External Consultant (Category B) – Endline Evaluation for Displaced Afghans Regional Programme

Position Title: External Consultant (Category B) for the Endline Evaluation of the Project "Support to Displaced Afghans in Pakistan, Iran, Central Asia, and Afghanistan (EU/DG INTPA-funded)"
Duty Station: Kabul, Afghanistan
Expected Start Date of Deployment: 01 November 2026
Deployment Duration: 5 months

Background:

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and its neighboring countries Pakistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Tajikistan – together constitute one of the world’s most complex and protracted displacement contexts. Sustained conflict, economic collapse, climate shocks, and large-scale cross-border return have combined to produce acute and overlapping humanitarian, protection, and reintegration needs that extend well beyond Afghanistan’s borders. Since 2021, the region has absorbed sustained, high-volume returns of undocumented and documented Afghans from Iran and Pakistan, while smaller but significant caseloads of Afghans on the move and at risk of displacement remain present in Tajikistan and the wider Central Asia sub-region. It is this regional character of the crisis – and not Afghanistan alone – that defines the programme under evaluation.

IOM’s programme, funded by the European Union through DG INTPA and implemented across three Top-Up phases over a total duration of 63 months (with a revised end date of 31 March 2027), was designed accordingly as a two-outcome, four-country regional response. Outcome 1 covers the regional response in Pakistan, Iran, and Tajikistan; Outcome 2 covers the Afghanistan-based response. Programme design, resource allocation, and results reporting are structured around this regional architecture, and the evaluation must be resourced and scoped to reflect it in full not as an Afghanistan evaluation with regional context, but as a four-country regional evaluation with an Afghanistan component.

Roles and Responsibilities of the Consultant:

• Develop and finalize the evaluation matrix, methodology, and country-specific data collection tools, fit for purpose in each of the four programme countries.
• Design and apply an appropriate sampling methodology for each country and for the regional comparison.
• Lead the training and supervision of any locally engaged field data collectors in each country, ensuring adherence to the agreed protocol and methodology.
• Coordinate and technically oversee the two-phase field data collection exercise across all four countries, including locally engaged data collectors and other approved field support, and ensure consistent application of the evaluation methodology, ethical standards and data-quality requirements.
• Assure data quality through supervision and database review.
• Submit the Inception Report, Draft Report, and Final Report using agreed IOM templates.
• Present findings to the Evaluation Reference Group and other key internal and external stakeholders.

Qualifications and Experience of the Consultant:
The assignment shall be undertaken by an individual Consultant with demonstrated technical expertise and experience appropriate to the scale, complexity and regional nature of the evaluation. Applicants will be assessed against the following minimum and desirable requirements:

Minimum Requirements:

• An advanced university degree (Master’s degree or higher) in evaluation, research, public policy, migration studies, humanitarian assistance, international development, public health, social sciences or another field directly relevant to the assignment.
• A minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible professional experience in evaluation, including the design and implementation of complex evaluations for UN agencies, EU-funded programmes, multilateral organizations or comparable international development/humanitarian actors.
• Demonstrated experience leading or undertaking complex multi-country or regional evaluations, preferably involving displacement, migration, humanitarian response, durable solutions or related programming.
• Demonstrated expertise in mixed-methods evaluation, including quantitative and qualitative research design, sampling, development of data collection instruments, data analysis, triangulation and evidence synthesis.
• Demonstrated thematic experience relevant to the programme, including forced displacement/migration, protection, livelihoods/economic resilience and/or area-based approaches.
• Demonstrated experience integrating relevant cross-cutting considerations, including gender equality, protection, disability inclusion, accountability to affected populations and PSEAH, into evaluation design, data collection, analysis and reporting.
• Demonstrated experience producing high-quality evaluation reports and presenting complex findings and recommendations to institutional stakeholders and donors.
• Excellent written and spoken English.

Desirable Requirements:

• Previous evaluation or research experience in Afghanistan and/or the wider regional context covered by the evaluation, including Pakistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Tajikistan/Central Asia.
• Demonstrated knowledge of the UN system, IOM's mandate and/or EU/DG INTPA-funded programming.
• Knowledge of one of more relevant regional languages, including Dari, Pashto, Farci, or Urdu is an asset.