REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL – FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT “CONSULTANCY ON ORGANISATIONAL CAPACITY STRENGTHENING FOR NATIONAL NGOS” At Action Against Hunger Canada

Closing Date: Sunday, September 11th 2022 at 23:59 EST

Background

The GNC Technical Alliance and the TST

The GNC Technical Alliance(the Alliance), established in 2020, is a humanitarian nutrition technical assistance platform that responds to technical requests, by leveraging and building on existing resources, capacities, initiatives and coordination structures. The purpose of the Alliance is to improve the quality of nutrition preparedness, response and recovery, by enabling and providing coordinated, accessible and timely technical support through multiple channels where gaps exist. The Alliance supports practitioners by delivering the following services:

1. Access to high-quality information, capacity strengthening resources, guidance and learning that has been curated by global nutrition specialists and agencies (Knowledge Management).
2. Where guidance is limited, timely access to interim consensus-driven guidance for emerging technical issues in humanitarian nutrition, including guidance on programme adaptation (Thought Leadership).
3. Access to experienced nutrition technical specialists to answer questions, or to provide more in-depth support whether remotely or in-country (Technical Support Team).

Although the services are interconnected, the support and coordination for these work-streams are managed by specific Leadership Team members, namely Action Against Hunger (AAH) Canada (Technical Support Team) and ENN (Knowledge Management and Thought Leadership), supported by and in partnership with UNICEF as lead and World Vision as co-lead of the Alliance.

The Technical Support Team (TST) combines various resources for nutrition in emergencies technical assistance to meet the specific needs of the practitioner in a timely, cost effective, coordinated and sustainable manner. These include resources hosted by INGOs (AAH Canada and USA, Save the Children US and International Medical Corps), GNC Coordination Team and UNICEF as well as 20 TST Partners available, on demand, to provide technical support when needed. The coordination of these resources is under the supervision of UNICEF and AAH Canada, in collaboration with a steering group of the INGO partners.

The TST can support actors with a range of nutrition in emergency (NiE) technical areas including Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies, Early Detection and Treatment of Child Wasting, Social Behaviour Change for Nutrition Outcomes, Nutrition Assessments and Surveillance, Cluster Coordination and Information Management, Intersectoral Collaboration, Nutrition-sensitive Programming and Capacity Development. Via the TST Partners, additional expertise is also available including prevention and treatment of wasting and stunting, Maternal Nutrition, Food Assistance, Micronutrient and Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Programming, Coverage Assessment, Cash Assistance, Adolescent and Adult Malnutrition.

Whilst each technical support package is tailored to specific needs, across the technical areas support provided could include capacity strengthening; the design and delivery of trainings and orientations; development of training plans; survey design and implementation; formative research; personnel, organisational and programmatic capacity mapping; policy assessment; coaching; strategy and work plan development; tool development; support to technical working groups; monitoring and evaluation design; learning and documentation; and advocacy support.

Technical support is generally available in three modalities: 1) quick remote support (response to technical queries, or reference to appropriate resources), 2) in-depth support (working in-country or remotely with country-based partners or the collective for an extended period with a detailed ToR), or 3) through the recommendation of vetted consultants.

Any organization looking to improve nutrition outcomes in preparing for, responding to or recovering from an emergency can receive support, including local, national and international NGOs, government and UN organisations.

Localisation and the TST

In recent years there has been increased discussion[1] and sometimes action[2], around increasing the visibility and voice, and shifting the power within the humanitarian system to allow leadership from governments, local or national organisations (hereafter collectively referred to as national organisations). This is a response to the fact that national organisations whilst often the first to respond to crises are regularly disempowered as the humanitarian response and the financing of it becomes dominated by international organisations. Furthermore, whilst national organisations often have long term presence and a deep understanding of communities, foreign solutions to local problems are delivered, and decisions tend to be made without adequate participation from the affected populations. The reasons behind this vary from language barriers to perceived weaker technical and organisational skills and capacities than their international counterparts[3]. The structural factors that underpin these reasons both prioritize and favor international organisations while maintaining disparities that encourage staff movement in search of better opportunities with international counterparts.

Given the international nature of the humanitarian system, access to technical support services for national organisations is often limited. This is perhaps true of all sectors, but certainly NiE. The TST, whilst nominally available for all, seldom receives requests from national organisations.

This is likely due to a combination of factors including a lack of awareness that services exist and how to request support, lack of awareness of technical need, communications materials and website being in English, and practical limitations (e.g., national organisations often cannot host an adviser).

Whilst providing support for national organisations comes with a different set of challenges to international organisations, it is critical that they are addressed. National organisations are often better placed to respond quickly to nutrition emergencies, since they have better knowledge of the context, existing relations with communities, better understanding of community needs and dynamics, and are often well positioned to respond, allow for quicker and better access to affected populations. So, if supported to deliver high quality nutrition programmes, national organisations have the potential to provide timely, high impact solutions during nutrition crises.

TST localisation efforts to date

The TST has several Workstreams; groups of individuals dedicated to developing thinking and action around a particular cross-cutting issue. Currently these exist for Gender, Anti-racism and Localisation (A&L), Humanitarian Development Peace Nexus (HDPN), Disability and Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP).

At present, the A&L Workstream is dedicated to creating actionable and measurable Anti-racism and Localisation commitments that will become a part of the long-term strategy of the TST. The A&L Workstream is the group leading the development and implementation of the Anti-racism and Localisation commitments as they apply to policy, procedure and practice for the TST.

The TST is committed to efforts that progressively challenge and dismantle racism and white supremacy in the humanitarian sector, while contributing to efforts to decolonize our work and contribute to the localisation agenda through our work in the nutrition sector. In short, the TST is committed to meaningful changes to policy and practice. The vision of the TST is a nutrition sector that ensures racial equity, local leadership, and space for local actors in humanitarian preparedness, response, and recovery. The TST’s work to provide more and better support to local organisations is central to these efforts.

The TST, or GNC Technical Alliance, is in the process of developing a localisation strategy with various strands of work, at different levels of maturity, that make up parts of the current approach including:

1. Developing systems and approaches to providing more and better NiE technical and coordination support to national organisations
2. Making the provision of our technical support more locally driven and delivered by local experts
3. Exploring how to support women-led and gender-equality focused organisations, as well as indigenous organisations
4. Increasing participation from national organisations in global level fora and platforms including webinars, GTWGs and decision-making bodies.

The project

Three priority countries will be selected for focused capacity development work with national organisations based on several criteria (such as level of interest from national organisations, level of buy in from Nutrition Clusters and governmental ministries and whether a context of protracted fragility or famine risk). Within each country the TST will work with the Nutrition Cluster, and other relevant platforms or networks, to map and select national organisations to jointly define and undertake initiatives to strengthen institutional capacity, NiE technical capacity (including gender and nutrition) and NiE coordination capacity with the following objectives:

1. Strengthen effectiveness and efficiency of organisational operations
2. Strengthen ability to deliver high quality NiE interventions
3. Strengthen ability and access, and influence within coordination mechanisms

Within each country five to ten national organisations will be selected to participate in the project based on context specific criteria. Women-led or gender equality focused organizations will be prioritised. In each country, the selected national organisations will play a central role in decision making and design of activities.

Robust learning mechanisms will be put in place to ensure experiences are captured, analyzed and documented, across the three contexts. The ultimate aim is to have an evidence base to reform the way in which the GNC Technical Alliance provides technical support to national organisations, and perhaps the fundamental structure of how that support is delivered.

The ask

In the TST’s limited experience with working with national organizations it has found that nutrition technical support is only one of many needs that national organizations have. Their other needs often cover organizational capacity, such as HR, Finance, logistics, M&E and general program management, required to deliver effective NiE responses.

We are therefore in search of Service Providers that will be able to complement the NiE technical support of the TST with organisational capacity strengthening, following the logic that a stronger, more effective national organization will be able to deliver higher quality nutrition interventions.

Objective

Support the Technical Support Team (TST) and in-country partners in one of three focus countries, where local/national organisations will be supported with a package of organisational and NiE technical capacity strengthening. The Service Providers selected through this callout will lead on the organisational capacity strengthening component in close collaboration with the in-country partners and the TST.

Service description

Whilst the specific tasks and requirements for each country will be determined later, we anticipate the following activities:

1. Support the in-country partners (Nutrition Cluster teams and other stakeholders), and the TST, to map and select national organisations that will receive a mixture of support for the development of institutional, NiE technical (including gender and nutrition) and NiE coordination capacity**.**
2. Facilitate a participatory institutional capacity assessment of 5-10 national organisations. This will be done in coordination (perhaps together) with a technical capacity assessment, supported by the TST.
3. Facilitate the development of an overall plan that will strengthen organizational capacity to design and deliver programs potentially including (but not limited to) strategic planning and management, human resource management, logistics, procurement and supply chain, financial management, program management, resource mobilization and proposal writing, accountability, monitoring and evaluation, networking and partnership brokering, and adherence to humanitarian principles. This will incorporate individual organisational plans (see below).
4. Develop a support package to cover for the specific needs of each national organization based on the organizational capacity assessments. This will include a range of approaches including training, online modules, blended training, coaching or mentoring, either in person or remotely.
5. Ensure systems are in place to monitor change, document learnings from the process, and facilitate collaboration amongst national organisations to share learning.
6. Contribute to discussions within the Anti-racism & Localisation, and Humanitarian Development Peace Nexus Workstreams.
7. Ensure linkages with other “localisation” initiatives at country level where possible including (but not limited to) the pilot on Inter-Agency Toolkit on Localisation in Humanitarian Coordination.

At present the following countries are under consideration for this focus work: Somalia, Syria, Nigeria and CAR. This list could change as discussions advance with the Nutrition Clusters in these countries.

TIMELINE

It is expected that the consultant will be on board in September, and the work with countries will finish by February 2023.

There is also potential for additional phases of work, in additional countries, in 2023. Therefore, proposal should be valid through to the end of 2023.

ANTICIPATED DELIVERABLES

To be determined based on the specific country and work the consultant is selected for, but likely

• Capacity assessment report
• Overall capacity strengthening plan
• Training reports, including objective indicators of change in knowledge/skills for participants
• Country specific project report including what was done, learning, next steps and recommendations

Required profile

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

Required:

• At least 10 years work experience in humanitarian programmes
• Senior managerial experience in a humanitarian organization
• Experience working within or in collaboration with local or national organisations to deliver humanitarian programmes
• Experience with working on localisation within the humanitarian sector
• Experience in working with national organisations to strengthen organisational capacity
• Experienced trainer with the ability to facilitate in a dynamic and participatory manner for adult learners
• Ability to analyze diverse information and develop recommendations
• Demonstrated understanding and commitment to humanitarian principles
• Ability to adapt ways of working in the face of changing needs and contextual characteristics

Desirable:

• Knowledge and demonstrated experience on nutrition and public health in emergencies
• Experience in the assessment of staff and organisational capacity, development of strategies and delivery of capacity strengthening activities
• Practical experience of the cluster approach at country and global level

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, ABILITIES AND OTHER ATTRIBUTES

Required:

• Strong skills in coordination and the ability to work effectively with a range of stakeholders, including nutrition clusters, partners and governmental ministries
• Highly developed writing skills – both at a programmatic level (assessment reports, proposals) and a policy level (policy papers, guidance notes)
• Strong communications skills (both written and verbal) at a level appropriate for high- level external representation presentations)
• Ability to work at a high level in English (reading, speaking and writing)
• For countries where French or Arabic are the primary working language, ability to work at a high level in either of these languages will be required (reading, speaking and writing)
• Understanding of the challenges and aims related to localisation following the Grand Bargain commitments.
• Knowledge of and dedication to anti-racism efforts

Applications are open to individuals, teams of people or organizations. Organisations/individuals from middle- and low-income countries are strongly encouraged to apply.

DUTY STATION/LOCATION

The consultant will work from home and in the selected countries for the country specific work.

Contract modality

Action Against Hunger Canada is looking for three different services providers to sign a 16 months Framework Agreement with.

Proposal Requirements

• We plan to choose three countries with a different partner to support in each country, therefore proposals should only be for work with one country at the time.
• The proposal should indicate if any of the countries currently being considered are of interest, if not, the proposal should be generic, able to be applied to any country.
• Please detail how you would go about the key tasks listed above in a technical proposal.
• Please detail approximate costs of one support in a financial proposal, with an approximate total of $50,000 CAD.
• Please include staff time (Daily rate in CAD) and travel costs. Activity costs (e.g., for a training) should not be included.

[1] Most notably the Grand Bargain commitments from 2016. https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/more-support-and-funding-tools-for-local-and-national-responders

[2] For example, the Start Fund local hub in Bangladesh that gives local actors decision making power on humanitarian funding https://startnetwork.org/localisation

[3] Humanitarian Policy Group Working Paper As Local As Possible, As International As Necessary 2018