Background
Humanitarian needs are growing in the world and in 2025, it is estimated that hundreds of millions of people need humanitarian assistance and protection. In addition to natural disasters, Felm’s (Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission) programme countries are experiencing man-made crises that cause instability and increase the number of refugees and internally displaced persons. The food security situation is deteriorating further for several reasons, including climate change and the war in Ukraine. Felm channels its humanitarian aid through partners, who are mainly churches and faith-based organizations. Felm will apply for ECHO’s Framework Partnership Agreement, FPA partnership status in 2028.
There are close linkages among humanitarian aid, development cooperation and peace work, which Felm acknowledges by applying triple nexus approach when relevant: acute or protracted humanitarian needs exist in the areas where long-term development projects are implemented and among the same beneficiaries. Often such areas are prone to conflicts and peace work is also involved. The cross-cutting objectives of Felm’s work are gender justice and disability inclusion.
Felm will strengthen its staff and selected partners’ humanitarian competence and preparedness to respond in a high-quality and effective manner to disasters and humanitarian aid needs to best meet the requirements of its program focus areas and activities. Capacity-strengthening will benefit Felm and its’ partners, but primarily the participants and beneficiaries of humanitarian responses.
Objective
The aim is to strengthen the capacity of Felm and its partner organisations to prepare for disasters and deliver high-quality humanitarian aid effectively.
Deliverables
The expected deliverables of the assignment are:
- An assessment of humanitarian capacities and capacity-strengthening needs among relevant Felm staff members (target group identified by Felm).
- An assessment among selected partner organizations in pre-identified countries related to the humanitarian capacity needs and support for emergency preparedness.
- Review of the existing capacity building materials for humanitarian aid and emergency preparedness globally, incl. in the ACT alliance network that meet the identified needs and are available for capacity-strengthening purposes.
- Based on assessment results and training material review to produce a capacity-strengthening plan including curriculum and activities for Felm staff and selected implementing partners in humanitarian aid. If time allows, produce a short concept paper on how to support and facilitate an emergency preparedness planning process of selected Felm’s country teams and partners in 2025.
Management
The consultant will work closely with Humanitarian Advisor and under the overall direction of Director of Development Cooperation. The consultant and Humanitarian Advisor will work together to produce the project plan for the years 2025 and 2026. The process includes feedback opportunities to Felm staff members. The final outputs will be approved by Humanitarian Advisor and Director of Development Cooperation.
Felm is responsible for providing contact details and contribute making the review materials available to the consultant. This assignment can be conducted partly or entirely remotely but the consultant should be prepared to travel if assessments require that. Felm will cover the travel costs including air fare, local transport and accommodation and consider additional workday/s for travel. Felm can provide the consultant with office space but not computers or mobile phones.
Timeframe
Max. 20 workdays in the period from 15th of February to 30 of March 2025. There is a possibility of extension of the consultancy with additional objectives after successful completion of the assignment.
Qualifications
The qualifications for successful completion of the assignment:
- Advanced university (minimum master’s) degree in relevant field
- Minimum of five years’ work experience in humanitarian aid
- Excellent knowledge of global humanitarian standards and principles
- Demonstrated skills in capacity building in the humanitarian sector
- Experience in planning emergency preparedness plans
- Good command in English. Skills in other languages, such as Finnish, are an asset. Background documents are partly in Finnish language.
- Ability to write project plans and reports (narrative and financial)
- Skills to develop humanitarian capacity building concepts and design emergency preparedness planning processes
- Good digital and IT skills
How to apply
Proposals
The interested candidates are requested to send a proposal in English including the following information:
- Understanding of the assignment
- Approach to assignment: objective and deliverables
- Budget for conducting the assignment including the daily consultancy fee with VAT
- Indication of availability and an initial work plan for the number of workdays
- CV of the consultant/s
The selection will be based on assessing the qualifications of the candidates and the quality of their proposals. The process may also include interviewing.
Proposals should be sent latest by 4th of February 2025 to Humanitarian Advisor, Ms. Riina Isotalo, riina.isotalo@felm.org. Should there be questions regarding the assignment, please address them to Ms. Isotalo.