Developing Strategy for Fair Finance Asia Phase 2 At Oxfam

Summary of Consultancy

• Contract type: Short-term consultancy
• Program: Fair Finance Asia
• Partner organizations: Oxfam Novib – HQ (in the Netherlands), Oxfam Country Offices in Cambodia and Vietnam, Oxfam India, Prakarsa – Indonesia, JACSES – Japan, IDEALS – Philippines, Sal Forest Co. Ltd. – Thailand, SOMO – the Netherlands, Indus Consortium – Pakistan
• Geographical coverage: Asia Regional and Multi-Country – Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam
• Consultancy period: August to December 2021
• Commissioning managers: Pavle Vizintin and Nirnita Talukdar

The Organization

Oxfam is a global movement of people working together to end the injustice of poverty. Together we save, protect and rebuild lives. And we won’t stop until every person on the planet can defeat poverty or any type of inequality or discrimination. We are an international confederation of 23 organizations (affiliates) working together with partners and local communities in the areas of humanitarian, development and campaigning, in more than 90 countries. Oxfam believes the world is rich. The main cause of poverty is injustice. We want to see a just world with no poverty. We work with all others to achieve this goal.

The Program

Fair Finance Asia (FFA) is a regional network of more than 70 civil society organizations (CSOs) committed to ensuring that financial institutions’ funding decisions in the region respect the social and environmental well-being of local communities. FFA aims to contribute to reducing inequality and enabling vulnerable and disadvantaged communities throughout Asia to be the end beneficiaries of more responsible and sustainable financing activities by FIs. The main mechanisms the program utilizes is to advocate for financial institutions to improve the integration, regulation, and implementation of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies and practices to ensure that sustainable development and long-term stability are promoted throughout the financial sector in the region.

Fair Finance Asia, since it began in 2018, has worked to build country coalitions with like-minded civil society organizations within seven countries; Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. As of the end of 2020, the regional network consists of 79 civil society organizations, including observer members and allies of national coalitions, working in a variety of specializations, including environmental conservation, human rights, and transparency and accountability. FFA is also expanding to include Pakistan as part of the network, as well as conducting bank policy assessments in Singapore, with the aim of potentially including the regional financial hub as part of the network as well. The FFA network aims to influence financial institutions to develop tangible commitments and action plans towards sustainable finance, enable regulators and governments to implement effective sustainable finance legislation and regulations, expand and strengthen alliances for promoting sustainable finance, and to promote widespread awareness and understanding about sustainable finance within Asia.

As Fair Finance Asia heads towards the end of Phase 1 of implementation in 2022, a review and update is being sought for the program’s Theory of Change (ToC), monitoring framework, and overall Phase 2 strategy development. The strategy development for phase 2 would be aligning with the endline review, as there would be an existing partial analysis on the applicability and utility of the existing monitoring framework and ToC.

The update is expected to utilize a range of research and reviews (such as the FFA Midterm Review, capacity-building assessments, etc.), as well as reviewing external sustainable finance programs (such as Asia Sustainable Finance Initiative, the World Benchmarking Alliance, Forest and Finance etc.) for the purposes of identifying progressive practices, as a basis for building on the existing successes of the program, and integrating amendments to address the areas of improvement identified in the first phase of the program. The Phase 2 update is anticipated to cover the time period from 2023-2027 (i.e. a five year period).

The development of a strategy for Phase 2 is being commissioned by the Fair Finance Asia Executive Team (FFA ET), which is the program management unit based in Cambodia. The strategy development should be conducted in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, ILO conventions, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistant Committee (DAC) Principles for Evaluation of Development Assistance (OECD; 1991), Paris Agreement, Equator Principles and other such standards. As per these Principles, it is expected that the update will be conducted by [a team of] external professional/s, in conjunction with FFA country partners and coalitions as well as other Oxfam Affiliates, Programs, and Country Offices.

This request for proposal is aimed at seeking quotations according to Oxfam’s procedures in order to identify and select the most qualified [team of] consultant/s to support the overall development of FFA’s Phase 2 strategy that includes the review of its Theory of Change (ToC) and monitoring framework. This Terms of Reference (ToR) describes formal and procedural requirements as well as detailed specifications of the envisaged Phase 2 strategy development.

Purpose and Audience

The purpose of the Phase 2 strategy development includes:

• Building on the existing strengths and successes of the FFA Program, set new strategic influencing priorities that take into account the changing landscape of the Asian financial sector. This includes potentially adding new areas of thematic/sectorial focus, recalibrating for more impactful approaches to existing topical areas, expanding to new Asian countries that are systemically key in addressing cross-border financing challenges and gaps, and building stronger alliances with emerging leaders and stakeholders in the Asian sustainable finance ecosystem for the period 2023 to 2027.
• Based on the abovementioned priorities, conduct a comprehensive review and update of the program’s theory of change, and subsequently its overall monitoring and evaluation framework.
• Support the development of program sustainability outlook.

Terms of Reference

Scope

The deliverables are anticipated to cover the 2023-2027 time period. The report all will cover existing FFA countries (i.e. Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan and the Philippines), as well as explore the potential for expansion of the program to Asia’s financial hubs (such as Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea), and impact countries (such as Bangladesh).

The scope of this assignment focusses on:

1. Conducting a stakeholder mapping, power analysis, and gender analysis – this will take into consideration existing research conducted for the Fair Finance International Strategy, as well existing and emerging influencing opportunities for the FFA network.
2. Updating the Theory of Change and Monitoring Framework – this will take into consideration FFA stakeholder perspectives, as well as an examination of the mechanisms of change of contemporary development programs influencing sustainable finance. The monitoring framework and ToC will take into consideration the areas of focus for prospective donors as well, particularly in terms of cross-cutting themes such as gender and community voice.
3. Thematic focus – the themes that will be included in the phase 2 strategy development will include the 9 mandatory themes of the FFGI methodology, as well as the non-mandatory theme of financial inclusion, which is assessed by most FFA countries. These 10 themes are: Corruption, Transparency and accountability, Labor rights, Human rights, Nature, Gender equality, Tax, Arms, Climate change, and Financial Inclusion. The phase 2 strategy development may provide recommendations on expanding the thematic focus, as well as re-calibrating approaches to existing themes, in order to increase the impact of the FFA program.
4. Key sectors – the FFA program’s first phase had multiple cross-cutting themes. In the second phase, these priorities will be the following: Agri-business, Infrastructure, Manufacturing, Fossil fuel extraction and energy, Climate and gender finance. The phase 2 strategy development may provide recommendations on expanding the sectorial focus of the program, as well as re-calibrating existing approaches to the current thematic areas, in order to increase the impact of the FFA program.
5. Budget narrative – the budget will cover all anticipated activities described in within the monitoring framework and will be based on estimated budget anticipated according to the donor mapping exercise. The budget will cover all countries described previously.

Expected deliverables

• A high quality, comprehensive report in English language with a maximum of 50 pages for the core part (excluding annexes, title page, and table of contents), structured as tentatively indicated in annex 2.
• A concept note (of not more than 5 pages) for FFA Phase 2 implementation
• Specific concept notes (of not more than 5 pages ) looking at thematic, sectorial and geographic (ASEAN countries, new FFA countries, and ODA countries, including Japan, Singapore and other Asian financial hubs) coverage for FFA Phase 2 implementation
• An executive summary report of max 5 pages
• Presentation to the FFA ET and FFA partners

Key questions

1. What have been the key changes relevant to sustainable finance in Asia since FFA started implementation? How do these changes compare to the country baseline findings by FFA countries?
2. What have been the most notable successes of FFA in Phase 1 to build on for Phase 2?
3. How can the findings from the FFA’s Midterm Review be taken strategically into account when shaping the program implementation approach for Phase 2?
4. What are the new opportunities, risks, and challenges in the most current Asian sustainable finance landscape that needs to be prioritized when planning FFA’s Phase 2?
5. How can FFA further enhance its strategic implementation approach particularly towards regional influencing and engagement (e.g., working more closely with OI Asia, FFI, other Asian CSOs and relevant networks, etc)?
6. How can FFA strengthen gender mainstreaming within the programme?
7. What are the possible routes for diversification and innovations in our work on sustainable finance in Asia, given the previous trends and the risks and existing challenges in the countries that FFA is presently working in and would be interested in expanding to in Phase 2 (e.g., to financial hubs such as Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and to impact countries such as Bangladesh etc. )
8. Highlighting the key strengths and gaps as seen in the MEAL framework and with reflections from partner organizations, what are the possible routes for diversification and innovations in our work on sustainable finance in Asia for the second phase?
9. With a detailed assessment of the ToC, provide an analysis on what changes are required and provide reasons for each of the change, while detailing the requirements of the country coalitions
10. What are the activities that need to be continued, and what needs to be changed given the revised ToC? This needs to be seen in alignment with what were the achievements for the first five years, how these achievements could be translated in the future, and how the program’s shortcomings as mentioned in the MTR has been reflected on and could be addressed for the future.
11. What are the new innovative ways to partner with key stakeholders, emerging financial sector players and potential allies?

Please see the attached Terms of Reference for more details.