready community assessment and the household standard tool, which was conducted to track and monitor the overall project progress and impact over a period of time. Information gathered from this process proved very valuable in terms of contributing to better understanding on the needs of the communities and for receiving their feedback. The same assessment tools utilized in the baseline study will be used for this assessment to ensure progress is captured consistently over the project implementation period.

Objectives of the Assessments: The community and school disaster readiness assessments aim to promote better understanding and analysis in terms of community preparedness towards natural disasters. This will be accomplished through examining community and school-level preparedness in four key areas, namely self-organization, ability to take action, knowledge and awareness, and connectivity. The purpose of the Midline Study is twofold. First, to assess the knowledge and understanding of disaster preparedness in target vulnerable communities covered by the project. The study attempts to understand, at the household level and school level, ongoing practices and behavior of highly vulnerable populations in relation to their needs and priorities in the disaster preparedness planning processes. It intends to compare the baseline progress of the outcome indicators on community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) indicators to enable the assessment of project progress over time. Second, at the community level, the study aims to promote better understanding and analysis in terms of community preparedness towards natural disasters. This will be accomplished through examining community-level preparedness in four key areas, namely self-organization, ability to take action, knowledge and awareness, and connectivity. Overall, this Midline study will enable assessing the capacity of vulnerable communities in relation to responding to disasters more effectively and reducing risks while also recognizing community-level strengths and weaknesses. Similarly, the result of the midline study will be used to compare the progress over time to examine program outcomes (both positive and negative). Lastly, the midline study will capture the learning and sharing of community practices on using innovative tools and resources to help increase their safety and resilience within the team for program improvement and lesson learned to the larger RCRC platforms.

In specific, the differentiation of community and school assessment is:

• The community disaster readiness assessment will aim to measure and compare (at the community level) progress made in each community on four determinants that include self-organization, ability to take action, knowledge and awareness, and connectivity.
• The school disaster readiness assessment will aim to measure and compare (at the school level) progress made in each school on four determinants that include self-organization, ability to take action, knowledge and awareness, and connectivity.

Scope of Works: The consultant will be responsible to ensure the assessments utilize methodologies that meet quantitative and qualitative research standards of the scientific community. The scope of work must include the following:

• Review of secondary sources of information
• Assessment Tool Adaptation (in close consultation with the project team, American Red Cross Indonesia DMERL Lead and Regional Technical Advisors)
• Conduct community and school disaster readiness assessment (in close consultation with the project team, American Red Cross Indonesia DMERL Lead and Regional Technical Advisors)
• Data management, analysis, and reporting (in close consultation with the project team, American Red Cross Indonesia DMERL Lead and Regional Technical Advisors)

Assessment Methodology: This Midline Study will comprise of a household level survey as well as an assessment of community disaster readiness, employing both quantitative and qualitative methods. In consultation with the program team, consultants are encouraged to be as creative as possible in arriving at a suitable methodology that will ensure that the objectives of the study are fully met in a timely and efficient manner, provided the methodology meets the standard recommended methods and proposed sampling parameters indicated in this term of reference.

i) Household Survey: Household surveys (i.e., either on-site enumerator assisted in-depth interviews or on-site local volunteer-assisted in-depth interviews). Volunteers from ONS at branch level will support the data collection process while the consultant will provide training on data collection tools and methodology to use mobile devices using apps such as ODK or KoboToolbox. This will enable data to be uploaded on the server on a daily basis and monitoring for data quality assurance to be done on a regular basis. For the interview, the head of the household will be the preferred respondent. In case of absence of the head of household, another adult member can be chosen as a respondent. The selected household survey sample will ensure proportionate representation in terms of gender and ethnicity.

ii) Community Disaster Readiness Assessment: This assessment of community and school disaster readiness will employ qualitative methods. In consultation with the project team, consultants are free and encouraged to be as creative as possible in arriving at a suitable methodology that will ensure that the objectives of the assessments are fully met in a timely and efficient manner, provided the methodology meets the standard recommended methods and proposed sampling parameters indicated in these terms of reference. An assessment of community and school-level disaster readiness will be conducted in all the CoRTA project’s target communities and schools. The assessment (based on a checklist measuring community/school disaster readiness) will utilize a combination of desk reviews, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, selected household and school visits, as well as interaction with community/school members and the project’s field teams. The Disaster Ready Assessment tools for communities and schools are standardized tools used by American RC and PMI in preparedness projects to understand community and school readiness to disasters. These tools will be used in this assessment in conjunction with community and school assessment tools developed by the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB).

Work Plan (indicative): The study period will be for an expected duration of 60working days. The consultant will be required to provide and confirm a detailed work plan during the inception period.

Expected Deliverables: Reports should be in both English and Bahasa Indonesia (with the exception of the inception, preliminary/ draft reports). Expected deliverables for the assessments are as follows:

1. Inception Report (assessment design)
2. Finalized assessment tools (in Indonesian and local language as necessary)
3. Training manual for field staff
4. All data files in Excel
5. Preliminary results in English
6. Draft reports in English (based on feedback provided from the initial version with preliminary results)
7. Validation or Dissemination of Summary presentation of findings and measurementsto PMI, IFRC, and American Red Cross Staff
8. Final Report. The contents, structure and format of the report should be finalized in close consultation with the project team, American Red Cross Indonesia DMERL Lead, and Regional Technical Advisors.

Administrative and Logistic Support: The consultant is expected to use her/his own laptop/computer. Approved administrative and logistical costs will be reimbursed by the project team.

Reporting Relationship: The consultant will report to American Red Cross Country Manager (Indonesia Delegation), including Country Program Manager, and DMERL Lead,with attention of PMI Head of DM Division and Head of Planning Bureau, Indonesia.

Quality Assurance and Ethics: The consultant will be required to establish mechanisms to ensure data quality and compliance to standard research ethics for the study. This should be clearly indicated and described as part of the inception report.

Qualification of Consultant: The required qualifications and experience are as follows:

• Five to seven years’ experience conducting and leading survey research and assessments, both quantitative and qualitative, 4 of which should be with international organizations (NGOs, UN, and other humanitarian agencies)
• Post graduate degree, from a recognized institution, in social research, particularly qualitative studies, or monitoring & evaluation
• Demonstrated experience in training and managing data collectors/ facilitators of the qualitative study
• Experience with work in DRR or related sectors
• Experience in Monitoring and Evaluation (preferably in DRR or related sectors)
• Excellent knowledge and skills in qualitative research methodology including data analysis techniques with Excel or other software such as NVivo; Atlas Ti.
• Excellent communication skills for training and facilitation, and leadership to manage and coordinate a team of data collectors/facilitators (working knowledge of local dialects is an added advantage)
• Excellent report writing skill both in English and the Bahasa language.
• Ability to work independently, ability to juggle and coordinate various tasks simultaneously, ability to prioritize tasks, well organized, reliable and trustworthy

Application Procedures: The application proposal should not exceed 10 pages, and should use the following outline:

• Consultant experience (with detailed CVs attached) of all professionals who will work on the assessments. This section should highlight past experience of the consultant in conducting assessments, preferably in developing countries. The section should mention names, qualifications and experiences of all persons who would be involved in various aspects of conducting the assessments, along with level of efforts.
• Methods: Assessment objectives, methodology, sample design-calculation-selection, and an analysis plan. If remote phone-based interviews (assisted by local Red Cross volunteers in communities) will be utilized, then this should be clearly indicated and described with appropriate rationale provided.
• Work plan: The proposal should clearly describe all relevant activities to be conducted, including preparatory work, training, sampling and data collection work, data entry, data processing and analysis, results and report writing. The timeline and person(s) responsible for each activity needs to be clearly mentioned.
• Field team: If there is more than one consultant on the proposed team, please provide the number of persons needed for data collection and other proposed activities. Please utilize the table below as reference to provide the level of effort (in number of days) of each team member for all proposed activities
• Training: The consultant will be responsible for training of data collectors/facilitators and the proposal should include information on relevant prior experience on conducting trainings. Describe how the training will be done, the topics covered, expected duration and logistic and administrative support needed from the project team. Trainings will be conducted in close consultation with Country DMERL Lead of American Red Cross and Regional Technical Advisors.
• Quality control and ethics: Provide a section detailing the mechanisms to ensure data quality by clearly specifying steps for data validation. This section may also include supervisory mechanism for data quality and the role of field editors. Measures for compliance to standard research ethics should also be stated here.
• Data entry and processing plan: This section should clearly describe preparation and mechanism for data entry, validation checks and data processing activities.
• Data analysis: Provide details on the analyses that will be carried out, and on the person(s) responsible for data analysis (including prior experiences).
• Progress updates: This section should clearly indicate the mechanism that would be used to communicate with the project team and relevant officials to provide regular updates on overall work plan progress including about proposed field activities, coverage rate, data entry status, etc.
• Proposed Budget: A breakdown of all associated costs for the assessments should be provided in USD. Please note that the survey will be assisted by local Red Cross volunteers in communities but the interviews and other qualitative data collection should be managed directly by the consultant team.
• Professional references: Provide three references from your previous clients.
• Writing Sample: Provide one sample of a recent assessment (or related work) completed for another client where you are the lead author and principal researcher.