Description
Background:The Margaret A. Cargill Foundation-funded Managing Risk Through Economic Development (M-RED) program is designed to support disaster-ready communities across three countries in Asia: Indonesia, Nepal and Timor-Leste by reducing their vulnerability to climate shocks and fostering their resilience. It has operated in targeted low-attention, disaster-prone regions since 2013, through four iterations (M-RED I to IV) partnering with 230,000 underserved and underrepresented people from 218 communities across the three countries that face impacts of recurring climate disasters and slow-onset shocks, such as floods, drought, soil erosion, landslides, and windstorms. Since its start, M-RED has trained 20,608 people specifically in disaster preparedness and response which helps them to increase their preparation by understanding their capacity, vulnerability, and exposure to disaster. M-RED promotes a โnexusโ approach that combines disaster risk reduction (DRR) and market system development (MSD) with the aim of improving disaster preparedness while protecting and improving livelihoods. This is done by: 1) supporting communities to more effectively respond to, recover from, adapt to and mitigate climate impacts; and 2) enabling access to context-specific, climate-adaptive economic opportunities. This approach calls for interventions that can simultaneously reduce disaster risks and generate income or contribute to economic development.Learning, inclusion, networking and capacity strengthening drive M-REDโs vision of community-led, co-created disaster-readiness. From inception, M-RED has facilitated networked learning and knowledge-sharing across households, smallholder farmer groups, communities, government institutions, private sector actors and civil society organizations. As participants engage with this multi-phased program, they become co-creators of a disaster-ready community, experiencing measurable decreases in disaster-related losses and increases in economic security. Program participants report feeling safer, more confident and better equipped to bounce back from shocks and stresses. Drawing on the opportunity to have tested this model in different contexts over more than a decade, lessons and learnings can be drawn to inform future disaster-readiness programs and inform the wider sector of the best practices gleaned from our model. The success of such an approach - and, more importantly, its sustainability - depends as much on the approach itself as on the enabling and blocking factors within each country's context. What does sustainability of disaster-readiness efforts look like in these contexts, what are the primary and secondary influencing factors that contribute to it or, on the contrary, prevent it? Does disaster-readiness require investments from the whole community or the engagement of a few representatives that maintain efforts? Is generating an income in relation to disaster-readiness a decisive element of sustainability? These are the kinds of questions Mercy Corps would like to answer through this learning activity.Purpose / Project Description: Over the course of 12 months, Mercy Corps will coordinate a study within the three countries where M-RED has been implemented: Indonesia, Nepal and Timor-Leste, generating evidence on the sustainability of disaster-readiness interventions. The overall goal of this study is to generate learning across M-RED countries, to paint a comprehensive picture of enablers and barriers to sustainability of disaster-readiness initiatives and inform future DRR funding strategies. The main research question for this study is: โwhat influences the sustainability of disaster-readiness interventions over time?โ In exploring this research question, the study will generate evidence of what works to support sustainability of interventions to support disaster preparedness and response to help inform future DRR programing and funding strategies. This study will interrogate the factors enabling and hindering the sustainability of disaster-readiness over time, after a program supporting them comes to an end. This will be accomplished by assessing multiple dimensions of sustainability including the financial, social, human, environmental and institutional capacities needed to sustain improved disaster-readiness over time. This will include examining supporting institutions, knowledge and capacity of multi-hazard risk, existence and continued use of risk management plans and other vulnerability reduction measures. The analysis will also consider differences in these factors, for example ownership of the community or authorities, between contexts and their relationship with sustainability. This study will test the following assumptions:
- Outcome Sustainability: The interventions implemented in the community lead to outcomes that remain over time, enabling the community to retain the necessary capacity for disaster-readiness.
- Community Retention Capacity: The community successfully retains all essential capacities needed to be disaster-ready (retention of community members with disaster-readiness knowledge, as well as retention of knowledge itself), ensuring better preparedness and response in the face of potential disasters.
- Ongoing Support to Disaster-Readiness: The community receives ongoing disaster preparedness and emergency response support (e.g. financial support, response support, trainings) and engagement from government agencies and other relevant stakeholders.
- Long-term Benefits of Nexus Approach: The nexus approach, exemplified by economic initiatives such as sugarcane cultivation, continues to provide tangible benefits over time that enhance the continuity of community's disaster-readiness.
- Community Engagement: Continued community engagement and participation in disaster preparedness initiatives maintain readiness and effectively utilize the resources provided through government support and M-REDโs economic development efforts.
- Experience of Disaster: Communities that will be assessed through this learning activity will likely not be in the state of exposure to shocks and stresses, some may have experienced one recently and be in recovery mode, while others maintain preparedness for future threats. This learning activity is an opportunity to test if disaster-readiness sustainability is connected to frequency of disasters.
- Please note that any assessment of the outcomes of disaster-readiness interventions and their impact on vulnerability and resilience of communities is outside of the scope of this study. Consultant Objectives: Conduct data collection, research interviews and data analysis of M-RED program to capture learning related to building disaster ready communities in three countries. The following four objectives cover research areas with specific learning questions (see table below).
- Objective 1: Determine what sustainability means in the context of disaster-readiness. Mercy Corps will first define the nature of sustainability in the context of disaster-readiness, what behaviors and efforts are being sustained or not, and what adaptations to promoted efforts have been made.
- Objective 2: Identify enabling conditions, the key factors (social, human, political/institutional, financial, environmental) that positively influence the sustainability of disaster-readiness results achieved through past grant initiatives in each context. This is measured notably by the extent to which outcomes achieved during former M-RED phases (such as: community groups with DRR responsibilities that are functional, community members implementing DRR measures, that receive early warning information before disaster, with retained DRR knowledge, showing positive attitude towards Gender, Equity, Diversity, and Social Inclusion (GEDSI), investing towards risk sensitive livelihood options) are sustained post-program. This considers enabling conditions and resources that have facilitated and sustained preparedness efforts in the community after grant funds ended.
- Objective 3: Identify hindering conditions. In the same vein, Mercy Corps will explore the barriers and challenges that may have hindered the sustainability of preparedness efforts in the community following the conclusion of the MACP grants.
- Objective 4: Formulate recommendations for future grants. This learning activity aims to generate evidence and recommendations for future disaster-readiness grant initiatives. Research AreaLearning Questions Area 1: Nature and Extent of Sustainability1.1 To what extent have past MACP-funded preparedness efforts been sustained in communities (what efforts have been more/less retained and why)? 1.2 How have efforts evolved over time โ have they been adapted, scaled up, abandoned?1.3 What measurable elements indicate that a community remains disaster-ready post-program? 1.4 Does achieving a high DRM score increase the likelihood of sustainability? (e.g. ongoing drills, risk assessments, continued mitigation activities)1.5 Who benefits from sustained efforts? Are diverse groups โ including women, marginalized communities, and at-risk households โ equally benefiting from disaster-readiness efforts? Area 2: Enabling Factors2.1 What enabling factors (e.g. governance, funding, community ownership, individual leadership, community profile, inclusion, political and/or social capital) contribute to sustainability?2.2 What M-RED approaches have been most effective in fostering high community and government ownership? 2.3 How does the local footprint (e.g. efforts implemented through local partners such as NGOs, government, community technical focal points, community disaster groups, community resource persons like CDAs) influence sustainability? 2.4 Has M-REDโs GEDSI approach strengthened sustainability? 2.5 How does economic development (e.g. through sugarcane or other livelihoods nexus projects) influence the sustainability of a communityโs disaster-readiness? Area 3: Hindering Conditions3.1 What are the primary and secondary barriers preventing disaster-readiness efforts to sustain overtime? (e.g. governance, funding, community ownership, individual leadership, community profile, inclusion, political and/or social capital, external shocks and stresses, relevance)3.2 What challenges do communities that are sustaining efforts still face to maintain their disaster-readiness? What further support might have been needed? Area 4: Recommended Adaptations4.1 What lessons from sustained and unsustained efforts should inform future program design?4.2 What shifts in strategies, funding models, or partnerships are needed to foster sustainability beyond grant timeframes? Consultant Activities: The Consultant is expected to conduct the research using the following recommended methodology and steps which will be further discussed and elaborated on the inception step of the research:1) Defining sustainability and a methodology to assess it; 2) Unpacking factors that influence, enable and hinder sustainability; 3) Synthetizing insights and generating learnings; 4) Validating and disseminating findings and recommendations. Sampled communities will include communities, across the three countries, where M-RED was implemented. This sample will be representative of the overall communities supported by the program and will be selected based on a set of criteria defined during Step 1. These communities have either been included in Phase I to III, or Phase IV of M-RED. We will then be able to compare sustainability in communities that we have left for more than four years with communities we left in the past year. As this activity measures sustainability of promoted efforts, no control group will be included as they havenโt received preparedness-related support. However, our sample will include some communities that never graduated to disaster-ready according to the DRM, to understand better what prevented them from fully embracing disaster-readiness. Country# of sampled M-RED Phase I to III communities# of sampled M-RED Phase IV communities Indonesia~ 10 (to be confirmed in Step 1) out of 34 communities from Phase III~ 10 (to be confirmed in Step 1) out of 44 communities (including Phase III)Nepal~ 10 (to be confirmed in Step 1) out of 47 communities left by Phase III~ 10 (to be confirmed in Step 1) out of 39 communitiesTimor-Leste~ 10 (to be confirmed in Step 1) out of 47 communities left by Phase III~ 10 (to be confirmed in Step 1) out of 39 communities To meet our four learning activity objectives, our Methodology, the details of which will be defined more precisely in Step 1 and timeline adjusted accordingly, will consist in the following steps:
Step 1: Defining SustainabilityDuring the first two months of this learning activity, Mercy Corps will define its precise methodology, as well as the broad outlines of what sustainability should look like in disaster-readiness in these contexts, by undertaking the following activities:
- Retrospective Analysis (Secondary Data Review)