Consultant - Conflict Sensitivity Assessment for the Nigeria Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement (SCALE) Project at Palladium Group

Job ID: req10742

Introduction
Nigeria SCALE project is a USAID-funded 5-year project (Oct 2020 – Oct 2025), implemented by Palladium in collaboration with the local resource partners. The goal of the Nigeria SCALE project is to strengthen the financial, management and advocacy capacity of local civil society organizations (CSOs) and Business Membership Organizations (BMOs) in Nigeria to create a more accountable, transparent, peaceful, and democratic Nigeria with more effective and efficient public service delivery.

The SCALE project supports civil society organizations (CSOs) and business membership organizations (BMOs) across all of USAID/Nigeria’s programmatic sectors with a basket of managerial, business strengthening, and advocacy capacity-building interventions aimed at advancing Nigerian CSO sustainability combined with targeted grants to advance mutually agreed upon priorities. The project is designed to enhance local civil society organizations’ ability to be positive and responsible change agents in Nigeria.

The project has five key components: 1) Component One – Improve CSO organizational capacity, 2) Component Two – Enhance capacity for CSO advocacy, collaboration and management, 3) Component Three – Improve the policy and regulatory environment for civil society, 4) Component Four – Countering Trafficking in Persons (CTIP), and 5) Component Five – Sector strengthening and advocacy.

Conflict Sensitivity assessment  in the context of do-no-harm is a systematic and structured approach to identifying the factors that drive conflict and violence, the actors involved and their interests, key trends and any entry points or opportunities to build society’s capacities for resolving differences or pursuing objectives without resorting to violence. The SCALE project is committed to mitigating unintended negative effects, and to influence conflicts positively wherever possible through its interventions. Consequently, the SCALE project seeks to conduct a conflict sensitivity assessment to better understand the context in which it is operating in order to effectively adapt the “Do-No-Harm” principles throughout project implementation.

Palladium is looking to engage the expertise of 2 consultants with backgrounds in conflict sensitivity, peace building, policy advocacy, research, and other related qualitative assessment skills to form a team to conduct a Conflict Sensitivity Assessment for the SCALE project. This Conflict Sensitivity Assessment will collaborate closely with ongoing SCALE baseline, Political Economy Analysis (PEA), and Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Analysis.

Purpose of Consultancy:

• The key purpose of this assignment is to better understand the political and security context in which SCALE will operate.
• It will enhance the project’s understanding of the key drivers and dynamics of conflict(s) in areas where SCALE works, as well as its impact on SCALE operations.
• The assessment will also provide strategic road map for the project to effectively adapt the “Do-No-Harm” principles across all segments of project implementation, create right relations and build sustainable partnerships.

Objective of Consultancy:

• The objective of this assignment is to obtain reliable data to better understand the dynamics of Conflict Sensitivity issues in select states across the six geopolitical regions in Nigeria that could inform/influence the design and implementation of current and future SCALE strategies.
• The conflict sensitivity assessment will enable SCALE to identify best practices and tools for making conflict analysis an on-going process within reasonable frequency as per-the needs and requirements of the project.
• Overall, the assessment will aim at ensuring that both the current and potential impact of conflicts on the most vulnerable populations and on planned SCALE interventions are adequately addressed, while ensuring that conflict dynamics are consistently identified and managed.
• The assessment will be conducted with the goal to support adaptive, safe and accountable programming across the various components and throughout the SCALE project.

Specific Tasks
The consultants will be responsible for conducting conflict sensitivity assessments, including developing appropriate methodology, gathering and analyzing data, and submitting a report on key findings of the assessment. Specific tasks will include the following:

• Conduct a conflict sensitivity assessment of planned interventions and programming across the five components of the project including assessment of the risks of conflict impacting implementation with proposed contingency measures, and opportunity mapping for reinforcing outcomes.
• Conduct conflict sensitivity capacity assessment of project staff to integrate conflict sensitivity into project implementation, and recommend capacity strengthening activities as relevant.
• Identify and review existing secondary data (existing literatures/assessments/reports) of relevance to the objectives of the CS and prepare the initial analysis with recommendations for further research.
• Design and conduct qualitative inquiries with key informants in Nigeria, including members of CSOs, BMOs, donors and development organizations, and the Government of Nigeria to supplement the data from the existing secondary data.
• Conduct an analysis of categories of conflict situations including drivers, power dynamics, and mitigation strategies that can impact on the implementation of the SCALE project.
• Analyze all primary and secondary data collected, including triangulation of data to substantiate the findings of the CS.
• Identify potential synergies and opportunities for mainstreaming the do-no-harm principles among SCALE partners and CSOs/BMOs in Nigeria.
• Identify current capacity gaps among CSOs and BMOs with respect to their ability to mitigate conflicts and propose a training plan for the Conflict Sensitivity programming based on the Do-No-Harm principles.
• Recommend best approaches/strategies to mainstream Conflict Sensitivity into SCALE’s interventions design and implementation, as well as for CSO/BMOs to make politically smart and tactical decisions; and recognize emerging challenges, risks, and opportunities; and monitor the effectiveness of project interventions.
• Develop Conflict Sensitivity Monitoring & Evaluation tools for SCALE adaptation.
• Develop a conflict sensitivity capacity assessment tool for assessing the capacity of partners
• Conduct conflict sensitivity capacity assessment and facilitate relevant training for SCALE staff and resource partners.
• Prepare and present the final conflict sensitivity analysis report and tools
•  The consultants will be responsible for designing and conducting the Conflict Sensitivity assessment, including developing appropriate methodology and tools, gathering and analyzing data, and submitting a report on key findings of the assessment.

Note: Due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, researchers will demonstrate how technology will be deployed during data collection using virtual or remote platforms to reduce the risk of disease transmission.

Contract Type and Deliverables:

• This consultancy will be a deliverable-based contract. Acceptance of the deliverables will be determined by the project’s Advocacy and Engagement Advisor. Final report will be approved by the Chief of Party.

Key Deliverables
The consultants will submit the following deliverables to SCALE at an agreed schedule as follows:

Conflict Sensitivity Assessment Inception report:

• This is a detailed description of the Conflict Sensitivity, including the overall design, sampling framework, data collection tools, data sources, data analysis plan, quality assurance criteria, limitations, and a work plan for the implementation of the analysis.

Literature Review Report:

• This is an analysis of all the policy documents reviewed for the purpose of this Conflict Sensitivity Analysis with clear indication of gaps requiring additional data to inform stakeholder interviews.

Report of qualitative inquiries with key stakeholders:

• This is a report of interviews conducted including interview tools, transcribed responses and information on the persons interviewed with date of interview.

Conflict Sensitivity report – draft:

• This is a report to document all the aspects of the Conflict Sensitivity, including its design, analysis, findings, limitations, references, data collection tools and any other information to inform and support the findings. Report should be no more than 40 pages in length, excluding annexes.

Conflict Sensitivity Training Manual:

• This is the manual that will be used to conduct the TOT for SCALE staff and resource partners for the purpose of training and mentoring SCALE partners.

Conflict Sensitivity Tools:

• This is a suite of easily adaptable Conflict Sensitivity tools such as conflict sensitivity capacity assessment tool, interview guides, stakeholder mapping tool, guide to strategizing for change, etc., that will be deployed to SCALE partners for broad contextual Conflict Sensitivity as well as tactical and everyday Conflict Sensitivity, to promote politically smart project implementation.

Conflict Sensitivity report – final version:

• This is a final report of the Conflict Sensitivity that should include all the components of the first draft and addressing all comments, edits and observations from the review of the first draft. Report should be no more than 40 pages in length, excluding annexes.

Required Qualifications
 The consultants should have the following:

• Advanced University Degree in Social Sciences, Law, Conflict Studies, Public Policy, Development Studies or other related fields.
• A minimum of six years’ experience in areas related to conflict management, peacebuilding, democracy and governance.
• Demonstrated experience in conducting a similar study
• Demonstrated experience in applied research, especially literature reviews.
• Demonstrated analytical (statistical and data analysis) skills.
• Good communication and facilitation skills
• Strong report writing and documentation skills.
• Demonstrated track record of delivering high quality written outputs on time in a consultancy environment.
• Fluency in English and at least one local language required.

Anticipated Period of Performance and Level of Effort:

• Period of Performance: From contract inception to March 30, 2021
• Level of Effort: The LOE for the consultants should not exceed 30 days for each.