Foreign economic-aid-related services

Tender description

The overall objective of this 3 year programme is to increase trust between government and civil society to deliver enhanced state accountability and responsiveness, resulting in better quality public services. To deliver this a contracted service provider will: allocate grants to local Civil Society Organisations (CSO) to meet the needs of hard to reach people, provide support to build civil society organisational capacity and facilitate collaborative relationships between them and the Government. The supplier will be expected to support civil society organisations all over Ethiopia. It will be required to establish at least 4 regional offices outside Addis Ababa. The service provider will support through capacity building activities and fund allocation to relevant organisations registered under the Ethiopian Proclamation for the Registration and Regulation of Charities and Societies. The supplier will be directly responsible for the delivery of three main programme components of CSSP II: Strategic grants: implementation will start quickly to provide grants to address the needs of hard to reach people. Grant awards will be made around priority themes to ensure that there is potential for coalitions for change to be built around these issues. Initially these are likely to be the themes that emerged through CSSP 1, which were: — increasing voice and access to services of disadvantaged people in rural and remote areas, — increasing access to education for girls in rural communities by increasing protection from violence, — increasing voice and access to livelihood services for pastoral women, — reintegration of women prisoners and their children into society, — increasing awareness about people (users and families) affected by chat abuse and the services available to support them, — Increasing the voice of adults and children affected by special learning needs and mental ill-health and improving the services available to them. However, the supplier, in consultation with civil society, government and donors, will test the validity of these themes. New themes may also be considered where they are demand led and informed by political economy analysis. Flexible grants: an opportunistic fund which will use principles of flexibility and adaptation in order to respond to opportunities (e.g. a new policy proposal by government) or constraints (e.g. new funding directives) which arise. It will also enable CSOs to respond in a more sophisticated way to the needs of excluded people. For example it may: — offer more innovative support to the particular needs of Ethiopian Societies and Charities, — enable CSOs to better understand and respond to socio-cultural and institutional reasons for exclusion through legal analysis, social exclusion analysis or political economy analysis, — support more innovative ways to build the professionalism of the CSO sector such as professional internships for women within CSOs, and — implement projects which respond to new government priorities (where they align with those of poor people). Capacity building: the supplier will be expected to support CSOs to: — Strengthen skills and confidence for collaboration with government, — Build organisational capacity, — Build self-financing capability. Government engagement: the supplier will be required to support the development long term collaborative relationship between the government and CSOs to embed a legacy of joint working. This is likely to involve: Constructive engagement: the supplier will be required to develop constructive relationships with different government actors/institutions at federal and regional levels and support CSOs to do the same. It will be important to share results of the programme with government throughout implementation and identify areas of mutual interest. Evidence from CSSP I shows that the appointment of capable, local staff, able to meet regularly with government stakeholders will be important in successfully delivering this requirement. A CSO collective action facility: the facility will be scaled up over time and will support CSOs and CSO coalitions identify and respond to issues where collective action, may result in policy change. For example this could include: support for issue based coalitions of CSOs to share information and learn from each other (e.g. through learning events, development of materials); and support to enable CSOs to share their experiences with government (e.g. support for government to participate in CSO led field trips).