Terms of Reference - Individual consultant or consulting agency to conduct Organizational Capacity Assessments (OCA) for South Asia Governance Program (SAGP) grantee organizations in Bangladesh

Background: The South Asia Governance Program (SAGP), administered by The Asia Foundation, provides small and strategic grants to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in five South Asian countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The SAGP coalesces and supports actions around four core themes:

  • Increase public sector accountability and transparency;
  • Strengthen the rule of law;
  • Promote civil society participation and media in these efforts; and
  • Strengthen democratic institutions and practices.

The SAGP is intended to support civil society organizations to effectively respond to emerging governance opportunities in the five SAGP countries, within the four core themes listed above.

The South Asia Governance Program (SAGP) has adapted the USAID Organizational Capacity Assessment Methodology (OCA) for purposes of project implementation. The OCA tool was designed to enable organizations to define a capacity-building improvement plan, based on self-assessed need. The SAGP program has three main components, providing small grants, strategic grants, and capacity and coalition building. This OCA tool has been adapted in order to inform grantees, engaged through the first two components, along with program staff with a targeted strategy for capacity and coalition building. The original OCA framework has been adapted for SAGP by streamlining and adapting some of the original seven sub-component assessment areas and adding a new one. This new component, component 8 titled ‘Technical topics in governance’, has incorporated some of the aspects of component seven, and included key technical governance competency areas. These competency areas are based off of The Asia Foundation’s long standing governance programming expertise and also, based on feedback from sub-grantees.

The assignment: The consultant/consulting agency is expected to conduct the adapted version of the OCA for around 25 SAGP grantee organizations in Bangladesh through virtual platform.

Objective: To conduct the Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA) Methodology for 25
SAGP grantee organizations.

Duration: May 1, 2021 to September 30, 2021

Scope of work: The Consultant agency is expected to carry out the following tasks virtually:

  1. Getting to know the organisations and explaining the Capacity Building Process
  2. Customizing the OCA tool based on the specific needs of each of these partner Organisations
  3. Conducting the Organisational Capacity Self-Assessment (OCA) workshop
  4. Conducting an Organisational Capacity Improvement Planning (OCIP) workshop

Deliverables:

  1. Finalised OCA Tool
  2. Introductory Meeting agenda for each of the 25 grantees
  3. Agenda for each of the OCA workshops
  4. OCA report for each of the 25 grantees
  5. Organisational Capacity Improvement Plan and Final Report.

Confidentiality of Information

Consultant/consulting agency would not disclose any information in relation to this assignment without prior consent of The Asia Foundation.

Qualifications for Consultants

Consultant/consulting agency needs to possess and demonstrate the following experience:

  1. Long working experience with national and international development organizations in Bangladesh.
  2. Sound knowledge and experience working with research, assessment, monitoring & evaluation, training, and capacity development on working with NGOs, CSOs, think tank and research organizations.
  3. Solid experiences on conducting USAID Organizational Capacity Assessment Methodology (OCA) in Bangladesh and other country context.
  4. Strong communication skills and writing skills in both English and Bangla.

Application procedures

Interested candidates must submit the following by 2nd May 2021:

  • Submit a CV of the maximum of 4 pages or a Company and Team profile of 10 pages along with a cover letter of not more than 1 page detailing your experience and suitability for the role to country.bangladesh.jobs@asiafoundation.org. Applications that do not meet these page limits and fail to clearly address the suitability of the candidate for this specific position will not be reviewed. We thank all applicants for their interest, however only those making the shortlist will be contacted.
  • A brief plan (not exceeding 5 pages) including budget, planned timeline and work plan with methodologies/approach, milestone and deliverables, respondents/organizations to be consulted, and protocols for data collection and validation.

Click here for SAGP OCA Guideline