FACILITATION OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PLAN INPUTS REVIEWS FOR FOCAL LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AREAS IN TARABA STATE (CDP PERFORMANCE/ BUDGET) At Oxfam

Background

The PROSELL project has adopted the Community Development Plan (CDP) across all its target Local Government Areas as a platform for enhancing civic engagement and promoting active citizenship across rural communities. Community groups, such as the Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs), are fast becoming centre-points for civic engagements and a base for the setup of other civic engagement points such as the ward development associations, and other community based monitoring groups all of which are aimed at fostering and promoting quality service delivery within their communities. There are over 1,665 Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) that have been created by the PROSELL Project. These VSLAs have been empowered to lead rural community engagements with government and community leaders in demanding for service delivery through the CDP process. The quality of community needs identified through the CDPs and incorporated into governments’ spending plan for the current year will need to be assessed against implementation. The starting point, however, is to know how many of these community needs, championed by the communities VSLAs and other Community Based Organisations (CBOs), have been recognized by, and selected for implementation by, Local and State Governments.

There are results from the capacity building workshops for community members on how to actively participate in the process of governance and hold governments accountable. State and Local Governments have also been supported with capacity to understand the technical requirements for implementing an inclusive government business in Taraba State. Top government officials have also participated in validating the Community Development Plan and ensuring its operational use. They have also supported in conducting strategic interfaces with the citizens groups and civil society in the budget process.

The project has graciously witnessed some reforms and initiatives from the state with the State Ministry for Budget and Economic Planning taking the strategic lead. The ministry has also given direction to, and instructed the Local Government Managements to consider adopting the citizens’ needs into their budget using the completed CDP templates submitted to LGA Budget Directors[1]. The State Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning consistently conducted zonal budget bilateral meetings and open budget defence in the State to harvest citizens/CSOs inputs into the budget preparation.

Justification

One of the intended results of implementing the VSLA program is the ability of community members to facilitate the delivery of social services that are of paramount importance to them beyond financial inclusion objectives that the associations have largely achieved. This exercise is, therefore, intended to assess the level of capacity garnered by the VSLAs as community pressure groups for promoting transformative changes and for holding governments accountable for achieving effective and service delivery.

The project has supported several rural communities (project and non-project communities) to identify, capture and prioritize their needs through the CDP process. Communities across 61 wards in Zing, Ardo-Kola, Wukari, Takum, Donga and Kurmi LGAs in Taraba State have identified, defined, and presented their needs to their Local Governments through PROSELL’s facilitation. During the CDP process, community members collectively identified their pressing service delivery needs and channelled these needs to their duty bearers through the Local Government Community Development Officers (CDOs), as well as to the Budget and Planning Directors. As a result of this, citizens are awaiting strategic feedback from this process of inclusive needs identification using the Community Development Plan approach in the last two years.

It is therefore important for the project, having invested so much in advocacy and capacity building for Government officials and citizens groups, to track the level of reflection of the Community Development Plan in the 2021 and 2022 budgets of Taraba State and the respective LGAs.

The result from this exercise will equip Civil Society Organizations and community-based monitors to better engage service providers on critical areas of CDP project implementations. It will also help to understand the level of government responsiveness to citizens’ concerns through the new participatory governance platforms supported by the project

CDP Tracking Objectives and Methodology.

The Community Development Performance tracking exercise is targeted towards the following objectives:

  • To understand and identify the ratio and/or percentage of CDP captured projects that are reflected in the 2021 and 2022 budgets of the State and LGAs of interest. This will be a measure of governments’ willingness to address prioritize needs of the people through a participatory process.
  • To document experiences of civil society on the CDP process to highlight key processes, timelines, stakeholders involved, platforms of engagement, inclusion of women, youths and other marginalized groups with a view of demonstrating proof of concept (if valid), key learnings and gaps that require addressing.
  • To identify and extract CDP projects that are included in the State and LGAs’ budget in a simplified form which includes the various locations and project details and MDAs responsible.
  • To provide recommendations and learning opportunities for other non-project LGAs whereby serving as a proof of concept for CDP scale-up and adoption by other States and other Local Governments in the country.
  • To equip CSOs, community-based monitors and other community civic groups with quality information on CDP project captured in the budget for their subsequent follow-up on implementation and monitoring.
  • To generally give programmatic feedbacks and credence to the project’s adoption of participatory governance model as captured in the project log-frame and serve as learning model for inform future proposal and programing around active citizenship.

Expectations and Scope of the Consultancy

The Consultant is expected to deploy systematic approach to achieving this objectives using proven scientific methods for achieving a detailed comparison between 2020/2021 PROSELL-facilitated Community Development Plans (as templated) and the 2021/ 2022 budget (as approved) by the State and LGAs of intervention. After carefully studying the CDP intervention design, the consultant is expected to:

  1. Work closely with the Project state coordinating unit (SCU), Partners and State/LGA actors in Taraba State to obtain relevant documents towards achieving the above stated objectives under the supervision of the Project’s Governance and Influencing Coordinator.
  2. Develop a maximum of 20-page analysis of findings (in Word and PowerPoint formats) covering all LGAs and policy recommendations for different levels of actors with the CDP intervention designs and containing visuals, info-graphics.
  3. Develop a policy brief targeting relevant actors based on the findings from the study.
  4. The analysis should also include a brief breakdown of the State and LGAs budgets on the social sectors and what the state service delivery and community development would generally look like after the implementation of CDP identified needs by communities.
  5. Develop at least 3 case studies that demonstrate the value addition of CDP towards promoting community/citizens participation and sustainable development including highlighting the specific roles for women, youth and other marginalized groups.
  6. Facilitate a one day stakeholder dissemination meeting in validating the finding from report; hence, the meeting would be organised by the project management team in Taraba with support of the Governance and Influencing Coordinator.

Activity Schedule

9th Aug – 2nd Sept. 2022

Total of 25 Working days

Qualifications and Requirements of the Consultant

The CDP Performance/Budget Tracking Consultant is required to possess an advanced degree/ MSc degree in Public Finance, Development Studies, Policy Management, Social Science, and related fields. Previous proven experience in such analysis is also an added advantage as such:

  1. CV(s) of consultant(s) who will undertake the study, including full name, physical addresses, telephone number(s)
  2. References of two or three previous clients; Written samples of previous similar assignments/links to previous reports
  3. Proposed budget clearly indicating consultant’s fee and all auxiliary costs in local currency (NGN).
  4. Structural workplan for the purpose of the assignment.

The Consultant is also required to possess the following:

  • Ability and proven experience in handling similar analysis related to good governance intervention with technical understanding of the participatory budget technique using the Community development plan/charter approach.
  • Ability to communicate feedbacks in an easy to read and understand narrative format.
  • Sound understanding of the northern governance structures and context; community budget engagement processes at the Local, State and National levels.
  • Technical knowledge on community development plan institutionalization by government; State – Citizens interface and community engagements framework.
  • Knowledge on good governance and statutory public budget process at the State and Local government levels, as well as government policies on fiscal transparency
  • Technical understanding of the Open Government Partnership system in Nigeria.
  • Ability to interact with host government, partners and/or others as requested by Oxfam
  • Strong organizational, analytical, and reporting skills, presentation skills, attention to detail, ability to meet deadlines, and proficiency in Microsoft Office and qualitative data analysis software/tools
  • Proven experience in delivering similar performance tracking packages to related organizations with sponsorship from a development organization or development governance projects.
  • Ability to relate and communicate in local language (Hausa) is an added advantage.

How to apply

Application:

CDP performance tracking consultant is expected to submit a one-page expression of interest and no more 5 page resume reflecting previous experience on the above subject matter.

  1. CV(s) of consultant(s) who will undertake the study, including full name, physical addresses, telephone number(s)
  2. References of two or three previous clients; Written samples of previous similar assignments/links to previous reports
  3. Proposed budget clearly indicating consultant’s fee and all auxiliary costs in local currency (NGN).
  4. Structural workplan for the purpose of the assignment.

Please Note: Application deadline is 31st July 2022

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