Consultant- Collection of success stories

Terms of Reference for the Collection of Success Stories

Food Security Governance Project

1.  RATIONALE

Oxfam has been implementing Food Security Governance Project (FSG) under Gender Justice Unit for the past two and half years. The primary focus of this project is to increase the participation and influence of poor and vulnerable farmers to in decision making processes related to food security in Nepal. This project has reached out to the smallholders, landless and women farmers to build in their knowledge about different types of stakeholders, their roles and responsibility along with the programs and budget meant to improve their food security conditions at local level. Besides, the project also focussed to improve governance in the local level institutions by empowering smallholders, landless and women farmers through different types of training and linking those to different networks.

This EU funded project is being implemented in three districts of Nepal – Dailekh, Dadeldhura and Surkhet by three partner organisations viz. SuDECC, IDeS and WAM respectively. The programme has contributed to bring about a lot of changes in personal, social and political sphere at the community. This ToR is for a consultant to document the changes including case studies from the FSG project areas and prepare a booklet to showcase the contribution of the project in bringing about changes in the lives of the target populations. The document will be widely circulated among the concerned stakeholders and used as a reference material in all the Community Discussion Classes (CDCs) in different working districts of Oxfam.

2.      OBJECTIVE

·      To assess the changes and impacts brought about by FSG project in personal, social and political sphere and in attitude and practice of service users and service providers

·      To analyze why and how the changes happened, and how the project contributed to make that change happened

·      To collect case stories (people speak) to validate the findings and analysis

3. OUTPUTS

·       High quality (at least 5-7 success stories from 9 project VDCs) case studies and “people speak” capturing the changes and impacts brought about by the programme including quality photographs relevant to the case studies.

• Final, simple, easy to understand and well edited digital script of the study 
  

4.  SCOPE OF WORK

The Consultant will conduct but not limit her/himself to the following activities:

The Consultant will take overall responsibility of preparing and editing the case studies in consultation with FSG project partners in general and Oxfam in particular. In the process of case study collection and production, consultant will get support from district level partner staff including SMs and suggestion from Oxfam concerned programme staff.

ü  Based on the collected materials prepare the script

ü  Finalise the script in consultation with Oxfam team

ü  Provide Oxfam a final well edited copy of the document

5.      METHODOLOGY

The task demands field visits and interactions with related project beneficiaries and stakeholders. The Consultant shall propose a set of methods in the methodology part of her/his technical proposal. Basically, the following methods will be used to collect the information:

·      Revisit existing documents including project proposal, quarterly and annual reports and other project publications.

·      Interviews with identified CDC participants (including those in decision making structures), facilitators, male counterparts of decision making structures, key staff of public service (Agriculture Service Centre, Livestock Service Centre, VDC/DDC, CFUGs, AFEC, line agencies as necessary), women and men in project area, programme partners/staff

·      Conduct FGDs where appropriate

·      Observe  CFUGs, sub/health post, schools, selected decision making structures at the community where appropriate

·      Collection of case studies and anecdotal

·      Field visit to project VDCs covering Surkhet, Dailekh and Dadeldhura  districts

The selected consultant will work in closely with Oxfam to refine the methodology and develop a detailed work plan.

6.      PROPOSAL FROM CONSULTANT(S)

The Consultant will submit a brief technical and financial proposal to Oxfam. The technical proposal should include methodology, work and process plan and an updated CV of the proposed Consultant(s). The assignment is expected to involve 20 days including 10 days of fieldwork.

The technical proposal will be scrutinised based on the following criteria:

·      Adequate grasp of concepts and issues related to the project

·      Soundness of methodology

·      Past experience from similar fields/tasks  

7.      PROCESS

The following processes will be applied while conducting the study:

·      Oxfam will select the Consultant on the basis of the received technical and financial proposals.

·      The selected Consultant will be invited for discussion on the way forward after s/he is finally short-listed and preparation of base line study work plan.

·      Oxfam and the Consultant will sign a contract for carrying out the assignment.

·      The Consultant will carry out the assignment as per this ToR.

·      Oxfam staff including implementing partners in the project districts will provide necessary support in the field.

·      The Consultant will produce a draft document and submit it to Oxfam.

·      The Consultant will consider the initial comments from Oxfam and submit the final document to Oxfam.

10. QUALIFICATION/SKILLS REQUIRED

• Sound knowledge gender, social inclusion and governance issues
• Proven analytical and research skills and experience of collecting stories of changes and impacts
• Proven experience ofconducting community level research and data gathering using participatory techniques
• Good facilitation skills at the community level
• Good knowledge of local/national level NGOs, social movements and the role of civil society in increasing poor and marginalised women’s participation in governance processes
• Consultant(s) must have VAT registration certificate

11. TEAM

The Consultant will conduct the assignment with a support from a photographer.

 12. TIME

The duration of the consultancy will be a total of 30 days including an estimated 10 days of fieldwork.

============================================

Interested firms are requested to send their proposal clearly mentioning the title of assignement in their email subject line  by 10 August July 2015 via mail to recruitment_nepal@oxfam.org.uk