Terms of Reference Development of SCA’s Partnership Strategy

Terms of Reference Development of SCA’s Partnership Strategy

Introduction

Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) is a membership-based, non-governmental organisation working in Afghanistan since 1980. SCA’s vision is an independent Afghanistan in peace, where human rights are respected, rural communities are empowered, and all Afghans have the right and opportunity to democratic participation in the governance of their country.

The work encompasses programmes for education, health, support to persons with disabilities and rural development. There are also support units for all programme activities relating to civil society, human rights & gender, communication and advocacy. SCA’s main target group is the rural population, specifically women and girls and people with disability. SCA’s operations include capacity development, advocacy and service delivery. The work is always conducted in close cooperation with the local population. The management office is situated in Kabul, while operations are carried out in 17 provinces from five Regional Management Offices (RMOs) and two Liaison Offices (LOs).

Background Information and Rationale

The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan believes that a shift from transactional to transformational partnership is the key to sustainable development and long-term prosperity of Afghanistan.  For SCA partnership is beyond the collaboration on ad-hoc projects. It is about moving beyond responsibility for independent results to a relationship that involves co-creation, shared risks and responsibilities, interdependency and organizational transformation.

Currently, SCA has partnership with civil society organizations (CSOs), community based organizations (CBOs), and professional associations catagorized as right holders. In this partnership, SCA provides organizational and techncial capacity building and small grants to its partners to effectively carryout the shared vision. Moreover, SCA also cooperates with local government authorities (LGAs), the duty bearers, to build their capacity to create enabling environment for the right holders. However, there is no formal document to legalize or define these existing partnerships.

CSOs and CBOs play a crucial role in advocating for the rights of the people they represent and are bridge between LGAs and people in the local communities. They have increasingly shown their capacities and potential in programme and project design, execution and implementation at regional, national and local levels. In recent years, CSOs have succeeded in opening up areas for dialogue with govermental authorities and other actors at provincial and national levels, contributing their capacities and expertise to higher quality policy and normative discussions.    

Hence, SCA would like to carry out a study to identify the potiential partners  from public, private, NGO/civil society sectors as well as international organization and assess the existing partners to collobrate to reach its vision of an Afghanistan free from poverty, violence and discrimination, where human rights are respected and all live in dignity, enjoy equal opportunity and social justice. SCA is looking for both, a firm and individual with required qualitification and competence to carryout this study.

Main Objectives

The Main objective of the study is to develop a partnership strategy for SCA that will create the base for identifying and developing, implementing and managing, assessing and revising, and sustaining impact through partnership with public sector, private sector, NGO/civil society and international organization. The followings are the sub objectives:

Study the existing national and international best practices and lessons learned in identifying, managing, assessing, and sustaining partnership.

Propose a partnership framework containing the partnership life cycle (from identifying to close and exit) that works best for SCA.

Identify and define key partners (public, private, NGOs/civil society, community-based organizations (CBOs), and international organization) for SCA to collaborate with.

Identify key factors for effective partnership in the context of SCA.

Recommend partner exit mechanism (for all work components) that works best for SCA and its partners;

Develop a partnership agreement model considering the mode of partnership and the sector the partner represents;

Develop the required tools for SCA to implement the partnership strategy.

Scope

An articulated and comprehensive partnership strategy will play a fundamental and central role in achieving sustainable development for the people of Afghanistan. Through development of effective partnership, SCA will be able to magnify impact, enhance effectiveness and create sustainable development. As per the objective, the deliverable of this project will be the partnership strategy for SCA to manage its partnership. The following defines the scope of the study:

To study SCA to understand its vision, mission, values, strategy, culture, operation, working methodology, and geographical coverage to propose an effective partnership strategy.

To conduct a case study of regional countries to understand their partnership strategy, approaches to partnership and identify the best practices and lessons learned.

To study the current SCA’s partners to identify challenges and gaps in the partnership and to clarify if SCA continues its partnership, expand it, or exit.

To develop the partnership strategy for SCA in three national levels (district, provinces, and national).

To study and identify international organizations that operates in the same area (education, health, rural development, and support people with disabilities) and specify the areas for collaboration.

To conduct a thorough study of Afghanistan to understand the external and internal context, political, social, and cultural factors that directly or indirectly impact the partnership and the strategy.

To develop systematic tools and mechanisms for SCA to use the strategy and manage its partnerships effectively.

The following points must be considered in the partnership strategy:

Partner identification

Type of partnership

Resource mapping

Discovery meetings

Relationship building

Partner selection criteria

Partnership agreement (Model partnership agreement)

Co-design and co-creation

Governance framework

Meetings and documenting progress

Acknowledge individual partnering objectives

Monitoring and evalating

Accountability and reporting

Capacity building

Course-correction

Inviting new partners

Scaling up

Instituationalizing the partnership

Lessons learned

Possible risk factors

Exit assessment

Approach and Methodology

The Consultant will work closely with Civil Society and Capacity Development Unit (CCU) as the designated contact point in setting up meetings, exchanging information, providing documentation, and organizing presentations (specified in deliverables) to SCA management. The Consultant will collect quantitative and qualitative data including but not limited to the following methods:

In-office desk review of all relevant documentations of SCA

In depth interviews or focus groups with key informants and an online survey for perception gathering (if required).

Observation of provincial and district level partners of SCA by visiting Mazar and Jalalabad Regional Management Offices (sampling method).

Research and review of regional countries partnership strategy

The Consultant will develop a detialed metholody for this assignment. The initial version should be specified in the response to RFP (the proposal) and will then be further refined and validated during phase 1 (inception) of the assignment. Limitations of the suggested methodology should be clearly specified, along with strategies to overcome these.

Multiple and high quality data collection and analysis methods with a range of stakeholders should be used to gather perception data and facilitate triangulation of data. These may include document review, semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, an online survey of partners, and consultative workshops (if required).

Key stakeholders to be involved in the data collection should be selected from a wide varity of sources, including:

SCA Kabul Management Office and 5 Regional Management Office staff

Government, national and sub-national

Civil society partners and Community based organizations

Professional Associations

International Organization with same mandate as SCA

The Consultant should develop a comperhensive framework for data collection, analysis with logical and explicit linkage between data sources, data collection and analysis methods. The Consultant will present the findings to SCA management with a basic framework of partnership strategy. The management will provide feedback to the framework which will be the basis for the partnership strategy.

Guiding Principles and Values

All information in the contract between the two parties shall be considered as confidential and not be shared with anyone unless legally obliged to do so or upon written consent of SCA.

Management of Task

The CCU ensures the implementation of this TOR. The CCU will lead the study to develop the partnership strategy and for facilitating relevant documents of SCA and connecting the Consultant with relevant stakeholder for interview or focus group meetings.

The major roles and responsibilities of SCA include:

SCA will provide relevant SCA documents for review.

SCA will assist in setting interview with relevant stakeholders.

SCA will assist in providing partners’ information and documents.

SCA will provide transportation (Road and Flight) during the study whenever the consultants travel within Afghanistan, mainly SCA coverage areas (5 regions – Balkh, Nangarhar, Wardak, Ghazni and Takhar) office space.

The Consultant is responsible to fulfill the following:

The Consultant shall conduct a thorough study of SCA to prepare the partnership strategy.

The Consultant shall adhere to all values and work culture of SCA.

The Consultant shall study and submit the findings to SCA management through a presentation.

The Consultant shall submit the deliverables as described in this ToR.

The Consultant shall develop a comprehensive partnership strategy with required tools.

The Consultant shall complete the assignment on-time.

Professional Qualifications

The Consultant shall provide complete details of the consultant (s) assigned for this assignment with her/his relevant work experience in conducting a study to develop a parternship strategy or something similar in nature with a complete list of undertaking similar assignments in the past. The consultant (s) that will be introduced by the Consultant should also comply with a minimum qualification of:

Master’s degree in the fields related to international relations and/or Organizational Development/Business Administration

At least seven years working experience in recognized organizations in the field of policy and strategy development.

Strong communication, analytical and writing skills.

Demonstrated knowledge and skills in developing data collection tools, data analysis and transforming of the data into analytical reports and strategies.

Experiences of working with civil society and community-based organizations in similar contexts will be a value-added advantage.

Interested individuals both national and international can submit their application.

Note: This is for individual consultant only.

Deliverables and Timelines

The total duration for the study, development of Partnership Strategy and presentation to SCA management should not exceed 3 months. Reports will be written in English language.

Deliverables:

Deliverable 1: Submission of inception report and approval by Deputy Director Programs/CCU Head.

Deliverable 2: Presentation of the finding and basic framework of the partnership strategy and required tools.

Deliverable 3: Submission of the first draft of partnership strategy and required tools for SCA’s review.

Deliverable 4: Submission of the final version partnership strategy and required tools.

Deliverable 5: Presentation of the partnership strategy for SCA Management.

Timeline

The Consultant shall submit the deliverables described above in accordance with the following deliverables schedule:

Deliverable Number

Deliverable Name

Due Date

1

Recruitment Process 

20/04/2021 to

30/05/2021

2

Kick off Meeting

02/06/2021

3

Submission of the assignment workplan, inception report and the study schedule

16/06/2021

4

Presentation of the finding and basic framework of the partnership strategy and required tools

19/07/2021

5

Submission of the first draft of partnership strategy and required tools for SCA’s review

15/08/2021

6

Submission of the final version partnership strategy and required tools

25/08/2021

7

Presentation of the partnership strategy for SCA Management

29/08/2021

Contractual Conditions

Contact Person:

The CCU and PMER Unit of SCA works together to ensure the implementation of this assignment as per the TOR. CCU is the contact person for the study to develop partnership strategy and for facilitating relevant documents of SCA and setting interviews with the partner organizations to the assigned Consultant.

Confidentiality:

All information in the contract between the two parties shall be considered as confidential and not be shared with anyone unless legally obliged to do so or upon written consent of SCA.

Payment Terms:

The Consultant shall invoice SCA for the fee in accordance with the deliverables of the work mutually agreed by SCA and the Consultant based on the following terms of payment:

Terms

Payment %

Time of Payment

First

30 %

will be paid after the approved inception report

Second

30 %

Will be paid once the draft of partnership strategy is provided

Third

40%

will be paid at submission of clearance letter to the client

Submission Guideline:

Interested qualified candidates should submit a full CV (maximum four pages) with a cover letter explaining their motivation in applying for the job, their approach to tackle the task and highlighting their relevant skills and experience;

To apply online please send your application / CV through below given email address no later than 15 May 2021:

vacancies@sca.org.af  and CC islam.merzaii@sca.org.af

Academic certificates or references need not to be submitted at this time. These will be requested if called for interview.

Only short-listed candidates will be invited for interview.

Applications after the given deadline is not accepted.

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