1. PRESENTATION OF EXPERTISE FRANCE
Expertise France (EF) is a public agency created on 1st January 2015 and merging 6 French public agencies under the supervision of the French Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Economy and Finance with a strong inter-ministerial vocation. EF offers programme engineering and technical assistance by developing and implementing international cooperation actions worldwide. EF operates in various fields of development and institutional cooperation including safety and security reform, post-crisis/ stability, public health, human rights, strengthening of institutions and NGOs and governance. Carrying out large-scale, multi-stakeholder programmes, EF can ensure the cooperation between individuals, teams and institutions with very different statuses, cultures and specialties. Besides, EF has acquired a sound experience in administrative and financial management of large-scale international programmes.

2. CONTEXT & NEEDS
The Syrian conflict keeps on imposing a devastating and lasting impact on Syria and across the region. With the conflict approaching its ninth year, the needs of the affected populations for assistance, including 13.1 million people inside the country and more than 5.6 million refugees, are of an unprecedented scale. Both under pressure of the Regime forces and the rivalries between militias (among which the terrorist-listed Hayat Tahrir al Sham group is the fiercest), the opposition-held area has been experiencing multiple challenges, between internal fights among militias, battered by bombardments and airstrikes from the SAA and its allies, consequently driving to massive population displacements and augmented humanitarian needs.
The “Idleb pocket” (the opposition-held area spread between north Hama and south of Afrin district) has been militarily and administratively taken over by the Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) militia in January 2019. This group is labelled as a terrorist organisation according to US, EU and UN sanctions lists, being considered only a rebranding of the Al-Nusra Front.
Due to the resumption of airstrikes and massive artillery targeting in March, an estimated 330’000 persons have relocated northwards within the Idleb pocket. This massive displacement, fleeing the chronically shelled agglomerations in the Idleb pocket has driven communities to host thousands of distressed and deprived families, appealing already critically affected communities to provide for their immediate needs.
Before the crisis, civil society in Syria was barely existing, or fully controlled by the regime. The conflict triggered the emergence of organisations advocating for human rights or trying to act as a service providers in the absence of a functioning state in the opposition held area.
These entities, encouraged and coached by organisations like EF, have been the main instruments for the maintenance of public services in opposition-held areas.
EF will participate in providing local CSO with tools to structure themselves, propose internal regulations, maintain social cohesion within communities, and ensure access of vulnerable population to the best valued training.

3. NORTH-WEST SYRIA PROGRAMME BACKGROUND
Since 2013, Expertise France (EF) implements direct non-humanitarian assistance programmes in Syria. In the framework of those programmes, EF develops and manages direct
stabilization programmes to conflict-affected communities in Syria through support to NGOs and CSOs with whom EF builds strong partnerships. Expertise France’s fields of intervention
cover the following sectors: agricultural support, economic recovery, vocational training and health.
Activities implemented in Syria are managed by a field office (FO) operating from Turkey with backstopping from Headquarter in Paris.
Funded by various multilateral and bilateral donors (European Union, French MoFA, Global Affairs Canada), Expertise France currently implements 3 main projects:
– Programme to Stabilise the Primary Health Care Sector in Syria (PHCS);
– Programme for Rural Rehabilitation II, jointly implemented with GIZ (Deutsche
Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit)
– Third Party Monitoring management project, implemented on behalf of the French
MoFA.
Expertise France is willing to develop a new action in the North-West of Syria as part of its stabilization efforts through civil society and community resilience support. The Action should answer to a volatile and complex situation aim at fostering civic engagement by improving the institutional and technical capacity of diverse local civic structures.
Expertise France seeks to capitalize on its existing network of local partners while reinforcing its bottom-up approach in service provision and building resilience of local communities (including vulnerable population) mainly through livelihoods and health initiatives.
In this context, in order to contribute to the development of this new action, EF is looking for an expert specialized in civil society and community resilience, with a background in fragile states context.

4. PRESENTATION OF THE ASSIGNMENT
Overall purpose of the assignment
The overall objective of the assignment is to support the overall design and elaboration of a comprehensive description of action (DoA) for Syrian civil society support.
In order to facilitate the elaboration of the DoA, the final deliverable will have to answer the following issues:
– Overall sector assessment and identification of needs
– Mapping of local stakeholders both active in North-West and in the field of civil society
– Identification of relevant capacity building actions aimed at these stakeholders
– Identify relevant locations of action (district/sub-district, etc.)
Deliverables:
– Description of action
– Detailed Workplan
– M&E framework (logframe, theory of change)
– Risk analysis
– Budget
Desk reviews and research documents will be exploited and referenced to in the DoA.

5.METHODOLOGY:
Considering the short timeframe of the mission to produce the final deliverables, the expert will propose its own schedule at the ignition of the mission. It will however have to include:
– In Paris: kick-off meeting with the Syria Unit (briefing, EF strategy in Syria, results, deliverables, etc.)
– In Gaziantep (Turkey):
• Discussion with EF team in Gaziantep (programme management, M&E)
• Discussion with current local partners of EF (to be selected at the beginning of the mission)
• Discussion with relevant stakeholders such as relevant local actors, clusters, UN agencies, ECHO, etc.

Applications should be sent before 14th of November 2019 to the following email: recrutement_stabilisation@expertisefrance.fr using the following subject: “Civil Society/community resilience Expert”
If you do not receive a response within 1 month of the application deadline, please consider that your application has not been shortlisted.
The process of selection of expressions of interest will occur in two phases:
• As a first step, a shortlist will be freely established by Expertise France.
• Selected candidates may then be invited for an interview.
Fees for the services will be negotiated with the designated candidate.