TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOS CHILDREN'S VILLAGES SOMALIA COUNTRY STRATEGY (2027- 2030)

TERMS OF REFERENCE

FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOS CHILDREN'S VILLAGES SOMALIA COUNTRY STRATEGY (2027- 2030)

1.    Background

SOS Children's Villages Somalia (SOS CV Somalia) is a child-focused humanitarian and development organization committed to ensuring that every child grows up with the care, protection, and support needed to thrive. Through its integrated programs in child protection, family strengthening, youth employability, education, health, emergency response, and community development, SOS CV Somalia contributes to improving the well-being and resilience of vulnerable children, young people, families, and communities across Somalia.

The current SOS CV Somalia Country Strategy (2023–2026) has guided the organization's programming, partnerships, advocacy, organizational development, and resource mobilization efforts. A review of the strategy conducted in 2025 demonstrated significant achievements, with approximately 95% of the strategic Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) achieved. The review found strong results in humanitarian action, education access, and alternative care scale-up, alongside three structural risks requiring attention in the next strategy cycle: the phase-out of child sponsorship by SOS Norway and SOS Finland, a persistent self-reliance gap among Family Strengthening households exiting the programme, and the 2024 Parliamentary rejection of the Child Rights Bill.  The review further identified key lessons, emerging priorities, and opportunities for future growth and impact.

As the current strategic period approaches completion, SOS CV Somalia intends to develop a new Country Strategy for the period 2027–2030. The new strategy will provide strategic direction for the organization over the next five years and ensure alignment with the SOS Children's Villages Federation Strategy, Somalia's National /Transitional Development Plan, national sector policies, humanitarian and development priorities, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the evolving needs of children, youth, families, and communities.

SOS Children's Villages Somalia therefore seeks to engage a qualified consultant or consulting firm to facilitate the development of the Country Strategy (2027–2030) through a participatory, evidence-based, and inclusive process involving internal and external stakeholders.

2.     Purpose of the Assignment

The purpose of this consultancy is to facilitate the development of a comprehensive, results-oriented, and future-focused Country Strategy (2027–2030) that will guide SOS CV Somalia's strategic priorities, programming, partnerships, advocacy, organizational development, and resource mobilization efforts over the next five years.

3.    Scope of Work / Objectives of the Assignment

The consultant will lead the development of the Country Strategy (2026–2030) through a comprehensive review of the current strategy's performance, achievements, challenges, and lessons learned, while assessing organizational strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and risks that may influence future programming and growth. The assignment will include an in-depth analysis of Somalia’s humanitarian, development, socio-economic, environmental, and political context, with particular attention to emerging trends affecting children, youth, families, and communities. 

The consultant will engage a broad range of internal and external stakeholders—including children, youth, caregivers, communities, government institutions such as line ministries such as Ministry of Health (MoH); Ministry of Education, Culture and Higher Education (MoECHE); Ministry of Family and Human Right Development (MOFHRD), Ministry of Youth and Sports (MOYS); Ministry of Labour and Social affairs (MOLSA) Institutional donors such as ECHO, GAC , FCDO, BMZ etc. ; Partners supporting Association (PSA) such as CVW , SOS Norway ; SOS Sweden,     donors, development partners, UNICEF, civil society organizations such as Somalia Child right Coalitions (SCRC) ,  the Joining Forces Alliance (JFA) Somalia chapter; and private sector actors such as Hormuud telecom, —to identify strategic priorities, opportunities, and areas for collaboration.

The situational analysis and consultations should assess geographic expansion opportunities identified in the 2023–2025 review, including operationalization of community-based Alternative Care programming in Southwest state Somalia and potential Family Strengthening expansion into Jubaland and Hirshabelle, where unaccompanied and separated children (UASC) caseloads are highest.

Through a participatory strategic planning process, the consultant will facilitate visioning and planning workshops, develop the organization’s strategic priorities, objectives, outcomes, implementation approaches, Theory of Change, Results Framework, and performance measurement mechanisms.

The strategy development process should explicitly build on and test the strategic hypotheses identified in the 2023–2025 strategy review, including: whether community-based care (foster, kinship, Kafala) should become the primary Alternative Care modality in place of Family-Like Care; whether the SOS College of Health Sciences warrants a standalone strategic objective; the scope of SOS CV Somalia's role in the national Child Helpline partnership; the target proportion of locally-generated income by 2030 given PSA sponsorship phase-out; and whether advocacy should be elevated to a standalone programme stream with dedicated budget and staffing.

The strategy development should follow an execution-oriented planning approach (per the Kaplan & Norton execution premium framework, adapted for the humanitarian/nonprofit context), translating strategic priorities into a Strategy Map, a Balanced Scorecard, a prioritized Strategic Initiative Portfolio, an organizational alignment/cascade plan, and a defined strategy governance and review mechanism.

Cross-cutting themes to be addressed include gender, age, and diversity mainstreaming; protection mainstreaming; climate resilience; and disability inclusion; the latter reflecting Somalia's 2024 Disability Act and the exclusion risks for children with disabilities identified in Baidoa vulnerability assessments.

The consultant should be aware that several immediate management actions from the 2023–2025 review (Tier 1 recommendations) are being implemented in parallel with this assignment during 2026; including a PSA sponsorship transition plan, recruitment of a dedicated Advocacy Officer, and initiation of the Board of Directors establishment process and should ensure the draft strategy is consistent with and builds on these in-progress actions rather than duplicating them.

The assignment will also include the development of an implementation roadmap, strategic monitoring framework, resource mobilization priorities, and partnership strategies to support effective delivery of the Country Strategy over the 2027–2030 period.

4.    Management and reporting arrangements

The consultant shall report to the National Director, with technical oversight and day-to-day coordination provided by the Head of MEAL/National planning and review coordinator. A Strategy Development Reference Group comprising members of the National Management Team (NMT) and relevant strategy area priority leaders/programme leads shall be constituted to review and approve deliverables at each stage of the assignment. All deliverables shall be submitted in draft for review and comment before finalization, with SOS CV Somalia allowing a standard review period of five working days per deliverable unless otherwise agreed.

5.    Documents to be provided by SOS CV Somalia to the consultant

Qualification of the consultant required

The consultant should meet the following pre-requisite qualification required for this strategy development process:

·       Advanced degree (master's or PhD) in a relevant field such as Economics, community development; Public Policy and management, International Development, development studies, Political Science; strategic development and Business Administration,

·       Professional Experience – at least 10 years of relevant experience in strategic planning, policy formulation, or development consulting. A proven experience of the similar national stratetgy development process is required for this assignment.

·       Demonstrated experience leading or contributing to at least 2–3 national-level strategies, policies, or development plans.

·       Deep knowledge of the Somalia Humanitarian and Development landscape, sectors priorities including familiarity with 2026 Somalia Humanitarian Needs overviews (2026 HNO); Humanitarian Response plan (HRP 2026) and sectorial cluster priorities and plans from the government of Somalia.

·       Knowledge and Familiarity with Somalia’s national development frameworks including the national transformative plans (NTPs), SDGs, and relevant international/regional benchmarks or standards.

·       Familiarity with strategy execution methodologies such as the Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Map approach (Kaplan & Norton), including experience translating strategic objectives into linked measures, targets, and initiative portfolios, is an advantage.

·       Familiarity with Somalia's Essential Package of Health Services (EPHS) framework and the SOS Children's Villages International Federation Strategy 2030 is also required, given their direct relevance to health system alignment and IO strategic guidance for this assignment.

·        Demonstrated proven ability in policy analysis, situational/SWOT analysis, stakeholder mapping, results-based program management frameworks (log frames, result frameworks theory of change), data analysis, and evidence-based recommendation writing.

·       Experience with participatory/consultative strategy processes (multi-stakeholder engagement, government coordination).

·        Demonstrated high capacity and capabilities in writing technical reports with strong presentation skills for high level stakeholders.

·       Ability to facilitate strategy development workshops for senior leadership teams with high-quality content and outputs.

10. Budget and Evaluation criteria

Prospective consultants should note an indicative budget for this assignment, inclusive of all professional fees, travel, and logistics costs. Technical proposals will be weighted at [70] % and financial proposals at [30] % of the total evaluation score. Technical proposals will be assessed against relevant qualifications and experience (Section 9); proposed methodology and workplan; and demonstrated understanding of the Somalia humanitarian and development context and SOS CV Somalia's programming.

11. General Conditions

 Data protection and confidentiality: The consultant shall treat all organizational, donor, and personal data accessed during the assignment as confidential, shall anonymize individual responses in all reporting, and shall not disclose or retain confidential internal documents beyond the duration of the assignment.

Ownership and Intellectual property: All deliverables, data, and materials produced under this assignment shall be the sole property of SOS Children's Villages Somalia. The consultant may not reuse, publish, or share findings or materials from this assignment without prior written permission.

Field travel and security: Any field travel required for consultations, including to Baidoa and other outreach locations, shall follow SOS CV Somalia's security clearance procedures and, where relevant, INSO access-negotiation protocols. The consultant's workplan and timeline should build in reasonable contingency for potential access constraints in insecure areas.

Language capacity: Given the extent of consultations planned with children, caregivers, and community members, the consultant shall demonstrate Somali-language facilitation capacity, either directly or through a national co-consultant or local partner engaged as part of the assignment team.

Team composition: Consultant teams are encouraged to be gender-balanced, particularly given the focus group discussions planned with women, girls, and persons with disabilities.

12. Application Documents Required

Prospective consultants or consultancy firms should be able to submit the following core applications documents;

A. Technical Documents

·       Technical proposal – outlining the process and methodology.

·       CVs for Key assignment personnel.

·        Sample strategy map and/or Balanced scorecard; at least one anonymized or redacted example of a strategy map or Balanced scorecard the consultant has previously developed for a client, demonstrating the cause-and-effect and measure-target-initiative structure required under this assignment.

·       References; Strategy execution track record: contact details for at least two previous clients for whom the consultant supported not only strategy formulation but also implementation/execution follow-through (e.g., scorecard rollout, review-meeting facilitation, initiative tracking), with a brief description of results achieved.

·       Copies of similar works completed elsewhere 

B. Financial Documents

·       Financial Proposal – outline the cost of the services with clear breakdown.

C. Firm and administrative documents

·       Profile of the consultancy firm

·       Government registration documents including taxation payment evidence.

D. Compliance Declarations

Conflict of Interest Declaration: a signed statement disclosing any current or recent engagements with donors, government bodies, or partners named in this TOR (e.g., ECHO, BMZ, FCDO, MoFHRD) that could present a real or perceived conflict of interest in undertaking this assignment.

To submit applications for this consultancy, please send the documentation to SOS Children’s Village Somalia at: [email protected]  Please ensure your application email title is written as “SOS Children’s Village Somalia National Strategy Development – 2027-2030"

Please send your completed applications not later than 15th September 2026