Terms of Reference: Consultant for Baseline Assessment

Background

Women's Right to Education Programme (WREP), in collaboration with Christian Aid and relevant local partners, is implementing a localisation initiative designed to strengthen locally led humanitarian action across Kaduna State, Plateau State, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Nigeria's North Central and Northwest regions continue to face a complex humanitarian situation driven by protracted armed banditry, communal conflict, herder-farmer tensions, and kidnapping for ransom — resulting in recurrent displacement, loss of livelihoods, and disrupted access to education, health, and protection services, with heightened vulnerability among women, children, and persons with disabilities.

Despite a significant shift toward localisation, LNNGOs and community-based actors in the project areas continue to face structural, financial, and capacity-related barriers that limit their ability to lead and sustain humanitarian response — underscoring the need for this baseline assessment.

Purpose of the Assignment

The baseline assessment will establish the starting conditions, capacities, practices, and perceptions of target LNNGOs, communities, and relevant stakeholders before project interventions begin. It will provide baseline values against which project progress, outcomes, and changes can be measured throughout implementation.

Specific Objectives

• Assess the current institutional and operational capacity of participating LNNGOs in governance, safeguarding, financial management, procurement, MEAL, accountability, and organisational sustainability
• Establish the current level of participation and influence of LNNGOs in humanitarian coordination, planning, and decision-making
• Assess the extent to which affected communities currently participate in identifying humanitarian priorities and designing interventions
• Examine current access of local actors to humanitarian financing, including flexible and community-responsive funding
• Identify key barriers and enabling factors affecting locally led humanitarian action
• Establish baseline information on relationships, collaboration, and accountability between LNNGOs, communities, and humanitarian actors
• Generate quantitative and qualitative baseline values for relevant project indicators
• Identify inclusion gaps affecting women, youth, persons with disabilities, and other marginalised groups
• Provide practical recommendations to guide project implementation, capacity strengthening, monitoring, learning, and the SCLR/micro-grant mechanism

Expected Deliverables

Required Qualifications

• Minimum Master's degree in Development Studies, Social Sciences, Humanitarian Studies, Monitoring and Evaluation, Statistics, Research, or a related field
• At least 5–7 years of relevant professional experience in baseline studies, evaluations, assessments, or research
• Demonstrated experience in humanitarian response, localisation, civil society strengthening, or community-led programming
• Strong experience using mixed-methods research approaches and conducting organisational capacity assessments
• Good understanding of gender equality, safeguarding, disability inclusion, and accountability to affected populations
• Knowledge of the Nigerian humanitarian and civil society context
• Excellent data analysis, report writing, and presentation skills

Indicative Schedule (10 Working Days)

Payment Schedule

• 60% upon approval of the inception report and finalised data collection tools
• 40% upon completion of fieldwork, submission of cleaned data, draft report, and final baseline report

All reports, datasets, tools, transcripts, analysis, and other materials produced under this assignment remain the property of WREP and its project partners. The consultant shall not publish, reproduce, or share any project data or findings without prior written approval from WREP.