Partnerships Assessment and Strategy (Action Plan) Development - Consultancy at International Rescue Committee (IRC)

Requisition ID: req29661

Sector: Grants

Employment Category: Consultant

Compensation: NGN 0.00 - 0.00 Salary

Location: Nigeria

Job Description
Introduction

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, IRC offers life-saving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in more than 40 countries, IRC restores safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted by conflict or disaster. IRC leads the way from harm to home.

IRC began working in Nigeria in October 2012 in response to widespread flooding. Since then, IRC has expanded its program scope and size with the aim of making the greatest possible contribution to meeting humanitarian needs across Northeast Nigeria. IRC’s response includes integrated health, reproductive health, nutrition, protection including women’s protection and empowerment services, child protection, environmental health (WASH), economic recovery and development, and education support. The country program has developed a new Strategic Action Plan (SAP) 2022 - 2024, which is guiding growth in priority thematic and geographic areas (specifically in North-East and North-West of Nigeria).

Under SAP 2022 – 2024, the IRC in Nigeria committed to increase working with the local partners and to ‘partner as equals,’ including by developing, consolidating and strengthening long-term strategic partnerships with local civil society (community based groups, professional organizations, Non-Governmental organizations, faith based organizations etc), government, and private sector actors in Nigeria  to deliver more effective, responsive and durable assistance that reaches more people, and produces better outcomes for the communities we serve. Half will be with women-led or focused organizations. We aimed to support, learn from, and work alongside these diverse partners in ‘long-term, principled, collaborative, feminist partnerships that share power and resources, and elevate the knowledge and expertise of each partner, to develop better solutions for more people caught in the ongoing crisis in Nigeria.’ The development of strategic partnerships with local actors is a key mechanism and metric for our SAP’s Commitment.

The SAP sets ambitious targets for the resources we will provide to local partners, and the number of strategic partnerships we will build in Nigeria to support the growth. Presently, IRC’s work with local partners is limited, with less than 3% of the total country budget being channeled through local organizations. During SAP review, developing and implementing a plan to significantly increase work with local partners emerged as a priority.  This is influenced by  by key factors:

Promotion of local humanitarian leadership – letting local actors or partners lead humanitarian responses as always, they are the first responders and best placed to save lives in the early stages of the emergency and/ or where international organizations are constraints to respond due to context

A desire for more sustainable programme delivery models that do not always rely on direct implementation by IRC staff, especially in some of the volatile places where IRC works (without simply transferring risk onto partners).

A sense that it is the responsibility for IRC to - promote the longer-term capacity building of local organizations as part of the contribution it makes to the humanitarian space, recovery and development efforts.

A key priority now is therefore building a more deliberate and effective partnerships strategy and mapping of the potential partners in the priority thematic and geographic areas.  
Objective

By gaining an in-depth understanding of IRC’s SAP priorities in Nigeria, as well as IRC’s global Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results System (PEERS), the consultant will:

Review existing IRC Nigeria's partnerships with local organizations, document learnings from existing local partnership with focus on what is working well, what did not work well and areas that needs improvement,

Map local organizations and actors with a focus on areas of potential collaboration in line with IRC strategy, programmatic priorities  and geographic areas, and specific approaches of engagement that would be needed in the short, medium, and long terms engagements and collaborations.

Develop a concrete plan of action and implementation strategy for the IRC Nigeria team to streamline internal capacities/resources to be able to scale up the implementation through local partners by realizing their potential and sharing capacities.

Recommend how to develop and maintain strategic partnerships and engagement with local partners, complementary actors and stakeholders (past, present, and future)

Working with women led or women focused organizations, develop concrete plan of action in promoting the feminist approach in the localization agenda, strengthening and empowerment of women led organizations to provide them an environment to raise their voices and engage productively with decision makers and leaders.

Advise on the approach that should be taken to navigate local relationships, as well as any tailoring of the PEERS system that may be wise for the context in North-East Nigeria and northwest Nigeria.
Who should be consulted?

IRC: Country Senior Management (SMT); operations, program, grants and Technical Advisers from Region and H/Q

IRC local partners/actors in Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, and Zamfara states

Stakeholders: various line state ministries (Health, WASH, Education, Ministry of Women Affairs etc)

Donor interested into local partnership work – FCDO, SIDA, NHF etc
Approach

The Consultant will develop a detailed methodology/approach, tools, and templates (by making use of and contextualizing the existing resources and templates in PEERs) for the Partnerships Assessment (including Partners’ Mapping) and Strategy (Action Plan). The initial version should be specified in the application and will then be further refined and validated during the inception phase of the assignment. Any limitations of the suggested methodology should be specified, along with strategies to overcome these.

Multiple and high-quality data collection and analysis methods with a range of stakeholders should be used to gather perceptions and facilitate triangulation. These may include, but are not limited to, documents review (PEERs/SAP Nigeria etc.), semi-structured interviews with the key IRC staff, meetings with existing and potential partners, partners’ Expression of Interests - EOIs (if applicable), meeting with INGOs and Other Stakeholders, Online Surveys (if applicable), and consultative workshops/meetings with the IRC team on the partnership’s capacity assessment and Partnerships Action Plan development.

The Consultant will present the findings to IRC Team at every stage, including SMT and Department Heads, with a framework of partnerships strategy and Action Plan. The IRC team will provide feedback during the consultation process and on the draft Assessment and Strategy Document.

Key working Relationships

• Consultancy Manager: Deputy Director of Programs
• Country Senior Management Team (SMT): Will provide overall strategic leadership and guidance
• Field Level Contact and support: The Consultant will work closely with the IRC Grants and Partnerships Team under the supervision of the Sr. Grants Coordinator/Sr. Partnerships Manager, and Partnerships Manager as the designated contact point in setting up meetings, exchanging information, and providing documentation.
• Program Technical Coordinators – responsible for IRC program delivery

Expected Deliverables

The consultant will be required to produce the following outputs:

A Partnerships Review/Assessment Report providing a detailed analysis of the IRC’s partnerships capacities and potentials of collaboration in the priority thematic and geographic areas and recommendations on the future partnership landscape.

An articulated and comprehensive partnership strategy with an actionable plan for the coming 2-3  years to increase program implementation through local partners (including CSOs, NGOs, Government and Private Organizations/Institutes) and developing strategic partnerships.

A mapping of potential partners and status report of potential collaborations with local organizations in IRC’s priority thematic and geographic areas in line with the Strategic Action Plan. Taking into considerations:

• o   Mapping accordingly in line with key types of partnership: project-based partnership, strategic partnership and alliances or networks
• o   Ensuring that there is minimum consideration of partnership that is shared or compatible vision, Mission, values
• Review meetings with relevant strategic partners and also with women lead/focused organizations
• The final document ‘ IRC Nigeria Partnership Plan’
• In addition to the above deliverables, the Consultant will ensure
• o Submission of inception report (including methodology and tools) and approval by Deputy Director Programs/IRC HQ Support
• o Submission of data collected, various analyses, draft documents (soft or hard), work plans/schedules, presentations of the finding etc.
• Advise on the approach that should be taken to navigate local relationships, as well as any tailoring of the PEERS system that may be wise for the context in North-East Nigeria
• Upon completion of the assignment, the Consultant shall submit a completion reporting annexing all the outputs described above for approval and clearance.

Timeline:

The indicative starting of the service is envisaged to be the start of September, 2022. The service shall be completed within thirty (30) to forty five working days  from the date of signing the contract (effective date).

For more information please contact:

Contact Helina Belay, Senior Grants Coordinator at Helina.Belay@rescue.org

Treatment of the information

All data and information received for the purpose of this assignment is to be treated confidentially and is only to be used in connection with the execution of these terms of reference. All intellectual property rights arising from the execution of these terms of reference are assigned to the IRC. The contents of written material obtained and used in this assignment may not be disclosed to any third parties without the expressed advance written authorization of the IRC

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in the fields related to international relations and/or Organizational Development/Business Administration
• Strong track record in working in partnership with governments and civil society organizations at various levels and diverse organizational stakeholders, developing and implementing appropriate and targeted learning and capacity sharing activities.
• At least seven years of working experience in recognized organizations in the field of policy and strategy development or in developing, managing, and coordinating partnerships for programs in humanitarian or development settings
•  Strong communication, analytical and writing skills.
• Demonstrated knowledge and skills in developing data collection tools, data analysis and transforming the data into analytical reports and strategies.
• Experiences of working with civil society and community-based organizations in the Nigerian context will be a value-added advantage.
• Working knowledge of gender, equality, diversity, and inclusion.
• Ability to work with multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary teams
• Excellence in oral and written communication skills in English and Hausa Languages
• Good organizational, interpersonal, time and people management skills.
• Relevant computer software skills (including, at a minimum, the standard applications in MS Office)

How to apply:

Application: Can be from either individual applicant or company or organizations. Apply on-line from the IRC careers website not later than 30th August, 2022, the earlier the better as we will be reviewing application as they come in and once we get the candidate that matches our requirements the advert will close.

Applicants should attach:

• CV of the consultant(s).
• Past performance references for similar assignments in Nigeria/Capacity Statements.
• Proposal, including proposed methodology, workplan and all costs necessary to complete the assignment, and distinguishing (at a minimum) between:
• Consultancy number of days and daily professional fee rates
• Field work costs – if applicable
• IRC will offer security and logistics advise as appropriate
• The IRC Nigeria will provide transportation (Road and Flight) during this assignment.

All applications should be submitted via - nghr.consultantsapplications@rescue.org

IRC is an Equal Opportunities Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability.