Venezuela Outflow Evaluation

NOTE: proposal submission deadline extended until 24 Nov 2019, 23:55 (Panama time)

The main purpose of this assignment is to conduct a formative evaluation of UNICEF’s response to the migration crisis in the four main countries affected by the Venezuela’s migration outflow, mainly Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil. This assessment will look at progress and lessons learned as well as the role and support provided by Regional Office and HQ.  The evaluation will be forward looking and will consider the mechanisms and linkages put in place to support the transition from humanitarian response towards a more long-term and sustainable response (the nexus).

TYPE OF EVALUATION: This will be a formative evaluation looking to assess the progress and results obtained during the initial humanitarian response to identify successful strategies and lessons learned. The evaluation will also be forward looking evaluation aiming to learn from the experiences of the different countries’ response to the migration outflow. It will seek to generate knowledge on successful strategies, considering the unique contextual circumstances, such as the fact that these countries are middle income countries, with institutional capacity. The analysis will be forward-looking so that recommendations are able to support the current shift form humanitarian response towards a long term and structural response, including bridge actions (the nexus). Ultimately it will propose actionable recommendations to strengthen UNICEF’s interventions towards the establishment of a more sustainable response to this crisis. Findings are expected to inform the intervention in 2020 and 2021. 

The evaluation will have a strong gender and equity focus component, exploring how and to what degree UNICEF has been implementing the gender and equity lens and considered gender dynamics, such as socio-economic status, ethnic groups, and other relevant variables in its design, planning and implementation.

THE TIMING OF THE EVALUATION has been selected to allow for sufficient time for the strategies to be in place sufficiently in places but also acknowledging the need to consider changes to adapt to the change from an emergency response to a more development-oriented approach. The evaluation may inform management decisions going forward, course correction if necessary and highlight changes in the strategy that could strengthen the response.

EVALUATION USERS: The main audience of this evaluation is UNICEF staff involved in the L2 response in the country offices covered, mainly Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil and Peru country offices, as well as the Regional Office and the HQ sections involved in supporting the response. In addition, the learning of the evaluation is expected to inform national partners, including governments and civil society. A secondary audience may be other countries in the region which may not be part of the L2 but may be receiving increasing number of Venezuelans, and facing similar challenges, as well as other countries who are struggling to respond to increased number of children on the move, for example in Central America. Ultimately, some of the underlying lessons may be of use to countries dealing with children on the move in other regions as well. Finally, this evaluation could be of interest to donors and implementing partners, both governmental and non-governmental, as well as beneficiaries and communities, as a mechanism to strengthen transparency and share experiences and identify lessons learned. Lessons learned will help strengthen the response going forward and may be helpful for other countries with important population flows, such as in Central America.

Key stakeholders such as national counterparts -both government and implementing partners- are expected to be part of the evaluation reference group from the inception phase in order to strengthen validity and buy-in of the process. In addition, whenever possible the evaluation will seek to include meaningful participation of duty bearers (governments) and rights holders (civil society and programme beneficiaries) to promote ownership and utilization of evaluation findings.