Terms of Reference – Individual consultant or consulting agency to capture Success Stories and Lessons Learned for
South Asia Governance Program (SAGP) partner organizations in Bangladesh

Background

The Asia Foundation (the Foundation) is a nonprofit international development organization committed to improving lives across a dynamic and developing Asia for 65 years. Informed by six decades of experience and deep local expertise, our work across the region addresses five overarching goals: strengthening governance, empowering women, expanding economic opportunity, increasing environmental resilience, and promoting regional cooperation. The Foundation opened its first office in Dhaka in 1954, and has maintained a continuous presence since, working with the government of Bangladesh, civil society, community leaders, and the private sector to promote responsive and accountable governance, broad-based and inclusive economic growth, and basic rights and security.

The Foundation also encourages innovation and creativity in tackling community challenges, raising civic consciousness, and promoting good governance among the people of Bangladesh. Foundation programs enhance civil society's capacity to build trust between elected representatives, GoB officials, and communities, engage religious and secular leaders to advance national development efforts and women’s rights and create a platform for wider discussions about Bangladesh's rapidly changing socio-political situation.

Program Description

The Asia Foundation (TAF) manages the South Asia Governance Program (SAGP). The SAGP provides small and strategic grants to eligible Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), NGOs, and think tanks in five South Asian countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. These five South Asian countries have unique political contexts, governance challenges, and civil society operating environments. While governance challenges in the areas of the rule of law, transparency and accountability and civil society participation exist in all of them, the intensity of the problem varies in each. Designed as a flexible mechanism to respond to existing contexts and emerging opportunities, the open grant window supports CSOs to work on critical governance challenges around four core themes:

  • Increasing public sector accountability and transparency;
  • Strengthening the rule of law;
  • Promoting civil society participation and media in these efforts; and
  • Strengthening democratic institutions and practices.

South Asia Governance Program (SAGP) is accountable for achieving the project-specific objectives as follows,

➢ To promote greater transparency, accountability, rule of law, and responsiveness in the respective governments.
➢ To broaden the space to meaningfully engage with democratic institutions including those related to the criminal justice sector, anti-corruption bodies, human rights commissions, election administration, parliament, media and local governments.
➢ To enhance the internal capacity, knowledge base, and programming capabilities of civil society organizations (CSOs) through capacity development inputs from the South Asia Governance Fund.

SAGP partner organizations have been implementing innovative and actionable projects/activities to deliver results that contribute to the above objectives in the following four domains:

1. Fiscal and institutional Domain
2. Political Domain
3. Informational Domain and
4. Social Domain; with some specific priority areas under each domain.

Purpose of capturing lessons learned

Through the SAGP purview, the Foundation provided grants to 25 organizations in Bangladesh that have been implementing 27 projects across the country. TAF will hire a consultant/agency whose main responsibility will be to accumulate the lessons learned and actual accomplishments of some selected partners’ activities as per its goals and objectives in line with the domain and broader thematic/objective areas of the South Asia Governance Program. This may include capturing success stories from the field level intervention and preparing a communication pack (keynote paper, audio visual materials, etc.) for exposure to a grand dissemination event with development partners and relevant stakeholders.

The assignment aims to provide TAF program team with information that can increase effectiveness and efficiency and communicate with wider audiences, including national and international stakeholders, on the country's success and impact of SAGP works. The consultant will also identify any unintended/unprecedented result that may show up through the project's intervention and may assist in designing future interventions. The consultant/agency will summarize best practices and challenges projects faced while implementing the activities.

The consultant will be responsible for engaging partners, stakeholders, and beneficiaries in discussion to accumulate lessons learned, success stories and capture results and outcomes from project intervention.

Specific tasks

  • Review of project information (i.e. call for proposals, full proposals, quarterly reports, success stories, newsletter, thematic summary, exit interviews, pulse check survey findings etc.)
  • Develop a methodology and tools for capturing lessons learned and success stories
  • Conduct learning sessions with partners along with their stakeholders and direct/indirect beneficiaries.

Deliverables

1) Keynote paper on lessons learned and success stories (based on SAGP domains within 4-8 pages)
2) Individual lesson learned document and success stories for selected 10 partner organizations (5 inside Dhaka, 5 outside Dhaka)
3) Audio-visual materials for about 15-20 minutes

Time frame: June 2022 to August 2022

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. Knowledge on the area of governance and working experience with national and international development organizations in Bangladesh
  2. Experience in conducting assessment/lessons learned documentation studies by using qualitative and quantitative methods, able to triangulate data including methodology and instruments
  3. Solid expertise on developing communication pack (keynote paper and audio-visual materials)
  4. Ability to work collaboratively with multiple individuals, groups, and other stakeholders
  5. Advanced university degree in international development, statistics, economics, social sciences, or a related field
  6. Strong analytical writing skills in both English and Bangla
  7. Strong communication skills

Application procedure

  1. A CV of a 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, suitability and daily rate for the role
  2. A technical proposal (not exceeding 10 pages) including work plan with methodologies/approach
  3. 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.
  4. A financial proposal identifying major cost items inclusive of Tax and VAT amount

Application Deadline

Interested consultant/ parties must submit the application by 28 May 2022 to country.bangladesh.jobs@asiafoundation.org

Termination of the Agreement

Either party can terminate this agreement with written notice within 15 days of the date of signing this agreement. The Asia Foundation reserves the right to unilaterally terminate the contract if: (i) the consultant/firm cannot fulfill any clause of the Terms of Reference and (ii) the consultant/firm cannot submit their reports within the specified time.