Consultancy for 4Mi data collection on Afghan movements to and through Türkiye

About the Mixed Migration Centre

The Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) is a leading source for independent and high-quality data, research, analysis, and expertise on mixed migration. MMC aims to increase understanding of mixed migration, to positively impact global and regional migration policies, to inform evidence-based protection responses for people on the move and to stimulate forward thinking in public and policy debates on mixed migration. MMC’s overarching focus is on human rights and protection for all people on the move. MMC focuses on 6 regions, with regional teams in each of these: Eastern Africa & Yemen, North Africa, West Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe. Read more about MMC here: www.mixedmigration.org. MMC is part of the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), a leading humanitarian organization responding to displacement and mixed migration in 40 countries.

Since 2014, MMC has been implementing 4Mi as its flagship primary data collection system which is an innovative approach that helps fill knowledge gaps and inform policy and response regarding the nature of mixed migratory movements and the protection risks for refugees and migrants on the move. 4Mi has a unique network of field enumerators situated along frequently used mixed migration routes and in major migratory hubs. It aims to offer a regular, standardized, quantitative system of collecting primary data on mixed migration. In Asia, 4Mi has been active and implemented in Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. Read more about 4Mi here: http://www.mixedmigration.org/4mi/.

Purpose of the consultancy

The Mixed Migration Centre seeks proposals from a consultant to implement 4Mi data collection in Türkiye for a period of 5 months to collect data on mixed movements of migrants and refugees to and through Türkiye in selected locations.

Background

Türkiye is both a country of transit and destination for people in mixed migration movements acting as a transit corridor for people crossing to Europe from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, through both the land borders with Greece and Bulgaria and the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Migration along the eastern Mediterranean route peaked in 2015 when more than 850,000 people arrived in Greece after passing through Türkiye, most of them fleeing war in Syria, while others were driven by poverty, persecution and conflict in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and other Middle Eastern and African countries. Since 2018, Afghan nationals have constituted the largest group of new irregular arrivals.

Currently, Türkiye hosts the world’s largest refugee and migrant population, with numbers close to 4 million. Syrians constitute the largest group at 3.6 million, with 330,000 people from other nationalities also included. Over 98% of refugees and migrants in Türkiye live in urban, peri-urban and rural areas, with the remaining held in Temporary Accommodation Centres.

The Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) aims to document these complex migration dynamics in Türkiye through data collection and research with refugees and migrants, with the aim to increase understanding of who is taking these routes, the drivers of their decision to migrate, the routes they take and the conditions of their journey, including the protection risks they face and their needs. As such, the information will be used to influence global and EU migration policies such as to a certain extent the new pact on migration and asylum.

Objective of the consultancy

The primary objectives of this consultancy will be to provide research analysis of the following criteria:

1. Who is undertaking mixed migration journeys? What is their socio-demographic profiles?
2. What do refugees’ and migrants’ journeys look like: route, duration, conditions, financing, and assistance?
3. What is motivating refugees and migrants to make the journey?
4. What dangers do refugees and migrants face on the journey and where (including frontiers to enter the EU)?
5. How vulnerable are migrants on their journey, and what determines their vulnerability?
6. How prevalent is smuggling and how does it manifest itself?
7. How are decisions made regarding migration and the migration journey and what influences those decisions?

Scope of work and Methodology

The consultant is expected to use a quantitative data collection method.

Phase 1. Desk review to inform data collection sites.

On the basis of a brief desk review to feature in the inception report, the consultant will refine sampling locations and ensure alignment with 4Mi’s global sampling frame. The consultant may propose up to 10 locations, specifying whether they are locations of settlement, transit, and/or points of crossing into Türkiye.

At the project kick-off, MMC will share and train the coded 4Mi survey, and data collection SOPs, and guidance as well as existing training documentation.

Phase 2. Data collection

After identifying, in coordination with the MMC team, the specific locations to conduct 4Mi data collection in phase 1, the consultant will recruit 25 enumerators in each location, organize and administer trainings in coordination with MMC to ensure use of 4Mi training documentation as well as survey SOPs. Pilot surveys shall be built into the workplan per each selected location and sent to MMC for review. The MMC 4Mi regional team will provide the consultant with a Training of Trainers, either in person (in SA) or remotely. The standard 4Mi survey is already coded and translated.

Data collection will take place in selected locations, 2,350 surveys with refugees and migrants (spread across the selected locations). Data collection should take place face-to-face using a mobile-phone-based application to collect the data, and surveys automatically uploaded to the regional server for the MMC 4Mi regional team to validate and clean data. The consultant will be responsible for ensuring that enumerators have smart phones to conduct 4Mi surveys. The MMC 4Mi team will liaise with the consultant to provide feedback on data quality to enumerators. The consultant will provide day-to-day support and supervision to enumerators throughout data collection.

Phase 3. Report writing

The consultant will draft a final and brief report (5-10 pages) providing an overview of the successes and challenges of data collection on refugees and migrants in Türkiye as well as lesson learned. The report should also provide an overview of the field enumerators observations on dynamics of movements to and through Türkiye in terms of reported places of transit, organization/arrangement of journeys, and reported protection risks and incidents.

Deliverables

The Consultant will submit the following deliverables as mentioned below:

Phase: 1 (Desk Review)
Expected deliverables: Presentation
Indicative description tasks: A brief inception report (2-3 pages)
Maximum expected timeframe: 1 Week

Phase: 2

Expected deliverables: 2,350 surveys

Indicative description tasks: Collecting data (470 surveys per month)

Maximum expected timeframe: 4.5 months

Phase: 3
Expected deliverables: Final report
Indicative description tasks: Prepare first draft report (5-10 pages)
Maximum expected timeframe: Feedback from MMC to submit the final report 1 weeks

The consultant is responsible for ensuring that the final report is fully copy-edited and complies with MMC’s editorial and style guidelines. MMC shall provide a template for the report.

Duration, timeline, and payment

Timeline

Activities / steps to feature in workplan:

• Completion of brief inception report, which outlines: an agreed sampling strategy that suits the objectives of 4Mi in Türkiye, based on demographic characteristics in addition to pre-defined MMC sampling criteria (e.g., respondents over the age of 18 who have been in the country for less than two years); the suggested language/s of surveys; proposed survey locations; and any other key methodological features agreed upon by the consultant and MMC.
• Validation of the inception report by MMC and consultant’s integration of any feedback.
• Enumerator recruitment and training. MMC will share existing training documentation, and SOPs on surveying. Trainings can be adapted to the specific context and sampling framework in a country. If errors or inconsistencies are spotted by the MMC team while conducting the cleaning and validation, the consultant is expected to feed this back to enumerators and conduct any relevant re-training.
• 4Mi data collection (2,350 4Mi surveys) in Türkiye.
• Writing of brief report on overview of lessons learned from fieldwork, enumerators observations, as well as mixed movements to and through Türkiye.
• Full copy-editing of report by consultant before submission to MMC.
• Validation of report and integration of any feedback by MMC.

The total number of working days should not exceed six (5) months for the hired consultant.

Estimated start date of consultancy: August 1, 2023

Estimated end date of consultancy: December 31, 2023

Duration

The total expected duration to complete the assignment will be no more than 5 months.

The consultant shall be prepared to complete the assignment no later than December 31, 2023.