Consultant at Plan International - Adamawa and Sokoto

Plan International strives to advance children’s rights and equality for girls all over the world. As an independent development and humanitarian organisation, we work alongside children, young people, our supporters and partners to tackle the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children. We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood and enable children to prepare for and respond to crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge. For over 80 years we have been building powerful partnerships for children, and we are active in over 75 countries.

Plan International Nigeria was registered as a National Organization in 2014 in Nigeria. Our intervention is currently focused on basic education; improving community health services, youth and citizens’ participation in governance, creating economic opportunities and livelihoods for the neediest people and building resilient communities through our emergency and humanitarian response in the Northeast. Plan Nigeria works with communities, civil society organizations, development partners, government at all levels and the private sector.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Consultancy for Baseline on the Capacity of CSOS and Youth Platforms and Relevant Platforms for Engagement on Education Development System of the EU-funded Project on Civil Society Contribution to Policy Dialogues on Education

Locations: Adamawa and Sokoto
Project Name: Strengthening Civil Society to Enhance Education for All in Northern Nigeria
Baseline Start and End date: 18th/05/2023 to 30th/06/2023
Anticipated Baseline report release date: 27th /06/2023

Project Goal

• Strengthen local CSOs as actors of good governance and empower them to contribute to inclusive, participatory and open education policy dialogue in Nigeria.

Project Outcomes

• Outcome 1: Strengthened capacity of CSOs and Youths to engage with relevant stakeholders on implementing Tsangaya Reformation in Sokoto and Adamawa States
• Outcome 2: Enhanced engagement on gender responsive and inclusive education planning between CSOs/Youths and relevant state institutions in Sokoto and Adamawa States
• Outcome 3: Improved capacity of local civil society partners to promote inclusive education policy dialogue and enhance strategic engagement with relevant stakeholders in Sokoto and Adamawa States.

Direct Beneficiary:

• Adamawa; 639,290
• Sokoto: 639,290
• Total target; 1,278,580. 

Baseline Purpose

• The Organizational Capacity baseline assessment is principally to identify the gaps, knowledge and capacity of the CSOs in Adamawa and Sokoto to effectively engage with duty bearers and right holders on ensuring a gender-responsive and inclusive education sector planning.
• Their knowledge and capacity to advocate, influence, mobilise and engage with multiple and diverse stakeholders will also be assessed.

Primary Method:

• Quantitative survey
• Qualitative interviews with key partners
• Document review including relevant secondary data

Project Background on education policies in Nigeria and role of CSOs

• Since 2011, the security landscape has been shaped by the war against Boko Haram and other non-state armed groups in the Northeast in addition to incessant cases of banditry and kidnappings in the North-West and parts of the Southwest. The attacks and insecurity have displaced millions of people, devastated agricultural production and other livelihoods, cut off essential services, and caused protection crisis. No end to the conflict is foreseen.
• While Nigeria has made some progress in socio-economic terms in recent years, its human capital development ranked 150 of 157 countries. The country continues to face massive developmental challenges, including the need to reduce the dependency on oil and diversify the economy, address insufficient infrastructure, build strong and effective institutions, as well as address governance issues and public financial management systems. Inequality, in terms of income and opportunities, remains high and has adversely affected poverty reduction. The lack of job opportunities is at the core of the high poverty levels, regional inequality, and social and political unrest.
• Despite having Africa’s largest economy, amidst global commodity shocks, a depreciating currency, trade restrictions, and monetization of the deficit, inflation is surging and pushing millions of Nigerians into poverty. An estimated 40% of Nigerians (83 million people) lived below the poverty line, while another 25% (53 million) are considered vulnerable. With Nigeria’s population growth continuing to outpace poverty reduction, the number of Nigerians living in extreme poverty is set to rise by 7.7 million between now and 2024[1].
• In Nigeria, ‘Almajiri’ is the term used for children from poor homes that are sent to Islamic boarding schools called ‘Tsangaya’, where they are taught Islamic principles, values, jurisprudence and theology, rather than literacy and numeracy, and are often required by teachers to beg for food and money on the streets. Many Almajiri are isolated from their parents from an early age and brought into a new environment without provision of basic needs such as food, shelter, toilets, or health facilities. The exact number of Almajiri children in Nigeria is unclear, but UNICEF’s most recent estimates put it at about 10 million, with the majority being from the northern part of the country.
• It is against this backdrop EU Funded Plan international intervention “Strengthening Civil Society to Enhance Education for All in Northern Nigeria” is designed and implemented so that it leverages and contributes to any existing policies, plans and actions will support coordination with other initiatives, avoid duplication and facilitate the dissemination of learning and information about the project.
• The action will contribute to the operationalisation of a number of governmental policies and plans including: the UBE programme; the National Policy on Education; the National Development Plan 2021-2025; the National policy on Gender and Education; The Ministerial Strategic Plan (MSP) - Education for Change (2018-2022); The new Education Sector Strategic Plan 2023-2027; The Adamawa State Ministry of Education Medium Term Sector Strategy; and the Sokoto State Medium Term Basic Education Strategic Plan.

Project Objectives
This project is aimed at enabling the civil society to contribute to policy dialogues on education in Adamawa and Sokoto States. This will be achieved through the following objectives:

• Strengthening the capacity of CSOs and youths to engage with relevant stakeholders on implementing Tsangaya reformation in Sokoto and Adamawa,
• Enhancing the engagement on gender responsive and inclusive education planning between CSOs/youths and relevant state institutions in Sokoto and Adamawa.
• Improving the capacity of local civil society partners to promote inclusive education policy dialogue and enhance strategic engagement with relevant stakeholders in Sokoto and Adamawa.
• The project includes the set of specific interventions aimed at promoting local CSOs, youth, women and disability grassroots organisations to participate in, advocate for, and monitor the implementation of Tsangaya reformation and gender responsive and inclusive education planning to support positive change in Nigeria, in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, and the 2030 Agenda to leave no one behind.
• A focus will be put on strengthening CBOs, community leaders, and CSOs capacities to advocate and work on initiatives to empower girls and promote inclusive gender responsive quality education, gender inequalities and unequal power relations which are the root cause of the main barriers faced by girls in enjoying their human rights, including access to education, support girls’ education, including community engagement; working with men and boys; promoting the role of youth participation; building the capacity of stakeholders; and advocating for policy change at institutional level, supports existing local capacities, systems and structures, including women’s rights organizations for social norm change.
• Thus, the main scope of the project is to reinforce CSOs capacity for them to be able to participate in, contribute to and influence education policy dialogues in Sokoto and Adamawa state. In order to monitor the progress towards the set outcomes, Plan Nigeria aims at building a solid and thorough baseline that will be able to show the impact of Plan Nigeria intervention in influencing education policies in Sokoto and Adamawa.

Objective of the Consultancy

• Plan International Nigeria is looking for a consultant with demonstrated capacities in Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA) tool development and deployment that informs a successful capacity development plan and implementation strategy.

Through the course of this service contract, the consultant will be expected to:

• Draft a detailed Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA) tool for the monitoring of specific capacity-building indicators including a comprehensive scoring matrix both for the measurement of qualitative and quantitative related indicators;
• Operationalise specific project indicators (as per the logical framework) in order to have a reliable and quantifiable indication of indicator progress regarding CSOs capacity to engage in policy dialogues, influence and advocate based on Plan International inputs; A detailed methodology including draft sampling methodology and size;
• Work together with the baseline consultant to project the OCA indicators to inform proper project monitoring.
• Lead on the assessment of CSOs and youth groups capacities at the beginning and at the end of the project on their knowledge and practice of influencing to further support education development system;
• OCA baseline that will have to take into consideration:
  • Standard cover sheet with the following content: title of the study with geographical area, month and year of execution, Plan logo in the inner right corner and that of the donor on the left, name and address of the NGO which carried out this assessment;
  • Recommendations and summaries;
  • Description of the objectives, methods and limits;
  • Result of data analysis, including specific needed training topics to enhance CSOs capacity to influence education policy dialogues;
  • Findings and conclusion;
  • Annexes may include terms of reference for the evaluation, maps, framework, summary sample of project activities, team composition, list of interviewees or reports, endnotes (if applicable), the tools used for data collection and a bibliography

Baseline Objectives

• The baseline assessment the capacity of CSOs and youth platforms and relevant platforms for engagement on education development system will be carried out to assess the knowledge and practice, capacities for influencing, and the challenges and barriers inhibiting active participation in civic spaces, among other areas.
• Capacity needs will be identified across the target groups and form the baseline from which the impact of the project’s engagement with the groups will be measured.
• The OCA will equally complement the needs assessments conducted during the project design phase;
• The OCA results willand inform the development of the ToT programme.

Scope of Work
Specifically, the baseline seeks to provide data on the following:

Table 1: Assessment Focus

Child rights, gender and inclusion:

• In line with Plan International’s values and organisational ambition, all evaluations should seek to prioritise a focus on child rights, gender and inclusion and trying to understand the extent to which the project or programme applied gender and inclusion sensitive approaches and explicitly aimed for results that improve the rights of children and young people and gender equality.
• All other evaluation questions prioritised should also seek to mainstream child rights, gender and inclusion considerations as a part of their enquiry.

Methods for Data Collection and Analysis:

• To answer the evaluation questions and assess the evaluation criteria, the Consultant will have to be able to develop both qualitative and quantitative tools.
• It is therefore expected that the consultant develops a detailed overall methodology, appropriate methods and specific tools to respond to the key evaluation questions mentioned under the section 4. The consultant shall outline the reasons for selecting the methods proposed and depict the skills/ experience he/ she has in applying them. It is recommended to apply a mixed method approach. The consultant will also be responsible for piloting the new tools, ensuring that they are gender-sensitive.
• The proposal must contain a description of the envisaged data validation, quality assurance and data analysis techniques.

Safeguarding and Ethical Considerations
Child and Youth Safeguarding:

• A child and youth safeguarding risk assessment will be conducted with a view to mitigating identified risks associated with the assessment.
• This risk assessment will be signed off by management before the commencement of data collection.

Gender consideration:

• The data collection tools have been designed with a strong consideration for gender. Data will be disaggregated by gender and a mix of female and male respondents are considered.

Duration:

• The assessment is expected to be conducted within 30 days.

Key Deliverables and Timeframe

Inception report including:

• An updated timeline;
• An evaluation scoring matrix;
• A detailed methodology including draft sampling methodology and size
• Draft data collection tools, both qualitative and quantitative, according to the specific indicators outlined in the project;
• Ethical and safeguarding considerations and risk assessment
• Consent forms for any primary data collection;
• Draft methods for data analysis and quality control;
• Brief justification of the methods and techniques envisaged (including relevant underlying values and assumptions/ theories) with a justification of the selection made.
• Final data collection tools
• Final Sampling methodology (including unit of sampling and sampling frame) and size
• Draft evaluation report, including cleaned data files (e.g. Excel, SPSS), transcripts of qualitative data syntax/ code books etc. and completed consent forms (including for children and their caregivers and adults)
•  Final OCA baseline report including Executive Summary

The consultant is expected to lead, accomplish and submit the following deliverables within the agreed timeframe and budget:

Timeline (indicative)

Budget

• The evaluator’s proposal should include a detailed budget breakdown including fees, number of working days, social and medical insurance, translation and interpretation, software licenses, electronic devices, travel and VISA cost (if applicable), cost for the development of data collection tools, and all other output-related costs.

The payment is in instalments and subject to the delivery of outputs and their formal approval by Plan International Nigeria as follows:          

Expected Qualifications
The consultant is expected to have at least master’s degree in Social work, Public health, Livelihood, food security Household, Economic Strengthening, Education, or other related field with the following additional requirements:

• Over 10 years working experience in working with local CSOs for the identification of capacity gaps and needs, preferably in advocacy, influencing and policy engagement (Experience in Northeast and West Nigeria context is desirable).
• Strong experience in carrying out complex evaluations in the region or in other areas with similar context. The sample assessment(s) must be attached
• Strong analytical skills and research experience, with solid knowledge of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies.
• Must be based in either Sokoto or Adamawa.
• Strong background in civil society strengthening especially assessing and reinforcing organizational capacities, particularly in the areas of gender responsive and inclusive education/Tsangaya reformation.
• Ability to work on own initiative and to meet deadlines
• Attention to produce and present high-quality accurate presentations/reports
• Ability and willingness to travel to very remote areas
• Excellent command of written and spoken English and at least one local language of in Adamawa and Sokoto states

Desirable:

• Good skills in documentation and reporting
• Strong familiarity with development and deployment of OCA tool.
• Strong Understanding of CSO operations in Adamawa and Sokoto States
• Experience/understanding of Child Rights Programming and development.

Application Closing Date
8th May, 2023.

How To Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should send their Applications to: [email protected] referencing “Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA) Base-line for EU project” in the subject line, and including support documents as outlined.

Click here to download the full Terms of Reference (ToR) (Doc) 

Application Procedures
Interested applicants should provide a proposal covering the following aspects:

• Provide curriculum vitae detailing knowledge/experience in the above areas.
• Proposed methodology
• Provide a report showing work on similar previous assignments.
• Detailed budget, including daily fee rates, expenses, taxes etc.
• Possible dates he/she will be available to commence the consultancy.
• Provide name of two references that can attest to the consultant capability to conduct the consultancy.

Note

• A team from Plan International Nigeria will score the documentations provided by the potential consultant based on their technical “know how” and expected fee on the bases of 75% and 25% respectively.
• Kindly note, in compliance with government regulations, withholding tax deductions are applicable to all costs.