Invitation to provide short-term consultancy services – Leave No One Behind (LNOB)- Ascend West and Central Africa

Location: Flexible within the UK
Timeframe: Expected timeline for this work is approximately 27 weeks

Sightsavers is looking for external evaluators to undertake a short-term project over six to seven to assess programming needs concerning Leave No One behind (LNOB) initiatives across Ascend West and Central Africa to put in place systems, processes, and technical guidance that support their operationalisation and implementation across country partners.

At the beginning of the consultancy period, the consultant will coordinate with the Team Lead, Programme Optimisation Unit; Senior Global Technical Lead: Social Inclusion, Policy & Programme Strategy; and the chair of the LNOB working group to develop a detailed workplan for the consultancy period.

Context

The FCDO -funded Ascend West and Central Africa programme is a high profile, high value, multi-partner programme, making significant contributions to the control and elimination of five neglected tropical diseases across 12 countries. Sightsavers is the lead supplier, working with relevant government Ministries and departments within a consortium of partners.

The Ascend West programme promotes a Leave No-one Behind (LNOB) approach across all interventions. The consultant/s will review and, where the evidence supports, operationalise Ascend West Leave No One Behind (LNOB) strategy through the consortium and MOH structures.

Objective

• Undertake a consultation with consortium partners and national programmes to review and update on LNOB initiatives identified in a recent scoping review of programmes’ activities for Year 1. This consultation will need to identify and review any planning or M&E tools, if any, used as well as document examples of good practice.
• Review consolidated (programme-level) LNOB strategies structured by Ascend’s LNOB working group in terms of feasibility and suitability, providing recommendations on how to adapt proposals into existing programming structures, and consult with consortium partners and national programmes to agree on their implementation during Year 3 of Ascend.
• Work with country programmes, in coordination with the Integrated Systems and Programme Optimisation Units as well as the LNOB working group, to develop country-level LNOB workplans for Year 3 based on outputs from activities 1 and 2.
• Work with Integrated Systems Unit and Programme Optimisation Unit to find entry points for monitoring and evaluating LNOB activities. This may require adapting existing tools (e.g., coverage evaluation surveys, health facility assessment tools, etc) or may involve designing, introducing, and implementing new approaches.
• Coordinate with recently appointed beneficiary feedback consultants to ensure that produced recommendations and solutions to embedded beneficiary feedback into existing M&E tools or standalone beneficiary feedback sessions are guided by social inclusion criteria relevant to the programme’s LNOB agenda and workplans.
• Work in coordination with Sightsaver’s disability inclusion programme and Global Technical lead on Social Inclusion to identify and adapt existing participatory planning tools and resources to guide the organisation of inclusive planning events for MDAs and MMDPs, in alignment with the programme’s LNOB agenda.
• Work in coordination with Sightsavers’ disability inclusion as well as patient care and social inclusion programmes to identify and adapt existing tools and approaches for LNOB training purposes to the specific needs of programme staff, such as surgeons, CDDs and case finders.
• Provide overall guidance for the development of information materials to be distributed among staff alongside LNOB training events.
• Review lessons learnt from Ascend’s Covid-flexing communication campaigns as well as existing resources on inclusive communication strategies to provide overall guidance to national programmes about how to widen the reach of programme’s sensitisation campaigns among key LNOB categories, with a particular emphasis on participatory approaches.
• Work in coordination with Sightsavers’ disability inclusion programme to identify and adapt existing policy analyses and advocacy tools / resources to inform relevant LNOB initiatives for health systems strengthening among national partners.
• Identify safeguarding issues that may arise in relation to the adoption of social inclusion strategies for the implementation of NTD control activities and coordinate with the Team Lead Operations’ Safeguarding unit to ensure proper guidance is provided to national partners.
• Link up with Ascend’s WASH team to coordinate the documentation and reporting of social inclusion considerations adopted during decision-making processes and beneficiary feedback data on accessibility issues, if available.
• Work with Knowledge Innovation and Learning unit to develop a learning brief which examines the operational and contextual challenges in LNOB for NTD programmes, sharing evidence and approaches from Ascend.

Deliverables

• Activity 1: Report containing consolidated findings from programme-level consultation on ongoing LNOB initiatives, outlining key lessons from past initiatives as well as recommendations on how to improve existing tools and approaches to planning and M&E for LNOB.
• Activity 2: Brief technical document containing reviewed programme-level LNOB strategies, outlining proposals for their implementation through existing programming structures and procedures.
• Activity 3: Detailed country LNOB workplans.
• Activities 4 and 5: Design and development of tools or templates to be introduced into routine programme delivery to document and evaluate LNOB initiatives. This may include adapting existing survey forms or introducing new approaches.
• Activities 6 – 10: Develop a LNOB toolkit that can support programme managers in delivering quality programming, including step-by-step guidance slide deck to be shared with CPs explaining use and implementation of developed tools. The toolkit’s will be structured around the programming tools, resources, and approaches identified for key programming components: planning, training, sensitisation, monitoring and evaluation as well as health systems’ strengthening.
• Activity 11: Develop guidelines and protocols for sensitive areas of work to ensure “leave no one behind” initiatives adhere to Sightsavers safeguarding policy.
• Activity 12: Technical brief, documenting findings from consultation on social inclusion considerations used during WASH programming activities.
• Activity 13: Learning brief documenting lessons learnt on how to promote inclusive approaches in integrated NTD programming.

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Consultant Requirements**

The members of the Consultancy Team should possess the following qualifications:

• Proven experience and expertise in the field of Social Exclusion and Gender Analysis
• Experienced international development practitioner with a extensive direct field experience.
• Excellent communication skills in English and French (Portuguese is also desirable).
• Strong coordination skills and experience liaising with multiple partners/stakeholders.
• Project management skills and a proven ability to work as part of a team
• Confident working with quantitative and qualitative data.
• Systematic approach to work, ability to introduce new systems and processes to systemically and transparently capture programme information.
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment and prioritise tasks appropriately.
• Strong understanding of donor expectations in relation to inclusive programming and its importance for programme delivery.
• Sound knowledge of Microsoft Office products. Experience using other qualitative and quantitative statistical packages such as Power BI is an asset.
• Experience of using online or mobile survey and data collection tools will be advantageous.

Please see the attached Terms of Reference for more details on the programme and the consultancy opportunity.

Payment Schedule

Sightsavers prefers to make a minimum of four payments for the completion of all deliverables, Activity no’s.1 – 13 throughout the consultancy’s duration.

Please break down your expected payments against either groups of deliverables or individual deliverables within the budget spreadsheet, being as specific as possible. Sightsavers anticipates the cost to be + or – 5% of £23,750. Submissions will be judged on the interaction between the technical and financial proposals.