TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR MID-TERM EVALUATION Promotion of Quality Childcare, Protection, Youth and Community Empowerment in Banadir Location (2025–2027)

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Background information

About SOS Children's Villages

SOS Children's Villages is a global federation of 118 national SOS Children's Villages associations, working in more than 2000 programme locations worldwide. We work together with a single vision: every child belongs to a family and grows with love, respect and security.

We provide long-term, family-like care for children who have lost parental care (alternative care service), and we work with vulnerable families and communities to help strengthen them and prevent child abandonment (family strengthening service, FS). SOS family like can have different forms such as SOS families where small groups of children are cared for in a family-like environment, foster families, small group homes and crisis intervention (short-term care).

SOS Children's Villages Somalia is a non‑governmental social development organization that has been active in the field of children's rights since 1985, committed to addressing the needs and concerns of vulnerable children and young people throughout the country. As a member of the global SOS Children's Villages federation, the organization works in the spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), ensuring that every intervention upholds children's rights to care, protection, participation, and development. SOS Children's Villages Somalia provides alternative care for children who have lost parental care, supports vulnerable families and communities to prevent unnecessary family separation, and advocates for child rights across Somalia.

For more than 40 years, SOS CV Somalia has implemented a comprehensive range of programs in Alternative Care (AC), Family Strengthening (FS), Education, Youth Empowerment, and Health Services. The Banadir Programme is one of the organization's largest operational hubs and delivers diverse services including Family-Like Care (FLC), Foster Family Care (FFC), Kinship care, and Supervised Independent Living (SIL). It also provides Early Childhood Development (ECD), primary and secondary education, health and nutrition services, WASH support, youth employability training, and entrepreneurship development. Humanitarian protection services, including support for unaccompanied and separated children and GBV survivors, form a critical part of its emergency response mandate.

The organization's work in Banadir and across the country is guided by international and national frameworks, including the UNCRC, the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, the Somalia National Development Plan (NDP‑9), and priority Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 1, 3, 4, 5, and 8). Programme implementation is also aligned with the SOS Federation Strategy 2030 and the SOS Care Promise, which collectively guide efforts to ensure that children grow up in a safe, caring family environment and are supported to realize their full potential.

Description of project and context

SOS Children's Villages implements its programmes in Banadir Region, a densely populated urban area that hosts the highest concentration of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Somalia. The programme units in Mogadishu covering Alternative Care (AC), Family Strengthening (FS), Education (ECD/primary/secondary), Youth Empowerment, and Emergency Child Protection serve communities affected by decades of armed conflict, chronic poverty, and recurrent climate shocks. The surrounding communities consist largely of displaced families living in informal settlements, facing limited access to basic services, unstable income sources, and weakened family support systems. Needs assessments conducted in 2022–2023 revealed alarming levels of parental loss, family separation, educational exclusion, and child protection risks, with many children living in extended family care arrangements characterized by poverty, overcrowding, and inconsistent caregiving. Findings also highlighted an urgent need for foster care expansion, MHPSS support, WASH services, school assistance, and livelihood strengthening to prevent further family breakdown.

In response to these challenges, the project aims to deliver a comprehensive and integrated package of services benefiting 2,746 program participants in Banadir. At the outcome level, the project seeks to ensure that 427 children and young people without parental care receive adequate, family‑based alternative care through FLC integration, expansion of foster and kinship care, and strengthened SIL pathways. A further 2,350 children will gain access to quality ECD, primary, and secondary education through improved teaching capacity, better learning resources, and inclusive school environments.

Similarly, 1,000 youth will benefit from employability, technical, vocational, and entrepreneurship programs particularly through health‑sciences training, internships, and job placement. The project also seeks to reinforce community‑based child protection networks, support emergency care for UASC and GBV survivors, and transition key service units toward financial sustainability, in line with SOS Somalia's strategic direction and the project's Results Framework and Monitoring Plan.

Objectives of the mid-term evaluation

Overall, Purpose

The overall purpose of this Mid-Term Evaluation (MTE) is to assess the project's design, relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, and emerging outcomes; determine progress toward intended results against baseline values and annual targets; validate the assumptions underpinning the project's Theory of Change (TOC) and results framework; assess the quality and functionality of the project's MEAL system; and generate evidence-based, actionable recommendations to improve performance, support mid-course adjustments, and optimize implementation