Emergency Response work by ChildFund Kenya
ChildFund Kenya is represented through the INGO Country Directors’ forum at the Kenya Humanitarian Partnership Team (KHPT) coordination group, UNOCHA, cluster groups (Nutrition, Child Protection and Food Security), Cash Working Groups, the National Child Protection in Emergencies Working Group (CPiEWG) coordinated by the department of children services etc.
In line with the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), ChildFund is not only focused on how to prepare for and manage disasters, but also identify the underlying factors which cause the disasters and try to reduce them. The organization does not carry out Disaster Response in isolation but with other development-oriented and/or disaster-related initiatives with focus at the child. ChildFund has been responding to a number of disasters in Kenya, including Floods, Severe Drought, Desert Locust Infestation, Covid-19 pandemic and Community conflicts among other others.
During cyclic drought in the Arid and semi-arid Lands (ASAL) in Kenya, ChildFund has been working with local partners in Samburu, Marsabit, Baringo, Turkana and Kitui to ensure that the children are cautioned from the adverse effects through provision of cash transfers, emergency food rations, non-food items and portable water for families. These interventions ensured reduction of malnutrition among children aged 0-5 years old and their families, and they are safe from the adverse effects of drought. Similarly, during previous floods, ChildFund has contributed in cautioning the vulnerable communities from the loss of livelihoods, destruction of homes and public amenities. Focus over the years has been in counties where ChildFund has operation and are prone to floods including Kisumu, Migori, Homabay, Marsabit, Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet, Turkana, Nakuru, Nairobi, and Samburu Counties. In responding to flood emergencies, ChildFund has supported the displaced affected families through cash transfers programs, distribution of food and non-food items, hygiene and sanitation awareness and provision of building materials for houses and classrooms for the displaced and child protection in emergency interventions.
Another disaster that ChildFund has and continue respond to is Desert Locust Invasion (DLI). DLI has been going on for almost a year now and to date has affected 19 out of the 26 Counties where ChildFund and its local partners operate. Currently DLI is continuous to adversely affect households in five counties – Marsabit, Samburu, Isiolo, Turkana and Baringo. To date ChildFund has supported a total of 1420 households with monthly cash transfers worth USD 30 per family, 800 crop farmers received emergency farm inputs – maize (800kg), sorghum (800kg) and beans (400 kg) while 250 pastoralists from the five counties received 1250 bales of hay to feed their livestock and 220 households will school going children were provided with solar powered radios.
The outbreak of COVID 19 last year and its declaration as a world pandemic by WHO in March 2020 has seriously affected the livelihoods and lives of deprived, excluded, and vulnerable populations across the globe. Thus, ChildFund is addressing both the global and local challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on four strategic areas: stop COVID-19 from infecting children and families, ensure that children get food they need, keep children safe from violence: physically and emotionally and help children continue to do their job: learning. The plan is to ensure that vulnerable children and communities are protected and cushioned against infection and survive the social and economic impacts of the pandemic. The COVID-19 emergence response has also emphasized creating community awareness on COVID-19 through behavior change communication (BCC) strategies using Community Health Volunteers (CHV), child-champions, TV, radio, and social media platforms. To date, ChildFund has distributed and installed sanitation equipment for vulnerable communities and frontline health workers reaching close to 38,700 individuals. We contributed towards the wellbeing of children affected by COVID-19 through the creation and rehabilitation of child-friendly spaces in four health facilities in Kajiado, Nairobi, Machakos and Kitui counties. The spaces were equipped with age-appropriate toys and reading materials within selected health facilities to accommodate children receiving COVID-19 treatment and/or were in quarantine. We provided cash transfers totaling USD 227,416 to ensure that 8,872 most vulnerable families had food on the table, paid rent and covered other basic needs. Working closely with our local partners and CHVs, we also supported community-based child protection systems to identify, respond to and refer cases of abuse, neglect, violence, or exploitation to the relevant authorities. We arranged safe and appropriate care for children who are separated from their caregivers due to COVID-19 treatment or deaths. While schools remained closed, we distributed home learning kits with materials and guidelines as well as 220 solar-powered radios with reading lights to help students with no access to the internet to continue learning. We also remained vigilant in addressing the increased risk of online sexual abuse that accompanies children’s increased exposure to the internet.
With the increasing number of disasters and emergencies that ChildFund is facing and must address, the (CSP) Country Strategic Plan (2019-2021) purposely identified DRR and Climate Change Adaptation as one of the crosscutting priorities. The CSP thus has prioritized to increase resilience among communities and families in dealing with life changing events through effective and timely contextual emergency responses. Apart from integrating DRR and Climate Change Adaptation strategies in our development program work, the development of an Emergency Preparedness Plan (EPP) has been singled as key component of the process. Putting in place an EPP will ensure preparedness actions are integrated into ChildFund operational decision-making processes, including strategy and budget development, project design, planning and implementation. Development of the EPP is expected, among other steps, to analyze e the different disaster risks facing the country and particularly the 26 counties where we currently operate, as well as the response capacities of the national government, ChildFund itself, our local partners. The EPP is also envisaged to analyze other actors, including NGOs, UN agencies, private sector, DRR capacity and interventions. Issue of effective coordination and collaboration with all relevant stakeholders, which are essential to effective responses, will also be looked, with a view to seeing how they will enable ChildFund to minimize the impact of disasters on children.
The Emergency Preparedness Plan (EPP) aims to:
Provide a practical framework for ChildFund Kenya Country Office to continually improve its preparedness and response.
Increase understanding of potential risks affecting children, their families, and communities in its areas of operation.
Establish and mainstream a standard for minimum emergency preparedness at Country Office level.
Guide CO as an emergency risk becomes more imminent and help in raising its readiness level.
Enable CO to build and increase its emergency response capacities, so that it can adequately address humanitarian assistance needs in coordination with other actors.
Guide Country Offices in their initial emergency responses.
Increase ChildFund Kenya’s profile with the county and national governments, UN system, donors, NGOs, and other key emergency actors.
Purpose and Objectives of Consultancy
Overall Objective of the Consultancy
The objective is to support and coordinate the review and development of a ChildFund Kenya Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan (EPP), that will enable ChildFund achieve its CSP priorities. The EPP process is also expected to enable ChildFund Kenya to meet its EPP aims as outlined above, with a specific focus on Child Protection in Emergencies (CPiE), Education in Emergency (EiE), WASH, Food Security, Shelter and NFIs among other related interventions. The EPP is thus envisaged to enable ChildFund Kenya and its Local Partners (LPs) to mainstream Disaster Risk reduction in their interventions and projects. **
Overally, the EPP is expected to be the overarching guide that will assist ChildFund Kenya to prepare, plan, and execute emergency response interventions that ensures and guarantees the protection of Deprived, Excluded and Vulnerable (DEV) Children and their families. The anticipated immediate outcome of the plan is to minimise the effect of disasters on children while working to help in recovery from disasters and build resilience of communities.
Specific Objectives
Coordinate and work with ChildFund staff and Local Partners (LPs) technical staff in the gathering of information on the hazards, risks, vulnerability, and capacity in the ChildFund operational areas for updating of the Emergency Preparedness Plan (EPP).
Coordinate and work with the all the ChildFund departments leads to review the Country EPP in line with the information gathered.
Coordinate the review, design, and delivery of final EPP to ChildFund Kenya by end of quatre 3 of 2020
Scope of work
The assignment involves review of the ChildFund EPP with the relevant up to date information from the counties where ChildFund has operation and information from the National government regarding Emergency preparedness, plan and response in the country. The plan will encompass Hazards, disasters, capacities, and vulnerability and disaster preparedness. The Counties where ChildFund works includes Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) of Turkana, Samburu, Isiolo, Marsabit, Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet, Kajiado, Makueni, Kitui and Machakos others are Migori, Kisumu, Siaya, Murang’a, Nyeri, Tharaka Nithi, Nairobi. The plan is expected to be in line with the Government plans and strategies both at the national and county level. This exercise will take a maximum of 3 weeks and with ChildFund facilitating travels to the various counties where possible and virtual meeting with the LPs and government departments for information gathering. The consultant will work with the DRR specialist for the review and input into the EPP before presentation of the draft to the Management for validation before socialization to the ChildFund team.
Methodology
Review of Government emergency documents
Discussion and information gathering from Beneficiaries, ChildFund, LPs and Government officials in target Counties.
Discussion with the ChildFund technical team – Area Managers, DRR Specialist, Child Protection manager, ECD Specialist, FSL Specialist, Public Health Specialist, MEAL Manager, PSD, HRD, Finance Director, IT Specialist, Procurement and Admin, among others
Review and input into the existing ChildFund EPP
Expected contents and outputs
ChildFund and its LP staff should be able to appreciate and understand the potential risks affecting children, their families, and communities and how to respond.
An updated EPP that will enable ChildFund Kenya to adequately and effectively respond to different emergencies that may occur.
To enable ChildFund and its LPs better contribute to the timely and relevant emergency response in the affected target communities.
Management and Coordination
The key people that the consultant will be working closely with at ChildFund Kenya include the Programs and Sponsorship Director, Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Specialist, FSL Specialist, Child Protection Manager, Area Managers, Monitoring Evaluation Knowledge Management Manager and the Local Partners. The consultant may at certain times be required to give the progress to the Country Director, ChildFund Kenya.
Tentative Schedule
The exercise will take approximately 15 working days spanning over a period of 6 weeks from the agreed start date of the assignment.
There will be an inception meeting with the consultant on the first day with the PSD and DRR specialist and Child Protection manager with Country Director being optional attendee.
The consultant will take 5 working days to gather updated information from the relevant stakeholders as indicated in the scope and methodology above
Review and update of the ChildFund EPP will take 6 working days and followed presentation to the SMT for validation.
Upon validation the consultant will finalization the EPP final document and submit to ChildFund within for working days.
Deliverables
Submission for an Inception Report at three days after taking up the assignment.
Submission of the final reviewed and updated ChildFund Emergency Preparedness Plan
A short presentation to ChildFund SMT on the EPP
Consultants’ Qualifications
The consultant must have the following competencies:
Must have similar experience on Emergency Response planning and Disaster Preparedness in the past three years
Should have an advanced degree in Emergency Preparedness and Response, Disaster management or a discipline related to one of the technical areas addressed by the project, from recognized universities.
Good understanding of Kenya disaster and climate change context
Experience in developing organizational strategies, contingency plans, actions plans and policy documents etc. in areas of Emergency
Excellent analytical and report writing skills
Excellent written and spoken English
Payment mode
Payment will be done upon submission and acceptance of the final EPP by ChildFund Kenya.
*NB:*
The Consultant’s compensation shall be paid NET, within 30 days from receipt of a proper invoice unless otherwise specified.
Payment will be made by cheque unless otherwise specified.
The payment shall be subjected to 5% withholding tax as required by the Law at the time of payment.
ChildFund Kenya is committed to safeguarding the interests, rights, and well-being of children with whom it is in contact and to conducting its programs and operations in a manner that is safe for children.
Interested candidates who meet the above qualifications should send their expression of interest including the technical and financial proposal. The technical proposal should clearly indicate the qualification and previous similar assignments undertaken. Incomplete documents will be disqualified, all the expression of interest should be sent by close of business on 12th Dec.2020 to kenyaprocurement@childfund.org
Apply via :
kenyaprocurement@childfund.org
